Hawking: There aint no heaven.

[TPRJones]

I can't fault you for including me there. I admit I get a bit hyperbolic about religion. I have to work with religious people and keep my mouth shut so I don't get fired. I am beset on all sides daily by Christianity and I work with people that have been known to mock and ridicule atheists and anyone they think isn't as Godly as they are. I admit I've got a little bit of anger about that. So when the discussion does come up where I can talk about it without fear of losing my job, I tend to put more of that anger into it than I should.

I'm sorry. I can't promise to stop. But I do admit to it.



Edited By TPRJones on 1306204476

[GORDON]

I've never mocked nor ridiculed, I have simply stated that "god" does not fit into the world of science, and I have stated why. Nor have I engaged in any sort of debate about it, I have stated fact. There is no debate on this point.

As for TPR's comments, sometimes I too get tired of living in a demon haunted world in which I have one sibling who joined a cult, another who sings happy birthday to jesus on christmas, a mother in law who wants to teach my son all about how jesus made the trees and the animals, a huge movement that wants to teach creationism alongside evolution in science classrooms, another massive cult that thinks the bible wasn't enough so they pulled a new story out of a hat, literally, and chronicled jesus walking among the native americans and encouraging them to take a bunch of underage wives, another massive religion that covers up pedophilia among its ranks, another massive religion invented by another pedophile that kills women for daring to get raped, and other crazy people putting up billboards saying the world is coming to an end. I am surrounded by ghosts and spirits and invisible men in the sky threatening to spank me if I don't behave and their billions of adherents on earth who think it is their job to spread the word whether I want to hear it or not. Every single day I am subjected to this. Every single day I take a deep breath and tolerate everyone elses belief systems.

But apparently I'm an ass if I dare to talk about my belief structure on my message board.

That's how I see it.

And, I can accept that.

Scientologists, moonies, Jonestown, heaven's gate, the manson family, Aum Shinrikyo, Branch Davidians, Raelians.



Edited By GORDON on 1306205610

[Malcolm]

I have simply stated that "god" does not fit into the world of science...

There's a way to cheat that statement. H.P. Lovecraft wrote shitloads of stories that sort of lay out a blueprint for it.

Let's examine archaeology. And let's take the infamous Baghdad battery. It is unarguable that these things had the ability to generate electric current. We've found evidence that electrolyte fluids could have been contained within at some point. It's also unarguable that hooking enough of these things up in series would generate larger electric currents. The best theory we've come up with is that they were used for electroplating, with maybe a secondary purpose of medicinal use or maybe it was just the old world's equivalent of a joy buzzer. This absolute psycho thinks it's evidence that the ancient Egyptians had technology to provide indoor electric lighting for their pyramids/tombs/crypts/whatever. To date, no one can find the ancient Egyptian analogue to light bulbs or wires, though. Does it make Giorgio wrong? Not exactly. But there's nowhere near enough evidence to call it likely or even feasible. If, sometime in the future, examples of those two components are buried in some as yet uncovered mummy's sarcophagus, then it'd force a reexamination of what we consider "likely."

And while I'm on the ancient Egyptians, how about all the modern attempts to reconstruct their building techniques? We're just making educated, probability-based guesses on those using the best available info. To put the matter to rest for certain, we'd need a goddamned time machine.

Let's consider "the perfect crime." We'll pretend some entity can perpetrate some rather significant action; where humans are concerned, we usually care about murder or theft in that regard. Let's pretend you can commit the perfect theft. Can you set things up so that a reasonably clever group of people presented with all available evidence still can't definitively pin the crime on you (like the first "Die Hard" flick insinuates)? Forensic examiners work on the theory that every offender takes something from the scene with him (even if it's just a few carpet fibres) and leaves something of himself at the scene (even if it's just a few molecules of DNA). Obviously the effectiveness of that theory waxes and wanes with the tools the examiners have. In fact, forensic examiners are essentially trying to reverse engineer what went on during the commission of a crime. And therein lies the rub. Reverse engineering proves something could have happened. Whether or not it actually did is all down to probability. Forensic science has all kinds of way to hedge bets, though, because it's got a pretty narrow focus most of the time, e.g., what happened in a really specific environment with really specific individuals. Not every field is so lucky.

If god exists, then he ought to be able to pull off the perfect crime. And if he can, you'd never even know he was around.

[Cakedaddy]

If you don't see referring to God as "she" simply to ruffle feathers, offering a separate forum where you won't call believers 'morons', calling religious beliefs insanity, etc as ridiculing, then, I dunno. I guess I misinterpreted you.

What I find funny is that, I challenged Hawking's ability to conclude there is no heaven. You introduced God and religion. I pointed out that I'm talking about an afterlife from a scientific perspective. You kept the discussion on God/religion. So, off it went. If you hate talking about it (because you are bombarded with religion all day long), then why did you steer the discussion in that way?! I even said, before you did, that the discussion is shifting from a scientific discussion, to a religious one. So, I followed that path, and then you kept playing the science card over and over. Which discussion did you want to have?!?! Just because I might not agree with Hawkings about there not being an afterlife, doesn't mean I'm arguing religion or God. I simply stated there was NO way he could prove the lack of an afterlife. Or, if I missed something, please point it out to me.

And no, you are not an ass for talking about it on your message board. It's the way you say things that makes you an ass. Actually, I don't think you're an ass. I was just pointing out that saying things like that don't contribute to a good discussion.

[Malcolm]

Alright, back in the vein of afterlives, are we considering "afterlife" to be your consciousness persists (because otherwise, you'd see it not really as "after" life so much as just another life) after you check out of this life in some other state for some period of time? How about just having your physical matter recycled in a future living being?

[TPRJones]

...calling religious beliefs insanity...

For the record, I do seriously consider religion to be a form of mental handicap or insanity, typically instilled by brainwashing. That is not me trying to be insulting, or being hyperbolic, or mocking you; that is my honest impression.

If you find it insulting I'm sorry, but it is clear to me that talking to someone who isn't there is clearly psychotic behavior. Just because it's endorsed by a religious organization doesn't lessen that.

BUT, back on the topic at hand, I find it unlikely to consider the possibility of an after-life in anything other than a religious perspective. It implies there is an external factor to human consciousness, and so far it seems the brain is all you need. And when the brain is dead you are dead. Not much reason to expect otherwise.

Although, if we postulate two technological advances - the ability to "download" a consciousness and time-travel - then we can have a quasi-scientific afterlife. Send agents all throughout history to secretly embed consciousness collectors in everyone who ever lived, then take them back to the future and we can all live happily ever after in the big computer together. It's not completely ridiculous, and has the advantage of being more possible than the usual supernatural alternatives.

"And Man saw there was no Afterlife, so He built one for Himselves."



Edited By TPRJones on 1306280508

[Malcolm]

Spending eternity with everyone that ever lived sounds like one possible definition of hell.

[TheCatt]

Religion kills kids.

The Wylands, who are 43 and 22, respectively, and are members of the Followers of Christ Church, told authorities they believed that prayer and anointing oils would heal their daughter's hemangioma, an abnormal growth of blood vessels that was occluding her vision.

In the past two years, Oregon's Clackamas County has prosecuted two other couples from the same church whose children died from untreated ailments. One, Jeff and Marci Beagley, were convicted of criminally negligent homicide last year and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Their 16-year-old son, Neil, died of complications from an untreated urinary tract blockage.

[GORDON]

Looks like the bible is in for a massive rewrite.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-611844

[Malcolm]

Looks like the bible is in for a massive rewrite.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-611844

Gonna be a bit. Their current Genesis translation looks like it was written by a drunken Japanese electrical engineer who took a night college course in English while recovering from severe head trauma.