Stephen Hawking (1 Viewer)

reminds me of the debate in Arcadia about what is more important, knowledge of the self or knowledge of the universe.
 
No heaven = no god = no need for rapture = no free shit once everyone gets sucked up into the sky.

It's a shame really...I planned on squatting on one of those televangelist-plantations as the hellfire rained down, driving their Hummers and BMWs, and eating all the cans of potted meat in their bug-out bags.
 
The important thing to remember here is that Stephen Hawking is a scientist, and scientists are the ones who still cling to outmoded ideas like the earth being hundreds of millions of years old, when everybody knows that has been disproven by the bible. So don't worry about Stephen Hawking and his radical ideas fucking anything up. No one takes him seriously.
 
It's fairly presumptuous of him to make such a declaration. I don't want to argue the point, but I think he's full shit, like most scientists. Science is a belief system. It's no wiser, no truer than any other belief system. What I would say to him is "Yeah, you know everything, don't you, Stephen?"
 
It's no wiser, no truer than any other belief system.
So then there is no truth or fact, and science/Taliban are the same thing? You really believe that?

You might not want to "argue the point," but that's like rolling a hand grenade into a room and saying, "Okay, don't anyone run away now..."
 
well, i hope mr hawking didn't waste too much time on that theory.

maybe hopefully rekrab forgot to add this to his post? :rolleyes:
 
I didn't say there is no truth, just that science is not [necessarily] truer than any other belief system. Some science is pretty good at describing the physical universe. Some science is crap. Scientists brought us that Nuke meltdown in Japan, among other major fuck ups. They don't know it all. They just like to think they do.

Where I think Hawking goes astray is in his belief that consciousness is limited to flesh. I'm no science whiz, but I've read that science isn't even sure where the mind is located. They can't quite find it in the brain. It's just "out there" hanging around the body. Or so it seems.

The less I say about my own beliefs, the better.

I like Hawking, I just think he ought to stick with subjects he knows about, like stars and time and matter. When he talks about religion, he's just another jackass with an opinion.
 
It's not about religion or belief though. It is about matter.
Where I think Hawking goes astray is in his belief that consciousness is limited to flesh. I'm no science whiz, but I've read that science isn't even sure where the mind is located. They can't quite find it in the brain. It's just "out there" hanging around the body. Or so it seems.
I know it comforts a lot of people to believe that they are immortal and a permanent part of the universe (which science says you are, since matter cannot be destroyed), but as far as I know, we cannot communicate with the dead. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Which kind of disproves the belief that your mind or your soul - or whatever you want to call that gnarly bit that makes you you - continues to exist anywhere after your body dies. Which makes Hawking's theory or pronouncement or whatever it was, nothing more than common sense. That's what it sounded like to me when I read it anyway.

We're all so special and important!
Then we die.
The end.
There is no evidence to the contrary. You know, again, unless I missed that news story somehow.
 
Laura Nyro put it this way:

Now troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and I pray there ain't no hell,
But I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell.
Yes only my dying will tell.
Yeah, only my dying will tell.
 
"Matter" is just one more belief. Same with "Time", same with "Space." All beliefs.

Hawking said: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

The brain is not the same as the mind or consciousness. The brain is physical. Sure, it dies. So what? Who's talking about brains when they consider spiritual things?

The brain is nothing like a computer. A computer is digital, a brain is analog. The way they store, retrieve, process information is completely different. Bad analogy, Hawking. But irrelevant. It's not about the brain.

He says there is no afterlife. Wait a minute; I thought science (or logic) says you can't prove a negative. Where's the proof, Hawking? Prove there is nothing before or after life for the individual consciousness/mind/soul.

For some reason, he equates belief in an after life with fear. To me, it would be much more comforting to think that when you die, you just fade to black and that's all she wrote. The idea of floating around in some other dimension/alternate reality/eternal weirdness is creepy. I'm more afraid of that than of oblivion.

He's all wet in so many ways. And I suspect he speaks from bitterness. Pissed at this universe that put him in a wheelchair.
 
Or he's pissed at having to live in a world where so many people believe in fairy tales. I know I am sometimes.
 
dim
 
As I'm sure you've noticed, I like taking a contrary point of view. And I'm usually wrong. I have an almost limitless capacity for being full of crap. I really shouldn't go anywhere near these type of threads.
 
I've always figured that the "mind", "spirit" and "soul" were invented by man, imaginative but poetic words to describe aspects of emotions, ideas to describe the make up of the human being, ways to describe different states of being. Sort of like how people like to seperate us from animals. I also do find it more comforting to think that all fades to black in the end.
 
I've always had this dread of "waking up dead", being conscious, and thinking (I know, with what brain?) "Oh shit! What now? I'm fucking dead!"

Oblivion would be like the best deep sleep you ever had, and not having to get up when it's cold and take a leak. The end of all your troubles. Maybe THAT's heaven.

Retraction: one of my daughters, who is a science whiz, explained to me just how wrong I am about consciousness not being located in the brain. Okay, I admit I went off half cocked. But still, I enjoyed calling Hawking a jackass. Somebody has to do that. We can't have him thinking he knows it all.
 
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We're all so special and important!
Then we die.
The end.
There is no evidence to the contrary. You know, again, unless I missed that news story somehow.

Having no evidence to the contrary does not preclude the contrary. That's basic science.

I'm with you though. I kinda already knew that Hawkings didn't believe in Heaven. This is not news worthy.
 

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