Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
You make a great point, but could it be that religious people, or at least people that believe in a God of some sort, vastly outnumber atheists not only in the U.S. but worldwide? Naturally, there would be a very small percentage in the prison population, as well as other areas of society. I'm not claiming to know who is right or wrong, but the numbers are what they are.

If there is 8-16% of atheists in society, then they should make between 8-16% of the prison population.
They don't, they make less than 1/4 of 1%

that means that the prison population is 99.25% theist....

Secular countrys (those with around 80% atheist population) have very reduced crime rates.

Religion drives people mad...the data confirms this.

Not just that, secular countrys tend to have less STD's, less abortions, and a higher education and standard of living. Religion is the hobble that was put of civilization that has kept us in a fearing murderous ignorance.

We are not talking pockets of atheists living peacefully together, there are entire countrys that are secular. Japan, Scandinavian countrys, france, etc.

Its simple hard statistical facts...there is absolutely no thinking around it. When a religion takes over, people do horrors to each other. its an infectious mindset that devalues the life of your neighbor...this I can state as fact because there is hard proof to back the claim up.

OK... fair enough, I have never bothered to inform myself on data concerning Atheists, and I must say that it is very interesting and eye opening to say the least. Not that this takes away from your point or the data that you have provided, because it doesn't, but having lived in Japan for four years I wouldn't consider them a secular nation at all. I'm not saying that they are religious zealots, but Buddhism, although quite different in nature from more common religious dogmas, is still a religion that is widely practiced and respected there. Also, it seems to me that you may be generalizing a bit... meaning that I agree with you that religion has been the cause of almost all wars and violence in known human history, but when you look at how many Christians, Muslims, etc... there are compared to the extremists of said religions I would argue that the sane vastly outnumber the crazy. One could argue that believing in religion in and of itself is insane, but that would be a different context of the word, I am only speaking of violence and other negativity that has resulted from the belief in a religion, and the effect that it has had on human history and society in general.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by antmax21
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

You forget on key element. Forgiveness. Human's are good, yet can be corrupted by their own free will. It is up to your free will to incorporate goodness or keep the evil's of free will that have been created by man, Life is the test that either gives you eternal life or eternal torment.

There is no free will according to the bible.
None shall be saved except by his grace...
All things are known to god, there can be no suprises...meaning we live in a deterministic universe. it is a movie on dvd and we all play our parts exactly how they are meant to be played with absolutely no variation.

To say there is any free will on even the most smallest of details means that God is not all knowing..meaning then that god is not god...

stick that in your paradox pipe and smoke it

You are assuming the bible is the word of God and unblemished since it's delivery.

Can you prove that to be the case?

If not, then you are using a flawed source to prove your point which coming from you, I'm not surprised.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Once man figured out he was naked, there was freedom for him. Even when we use that free will to change any action, it is pre-determined for, the Father is all knowing.. I once again go back to my original statement, I do not nor do I try to understand something that is beyond me.

I am a spirtitual person, so I would like to think.

I feel certain things for people and feel nothing for certain people.

I think a lot of people, on both side of the argument, fail to understand that religion is SUPPOSED to be about faith.

Faith is something that we all have, that doesnt mean that your faith is religous bases, it just means that that you have faith in something...your friends, your family, your self...some have faith in religion.

Faith helps to comfort us, but faith should not be pushed on anyone, regardless of your faith.

Do I agree with Dr. Hawkins?

NO, but he has his faith and I have mine. I dont hold his faith against him, although he holds my faith against me at some level by saying it does not exist. Im fine with that, he has the abilty to think and speak freely and again, I dotn hold it against him...it is after all, what he believes, what he has "faith" in.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

To say there is any free will on even the most smallest of details means that God is not all knowing..meaning then that god is not god...

stick that in your paradox pipe and smoke it

I've always been perplexed as to why some believers of God can't see the mass of contradictions that such a belief contains.

If God is "testing" you..........why would he bother.........If he already knows the result?

Originally posted by ZforZionism

You are assuming the bible is the word of God and unblemished since it's delivery.

Can you prove that to be the case?

If not, then you are using a flawed source to prove your point which coming from you, I'm not surprised.

I make no such assumptions, I am replying to someone whom is using biblical understandings for his viewpoint on god.
I find the book hokey and highly corrupted personally...but its fun to get into speculative debates anyhow. I would have equal pleasure discussing the nature of gandalf in the LOTR's books...was he mortal? can he die? depending on which passage you read, you can come up with a few variations....

reply to post by SaturnFX



One of my favourites.
On a similar note, if the perfection and intricacy of the universe is proof of divine creation, then it holds that God too must have a creator.


I believe the answer is time - we can't conceive the 'big bang' because we don't accept that 'something can come from nothing' - but that barrier is focused on a considering "time" as a linear concept, which is by no means the case.

What's wrong with believing? I don't have a problem with someone's personal beliefs about heaven. Just don't shove your religion down my throat and say I'm going to hell.

Anyway, even physicists nowadays believe in a lot of "fairy tales", thanks to the quantum mechanics bullsh*t. What many physicists all talk about now are parallel universes and time travel. Like there is any proof of that?

So the man that babbles on about infinite parallel/alternate universes says that there's no such thing as spirit or an afterlife? Wow that makes alot of sense. This mans way of thinking is self-contradictory in itself. I don't care if Hawking says it, or any of you close-minded atheist. but I'll never put the concept of spiritual out of my mind.

Originally posted by subby
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

One of my favourites.
On a similar note, if the perfection and intricacy of the universe is proof of divine creation, then it holds that God too must have a creator.

The understanding of "god" is that it is the end all/be all. if there is a creator, then it is no longer a god.

Now, I am fully on board in the thinking that there are such high levels of beings that by any measure, they might as well be called gods. I also wouldn't be truely suprised if it was found out that such beings may have happened upon this world, or even this universe and added a bit of design work. I consider what we humans may be in a million or two years and what our hobbies would be.

Perhaps we will create great experiments...maybe even make a universe ourselves to explore (all held in a marble). Would we then be considered God by the tiny inhabitants of the universe in a marble? well, surely they would see us as pretty impressive beings, but that doesn't make us "god"...the concept of God makes no sense..well, the concept of a personal god anyhow. if you want to say the whole thing, every universe/multiverse/dimension/etc is in its total God, then sure...why not. its everything...it is source, it is infinate..and it may very well be deterministic, like a clock ticking...I would accept that as a valid definition of "god"

It's subjective to each person, that's why we're all a little different, and not a bunch of cloned robots walking around saying the same things all day. We are all experiencing the universe from a unique perspective.

Just because some uber-genius says it's a fairy tale, doesn't mean he has the ability to experience the world in everyone else's perspective. I personally have never experienced anything supernatural, but i know people who have and i'm not quite ready to just discount them all as fairy-tales, in my own mind, that seems a bit too absolutist for my taste.

heaven and hell are logical when you think about it. what is the point of free will if there aren't any consequences? you can't have free will and then say its not your fault. for every action there is a consequence.

i completely understand why steven hawking feels bitter, but just because you don't like the answer to a question doesn't mean you can ignore it, or change it to what you want. the staggering number of NDE's that have happened and been documented cannot be ignored.

Religious texts are just morality tales nothing more nothing less, I dont know if theres another plain of existence, a level 2 if you will, but to believe that theres paridise awaiting the good and fire and brimstone awaiting the bad is just ridiculous and immature in my opinion and if Im honest I think its pretty egotistical of man to think they can come anywhere near to understanding something as huge as another plain of existance especially when man is basing this understanding on archaic texts and not logic and science, it kinda blows my mind that in this day and age people still believe in heaven and hell. Bravo Mr Hawking

sincerely a 'closed minded athiest'

Hawking acquires high respect because of hi splendid achievements,on the other hand he wasn't able to explain who create gravity . Surely, he had a role in speaking about big bang,but we didn't hear interpretation of creator that he create the substance that was cause of big bang !

Also, if God is omniscient, prayers are meaningless.

I think that the universe is alive and the evidence for that theory is that the earth is teaming with life and that came into being by the universe.

So is there and after life, sure. Do you remember anything without your biological memory. No!

Originally posted by subby
Also, if God is omniscient, prayers are meaningless.

Maybe it is the acknowledgement he is after and not prayers to fill in his missing information?

I think the issue is acknowledgement and belief in God rather than keeping him updated via twitter or prayer.

Originally posted by elcapitano75
I personally have never experienced anything supernatural, but i know people who have and i'm not quite ready to just discount them all as fairy-tales, in my own mind, that seems a bit too absolutist for my taste.

"supernatural" is an unfortunate description of ghosts/spirit phenomena.
Whilst many "supernatural" experiences will have mundane, already known scientific explanations, there are no doubt some phenomena that can't yet be explained.

Having experienced some strange phenomena myself, I do believe that under certain circumstances energy can exist without the use of the brain or living body.
That is not to say that I believe that there is a God or that there is a special place named "heaven" where all spirits congregate.

I happen to think that far from "supernatural".......ghost/spirits are actually very much "natural" it's just that we humans haven't yet figured out what ghosts/spirits actually are.
Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean that it is "supernatural".

Originally posted by ZforZionism

Originally posted by subby
Also, if God is omniscient, prayers are meaningless.

May be it is the acknowledgement he is after and not prayers to fill in his missing information?

I think the issue is acknowledgement and belief in God rather than keeping him updated via twitter or prayer.

You just gave me an idea.

Twitprayer...send god your daily prayers in 255 characters or less...hmm...
The Vatican really needs to make this app

reply to post by SaturnFX




Surprised they don't already have it.