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RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/17/2010 5:18:55 PM

Steponme73

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The Big Bang Theory is just that a Theory...It is not proven. And they don't know if it has only happened once or maybe this is the 20th time that it has expanded then collapsed then expaned again.
Hawking is a brillant man, but he is not all knowing...In fact, all of his theories are just that theories...nothing proven...The Big Bang may never have really happened...

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 341

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/17/2010 5:22:28 PM

popeye1250

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I suppose it's "possable" but it would take "God" to create....."time" ...so that everything didn't happen all at once.

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Post #: 342

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/17/2010 8:36:54 PM

GotSteel

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
Let's not pass quite so fast over the fact that you're being called on bullshit.

I blocked dawg because he was begging the question and attacking me personally in the same sentence, I've had enough of that from him. I don't think having a discussion on the nature of the Holy Spirit was going to happen with him.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
You cited Luke 11:9-10 and falsely claimed that it guaranteed an answer to prayer. You are being informed that this text is about asking for the spirit of God to dwell within your heart, not about intercessory prayer.

I assume that "dwell within your heart" is an analogy you'll have to tell me what you actually meant.

It's my understanding that the Holy Spirit is how Yahweh does stuff whether it's making people say things, impregnating the Virgin Mary or Healing. That's certainly what I get from Luke. Also that isn't the only passage in Luke where the stuff Christians ask for is supposed to happen:

"The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you." (Luke 17 5-6)

(in reply to Kirata)

Post #: 343

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/17/2010 9:47:54 PM

GotSteel

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It's not a dodge to point things like this out:

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel
I don't think jumping from the concept of a god I was proposing to "no more powers than the rest of us" is valid.

Especially since the concept of god I was talking about must have at least one power that we don't, some sort of magic prayer answering power. Pointing out that you were trying to change my position on me isn't a dodge, it's a valid point.

(in reply to mcbride)

Post #: 344

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/17/2010 10:07:36 PM

GotSteel

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However since you want to talk about dodges, here's a dodge right here:

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
I pointed out why you and I don't know if they're answered or not.

and here as well:

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
Luke 11:9-10 says ask and you'll receive. Luke doesn't say it'll show up by Fedex tomorrow.

In Luke and in other gospels there are very bold claims about how you'll get what you ask for and examples throughout the Bible of these claims being fullfilled. Examples of prayers healing and even raising the dead on the spot. It's very noticable that we aren't getting those results.

"Are any of you sick? Then send for the elders of the church to pray over you. Ask them to anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer offered by those who have faith will make you well. The Lord will heal you. If you have sinned, you will be forgiven." (James 5 14-15)

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11:24-25)

"I tell you the truth: whoever believes in me will do the works I do--yes, he will do even greater ones, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:12-14 )

(in reply to mcbride)

Post #: 345

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 12:54:26 AM

mcbride

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I was about to say you haven't heard a word, but that's wrong. You have, but after all this, you can't acknowledge a breathtakingly simple point. You just go off on tangents, as if enough smoke will make people forget that claim you were silly enough to make.

"We aren't getting those results"? When someone's cancer goes into remission, is it a prayer answered? Who knows? You....certainly wouldn't know. You don't have the capacity to know everything God does. You seem to think God has to show you everything, and it's telling that you can't even entertain the possibility that there might be a deity who can do things you can't do, and can't see, and that he doesn't actually have to file a report with you.

Others have pointed out repeatedly that you've ignored the context of the Luke passage. You simply ignore what you're told, as if others can't read.

(If anyone else actually can't read, I'll point out again that I'm not arguing for or against the existence of God here, only that the God of Luke, which Steel cited, obviously has the capacity to fulfill prayers in ways we can't see. It's that simple.)

We've covered the ground. I'm happy to let people read and draw their own conclusions. I don't know what you think these endless, pointless tangents prove, and now, I don't care.

Quit wasting my time.

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 346

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 2:16:15 AM

taleon

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From: The Netherlands
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quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
Far-fetched? On the contrary. If someone created the universe, then it's not only reasonable but probable.

Excuses for the late reply, but what, exactly, do you find probable?

quote:

The logic of the notion that you can test God does make me smile, from a science standpoint.

Well, an omnipotent God can choose to be invisible, or it can choose to allow itself to be the detected. Obviously, if we are dealing with a God who wouldn't mind knowing it is out there, even our limited toolkit would be good enough; it would make sure that it is.

Aside from anecdotal and subjective experiences, we haven't noticed anything concrete yet. In fact, what we do learn about the universe tells us that the universe works just fine as it is. So, either our God is covering up tracks, or our understanding and toolkit is still too limited to stumble on its existence, or such a deity doesn't exist. Do you agree with that?

quote:

Whatever people believe, for or against, it amazes me that anyone tries to put forward claims based on the notion that God must be restricted to the same tiny toolkit that we have.

The wish for God to be within the reach of our understanding and instruments is a tempting one for me. Obviously, if God is out of our reach, we can't say anything sensible about it. We can't claim it exists, and we most certainly shouldn't derive or enforce any rules of life (as some of our more outspoken religions tend to do) from the possibility it might exist.

As with any other extra-ordinary claim that can't be examined, I find it best to assume that the claim holds no practical value and to move on until more information becomes available which might persuade me otherwise. If we are dealing with a God which is eternally out of our reach, obviously, that implies I can't be convinced.

(in reply to mcbride)

Post #: 347

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 10:34:17 AM

Kirata

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[applause]
Thank you, thank you... It's like I alway say folks, it's right here in the Bible...
[insert preferred quote]
If that doesn't mean what it plainly says, then you tell me what it does mean!
[applause]

Same method, different ends. A huckster is a huckster is a huckster.

K.

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 348

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 4:53:53 PM

GotSteel

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Resorting to name calling....

(in reply to Kirata)

Post #: 349

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 5:13:31 PM

GotSteel

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quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
"We aren't getting those results"? When someone's cancer goes into remission, is it a prayer answered? Who knows? You....certainly wouldn't know. You don't have the capacity to know everything God does. You seem to think God has to show you everything, and it's telling that you can't even entertain the possibility that there might be a deity who can do things you can't do, and can't see, and that he doesn't actually have to file a report with you.

You want to talk about blowing smoke there it is right there. This isn't the bronze age anymore when we wonder if a treatment is effective we don't just have to throw up our hands anymore and say "Who knows?", we actually check.

"Prayers don't help heart surgery patients
Some fare worse when prayed for
By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office

Many - if not most - people believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself, your family, and your friends add their prayers, that should be even more helpful, or so such reasoning goes.

Researchers have been trying to prove this and even to measure the effect of prayer. Since 1988, at least two studies have found that third-party prayers bestow benefits, but two others concluded that there are no benefits. These and other studies have been soundly criticized for flaws in both method and outcome. The fuzzy results goaded researchers to conduct the largest and most scientifically rigid investigation to date. It covered 1,802 people who underwent coronary bypass surgery at six different hospitals from Oklahoma City to Boston. The cost was $2.4 million, paid by the John Templeton Foundation and the Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation of Memphis.

In a clear setback for those who believe in the power of prayer, their prayers were not answered."
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/04.06/05-prayer.html

(in reply to mcbride)

Post #: 350

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 7:38:56 PM

Kirata

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

Resorting to name calling....

Resorting to? Not at all. I presented an argument, an argument by analogy to make a point about your methods. If you felt personally attacked, that is revealing. But it was not my intention.

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 9/18/2010 7:57:21 PM >

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 351

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 7:46:02 PM

mcbride

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel
blah blah blah.

Whoa. No one saw you avoid the issue that time. Nossir.

The artless dodger strikes again, hmm?

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 352

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 8:41:52 PM

Kirata

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From: USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

"In a clear setback for those who believe in the power of prayer, their prayers were not answered."

Frankly, given the experimental design, I would have been very surprised by a statistically significant positive effect. A bunch of people praying for total strangers on a "prayer list"? Almost every tradition that acknowledges remote influence requires that there be some kind of connection between the parties. And, too, I think each patient's individual frame of mind, wishes, and circumstances should have bearing on their inclusion in such a study. It is naive to assume that a positive medical result would be the best possible outcome in all cases. In Christian theology, the effectiveness of prayer is limited to the "confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (1 John 5:14).

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 9/18/2010 8:53:48 PM >

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 353

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 8:49:40 PM

mcbride

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Joined: 1/14/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: taleon

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
Far-fetched? On the contrary. If someone created the universe, then it's not only reasonable but probable.

Excuses for the late reply, but what, exactly, do you find probable?

If someone created the universe, then it's not only reasonable but probable that they have more power than we do, and that we may not be able to see everything he/she/it might do, don't you think?

quote:

Well, an omnipotent God can choose to be invisible, or it can choose to allow itself to be the detected. Obviously, if we are dealing with a God who wouldn't mind knowing it is out there, even our limited toolkit would be good enough; it would make sure that it is.

Aside from anecdotal and subjective experiences, we haven't noticed anything concrete yet. In fact, what we do learn about the universe tells us that the universe works just fine as it is. So, either our God is covering up tracks, or our understanding and toolkit is still too limited to stumble on its existence, or such a deity doesn't exist. Do you agree with that?

Yes, in fact, that last bit pretty much restates my objection to the poster who argued that his not being able to see the kind of evidence he wanted constituted "disproving" God.

One quibble: the conclusion that the universe works just fine as it is may be a bit premature. Kinda reminds me of the blind men and the elephant.

quote:

The wish for God to be within the reach of our understanding and instruments is a tempting one for me. Obviously, if God is out of our reach, we can't say anything sensible about it. We can't claim it exists, and we most certainly shouldn't derive or enforce any rules of life (as some of our more outspoken religions tend to do) from the possibility it might exist.

Tempting for all of us, but that's up to God. Others wouldn't share your conclusion that he hasn't provided some direction, but your frustration is understandable. He's not out of our reach, though.

Why hasn't he held a news conference? I have some thoughts on that, but it's a theological question, so you'd have to go ask the various religions.

You make some good points, but my only interest in this was to point out that GotSteel's premise didn't account for any possibility that a God might have, as I said, a few more tools in the toolkit.

(in reply to taleon)

Post #: 354

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 9:20:33 PM

Kirata

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you." (Luke 17 5-6)

Well hell, why stop at a puny little tree? You didn't look hard enough. In Matthew it says, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Personally, I've faced some obstacles in my life that would make a mountain look puny, not to mention more than one situation that was bearing fruit I didn't like. Though I have to admit, I've never tried praying for plants or geographical prominences to be relocated.

But hey, if it says so in the Bible, maybe I should try, eh? Hallelujah, ain't idiocy fun?!

K.

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 355

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/18/2010 11:30:27 PM

luckydawg

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Got steel still hasn't figured out that finding an error in a religion (based on his own mistaken interpretation, but that doesn't matter) has no bearing on the question of Athiesm at all.

Some of these "rationalists" are freaking hillarious

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I was posting as Right Wing Hippie, but that account got messed up.

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Post #: 356

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/19/2010 3:36:27 AM

taleon

Posts: 48
Joined: 4/20/2007
From: The Netherlands
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcbride
If someone created the universe, then it's not only reasonable but probable that they have more power than we do, and that we may not be able to see everything he/she/it might do, don't you think?

It's a possibility, but I dare not to call it probable. The universe might just as well be someone's science project gone mad. Our God might be a kid who punched a few buttons on a computer, and is in way over his head. In such a scenario, paradoxically, we might know more our about our own universe than that kid does.

Or, it might be a being which made the Big Bang happen, but has no further control over it, in the same way we don't have any control over an avalanche. God might simply be helpless, unable to do much more than watching it unfold.

Admittedly, these explanations sound terribly silly. But, there is simply no way of knowing which explanation is more probable than the other; we don't have any evidence nor can we make any sensible and testable predictions either way, if we put God entirely outside of our realm. And this is really my point: to speculate about God in this manner is surely interesting, but not very productive in my opinion.

quote:

One quibble: the conclusion that the universe works just fine as it is may be a bit premature. Kinda reminds me of the blind men and the elephant.

I agree, that was premature.

quote:

Tempting for all of us, but that's up to God. Others wouldn't share your conclusion that he hasn't provided some direction, but your frustration is understandable. He's not out of our reach, though.

How do you know he is not out of our reach?

quote:

Why hasn't he held a news conference? I have some thoughts on that, but it's a theological question, so you'd have to go ask the various religions.

Speculating about God's reasons to stay out of the limelight seems terribly difficult to me, if we can't even establish with some degree of certainty that God exists at all. And even if we would simply assume God exists, we are no closer to understanding it. We have the observable universe to investigate, but that might teach us nothing substantial about its creator, as the examples I gave at the beginning of this post illustrate.

Which makes me genuinely curious as to how you go about speculating about God's reasons? How do you verify your thoughts on the matter?

< Message edited by taleon -- 9/19/2010 3:56:38 AM >

(in reply to mcbride)

Post #: 357

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/19/2010 6:09:02 AM

GotSteel

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Joined: 2/19/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

Well hell, why stop at a puny little tree? You didn't look hard enough. In Matthew it says, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Personally, I've faced some obstacles in my life that would make a mountain look puny, not to mention more than one situation that was bearing fruit I didn't like. Though I have to admit, I've never tried praying for plants or geographical prominences to be relocated.

The problem with interpreting the mountain in Matthew 21:21 to mean something along the lines of do absolutely nothing but give you a happy feeling that makes you better able to cope with life is that there's a context for the meaning, in the Bible, Christians are presented as actually doing this stuff not just giving themselves happy feelings.

For instance there's more to the passage, Jesus is presented as able to kill a fig tree with a curse and Matthew 21:21 is Jesus explaining how to do that:

18Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.
20When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked.

21Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. 22If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Matthew 21:18-22)

(in reply to Kirata)

Post #: 358

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/19/2010 6:23:26 AM

GotSteel

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Joined: 2/19/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
Personally, I've faced some obstacles in my life that would make a mountain look puny, not to mention more than one situation that was bearing fruit I didn't like.

Now if you want to interpret these various events in the life of Jesus as fictitious, in this case that: there was no actual fig tree, the event never actually took place, it's just an inspirational story of some sort. Maybe this story means that a positive attitude will improve your life or some such thing. That's fine, the only problem I see with that is it makes the god in those stories equally fictitious.

(in reply to Kirata)

Post #: 359

RE: Hawking: God Did Not Create Universe - 9/19/2010 8:56:28 AM

Kirata

Posts: 15477
Joined: 2/11/2006
From: USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

if you want to interpret these various events in the life of Jesus as fictitious... That's fine, the only problem I see with that is it makes the god in those stories equally fictitious.

I fail to see the "problem" in there being no Super Jinn up in the sky standing ready at mankind's beck and call to remove plant life, rearrange geography, and generally grant wishes upon request. But that said, it seems to me that our belief in our ability to do things once thought impossible is what has brought us to being able to do many of them today. And it is certainly true that not believing we could do them wouldn't have gotten us there.

K.

(in reply to GotSteel)

Post #: 360

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