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With that said, I find it interesting that Hawking takes the leap from opinion to stated as "Fact" in his ramblings. To jump from God is not necessary to God did not do it is a leap.
He did not say God did not do it...What he said was that God was not necessary to create the big bang...There is a difference.
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He appears to be engaging in the self assurance that you take issue with.
He might be smart, but being smart and having wisdom do not necessarily follow. And his logic appears to be faulty.
So tell us please since you think you are wiser, where is his logic faulty...Please explain in details that us lesser intellects can understand.
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With that said I do respect your opinion, but I am educated and know a thing or two. I think Hawking made a mistake by saying what he did.
What you read were a reporter's spin on Hawking's words. What he actually said was "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
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Honestly, from what I have seen of the criticisms of theistic thought by atheists, Hawking is engageing in the same kind of magical thinking that you folk attack. Yet, no one of the atheist camp has pointed that out.
Oh, and what magical thinking might that be?
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Hawking says that nothing (and we all know what that word means) made itself (as if nothing is an entity) into the universe by way of laws that cannot exist without matter and energy.
You seem to forget that Hawking is not stating anything as if it were proven...The big bang is still at the hypothesis stage...There are other hypothesis about the creation of the universe, but the big bang is the most commonly accepted.
According to the standard big bang theory, our universe sprang into existence as a "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. We don't know for sure what a singularity is or where it may have come from. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics.
Creatio ex nihilo is a rather childish and dishonest argument plain and simple, and I don't see why IDers keep using it as if it proves something, especially since it has been stated a multitude of times that science doesn't say the universe came from nothing. Honestly, do IDers have difficulty learning. It's easier to convince a door of the facts than it is to convince an IDer. As others have said, what Hawking really said was that god was not necessary for the origins of the universe.
Since we have not found a "graviton" the hypothetical particle that "carries" gravity.....It is implausible to assume that mass is necessary for the force of gravity to exist. Mass is affected by gravity......gravity does not necessarily need mass to exist. Gravity is visualized as the warping of the "fabric" of spacetime.....since we do not fully understand gravity it is premature to assume that mass comes before you have gravity. The force of gravity split from the other 3 forces during the early moments of the Big Bang before there was mass. Therefore gravity can exist without mass as I understand the initial Big Bang. Energy alone can have a gravitational force. Quantum Mechanics also predicts that you can get "something from nothing".
The laws of motion are not related to gravity. Your examples are artaficial and although measured in G forces they require motion. Gravity as we can understand it is caused by matter creating a hole in the fabric of space in which particles fall in toward it's center.
Although we can study and obseve the laws of physics and theorize it's orogin I have come to believe that there is an intelligent design behind all we can observe that lies far beyond our greatest minds to comprehend.
This ellusive force I would call God...
KC
Oh hell: you take this one, Aeroman. I'm tired. He didn't "get" it! and please... do tell us/me about the P-51 should you ever get to go for a ride. It'd perhaps come awfully close to mimicing a Godly experience to be sure....
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Originally Posted by agnostic soldier
Creatio ex nihilo is a rather childish and dishonest argument plain and simple, and I don't see why IDers keep using it as if it proves something, especially since it has been stated a multitude of times that science doesn't say the universe came from nothing.
Honestly, do IDers have difficulty learning?
It's easier to convince a door of the facts than it is to convince an IDer. As others have said, what Hawking really said was that god was not necessary for the origins of the universe.
Answer to the highlight: they don't WANT to learn. Learning is anathema to their cause, which is to re-direct scarce school funds to reinforcing the Creationist perspective in the impressionable minds of our innocent youth, at the expense of true scientific knowledge. This has been widely established.
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Originally Posted by PITTSTON2SARASOTA
Since we have not found a "graviton" the hypothetical particle that "carries" gravity.....It is implausible to assume that mass is necessary for the force of gravity to exist. Mass is affected by gravity......gravity does not necessarily need mass to exist. Gravity is visualized as the warping of the "fabric" of space-time.....since we do not fully understand gravity it is premature to assume that mass comes before you have gravity.
I doubt that the religious want to hear this alternate but respectable perspective, P2A. I mean, let's face it; just when they have rote-learned all the trite, standardized and smug answers against the singularity argument, why danged if science doesn't move the goalposts again!
How are they supposed to keep up, given that they deny themselves independent thought on the critical topics at hand, and rely so deeply on the thinking of others? As expressed on all those Creationist websites. As if this can all be easily critically explained and debunked in a paragraph or two of strictly non-technical language....
BTW, one of the most troubling aspects to Albert's head was that gravity "travels" instantly, and is clearly not limited by the speed of light. This strongly suggests that it is NOT mass dependent, meaning that if you bring in a big ol' test mass "A" over "here" [like, say, our sun], and then see if and/or when it would affect our smaller test mass "B" over "there" [like, say, our Earth], gol=dang if it don't affect it instantly.
Which tends to confirm it's likely a ripple effect in the space-time continuum, rather than a big Bang mass-dependent item. And this, my friends, speaks precisely to ano necessary mass pre-Big Bang condition.
Oh-ohhh, huh? Better call Kent Hovind in on this one. but... make sure he brings a banana to explain it all.....
With that said, I find it interesting that Hawking takes the leap from opinion to stated as "Fact" in his ramblings. To jump from God is not necessary to God did not do it is a leap.
As Sans said that is not what he said. You have misrepresented Hawking's 'God not neccessary' as 'God did not do it'. You made the 'leap', you are doing the ad hominem and you are rehearsing your prejudices.
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He appears to be engaging in the self assurance that you take issue with.
He might be smart, but being smart and having wisdom do not necessarily follow. And his logic appears to be faulty.
The classic Bible argument. Knowledge doesn't always mean wisdom. When 'widom' is Theist-speak for 'Faith in Jesusgod' then it certainly isn't.
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With that said I do respect your opinion, but I am educated and know a thing or two. I think Hawking made a mistake by saying what he did. Honestly, from what I have seen of the criticisms of theistic thought by atheists, Hawking is engageing in the same kind of magical thinking that you folk attack. Yet, no one of the atheist camp has pointed that out.
That said I respect the point you are making and it's one that will not go away. It has been addressed, but let's set it out.
First cause. Eveything exists, it must have been created, therefore there must be a creator.
Cosmology and evolution explain a lot so the Gap for God shrinks
Reduced first cause 'Sure, but something must have made the Big bang.'
Here I can't claim to know an awful lot about it but some very good explanations have been made for how the whole thing could have got started from just a void with power. And that is conclusions derived from some telling evidence.
So the final reduced gap for God is that the void still needs power.
That makes sense to me too. Absolute nothing means nothing, not even power. But I'm not Hawking. For all I know or you know, power is inherent in nothing. I don't know. Yes, perhaps Hawking is going too far in saying what he's saying but maybe not.
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Hawking says that nothing (and we all know what that word means) made itself (as if nothing is an entity) into the universe by way of laws that cannot exist without matter and energy.
I think that Hawking knows very well what nothingness is and if you and I can see that nothing with the inherent power to form atoms (who is to say that isn't going on all the time?) appears to imply 'something' then I'm sure he can too and I wouldn't be too quick to say he doesn't have an answer.
But when we are down to the primordial soup, as it were, of the cosmos, to talk about anything we can meaningfully call 'god' is pure speculation and based on an assumption which frankly we have been taught to believe in for thousands of years in various forms.
Logically we should start with no assumptions and say 'how' and 'what' rather than 'who' and 'which'.
The laws of motion are not related to gravity. Your examples are artaficial and although measured in G forces they require motion. Gravity as we can understand it is caused by matter creating a hole in the fabric of space in which particles fall in toward it's center.
Although we can study and obseve the laws of physics and theorize it's orogin I have come to believe that there is an intelligent design behind all we can observe that lies far beyond our greatest minds to comprehend.
This ellusive force I would call God...
KC
Thank you for the leap of Faith - half of it, anyway.
As I - a layman - understand it, gravity is the effect of curves caused in the space - time continuum by massive objects (that is objects with mass not neccessarily enormous ones). The space - Time continuum is always there with the potential gravity - effect inherent in its nature whether there is a solid body passing through or not. It does not require anything other than the inherent properties of matter (in the very broadest sense). Your point is no point.
From your pointless point you make the leap to an unjustified 'Something mustha dunnit', using the ten - foot pole of ID (which I can tell you has been soundly refuted in every single case by sound science - even the best arguments such as Behe's irreduceable complexity). This 'something' you label 'God' though it might as well be Bramah or Allah.
So that's half the leap of faith. I have shown that it is not justified by argument from Gravity/space -time continuum and certainly not by your espousal if ID. So the generic label 'God' is not at all justified. And that's only half the Leap of Faith from Creatorgod to Biblegod.
Oh hell: you take this one, Aeroman. I'm tired. He didn't "get" it! and please... do tell us/me about the P-51 should you ever get to go for a ride. It'd perhaps come awfully close to mimicing a Godly experience to be sure....
Answer to the highlight: they don't WANT to learn. Learning is anathema to their cause, which is to re-direct scarce school funds to reinforcing the Creationist perspective in the impressionable minds of our innocent youth, at the expense of true scientific knowledge. This has been widely established.
I doubt that the religious want to hear this alternate but respectable perspective, P2A. I mean, let's face it; just when they have rote-learned all the trite, standardized and smug answers against the singularity argument, why danged if science doesn't move the goalposts again!
How are they supposed to keep up, given that they deny themselves independent thought on the critical topics at hand, and rely so deeply on the thinking of others? As expressed on all those Creationist websites. As if this can all be easily critically explained and debunked in a paragraph or two of strictly non-technical language....
BTW, one of the most troubling aspects to Albert's head was that gravity "travels" instantly, and is clearly not limited by the speed of light. This strongly suggests that it is NOT mass dependent, meaning that if you bring in a big ol' test mass "A" over "here" [like, say, our sun], and then see if and/or when it would affect our smaller test mass "B" over "there" [like, say, our Earth], gol=dang if it don't affect it instantly.
Which tends to confirm it's likely a ripple effect in the space-time continuum, rather than a big Bang mass-dependent item. And this, my friends, speaks precisely to ano necessary mass pre-Big Bang condition.
Oh-ohhh, huh? Better call Kent Hovind in on this one. but... make sure he brings a banana to explain it all.....
Who cares whether or not gravity is mass dependent? So what you are saying here, as I understand it, is that before the Big Bang, gravity existed, and nothing else. I see. A far more important question than whether or not it is dependent upon mass.
I for one don't care, except when Christians take things so obviously of context; example: certain scientific ideas, and then try to shove us against the wall with a highly selective interpretation.
First, they claim we don't and can't know it all, but then they assert that, since we obviously DO know it all, and that we've said "such and such" is an absolute [which we NEVER do, BTW...], this alone disproves all that science has ever stated.
What illogical clap trap, wouldn't you agree? To argue yourself, unknowingly, into a logical corner and then step proudly back and announce: "I did this!"?
Wow! Bet the theists didn't see thatone coming, eh?
But anyhow, for the non-critical thinkers here: if gravity only affects matter, but does not require it in order to exist, then the observable matter in our universe, ditto, did not have to exist prior to the Big Bang (BB). The universe's cumulative energy, equivalent to matter when transformed, was all that had to "be".
And who knows how or why? You of course claim to know, but I'm saying you have no idea. What we DO know, however, is that, if there was a BB event horizon, then we could mathematically and then physically predict certain necessary outcomes and consequences.
Imagine our surprise (not...) when we looked for those mathematically and physically predictable consequential specifics and danged if we didn't find them. In spades, and independently verified. Again and again! Wow, huh?
Remember the old question: Does a bear cr@p in the woods? As a sort of demonstrable proof of the very existence of bears? We go, we look, and we slip on it, along with adjacent and obvious bear tracks. We weren't even looking for those, but hey; there they are, adding to our "evidence".
Then we predict and voila, then FIND bear cell DNA in a sample of the poop (a modern advantage to our question review...), then, well, I guess bears DO exist out there, huh?
As did the BB event. all that durned evidence 'n stuff. Do you even know what evidence I speak of? Have you looked into it past your local Creationist website? Have you even read, for instance, a Scientific American article on The BB? if so, didn't it even evince the slightest possible interest that it could be how things came to be? Or do you just instantly, knee-jerk, sweep it under the carpet, out of sight and mind?
Did God just Insta-Create a big ol' pile or bear poop to... what? Purposefully confuse us? I doubt it. Well, you'd probably reflexively and defensively predict that, but the more realistic and open-mindedly curious among us would have to conclude, just as with the BB hypothesis, that the evidence continues to grow. both for bears in the woods and for the more intricate but nonetheless logical and now well-supported BB event.
Or, alternately, your God just magically wiggled his finger, He never having been created Himself, and of course out of "nothing", and then we all appeared, all out of nothing. Instantly. With no predictable evidence, but with lots that clearly refutes it.
Go ahead: make up your own mind. I know what you WANT to believe, that part's obvious. But be careful when over-exaggerating and refuting science's carefully crafted conclusions, where we also list our limitations, but you guys never do.
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