Hawking Comes Clean

Come on theodoric be honest, I am quite sure you (and everyone else here)would not have any objections to anyone who does a survey, if that person happens to have an evolutionists OLV.Its not the bias you object to, its your perception of his particular bias. You would never ever mind an evolutionists bias.

Well, I was going to continue this discussion in the "Is the criticism justifiable thread", but I see it is closed now, so nevermind.

You make a lot of statements cloaked as a fact, when they are nothing of the sort. Actually NOTHING that you can surmise about the universe is a fact, it is simply your opinion of it.The laws are not the universe, simply by virtue of you saying they are. There also is no "right" question about the universe and wrong question. You are sitting in a room, on a place in the earth, the same as everyone else is, pondering what you think seems to be true. You can think about what you feels makes up the universe, and what you feel is reality, but it is no more valid, and carries no more weight than what anyone else thinks.The "laws" of the universe appear to be intelligently crafted. They have consistency, they have order, they have contingencies with other laws that allow require precise conditions-in a word there is order, not chaos. Chaos is the opposite of laws, the opposite of consistency, the opposite of predictability. To say that things are consistent, that they are predictable, that they have some form of order to many people's minds displays a purpose, an organization, a construction. I don't know how one comes to the philosophical perspective that you do, that one can just say 'they just are what they are" and that this somehow dismisses the necessity to explain how or why things came to be as they are.To my mind that is a mental cop-out. It is an admission that trying to place understanding of the whole being of our cosmos is not worth one's time, so we just ignore the order, we ignore the consistency we ignore the organization of laws, by saying it is the wrong question. Its not the wrong question! Its the question intellectually curious men seek, to understand why all of the world around us displays a type of order that is not chaos.The most logical explanation, to my mind, is that someone or something has arranged for these series of laws. I know this because my mind can imagine both chaos and order, and it can differentiate from the two, and in the experience of my mind order comes from arrangement, from control, from direction, whilst chaos comes from a lack of arrangement, a lack of control, a lack of input.What we see, what many people see is a type of order, and the most logical explanation for order is input, arrangement: call it what your mind is willing to, a force, a super-natural input, a creator, a God...it all depends on how much one is willing to open or close their eyes to the world we see.

Well, let's see, I wrote that a theoretical physicist has no more intrinsic ability to look at the world around them, see the order, imagine what is chaos, and draw conclusions about the unseen. You of course responded by saying, "but cavediver is a theorectical physicist!"Well, how about that. I suppose if you are willing to concede your ability to draw conclusions about a higher being to a physicist, then I guess you always are willing to concede your intelligence on such matters to a priest, a minister or a theologian as well. So if they tell you there must be a God, who are you to argue with them?Fortunately for me, i have made no such concessions on my ability to make such judgments, so I am free to speculate. I am very sorry that you don't enjoy the same liberties.You do know that cavediver was an evangelical Christian for much of his life, so do you suppose at that time he had the ability to know how wrong he was, or is it only now that he has this ability? Is he only smart about such matters now, that he has declared there is no God?How many other things about life are you willing to defer your ability to reason about? Would you take marriage advice from Stephen Hawking? Fashion advice from Einstein. Pet grooming tips from Erwin Schrdinger?

When your pastor tells you that there is a God, I am glad to know that you will now be agreeing that he knows a heck of a lot more about this than you, so you will take his word for it. Congratulations of your re-conversion!

Do you mean like string theory and other dimensions?

A fact? A fact??? What he stated is about as far from a fact as language allows.One can't say no God is "needed" to explain what is seen. There is no explanation for what we can see! Where does gravity come from? Where do atoms, heat, elements, matter, nuclear forces...? Is this more sophomore salad to ask where it all comes from? We get to just say, well, it just exists...its nature? If there were dragon shaped planets, and peppermint sticks raining into chocolate rivers, we can just explain it as just what nature is? How far do we get to extend this rationale for things? Can there be Ferris wheels floating through space, spinning giants cars full of gumby dolls, and we can say, this is just part of the universe, it doesn't require an explanation?The universe is those peppermint sticks and gumby dolls, and we just don't think its strange because we see it everyday. But it is there everyday, nevertheless, despite Hawking's or anyone else jaded dismissive nonchalance. Edited by Bolder-dash, : No reason given.