God Dissed By Wheelchair Bound Egg Head
If you ever wondered why God decided to afflict Stephen Hawking with motor neurone disease, you need wonder no longer.
SCIENTIST Stephen Hawking has dismissed heaven as a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark”.
Renowned physicist Hawking, 69, admitted his views were partly influenced by his long battle with motor neurone disease, which has left him wheelchair-bound.
He said yesterday: “I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do. I regard the brain as a computer that will stop working when its components fail.
“There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers – that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Hawking: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
Keep working on that idea, Steve.
There seems to be a change in the way people are talking about atheism and agnosticism these days. People who may have viewed the religious fanaticism of American Republicans in the past as benign, now see it as harmful for society.
I agree, Jason, and think it’s happening because people keep shoving their religion in everyone’s face. It’s how they begin and end a discussion, and I find myself becoming less and less tolerate. I use to be a “whatever gets you through the night” person, but have discovered that that philosophy is never applied to me by the “religious.” It’s all about converting, and if that doesn’t work, then condemning.
My new rule: If you tell me your religion within 20 minutes of our meeting, I’m outta there.
I miss the days when it was tacky to mention your religion.
I’ve had the same experience (better: non-experience) the last 3 times I’ve been operated on. I got the anesthesia and the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovering room. There was nothing in the interval. I got turned off. I think that is what death is: consciousness gets turned off permanently. I see no evidence to think otherwise.
Dana I agree consciousness gets turned off permanently…… if not I hope it is a lovely surprise. But please save from the ones WHO KNOW ….
Whether or not the consciousness gets turned off permanently has nothing to do with the existence of a higher power, greater being, etc. While there may not be any direct evidence of the existence of God. Neither is there any direct evidence that refutes God’s existence. One day humans may evolve, explore, and discover such truths one way or the other. Until then, some speculate, some believe, and some disbelieve. Especially because this is America, there oughta be room for all of them. The views of the great Hawkings is only a hypothesis at best. Even he cannot know one way or the other.
There’s also no direct evidence to refute the existence of leprechauns, Atlantis, or the giant cosmic chicken whose egg we all live on until it hatches (probably on a Thursday in September). So until positive evidence is provided, I’ll continue to treat the God hypothesis with the same respect and gravity I lend to those other ideas.
Hawking has gotten a good but of press lately over his comments on religion, but I don’t know that he’s said anything recently that’s too different from what he’s said in the past – namely that we understand enough of the universe now to realize it didn’t need a magical start to get it rolling.
Actually, leprechauns, Atlantis, and the giant egg were never hypotheses. They were only legends. Hawkings has a hypothesis,which cannot be tested versus a theory which can be verified. So while he hypothesizes that you can get something from nothing (first there was nothing and then there was the big bang?), we’ll all have to wait and see if his proposal migrates from hypothesis to proven theory.
Skepticism is healthy, selective skepticism just reinforces existing beliefs. If you already believe you switch off at death, then Hawkings’ hypothesis simply reinforces that belief. Lots of things remain hypotheses, including some aspects of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. We do not even know with absolute certainty that which we are made of at the molecule level. I believe there is more we do not know than that which we do know. So I question everything, including Mr. Hawkings
“Actually, leprechauns, Atlantis, and the giant egg were never hypotheses. They were only legends.”
Bzzz. Wrong. Books have been written arguing for the real existence of Atlantis and I have a wiccan friend who believes in the existence leprechauns and fairies…as do many other wiccans.
Besides, you completely misunderstood Don’s point. It’s not the obligation of someone to prove something doesn’t exist when met with the pseudo-argument “No one can prove that X doesn’t exist.” The onus is not on those who doubt the existence of a non-empirical, unverifiable or logically unnecessary posited entity. The onus of proof is on those who claim that such an entity exists. Without such proof it’s no more credible to believe that God exists than that leprechauns exist.
My point is that it is equally credible to believe that there is a higher power given the order we find in the universe as it is to believe that it was completely random. Whereas, I give little credibility to beliefs in leprechauns, I do not put the existence or non existence of a greater power than ourselves in the same category. Those who believe in (a) God do not need proof and therefore no onus exists. What Hawkings hypothesize does not prove or disprove is the existence of (a) God. And the scientists I know spend absolutely no time or energy delving into those areas. As for me, I respect people’s belief systems (including wiccans) regardless of my own beliefs.
Who’s been saying the universe is completely random, aside from the strawman caricatures of science presented in the creationist literature? And how do you know leprechauns aren’t gods? There’s no proof they’re not. The leprechauns are watching you now and noting your anti-leprechaun blasphemy, for which you will be punished in the afterlife with an eternity of green-tinted Pabst Blue Ribbon. I believe this, and therefore no onus exists for me to prove it.
It’s not evident from somewhat flippant Hawking remark above, but I believe from other blurbs of his I’ve read is that he has never claimed to have disproved the supernatural, but that science has reached a point where he feels there is sufficient evidence for the known phenomena around us that, while there are certainly plenty of gaps in our knowledge, there’s none big enough that we have pause and say “hocus pocus”.
I’m not aware of any of the prominent atheist voices (Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Myers, etc.) who claim to have disproved God/gods. They simply see no reason to believe in them, but many reasons to fear what believers might do in their names.
Don, you hit the nail on the head “They simply see no reason to believe in them, but many reasons to fear what believers might do in their names ” History already showed us, given power there is no telling how far they might go to force the LOVE of God on all of us.