Sorry Born Agains.... Hawking says there is no heaven.
- Thread starter stmadeveloper
- Start date
It's saddening to see people still failing to grasp the fundamental concepts of science.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Until there is scientific evidence of a god, it is irrelevant.
If one was to say that "god is everything" or something to that effect it becomes something everyone, even atheists can agree on when broken down to its core (see Daniel Dennett's work if your interested).
If one wants to be overly technical pedantic whore about this, atheists are actually by and large considered agnostic atheists (even the most militant atheists like Dawkins admit to this).
Edit: I went back and saw people arguing in favor of highly localized religious ideologies. Taking a religion into account shows how the plague has warped and corrupted your very essence. In today's every growing globalized society we can quite obviously see the vast number of confounding religions (and within the denominations, and conflicting statements within the books they derive from). We should be able to open our eyes to the fact that it derives from a spiritually driven sector of the brain, and this sector being a product of which we currently believe is apart of an outdated survival mechanism.
I'd like to also note, mentioning science and religion in the same context should be refrained from in the future. They are completely different things, and recognizing religion within a scientific discussion on any level gives the false impression that religion is somehow a side of the coin.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Until there is scientific evidence of a god, it is irrelevant.
If one was to say that "god is everything" or something to that effect it becomes something everyone, even atheists can agree on when broken down to its core (see Daniel Dennett's work if your interested).
If one wants to be overly technical pedantic whore about this, atheists are actually by and large considered agnostic atheists (even the most militant atheists like Dawkins admit to this).
Edit: I went back and saw people arguing in favor of highly localized religious ideologies. Taking a religion into account shows how the plague has warped and corrupted your very essence. In today's every growing globalized society we can quite obviously see the vast number of confounding religions (and within the denominations, and conflicting statements within the books they derive from). We should be able to open our eyes to the fact that it derives from a spiritually driven sector of the brain, and this sector being a product of which we currently believe is apart of an outdated survival mechanism.
I'd like to also note, mentioning science and religion in the same context should be refrained from in the future. They are completely different things, and recognizing religion within a scientific discussion on any level gives the false impression that religion is somehow a side of the coin.
Although “magical thinking” has no place in science, it is the very backbone of the arts. Certainly logic will not lead someone to create something like Dali’s Temptation of Anthony or Picasso’s Three Musicians. Works like these require a type of thought that operates outside of reason: creativity. The finest examples of it are called genius.
Today it is been relegated to specific forms of human endeavour but in the past “artistic licence” spilled into places now seen as inappropriate.
In biblical times mystics used their creativity to dream up harebrained theories about how the universe worked. Once in the right frame of mind they got hit with ideas and images from the subconscious that were very powerful on an emotional level. These impressions that seemingly came from nowhere were mistaken as messages from God. Today we’d call them crackpots but back then they were revered in society. Stories conjured up by mystics were passed down through generations and eventually recorded. Book were compiled and official church canon emerged.
Religion was originally “a way of thinking,” or more specifically mysticism. The thoughts of the mystic were meant to be personal “truths.” Somewhere along the line the original intent was corrupted in order to spread the message to a wider, illiterate audience. The church establishment passed down universal truths to save the masses from contemplating the mysteries of life for themselves. A standardized version of morality was enforced with an iron fist. Documented mystical experiences were now to be taken literally as real historical events. With each passing year the true esoteric meaning of the scriptures faded a little more.
Only relics of what religion was intended to be still remain. It was once something great, but that greatness has been eroded by time and vandalized by the corrupt.
Today it is been relegated to specific forms of human endeavour but in the past “artistic licence” spilled into places now seen as inappropriate.
In biblical times mystics used their creativity to dream up harebrained theories about how the universe worked. Once in the right frame of mind they got hit with ideas and images from the subconscious that were very powerful on an emotional level. These impressions that seemingly came from nowhere were mistaken as messages from God. Today we’d call them crackpots but back then they were revered in society. Stories conjured up by mystics were passed down through generations and eventually recorded. Book were compiled and official church canon emerged.
Religion was originally “a way of thinking,” or more specifically mysticism. The thoughts of the mystic were meant to be personal “truths.” Somewhere along the line the original intent was corrupted in order to spread the message to a wider, illiterate audience. The church establishment passed down universal truths to save the masses from contemplating the mysteries of life for themselves. A standardized version of morality was enforced with an iron fist. Documented mystical experiences were now to be taken literally as real historical events. With each passing year the true esoteric meaning of the scriptures faded a little more.
Only relics of what religion was intended to be still remain. It was once something great, but that greatness has been eroded by time and vandalized by the corrupt.
That's sort of what I was getting at when I mentioned pantheism.
The right parietal lobe has been called the spiritual spot in the brain. Among other things, it has to do with being greedy or thinking in terms of "me." At least one study suggests that spiritual people have less activity in this area of the brain. Studies also show meditating lowers activity in this area, also.
My guess is that the numerous atheists who are drawn to things like helping others and meditation would appear to be "spiritual" going by the way the study defined it. So I'm saying when it comes to that which drives people to religion, other than their upbringings of course, it might have more to do with a different part of the brain than the one that has been labeled as the spiritual part.
Neuron - The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence
TIME Magazine: The Science of Meditation
I see where you are coming from, but Hawking did mention "heaven." If he had said Hulk would beat Batman in a fight, then I also wouldn't expect the discussion to stay strictly within science.
Gotta love secular spirituality.
My last statement wasn't suppose to come off as harsh or demanding as it came off. It was terrible wording on my part and I should of left out the "refrain from in the future", and instead explained myself along the lines of "I hope in the future we begin to stop using religion and science in the same context as they are completely different things." I'd like to clarify that it was not something directed towards Hawking, it was directed towards the general audience. This isn't to say religion vs atheist debates are inherently bad, considering the only reason we have them from the atheist's perspective is to reduce the ignorance of the diluted, but I defiantly think it gives religious folks the feeling as though they are somehow on the same plane when it comes to this subject.
Of course, and how exactly would a "confounding religion" have helped a man in the Stone Age escape a tiger trying to eat him?
Can someone tell me where science differs from modern day Conservative Christianity? Not Charismatic or some other deviant group - a belief that is contradictory that is held by Science that opposes the Christian view. Do not show me evolution because that has been beaten to death. You cannot prove it either way.
Not proof by verbosity (just for you Moxie, the proof, not because you are guilty of it) but a singular thing that I can research in order to understand the differences. I asked before for conradctions within the bible got 50 replies. I studied a couple and reported back in this thread, then asked for a precise "real" contradiction and no one gave me anything.
Now I am asking for a precise real scientific contradiction. Not 50 YouTube videos made by idiots that do make claims that, on simple study, are incorrect. What is something I can sink my teeth into?
Not proof by verbosity (just for you Moxie, the proof, not because you are guilty of it) but a singular thing that I can research in order to understand the differences. I asked before for conradctions within the bible got 50 replies. I studied a couple and reported back in this thread, then asked for a precise "real" contradiction and no one gave me anything.
Now I am asking for a precise real scientific contradiction. Not 50 YouTube videos made by idiots that do make claims that, on simple study, are incorrect. What is something I can sink my teeth into?
Sticks and fucking stones, dude.
If you're so intent on making everyone here see how "Delusional" I am, or how I am "embarrasing myself" with tired old "Atheist talking points," I have some advice for you:
Go grab some proxies right now & make a new WF account, so there will be one other profile on here other than the one labeled "hellblazer" that agrees with you.
Otherwise all you have to do is stop selectively reading just the parts you want to read in order to see that I'm not the one in the minority here.
I thought about it for a few minutes today REIMktg; and I am pretty sure the best single scientific principle that defies any type of Christianity I've ever heard of is Occhams Razor. (And the newer philosophy known as K.I.S.S.)
Occhams Razor so completely destroys any argument for the existence of a divine creator that William Occham was convicted and executed for Heresy, despite being a Franciscan monk himself!
You use Occhams Razor in your everyday life; we all do, it's part of our internal operating systems for getting things done. (Anything at all) Without it, nobody on this planet would be able to make a decision without literally getting every last factoid between the two first.
Yet when theists attempt to use Occhams razor on a larger scale, applying it to their entire existence, and the existence of a god, they seem to me to completely discard it.
Not exactly sure if this helps, but at least it gives a brief history/outline of how we got out the Dark Ages to get away from organized religion/dogma/belief systems and to embrace REASON. But it seems we're still doing the Age of Enlightenment all over again lol
Age of Enlightenment - (fwiw, some folks seem to have this wrong impression that when reason/enlightenment is mentioned it just entails the hard sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc). But it's a mindset that affects the Arts, Creativity, liberal arts, etc, as well. It's a change in mindset/worldview.
Also for the benefit of those who're probably part-deists/part-agnostics and probably not hard-core athiests (like moi
)?:Deism - I especially like the part where it mentions how the Founding Fathers of this country weren't evangelical rightwing christians like how many in the religious right desperately try to paint them as such. Once again it's about the move away from organized religion and it's arrogant dogmatic mindset in order to embrace REASON.