Stephen Hawkins Says Idea of Afterlife a "fairy tale"

As I ponder your statement I must consider the fact that "religion" is being identified here as a man made group established in the name of "some" God or Gods. As you call it, "religion" can be frightening because it comes from man established by man.

Faith and belief in a higher being does not have to be confined to that man made religion. Faith in a God is an individual's preference. Joining a group of religion just because it sounds cool with no faith and belief on your part only aligns one with that group and not with God necessarily.

Ridiculing faith has become something that is expected, but it comes from tiny minds who fear God because they do not have a relationship with Him.

Yes, I just called Stephen Hawking a tiny mind and I stand by my statement!

 

Man seeks hope in the void of existence and reflection on death stirs up despair; they become willing to sacrifice their dasien to the Heideggerian "Das Man" - in order to cope with the suffering of their coporeal being.

 

I'm not sure I accept your premise that atheism is a religious belief. Perhaps you'd care to explain.

 

What basis do you have for thinking Hawking has a 'tiny' mind?

 

If I remember correctly one of his last Brainstorms was that information gets lost in Black holes, that lasted for about forty years...Until of course he admitted he was wrong and said very apologetically.........


Never mind...

 

That's the beauty of science-it doesn't smugly revel in its ignorance but seeks to advance, correct and discover.
Religion, on the other hand, just disseminates dogma and demands obeisance to an unknown, unseen and imaginary deity. Religion demands accepting that it is infallible, immutable and all-knowing. And people call scientists arrogant?

 

Typical Religious Right Response: That just means he's a "flip-flopper"

 

I agree, it's like the little Boy who's parents deny him Christmas. His nose pressed against the cold window looking in, while saying all the time..
''HUH!!,,,I dont care anyway!! they are all stupid''




You can come in if you like, I wont tell~~~

 

Man,,,,,you really have no idea about the modern Christian,,,do you? We have come a long way since being fed to the Lions, but you Lion feeders have not....shame..

 

What on earth is a 'modern Christian'. Since when was the bible updated?

 

See OP for answer!

 

No, I'm asking you. On what basis do you assert that a world-renowned physicist and cosmologist has a 'tiny' mind? Because you say so? Sorry but that won't do.

 

While there are many religions, there are 3 religions today that cover about 80% of the world beliefs. Oddly enough, they all have the same God. They just have a different means of reaching eternal happiness in heaven. And I think 1 of the religions does not believe in an eternal fire hole.

 

I am of the understanding that christians must believe that jesus is the savior and follow jesus not God. Even tho they are 1. I know Lutheran's don't believe good deeds get you to heaven. Only asking for forgiveness through Jesus can get you to heaven, regardless of deeds.
Muslims, not so sure, but I believe there's is good deeds and of course you must be muslim, but christians believe only christians can get to heaven. So 1 of those religions are wrong and 30-40% of the population belong to 1 of those religions. So right out of the shoot onlyh 30-40% of the world can get to heaven. Then, not everyone from that religion will make it either. So, heaven will be sparsely populated with reference to hell.

 

Yea, yea, yea, moving on....

 

I think you are wrong about Christians in the sense that only Christians will get into heaven, I was raised Catholic, and as much as I can remember, nothing was ever said or taught to me, that only Christians will get into heaven, if it is true then it's just one of many things I have a disagreement with and don't believe in.

 

I was raised Catholic too. Then I grew up and that is why I am no longer a Catholic-I eventually understood what a corrupt, controlling and thoroughly nasty institution the Catholic church is.

 

You framed that in a very interesting way... even if you almost certainly underestimated the number of religions. But it triggers an important consideration: If there are 300 different religions, does that not imply that, oh, some 200 or more of them must be wrong? If either of the exclusive monotheisms are right, then 299 of those religions are false, to include at least one of those exclusive monotheisms themselves.

As the atheist said to the monotheist... "We're both really atheists. I just believe in one less god than you do."

The argumentum ad populum is a weak argument out of the gate. But it becomes even weaker if the appeal to popularity is a fake one. There is no majority religious belief, every belief is a minority one. So to pretend this discussion can be characterized as "1 vs. 300" is simply silly. Even a common belief in some sort of afterlife is not creditable, as religious conceptions of that afterlife can be as different from each other as either is from a belief in no afterlife at all.

An afterlife in Hades is not the same an afterlife in Heaven, nor is it the same as reincarnation, nor an eternity of freedom from birth.

Setting aside the fact that thousands of years or research and philosophical thought only justifies the conclusion that most people (to include most theists) are certainly wrong, nobody is suggesting Stephen Hawking's be taken purely based on his authority. His position is more than a mere assertion... there actually is reasoning behind it that led him to a conclusion.

I for one have been fascinated how every attempt to actually pursue a discussion of how one reasons to a conclusion of God or no God in this thread has met with either diversion or silence from the folks that appear unhappy with Hawking's conclusion.

The perception of "insult" is merely a reflection of our unavoidable differential confidences in science and religion. Science does not even pretend to offer answers to the "great human questions" of why. But even in its narrow and humble pragmatism it works better and accomplishes more than any other human enterprise in all of history.

It is difficult to escape the impression that the modern conflict between science and religion is driven by little other than insecurity on the part of the religious. Certainly, as science has advanced inexorably in its pursuit of objective truth, there has been progressively less and less for "God to do." And this cannot help but serve as a direct challenge to at least some sectarian religious beliefs. But the assertion that "Hawking will have, essentially, started his own religion" seems to this reader like an envious pretense that science and religion are some how equivalent in value and stature.

Some things cannot be helped.

The perception of Hawking's opinion as some threat is not because Hawking is brilliant, but because he is a brilliant scientist. The fact that science accomplishes at least one thing that religion was intended to accomplish but never could (i.e. explain the cosmos) is what makes Hawking's assertion notorious. Were he an equally brilliant businessman or an equally brilliant artist it would raise far fewer hackles among the faithful.

 

I believe you're mistaken.

Only two of the top three religions believe in more or less the same god. And they account for only about 54% of the globe.

The third largest religion is Hinduism (14%) followed by Chinese Tradition Religion and Buddhism, both at around 6%. Including all five, only then do we get to 80%.

Judaism, by the way, accounts for about 2 tenths of one percent.

 

Roman Catholicism has always been explicit that only those baptized as Christians get to heaven. This is, of course, based on the Catholic understanding of baptism's removal of "original sin," something necessary for salvation.

Catholicism has however had a tradition of "theological conclusions" for the purpose of reconciling some of the internal contradictions of orthodox Christianity. Until the revisions of the catechism that followed the 2nd Vatican Council, a prominent Catholic teaching was for a "third place" called "Limbo" that would serve as the repository for non-Christians who were undeserving of eternal punishment. The exemplar class for Limbo was always the newborn baby who died sinless but before they could have been baptized. Such a child would spend eternity in Limbo... a place very much like heaven minus the presence of Jesus himself.

It was also supposed to include the "righteous savages" who had managed to live lives worthy of eternal bliss, but who had never even heard of Jesus through an accident of birth and geography. In this age of modern communications technology though, few people offer that excuse for not being a Christian anymore.

Recently, around 2006, Catholic theologians began to more formally backpedal from the idea of Limbo... at least for unbaptized babies. Back in the 1990s before he became Pope Benedict, Cardinal Ratzinger pushed the idea that Limbo was never really a formal Catholic belief... but again he discussed it only in the context of unbaptized babies.

All other classes are still proscribed from heaven sans any baptism in the name of Christ.

 

Religions are cultural manifestations. You can believe and take comfort in your particular religion (and what is advocated in one religion or the other can actually and arguably said to be preferable). But is there an overarching creative force (unknowable and beyond our abilities to even grasp) that is indicated by life that transcends our flesh bag bodies?
Science is looking into this and Dr. Ian Stevenson wrote a book thirty years ago (20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation) that made an impression even on skeptics like Carl Sagan and Sam Harris.

I would suggest that there is all sorts of phenomena that cannot be easily understood or explained. For someone like Hawking to simply and prejudicially dismiss an afterlife as a "fairy tale" shows a cultural bias (of sorts) as large as any church can produce.

I believe that religious biases can cloud what is already a contentious issue. Does a Hindu vs. a Lutheran difference in what the next step of existence means negate that existence? I would say no.

I'm not sure how you reach this conclusion. What was Hawking's reasoning process like?

Can we actually point to something that at least legitimately opens the possibility to the idea of a transcendent life? I believe so. Therefore to dismiss the notion out of hand shows a lack of open mindedness and real inquiry that belies a true scientific mind (or what we are led to believe a scientific inquiry requires).
Other scientists, on the other hand, take up the issue and Hawkings may be thinking of a cartoonish afterlife where a man (God) in a white robe and long white beard lounges on a cloud and makes everything perfect, for all I know. His stark dismissal however belies a thoughtful stance on the afterlife.

Science is a tool that has been used for good and bad. It's no better than the people that command it. Science creates the atom bomb and the power to heal in it's wake. So the moral guidance developed in mankind's long long ascension
towards a greater purpose, to me, is as important as science per se.

Each art contributes in it's own way. I think it's fruitless to try and give one primacy over the other. And unnecessary.

I don't think Hawking's scientific grounding gives him a special view on this issue. Nothing he has said shows he's paid this issue any special consideration or spent any significant amount of time considering all sides of the issue. If anything, we are in a time where the scientific community is particularly prone to not even consider any evidence
that may indicate the transcendence of life.

I agree that because Hawking has scientific renown his comments have been particularly noted. But, absent other evidence Hawking has spent much time researching the work done in this area, I don't think we can give his comments extra credence.

 

The problem you face is that there is a difference between "phenomena that cannot be easily understood or explained" and "phenomena for which there is no evidence, hence no need for understanding or explanation."

Hawking's position is not mere "prejudiced dismissal." It is a conclusion driven by his experience that there is no evidence for the phenomenon of an afterlife... even considering Ian Stevenson's book. You yourself note it was published 30 years ago... and even then he was so tentative that he could bring himself to assert no more than that the cases were "suggestive" of reincarnation. He only retired about 9 years ago. The two decades of work between his book and his retirement was able to advance his evidence no further than that mere "suggestion." When he died in 2007 nothing had changed.

I did not claim they negated the idea of an afterlife. I asserted that they are too different to be considered the same idea.

Read his book The Grand Design. Then you will have first hand knowledge of his reasoning.

As I have said before, it is one thing to keep an open mind, it is another thing entirely to let your brains fall out on the floor. No human enterprise, to include science, can proceed without reaching a point where it is time to draw a conclusion and then act on it. This requires the eventual rejection of ideas for which there is no support.

Belief in an afterlife is retained by most people not because we can "actually point to something that at least legitimately opens the possibility," but because they fear death. We have had thousands of years to come up with evidence more compelling than ghost stories and "suggestions" of reincarnation. Even Stevenson knew that when he assembled his experiment of the locked cabinet.

He has been dead four years. The cabinet remains securely locked.

I have never pretended for a second that science cannot be used for good or ill. My contention was entirely that it works. Well. And I fully agree that we cannot ignore moral issues when deciding how we will use it.

It is simply not clear to me what that has to obviously do with religion or the afterlife. Morality and moral systems are independent of both.

It does not matter if it is fruitless to do so. It only matters that people do so anyways. Human beings value different things differently, and this helps explain their behavior.

 

Many of those with religion believe they have all the answers where all that exists 'comes from'. They also believe they know what happens after something dies...although I'm not sure if they include all life forms, or just stuff with brains, or what?

We can create more technology and advance the human race without deities and afterlife's.

The more we know about the origins of the Universe, and stuff beyond the Universe, the better we can create technology and advance the human race...

 

I see one person searching for information in order to obtain the best possible understanding of the scenario, and two others making up stuff irrelevant of data and information...

 

'Moral' is subjective...a personal perspective and DOES NOT belong to anyone or anything.

This means that no matter a person's beliefs or behavior or positions in life, all of them can share identical morals.

Let me simplify this for you; Let's assume that a group of people prefer to wear head-to-toe red clothes on Wednesdays. Let's also assume that YOU hate the color red. Now this group lobbies government, and tells government that the morally correct thing to do is wear red clothes on Wednesdays. And since government are mostly spineless people who prostitute themselves for votes, and this group of people is large enough to gain their attention, government goes along and passes legislation mandating all Americans wear head-to-toe red on Wednesdays. Now...you as a person who hates red is now forced to wear red on Wednesdays simply because some group decided it was the morally correct thing to do. In fact...this group of people and the government go crazy and on all money they print 'In Red We Trust', and force singing 'Red Bless America', and kids and people are required to recite a pledge containing the words 'one nation under Red'. And if this is not enough, they start feeling their powers over people and government, and begin to dictate and influence personal and private issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research, etc.

Just curious how you would feel about this...