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Goodbye Jesus

Christian Scientist refutes Steven Hawkin's views


seeker

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I found this a few days ago. Just wondering what some of you guys think?

 

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9501/bigbang2.html

100421[/snapback]

 

Typical intermeshing of science (how) and philosophy (why). The steps he takes at the end do not follow. His a priori belief informs the processes of his logic (or lack thereof). Science does not address if there is a supernatural agent one way or another. That is the domain of philosophy. For instance, if one interprets the universe to posit that a creator exists, it does not follow that this creator is Yahweh, nor that Christianity is factual. Muslims, Deists, Jews and a plethora of other people believe in a higher power (creator/creative force), but do not accept Christian claims. All in all, like all apologetics, it is aimed at reinforcing a priori beliefs in believers, not in demonstrating logical rationalism which meets any burden of proof. What is interesting to me, with this article, s well as the current ID issue, is that Christians feel that their faith must now have some sort of empirical proof, to justify itself. Plainly, the success and impact of natural science has torn away the emotional crutches of religion, and now like a crippled man, they seek support to bolster their faith.

 

Bruce

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I never realized Hawking was going for a philosophical or theological explanation of the universe in his book.

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Okay, I'm reading through this guy's thingy right now, but he seems to make a LOT of overly broad statements (such as Atheism being terrifically rare in scientists) and he also seems to put quite a bit of emphasis on the Fine Tuning Argument, which IMO is a backasswards way of looking at the development of life.

 

He seems to make a pattern of quoting quite a few philosophers/theologians whose views are heavily contested in the field. For example, he drags Paley's watchmaker argument from the cold, cold grave for a passing mention without addressing the mountain of arguments that weigh heavily against Paley. Hell, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Paley in the following fashion:

 

In theology and philosophy his common-sense method, which showed his limitations of intellect, by ignoring commonly perceived difficulties and by easily accepting conclusions, has been discarded.

 

Schaefer predicates his position on many specious and highly questionable claims as if such claims were givens in the field of philosophy and science. They most certainly are not. For example, he points out about halfway down that "Well, we haven't found any other life in the universe yet, so it doesn't seem that there is any!" While it is true that the Burden of Proof rests on the there-is-life-out-there-believer, we know enough about abiogenesis and evolution and the vastness of the universe to say quite clearly that it is nigh inconcievable that there ISN'T intelligent life out there (that is, we have enough of a context of evidence to infer the positive despite lack of explicit evidence, "abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence" and all that). The problem lies in accessing it across the vastness of space.

 

Schaefer rattles off a short list of scientists which are very much theistic in nature, which is all well and good, but doesn't say much other than act as a bit of supporting rhetoric.

 

Overall, many of the arguments he mentions in passing are heavily flawed and heavily contested, and even worse he offers no supporting evidence at all. The rest of his article is entirely anecdotal.

 

It's a piece of crap, which I should've expected from leaderu.

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It was a waste of my time to read that article. I saw no reasoning at all, everything fitted in my short term memory (7-9 chunks). Thanks. :spanka:

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I don't know guys, ya might be wrong....

 

Jane Hawking has commented on this aspect of her husband's work. "Stephen has the feelings that because everything is reduced to a rational, mathematical formula, that must be the truth," Jane explained. "He is delving into realms that really do matter to thinking people and, in a way, that can have a very disturbing effect on people-and he's not competent."

 

 

Wifey may be the authority on this one. After all, you know everything about a person when you do their laundry.

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I don't know guys, ya might be wrong....

Wifey may be the authority on this one. After all, you know everything about a person when you do their laundry.

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And perhaps beat them :ugh:

 

Though it's been more than 10 years since she did much for him.

 

Stephen Hawking married his nurse, Elaine Mason, in 1995.

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I found this a few days ago. Just wondering what some of you guys think?

 

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9501/bigbang2.html

100421[/snapback]

 

That just because someone you admire says the word "god" doesn't in any way mean that he's talking about your god or your concept of what a god is.

 

 

" I do not think we have proof of the existence of God but I think we do have, in the big bang understanding, some good evidence for the existence of God."

 

That any suggestion something implies a "god" also implies "gods". The statement above lends itself as well to the use of the word "gods" instead of "God".

 

"Against overwhelming logic, some atheists continue to claim that the universe and human life were created by chance"

 

The "overwhelming logic" being that because we don't fully understand how things work/worked we must assign a supernatural explanation that automatically excludes all other mythologies as an explanation and bolsters only our own.

 

Some ? I wonder what the rest of the athiests claim concerning how the universe and humans were "created" ?

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The problem, it seems to me, is that people define their terms in an endless variety of ways. e.g., god=person, timeless energy, physical law, everything there is, etc...

 

Besides, I don't think this guy understands what Hawking means all the time. And string theory, should it prove correct, solves many of Hawking's dilemmas.

 

It just seems so disrespectful to pretend one understands the origin of existence.

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