Stephen Hawkings believes in God?

[exan]

"I would also advice a little soul searching and therapy for your true problem which is hatred of god, because it seems like your answers are a bit emotional and lacking much substance. "
here’s my favorite. A man who believes in talking snakes, flying angels, god-men who rise from the dead, rivers that turn into blood, etc. thinks those who disagree are nuts

I don’t get this one either. Anyone can believe what they want and I do not mind others believing this, but the strong desire some religious have to want you to believe the same is hard to understand. Insults are not a usefull way to get your point across.

Why get mad if someone disagrees, so many people disagree on many beliefs. On this forum to some writers it seems hard to understand there is a difference between atheism and antitheism. Some threads have such strange prejudice about atheists, like humans would not have morals without religion etc.

Why would these ideas be so common here? Are many people here from a very conservative place?

 

[yankee_doodle]

I don’t get this one either. Anyone can believe what they want and I do not mind others believing this, but the strong desire some religious have to want you to believe the same is hard to understand. Insults are not a usefull way to get your point across.

Why get mad if someone disagrees, so many people disagree on many beliefs. On this forum to some writers it seems hard to understand there is a difference between atheism and antitheism. Some threads have such strange prejudice about atheists, like humans would not have morals without religion etc.

Why would these ideas be so common here? Are many people here from a very conservative place?

Indeed & well stated. The irony of someone who believes fantastic ancient myths calling someone who chooses to rely on empirical data taken from observation or rational hypothesis based on observation and science seems to be lost on the religious (I suppose for obvious reasons)

 

[wallstreeterww]

100 years back atheists believed in the steady state theory. Now we all know that the universe has a finite beginning. Atheists are still trying to prove that the universe is eternal in some way. This is called going against science to try to prove an beliefe that people are clinging to based on emotion.

I just went through the hitchens turek debate and it seems to me that hitchens is almost leaning into the deist corner but will not admit it. Hitchens seems to go on in his usual incoherent angry diatribes, and I think I see what his problem is. He seems to think of god as a cosmic dictator which shows an ignorance and lack of understanding of gods love. In other words by his debating style he really does hint at his belief in god but has a disagreement with how he is running his affairs.

This to me seems to draw a parallel to the movie Brice Allmighty in which Bruce was angry at god , so god gave Bruce his job for one day as Bruce thought he could do it better. What results is that Bruce almost screwed up the whole planet. He finally started to understand how tough this job was and that god really did understood what we needed better then we did, because as we all know god is looking at the long term picture.

As far as data, as many of the leading theist debaters rightfully claim there islots of compelling evidence for gods existence (theism) and very little data for gods non existence and this leaves the atheists in a bit of a quagmire which leaves many of them like hitchens to resort to very entertaining ad hominems,colorful rhetoric and an infinite regression of questions.

As Doctor Antony flew claimed time and time again that no one was speaking for him when he admitted to the existence of god. The leading atheistic mind for 50 years looks like he will never go back to atheism again and he based this on the mountain of evidence in recent years in science for intelligent design. Right now he seems to be a deist, but its interesting how he seems to be spending ALOT OF TIME WITH CHRISTIANS .

Flew has stated his only problem with going all the way to theism is the concept of living forever in the afterlife. I wish more people would question him as to why he wouldnt want to live forever (maybe he feels that he will get bored?), but he did claim that if he ever converted all the way to theism it would be to christianity as he seems to have a great respect for jesus.
maybe one day he will come full circle and accept him as his savior.
Lets all pray for Doctor Flew. He really seems to be an honest seeker who wants to find out the truth and not one of the atheists who is interested in twisting the truth.
God Bless Doctor Antony Flew

 

[yankee_doodle]

100 years back atheists believed in the steady state theory. Now we all know that the universe has a finite beginning. Atheists are still trying to prove that the universe is eternal in some way. This is called going against science to try to prove an beliefe that people are clinging to based on emotion.

the same logic could be applied to Christians who once believed in a geocentric universe (i.e. the earth stands at the center of the cosmos).

Additionally, I assume you’re not familiar with modern cosmology, because I’m not sure who this “everyone” is who believes the universe had a finite beginning? The idea that the universe began from nothing is a minority view (and it’s not taken seriously by mainstream physicists). In fact new developments (such as the discovery of asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background radiation) give us insight before the big bang (and may even suggest a preceding universe).

An intellectually honest statement would be that we know the universe began as a singularity (and it’s possible a mass of energy from a pre-existing universe may have collided with that singularity to cause the inflation, or a quantum fluctuation of some sort may have caused it, or what’s becoming exceedingly more likely is a big bounce caused cosmic inflation). The big bang was so powerful it destroyed most evidence of what existed before it, but we can certainly look at the universe and its laws as it currently exists and say its likely the energy that encompasses our universe always existed (since the first law of thermodynamics is conservation of energy).

In no known system is energy ever destroyed or created (even in a black hole). Frankly while we even believe things like multiverses might be possible (the math apparently works so well Fermi Lab is investigating the possibility as we speak) the theory receiving the most attention right now is quantum loop gravity (and the idea of a big bounce).

Anyway

 

[wallstreeterww]

the same logic could be applied to Christians who once believed in a geocentric universe (i.e. the earth stands at the center of the cosmos).

Additionally, I assume you’re not familiar with modern cosmology, because I’m not sure who this “everyone” is who believes the universe had a finite beginning? The idea that the universe began from nothing is a minority view (and it’s not taken seriously by mainstream physicists). In fact new developments (such as the discovery of asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background radiation) give us insight before the big bang (and may even suggest a preceding universe).

An intellectually honest statement would be that we know the universe began as a singularity (and it’s possible a mass of energy from a pre-existing universe may have collided with that singularity to cause the inflation, or a quantum fluctuation of some sort may have caused it, or what’s becoming exceedingly more likely is a big bounce caused cosmic inflation). The big bang was so powerful it destroyed most evidence of what existed before it, but we can certainly look at the universe and its laws as it currently exists and say its likely the energy that encompasses our universe always existed (since the first law of thermodynamics is conservation of energy).

In no known system is energy ever destroyed or created (even in a black hole). Frankly while we even believe things like multiverses might be possible (the math apparently works so well Fermi Lab is investigating the possibility as we speak) the theory receiving the most attention right now is quantum loop gravity (and the idea of a big bounce).

Anyway

As my posts have said before and backed by evidence rom the scientists themselves, even multiverses or cyclic universes dont disprove that the universe didnt have a beginnning and actually strengthen the belief that it all had a beginning. Again your speculating against mainstream science when u present your views, and again most of mainstream science does believe that the universe has a beginning point and by default mainstream science has to believe that it was created out of nothing. If you want to resort to idle speculation that is your free will, but again mainstream science is more in the corner of gods existence now then ever before. Especially since atheists were trying to deceptively feed us the lie that the universe was a steady state universe.
You can bring up all of these kooky experiments thata re going on but mainstream science says that the universe had a beginning. IF you dont want to believe mainstream science then its your perogative. I prefer to converse with people that arent into kooky conspiracy theories myself:thumbsup:
Even virtual particles arent created out of nothing.

 

[yankee_doodle]

As my posts have said before and backed by evidence rom the scientists themselves, even multiverses or cyclic universes dont disprove that the universe didnt have a beginnning and actually strengthen the belief that it all had a beginning. Again your speculating against mainstream science when u present your views, and again most of mainstream science does believe that the universe has a beginning point and by default mainstream science has to believe that it was created out of nothing. If you want to resort to idle speculation that is your free will, but again mainstream science is more in the corner of gods existence now then ever before. Especially since atheists were trying to deceptively feed us the lie that the universe was a steady state universe.

The big bang theory excels at explaining how the universe evolved from an incredibly hot, dense volume about 13.7 billion earth-time years ago. But, it is silent on the ‘origin’ of that volume. It also does not assert the universe is finite in age or size, merely the observationally accessible slice. The ‘universe’ could be infinitely old and spacious, but the observable universe is clearly finite. This distinction is a frequent source of confusion. Unless otherwise specifically stated, cosmologists mean the observable slice when using the term universe. It is however possible unobserved regions exert observable effects in our universe. It is also possible to mathematically model events beyond the observational cutoff [e.g., Martin Reuter’s ‘bounce’ and Sean Carroll’s 'Universe From Nothing]. Unsurprisingly enough, testing these ideas is astonishingly difficult, because the big bang destroyed virtually all evidence of what existed previously.

You can bring up all of these kooky experiments thata re going on but mainstream science says that the universe had a beginning. IF you dont want to believe mainstream science then its your perogative. I prefer to converse with people that arent into kooky conspiracy theories myself:thumbsup:
Even virtual particles arent created out of nothing.

It’s obvious to me you either grossly misinterpreted what I said, or you don’t have a clue. Saying the ‘universe’ is finite is different than saying nothing existed before the universe. The idea that the universe came from nothing is a minority view (see my above reference to Carroll’s work, Google it if you’d like). If you really knew your physics you wouldn’t be quibbling over these facts. Frankly, I suspect you’re the one who gets your facts from kooky sources

 

[yankee_doodle]

I stand by my evidence, and I dare you to form a coherent rebuttal instead of resorting to name calling and nothing of substance to back up your beliefs. You yourself said that you dont care to know any of the scientific argument. This is what debating folks call reasoning from the side of ignorance. I hope your brethren in Europe are a little more educated on these subjects than you are my friend. At least Yankeedoodle had some remnants of intelligence to just stop posting . The old saying works well here. Sometimes its better to not speak at all and let people one is an idiot then to speak and remove all doubt.

Im glad that you actually are making an even stronger case for my beliefs than I could ever do myself.
god bless

Actually I haven’t posted often over the last two weeks because I’ve been traveling. Without having read all the previous pages of this thread I can only guess you guys were debating over whether the universe was infinite (i.e. as it’s sometimes termed in metaphysics an infinite regress), or finite.

While the laws of physics as we know them began at the big bang, the theory that looks the most promising today is the “big bounce” (Hawking, Hartle, Hertog). This doesn’t change the big bang theory, it only explains that the big bang was not the beginning of everything (in other words we’re getting closer to debunking the idea of a universe from nothing). We’re even discovering observational evidence supporting this (beyond theoretical models). For instance we’ve discovered asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background radiation (which is problematic for one of the underlying assumptions of the big bang, the cosmological principal & the associated assumption of isotropy).

When you hear it said that energy can form from nothing, this isn’t exactly accurate. In quantum mechanics you can have a quantum fluctuation (where energy seems to increase temporarily). Nevertheless, there’s various promising theories out there. Quantum loop gravity and string theory are the two major contenders for a unified theory of physics. However, the idea of a universe from nothing remains a minority view (and it’s not something that we could probably ever test anyway).

 

[yankee_doodle]

continued …

Many modern theories no longer assume the law of physics (as we know them today) were non-existent prior to the big bang. If loop quantum gravity is right and our universe is the result of a quantum bounce, then it’s likely the laws of physics never truly broke down; and the energy now manifested through our universe has always existed. In other words big bang cosmology assumes the universe began as a singularity of infinitely dense material (which conflicts with everything we know about the universe through quantum mechanics and relativity). It further assumes the singularity was so dense, our mathematical models break down when we reach back (and rewind time) to a certain point of density. However, newer models do not make these same assumptions (and avoid a singularity, instead proposing a contraction to a point near a singularity, followed by a bounce. Once the quantum effects of gravity become so strongly repulsive that the universe rebounds back out; but throughout this cyclical series of collapse and bounce the evolution is unitary. This theory explicitly avoids violating the known laws of physics (for instance many physicists feel that a singularity would violate the second law of thermodynamics).

 

[latin_rite]

Unfortunately, it was the studying of philosophy that pushed him into not believing in God.

The trouble with philosophy is philosophers

 

[ufamtobie]

Hi,

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this thread. If not, please move it to where it should go. Thank you

PMo

Have a Mass said for your son, pray the Rosary.

Ufam Tobie