Stephen Hawking, a world-renowned physicist, said recently in an interview that there is no God. (Source: CNET)
Hawking didn’t say that he doesn’t believe in God, he said that there is no God.
So when I read the article, naturally, I was upset.
Why?
Because there are so many people who are putting their trust in this man for truth, and he is failing them in a big way!
So that’s why in this blog post, I’m going to show you five reasons why I believe Hawking is dead wrong about the existence of God.
If you’re an atheist or an agnostic, then this blog post will give you some points to consider.
And if you do believe in God, then this blog post will help you answer objections when defending your faith.
Our school and our government is trying to take God out of everyday life. Our society is becoming more atheistic everyday.
That’s why we need to stand for the truth, and tell people that there is a God in heaven who loves them.
I know a thing or two about this subject because I’m a former atheist myself.
5 Reasons Why I Think Stephen Hawking is Wrong About God
1. Stephen Hawking Doesn’t Have Absolute Knowledge
What stumped me the most about Hawking saying that there is no God, is that he makes a mistake that only newbie or uninformed atheists make.
Using logic, it’s impossible to prove that something or someone doesn’t exist.
When you talk with atheists, and you ask them to prove that there’s no God, most will tell you that it’s logically impossible to prove that God doesn’t exist.
And they are absolutely correct!
No one can prove, using logic, that something or someone that’s invisible doesn’t exist. That’s because it would require absolute knowledge.
Here’s an example of absolute knowledge.
For example, let’s say I make the statement, “There are no hamburgers in Kansas.”
How would I be able to prove that?
Well, I would need to go to every single restaurant, home, and grocery store in Kansas, and look for hamburgers.
If I find just one hamburger, then my statement about hamburgers not existing in Kansas would be wrong.
Additionally, if I go to a grocery store that doesn’t have hamburgers, but they get hamburgers five minutes after I leave, then I would also be wrong about my statement.
So you see, I would need to be omnipresent. That means that I would need to have the ability to be present everywhere at the same time.
This is why statements like Hawking’s about there being no God is foolish.
For someone to make an absolute statement like, “There is no God,” you would need not only to be omnipresent, but you’d also need to be omniscient.
Someone that’s omniscient is someone who has 100% knowledge of all the knowledge in the universe.
You and I maybe have 2% or 3% of all the knowledge in the world at best.
So for Stephen Hawking to make the absolute statement that there’s no God, is quite a misstatement.
That’s because Hawking is neither omniscient or omnipresent. These are the two qualities that are needed to make such an absolute statement like Hawking’s.
An Atheist Changes His Mind about God
That reminds me of a video that I saw recently.
Nick Berryman is an engineer that was an atheist since his college years.
He didn’t think that there was any compelling evidence that a God existed. But then something changed.
A friend of his began to talk to him about God. This is Nick’s story.
Click here if you can’t see the video.
2. A God is Necessary to Explain the Law of Gravity
Stephen Hawking is quoted in his book, The Grand Design, as saying:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”
I address why I, and many others, know that this statement is wrong in the article about the best proof for the existence of God.
Basically, it boils down to two things:
1. The law of gravity isn’t “nothing” like Hawking refers to in his book. It’s “something.”
2. Where did the law of gravity come from?
The fact that there is a law of gravity in the first place points to the existence of a series of laws that govern the universe.
The laws of the universe were created by God, and no one else. Click To TweetSome people will argue that aliens might be the ones responsible for creating these laws.
I address that objection too in my article about the best proof for the existence of God.
The Best Argument For the Existence of God According to the Late Atheist Christopher Hitchins
It’s fascinating to note that the best argument for the existence of God comes from science itself.
Here, watch this 5 minute video to see what I mean.
3. A God is Necessary to Explain the Laws of Logic
How can we know whether a statement is rational or irrational?
The answer is by using the laws of logic. Without the laws of logic, we wouldn’t be able to know whether a statement is true or false.
Here are some of the laws of logic that we use every day without even knowing it:
1. The Law of Identity
This law states that A is A.
For example, a book is a book. It has a front cover, a back cover, and pages in the middle.
This may sound simplistic, but this law is necessary for us to know that we are reasoning rationally.
2. The Law of Non-Contradiction
This law states that something can’t be both true and false at the same time, and in the same way.
For example, I can’t say, “Yesterday, I had dinner with my wife,” and also say, “Yesterday, I didn’t have dinner with my wife.”
The law of non-contradiction tells us that it’s impossible for both of these statements to be true.
3. The Law of Excluded Middle
The law of excluded middle says that a statement is either true or false.
For example, consider the statement, “I have at least one brown eye.” That statement is either true or false, there is no middle position.
Christians believe that the laws of logic come from God.
God is the standard for truth, and He’s the one that has given us these laws to be able to reason properly.
If we didn’t have the laws of logic, then we wouldn’t be able to know the difference between true and false statements.
In fact, Hawking wouldn’t even be able to know whether any of his statements are true or false if it weren’t for the laws of logic.
For more information about this topic, check out Matt Slick’s article on Carm.
4. Everything That Was Brought into Existence Had a Cause
The universe began to exist at a certain point in time.
Since we know that it’s impossible that the universe created itself, then it must have had a Creator.
When atheists ask, “Well then, who created God? Someone must have created Him too.”
Then I answer, “No one created God. He is eternal, He has always existed.”
There must always be an uncaused first cause that created everything that began to exist.
So Stephen Hawking’s statement that there is no God is obviously false.
5. You Can’t Measure God Through Science
Science is the study of the physical and natural world.
But God, by definition, is not limited to the physical and natural world.
In fact, God lives outside of time and space.
“Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.”
-1 Kings 8:27
Therefore, a physical detection of God using scientific measurement isn’t possible.
So when atheists say that they want absolute evidence that God exists, I usually ask them what they want that evidence to be.
I recently had a conversation with a couple of atheists. One of them was a really nice guy named Patrick.
Patrick said that if he was to believe in the God of the Bible, then he would want to see evidence for a global flood.
A few other atheists chimed in and it turned out to be a pretty interesting conversation. Below is that conversation that I had on Google Plus.
Just click on the comments button below in order to reveal the comments from Google Plus. Then expand the comments using the down arrow.
Atheists Want Different Signs in Order to Believe in God
I spoke to another atheist recently who told me that if God would show up right next to him while walking down the street, then he would become a believer.
But the problem is that every skeptic wants their own sign in order to believe in God.
The atheist that wants for God to show up right next to him, won’t accept the sign that the other atheist wants for evidence for a flood.
Multiply that by millions of skeptics worldwide, and you get millions of signs that skeptics ask God to do.
That’s why God gave us only two universal signs for His existence.
1. Creation – “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” -Psalm 19:1
2. The Conscience – You have a conscience that tells you what’s wrong and what’s right.
It doesn’t mean that you always follow your conscience, or do what it says. But that conscience was given to you by God, so that you can know right from wrong.
Stephen Hawking is Wrong About God
I think part of the problem is that Stephen Hawking is said to have one of the highest IQ’s in the world.
So naturally, people will tend to trust in what he has to say.
However, while Stephen Hawking might be a great physicist, he isn’t qualified to make absolute statements about God’s existence.
You can put your trust in someone that's smarter than you, but that person can still be wrong. Click To TweetSo while Stephen Hawking might have an extraordinarily high IQ, there’s someone who has an IQ that’s higher than Hawking’s.
This Person’s IQ is off the charts!
Believe in God, He exists, and He loves you.
About the Author
Comments 413
“He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”
1 Corinthians 3:19 http://biblehub.com/multi/psalms/14-1.htm
That’s a great verse Paulo 🙂
So are you saying that people can sometimes be too smart for their own good?
A lack of spiritual experience without being humble simultaneously! Unfortunately getting too focused on immediate goals will bring future disappointment when one find himself with empty hands.Mark 8:36 Surely the Devil is winning in his life. http://biblehub.com/multi/matthew/25-29.htm
get that stupid bible shit away from me
this is not about religion. this word “religion” was introduced by human itself not god, god loves everybody and didn’t say only for Christians.
There is no evidence of what you say. From everything we can tell…all words, languages, religions and god are man made.
Author
Okay Ed, so let’s assume that you are correct. In that case, may I please ask you what is your theory for how the universe came into existence?
If you’re no longer able to reply to this thread, feel free to start a new thread at the bottom of this blog post.
dear Ed, if your statement is absolutely correct then either you are omnipresent & omniscient and have traveled in all the possible dimensions and did not meet this entity called God or else you are ignorant or misinformed or misguided by the enemy of God to utter this statement. Even if we assume some clever ancestor of ours cooked up this theory of God to instill fear in us so that we live a holy and righteous life and die peacefully expecting the eternal life, so what is wrong with that; rather than living immorally worshipping our material ambitions and worldly success earned under heavy stress and ultimately dispatched to fires of hell (in case there is 0.001% chance of God being present), what do you say then?!
There’s religion: and there’s Christianity. If the Bible is stupid how can you prove so. To use language like yours is the lowest of the low.
And yet you choose to come on this, a Christian website, to post your gutter response.
You have that right to believe in whomever you want to believe in but in the end ,you have that choice that he (God) gave to all men, Choose you this day who you’re going to serve, the creature or the creator but in the end every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Jesus is Lord. I know you’re not saying, “I’m not bowing to anyone”. it’s never to late to turn around. Jesus love you and will always be there for you no matter what, I’ll prayed for you though you’re saying, “Don’t prayed for me.
You know we’re not supposed to judge but it seems he’s like a son revolted against his Father. Better remember how the prodigal son approached his Father: http://biblehub.com/multi/luke/15-18.htm
I believe the opposite is true; human beings can never be smart enough for their own good.
If God would give one person the ability to believe without evidence (Faith), but not others, or take away that ability from some; who are human beings to question His reasoning?
As science explains the law of gravity and for atheists reciting the bible means nothing as you are going by something they do not believe in, and for gravity i personally think that the atmosphere causes the mass to distribute at uneven weights as Einstein said as in space there is no atmosphere
Dear O’ Great Dictator Gravity is no small mass (snicker) I agree… the problem is that gravity only exists when a mass is there to create the gravity… if we take a square mile of complete and utter space… with no stars and no planets and no gravitational pull then how does gravity create something from nothing?
“we take a square mile of complete and utter space…with no stars and no planets and no gravitational pull” Provide proof of a point in space without gravitational pull.
First off, The Egyptian God Horus, which was written 2000 years before Jesus that the writers of the Bible stole. Horus was born from a virgin mother, was baptized in a river, had 12 disciples, was crucified, and was risen from the dead 3 days later. Sound familiar!! There is no records of Jesus beyond the Bible which was conveniently written decades after his death. I always hear that the Earth was constructed to perfect to not have a God. But that is all lies, the Earth has much wiggle room and life on earth could still exist. Examples: The rotation of the Earth could be changed to a 12-72 hour rotation and still sustain life. The axis could be changed from 10-40 degree axis and still maintain life. If the Earth was perfect it would last forever but it won’t when the sun burns out in 1 billion years. I always here form religious believers that oh that water is neutral and that do to that fact that every thing on living thing on earth needs it that God exists. The fact is that water is not neutral. A Roman emperor that dies 2000 years ago, well humans know where he is buried but not Jesus? That is weird. Christianity does not practice what it preaches, hates gays and other religions. The Bible says be good to your neighbors.
Who created God? If God is perfect why did he create man? You wouldn’t get lonely or need to be amused. To me the creation of Christianity is to control and set rules in which those who wrote it wanted. I have never seen the donation plate not get passed around ever. The Roman Catholic church is wort 10–15 billion dollars is a very big no no sign to me, why aren’t they helping the world with it like the ten commandants say. Why do they cover up and pay settlement fees to priests sexually abusing children. Why is there so many religions around the world from people on continents that never had contact with one another? it is called the power of imagination. Why do people believe in God? To me they want to believe in a life after death, need some sort of mechanism to provide them hope, to satisfy basic human desires. There have been many other people who have claimed to be final profit like David Koresh but everyone discredits him even though he had plenty of followers. But you still believe in a book about Jesus that still has the same basic fundamentals as the God Horus. I feel that indoctrination into religion at a young age has just made you refuse science. The fact is that Santa Claus who was actually created from a real person Saint Nicholas, is considered not a real person but we teach our children about him and how many of us have written letters to him and left cookies out for him but he is not real. So adults find it funny to believe in imaginary friends but as it is fine when it comes to God. Wouldn’t it just be easier for God to show itself to us and get the whole believe in or not thing put to rest already? YES!!!!!!! I wonder how many people would believe in God if Jesus was in a female form over male? Haha If that was the case back then this story of the Bible would have been burned from the get go. I asked my father who said when my mother died unexpectedly that he became more religious why that was? cause it was a coping mechanism for him. I just asked him why he believes in god? He said the world was to complicated not to have a God. Seriously??? That answer is a joke. Post your response to why you believe in God? Is it from brainwashing when you were young, peer pressure from family, fear of life after death, fake comfort, wishful thinking?
To get the true facts about the Horus mythology and its similarities and differences to Christianity, please check out this article http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is-jesus-simply-a-retelling-of-the-horus-myth/
There are people who were indoctrined from childhood in atheism and grew up to become christians. Also there is historical evidence of jesus walking on earth and his miracles ; Celsus, Josephus etc… …you’re drowning in illiteracy.
Stop quoting a book you claim to be a fairy tale to support your argument. And apparently you haven’t even seen a bible in your life before or you wouldn’t be asking asking where jesus is buried when the bible says he ressurected; the main foundation of christian faith, he conquered death and can now give eternal life.
Another dunderhead statement was christians reject science. Scientists like Isaac Newton , Lord Kelvin and Leonardo da vinci were very much christians who believed in God. Infact today there great scientists who believe in God and for that reason, their views are not projected in the media. Have you forgotten where the so much upheld big bang came from?; a religious head which wasn’t either way to deny the existence of God.
If Horus existed in the character of christ, let historians proof it just like the existence of christ himself.
I didn’t read all of your argument so i flawed only what i read
Actually, there is no contemporary evidence that Jesus actually existed. Jesus supposedly lived from 0-30AD roughly. The earliest non-christian reference to him is Josephus in 93AD, 63 years after his supposed death and it wasn’t much of a reference. All other references were 2nd Century and later. Not one single historian, Greek, Roman or Jewish mentions Jesus while he was supposedly alive, or even for 6 decades after his death. In fact mention of his “Miracles” by non-christian sources don’t occur until 2nd century. It is generally accepted among historians that Jesus was likely a real person….but “likely” and definitively are two very different statements. So your statement about him walking the earth, is simply not true and especially for the “miracles”. If anything history’s silence, especially from contemporary historians who were actually living during the time of Jesus, in the region, speaks volumes, especially given some of the bible’s claims. For example Philo of Alexandria who lives during the whole course of Jesus’s life and death and 20 years after it……never mentioned a thing about him, or even a Jewish trouble maker….or spiritual leader….etc….and he certainly doesn’t mention anything about some of the major events, such as the riot during passover, the crucifixion, the trial, or how about the earthquake and the dead saints coming back into the city upon Jesus’s death. Nothing about a man rising from the grave….nada and this is a guy who wrote about a drunkard outside his window one night and who wrote quite a bit on the happenings of the city and on the OT.
Author
Ed, aren’t historians supposed to be writing about history? So wouldn’t that mean that they have to be reporting on things that have already happened? Doesn’t it make sense that there are no historians that would report about Jesus until after He died?
Peter…unfortunately what you are saying isn’t accurate. Here’s why and just one example out of many: Quintus Fabius Pictor was one of the earliest known Roman historians born around 270BC. He participated in the 2nd Punic war and recorded his experiences with it. His records include recording history as it happened, as well as pulling of historical records of other historians to date the founding of the Roman empire. The vast majority of history is like this and there are contemporary accounts to validate most of his works. The point is that most historians from that time period didn’t just record things that were decades past….but current history as they witnessed it.
The “history” of Jesus however…isn’t anything like this. You have zero from the time period of his life of anything about him, not even from the gospels, which means there aren’t any non-biased or secular sources to pull from….which is the staple point of how historians evaluate the historicity of a claim or a person. The first gospel wasn’t written until around 70AD, 40 years after his supposed death and nothing by a secular historian until 93AD and that was but a footnote with nothing to validate anything but a name and no source for his info, which means likely it was a christian source providing the info. The next reference isn’t until 116AD by Tacitus and again, no source and no reference to anything but an execution and a name.
There aren’t many figures like this from history that have this little information….and are widely accepted as real by historians. It is an exception because it is the largest religion in the world. There aren’t many secular historians who will say with certainty that the Jesus as described in the bible was real.
Author
Ed, what I’m saying is accurate. There would be no good reason for any historian to write about Jesus while He was alive as Jesus was a poor carpenter from Nazareth. Historians of that time typically wrote about kings and other noblemen. So there would be no good reason for any historian to write about Jesus until after His death which is when His fame spread like wildfire.
Sorry, I’m not able to respond to the rest of your comment as I’m behind on answering all of the other comments on my blog. Either way, wish you all the best.
There are all types of burials. In fact you need to brush up on your own literacy. The definition of a burial comes in many ways. I agree w/ Mary jane and Ed
There has to be a god and you know it. Im not even a christian and im writing this. Jesus is not the only man in the world that people ever wrote about. Some things written about him could be false and some could be true. People report seeing elvis sightings and he wasnt a historical figure as big as jesus. Just because people write false things about someone doesnt mean god doesnt exist. I dont beleive, however, that jesus is god but i do beleive he was a prophet that tells people of god
“There has to be a god and you know it.” Why does there “have to be a god”? Why can’t the universe be natural? Anyone who makes this argument to me just isn’t thinking very hard and the whole “you know it’ part is quite arrogant and dishonest. If you look at the history of religious beliefs…they all hold one thing in common, which is they used gods or a single god, to explain the unexplained. The Sumerians had over 200 gods to explain what are very simple things to us today. The Egyptians…dozens of gods. The Greeks, Romans, Persians….dozens as well. Thousands of gods have become very few as knowledge has increased. The only realm that these supposed “gods” exist now….is in the unknown. There is no good reason anymore to believe in a god….none. There is no evidence of any, nor anything outside of the natural and physical. So I’m sorry to say, that it doesn’t really matter about Jesus, or Mohammed, or anything else….or your insistence that there “has to be a god”…because that is nothing more than a statement of opinion with no substance behind it.
Author
May I please ask you what proof do you have that our universe came from nothing or what other explanation you have?
We’ve already had this discussion Peter, in fact it’s still on this site. My answer is still the same, I don’t know and I don’t think it can be known, but I generally agree with the big bang, which by the way, does not say that the universe came from nothing, as I also explained before. So I guess you haven’t learned anything new….
Author
Ed, consider this your first warning for violating my comments policy. Your last sentence in your comment is snarky and that is a violation of my comments policy. You’re more than welcome to stay here and comment on blog posts and engage with the community as long as you adhere to my comments policy. I’ve included a link for your review https://notashamedofthegospel.com/comments-policy/
Now, going back to your comment, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with me asking you the same question again since our last conversation was a while ago. People change all the time, they change their perspectives, and they learn new things. So the reason for my question was to further engage to see if you had change your mind, added any new knowledge, or have a different answer.
As far as the Big Bang goes, the question that remains unresolved is where did the Big Bang come from. Since nobody is able to provide any proof of where it came from, then the question of where our universe came from remains a good question to ponder.
Sorry if I was unintentionally insulting Peter with that last line, but when you explain to someone in detail, which is documented on here about how the Big Bang does not say that the universe came from nothing, nor does any other scientific theory on the origins of the universe and then that same person repeats that same question….I have to take that as the person did not do any research or increase their knowledge on the subject to correct their incorrect understanding on what science does say on the matter. I view it as a form of dishonesty. Now you are free to ask, how did the big bang happen, what caused it, etc…but saying “how did the universe come from nothing” is neither a correct question, or an accurate representation of big bang cosmology. As far as what caused it….well I think it is an inescapable consequence of natural laws and energy at work….but I have no proof for that claim, nor do I claim to know it for sure….however, as of now, what we do know is that we have a physical reality that has certain natural laws that react the same way without exception, which makes certain things predictable (for example gravity). A “god” would violate everything we know about the natural order and therefore just isn’t a viable answer until someone can demonstrate there is something beyond the natural and that the laws of nature can be violated.
All I can say is, I’m not going to re-write everything I already wrote that’s on here. You should educate yourself on the big bang and what astrophysists do say on the origin of the universe. That will clear up the whole “something from nothing” question and show you why it is not a legitimate question to ask.
Author
Hi Ed, you said in your comment that there is no other scientific theory that states that the universe came from nothing. So now that I read this, I understand why you felt frustrated. It looks like you may not be familiar with some of the scientific theories that do state that our universe came from nothing.
I can think of at least two physicists that have their own theories about how our universe came from nothing and how they tie them into the Big Bang. One of them is Lawrence Krauss. He has a book titled, “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.” The forward for the book is by Richard Dawkins.
The second physicist that advocates a universe that came from nothing is Steven Hawking in his book, The Grand Design. Hawking argues that the Big Bang started from nothing due to the law of gravity.
Feel free to Google any of these two guys and you will see plenty of supporters as well as critics of their theories. So now, I hope that helps clarify things and now you know why I asked you about if you believe that our universe came from nothing. It’s becoming a more popular theory these days.
When was the last time you met a follower of horus. The greeks believed the stories of Homer as Gospel, but they have not withstood the test of time. When was the last time you went by the horus calender. The world seemed to think his (Jesus) appearance was significant enough to start the calender then and here 2000 later no one know about horus, but they tremble and fear at Jesus. They cast insults at him and his followers but those that have met him Love him for who he is, the creator of the universe. And all the insults for what, religion. Religion a man made invention that’s why myths have not stood the test of time.. No true follower of Christ believes in religion. They believe in the universe because of the change in their lives that only a benevolent God could bring about.The message and commandment of Christ was and is Love your neighbor as yourself and God with all your heart mind and soul. Yes, even when they hurl insults at you. Perhaps you anonymous are struggling with something that has you under its control, maybe you are hurting from something, perhaps everything has gone bad in your life. Well by the power and authority of Jesus Christ the Son of God, I am here to tell you he can and wants to give you a new life. A life full of peace and joy and more importantly to spend eternity in comfort not torture. Jesus spoke about hell more than any topic in the bible and a horus is probably running it. We’ll be praying for you anonymous.
Author
Great answer, loved your insights 👍
Maybe you should listen to his scientific proof instead of hiding in your fucking churches trying to prove with no evidence that religion is real. Ok I get you need people to put money in the fucking basket but you also can’t be completely oblivious and critical of other people’s ideas you dumb fucks. Oh and by the way why the fuck don’t you guys pay taxes you are basically a business of screwing every poor person out of there few dollars. Fuck you, you stupid cunts!!!!!!!!!
I am an atheist as well, but I think you’ve gone overboard with your comments.
Whether someone is religious or not is entirely up to them, and they should be respected either way.
I don’t know how smart you are or how much you know about recent theories describing the universe, but bear in mind that many scientific theories are not 100% proven.
So I highly recommend you to read a book on Cosmology instead of watching documentaries where they idealize many facts and theories.
I doubt you are an atheist due to the words you use like “many scientific theories are not 100% proven.” This isn’t even how science works. Nothing in science is 100%, nor does it ever claim that. A scientific theory is simply a framework of an idea, which is supported by a multitude of facts. Something only becomes a scientific theory if it is well substantiated and has passed rigorous scientific scrutiny. When someone trashes a scientific theory, they are literally trashing the best and most well supported ideas that anyone has ever come up with. Does this mean they are perfect? No…of course not, they are subject to further scrutiny and revision, but they rarely if ever are completely turned over. Still, science deserves our respect because it works and does not require our praise or worship. Religion does not. Now I can respect a person as a fellow human being, but I will not respect beliefs that are born out of ignorance.
I have to apologise for not expressing myself correclty, what I meant to say was precisely what you had corrected.
Like you said, a scientific theory is a framework of an idea, there is no theory in science that is 100% true.
And I do agree that believing in an all-loving omni-potent being is for ignorants who just want to protect themselves.
I was just trying to voice a complaint against “Fuck Religion” who did go overboard with his criticism.
Hi Peter, I couldn’t reply to your other post to me (didn’t give me the reply button), but to answer your question, I do not have a “theory” on how the “universe came into existence”, because the only honest answer to a question that complicated is “I don’t know”. I do find the big bang compelling to explain how the universe started given the evidence available….which isn’t much, but it doesn’t explain what was before and certainly doesn’t answer all questions. One thing is for certain though….answering that question, no matter how complicated the true answer may be, it pales in comparison to a being like what a god would have to be. So answering this question with “god” doesn’t answer it….it complicates it. It’s like trying to solve the riddle of the complexity of a drop of water and the answer is the ocean. It doesn’t follow. I’m certainly open to any evidence for any claim of a god….but if you start with “it’s too complicated, it must have been a god”….then you are starting from a point of a logical fallacy and you’ve already lost. So let’s both admit that we can’t say for a fact how the universe came about and be honest about it….then you can provide me with your actual evidence for your god. By the way, I apologize if I assumed this is the position you are taking and it is not, but I encounter this line of questioning so painstakingly often.
Author
No worries Ed, and no need to apologize. I appreciate your candor and I like to keep things very casual. So feel free to express yourself the way that you feel.
I do like your answer about not knowing how the universe started. When I was an atheist, I also used to say the very same thing. So I do understand where you’re coming from. I’m also glad that you noted in your comment that the Big Bang doesn’t really solve the problem of origins because we don’t know what happened before.
So with that in mind, may I please ask you what you think could be the possible options as to how the universe started?
“So with that in mind, may I please ask you what you think could be the possible options as to how the universe started?”
To tell you the truth, I don’t really think much on it, mainly because it is likely never possible to know what happened, unless we invent a time machine. The only thing I can say is that whatever the answer, I believe it to be a natural one….not a supernatural one. The reason I think that is because nothing in any of my research has shown that there are violations of the natural order. I have explored miracle claims, supposed mass events, look at research studies meant to explore these types of claims, including the supernatural in general….and the results just doesn’t leave any room for a god. The only arguments I hear for a god these days lie only in the gaps in scientific knowledge. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “we can’t explain how the universe came about, but it must have been a god because of how finely tuned it is”…..or something to that effect. Problem is…..it is a poor argument for several reasons. First our knowledge of the universe is very weak….we don’t know how many planets have life on them, or all of the conditions required for life, nor even exactly how many stars and solar systems there are. So saying it is “finely tuned” is wishful thinking on a microscopic sample….but even our own planet isn’t fine tuned given we constantly have things trying to kill us from natural disasters, to viruses, animals and even our own design flaws getting the better of us (choking, cancer, etc). Second….even if I granted for the sake of the argument that it is “fine tuned”….that in no way links the “fine tuning” to any particular claim of a god, alien, computer simulation or any other claim that can be used to explain the universe.
Bottom line and I know I wrote a lot here, but the main point is that I don’t make any assumptions about the universe….that isn’t already there. I don’t know how the universe started and my guess would be as good as anybody’s, with the exception that mine falls in line the natural laws of the universe….where as the religious one….violates them.
Author
Well, I got to thinking about what you wrote and I need your help to overcome an obstacle that I just can’t seem to overcome. If you are correct in assuming that the cause of the universe is a natural one, then what can there be that is natural that can create something out of nothing?
You seem quite knowledgeable in this area so I’m assuming that you know the whole debate about something out of nothing?
If the universe started with the Big Bang and there was an explosion, then there has to be something outside of the universe that caused the Big Bang to occur. But science can only study things that are inside of our universe so how would you be able to make the claim that the cause is something that’s natural?
By the way, we’re going to be running out of comment threads soon so go ahead and start a new comment thread if you run out.
Thanks
Hi Peter, this is in response to your last reply about the argument of “something out of nothing”, which yes, I am unfortunately familiar with this argument. I say unfortunately because it really isn’t an argument that has meaning, because when christians use it, they mean a literal “nothing”…devoid of all matter and energy. When guys like Lawrence Krauss talk about nothing, they mean a state of the universe in which there is no matter, but there is still a state of energy and particles present. Science doesn’t recognize the concept of “absolute nothing” as christians do, because there is no reason to think the universe has ever had a state of absolute nothing. The law of conservation of energy, which has been demonstrated, states that energy cannot be created, nor destroyed, it merely changes form. Despite science’s best efforts, energy cannot be created….nor destroyed, which means that so far as we know, energy is eternal and always present in one form or another. Most christian astrophysicists refer to this fact of “eternal energy” as god. This is what Einstein refers to as “Spinoza’s god”, which many scientists believe in, which isn’t a sentient being that cares about what we do, but that we are merely a part of a greater whole. Bottom line, my point is that there is no such thing as “absolute nothing” in science….because there isn’t any working example of what that would even look like or imagine and no evidence that it has ever been the case.
Back to your other point though, the big bang wasn’t an explosion, it was a very slow outward expansion and no there doesn’t have to be anything that caused it to occur, it is completely explainable by the natural laws of the working universe. I’m not an expert in astrophysics or physics, but I recommend a book by Lawrence Krauss on this very subject called “A Universe from Nothing” where he specifically addresses all these points and explains in detail how the universe could have naturally occurred using only the natural laws in place. If you aren’t patient enough to read his book, there is a youtube video from 2009, where he gave a talk on this subject with the same title, just search “A universe from nothing” in youtube and you’ll find it’s the first one.
Now just to wrap this up, Krauss’s answer to this question doesn’t solve it, because unfortunately there just isn’t enough evidence yet to say for sure that he is right. However, he does provide a working template that any physics expert will say works for how the universe could have occurred on its own with no outside forces. So there is no reason to appeal to “outside the system” for answers. I know I stated this before as well, but even if there was not a solution for question, there is no reason to suppose that the answer is a god….or an entity of any kind. It could be an answer we haven’t considered yet. Bottom line, you cannot presuppose an answer without evidence that it is even likely. From what I’ve seen there is no reason to look at the question of how the universe came about and say “I think it is a god”, except by illogical correlation. So I’ll ask a question back, by what reason do you pre-suppose that the answer to the formation of the universe….must be a god and not some other answer?
Author
Hey Ed, before I chime in with my feedback about your comment, can you please confirm that you got an email notification with this comment? I bring that up because WordPress only allows me to have a certain amount of nested comments, and your last comment didn’t allow me to reply back from the article. So I’m replying within WordPress and I want to make sure that it works.
If I don’t get an answer from you, then I will assume that you didn’t get an email notification and I will try an alternative method. Thanks Ed.
Hi Peter, I did get your e-mail reply, not sure why my other message continued on that other post, I tried to start a fresh one.
Author
But Ed, did you know that the word “nothing” has always had the same definition including in the scientific realm until Lawrence Krauss tried to redefine the word “nothing” just so his theory can seem like it is correct?
Personally, and through my own research, I found that there have been several scientists, even ones who aren’t theists, who debunk Krauss’s theory because of him redefining the word “nothing”.
Peter, you seem to be missing the point. Nothing in the traditional definition means, “no thing, not anything, naught, no part, no share or no trace.” What you are defining as “nothing” is actually “absolute nothing”….which isn’t an actual thing, because even in a vacuum space removed of all light and matter….particles are still present. Science cannot define what is absolute “nothing”, because there are no examples of that to study or even infer from. Truthfully though, the “Krauss” definition isn’t different from the normal definition and application. When you go into a room looking for furniture and there isn’t any, you would say, “There’s nothing here”. Does that mean you are looking at a void absent of all matter and energy? No it, just means what you are looking for isn’t there. All the examples they give in the dictionary include just the absence of looking for something material and nowhere does it say “void of all matter and energy”. Nobody uses “nothing” in the manner you describe except creationists…..which means that it is actually christians that are changing the definition….not scientists. By the way, Krauss was not the first, nor the last to make this observation about the universe and use “nothing” in this way. Parmenides in the 5th century argued that “absolute nothing” cannot exist. Leucippus also argued that atoms must exist in a void and that “nothing” isn’t a true “nothing”. Aristotle also argued that there cannot be a true “nothing” as well as G.W.F. Hegel and Jean-Paul Sartre….lots of philosophers and scientists who recognized that there isn’t a true “nothing” as described by christians, Krauss just built upon their work and provided evidence to back it up. Also Krauss’s idea of “nothing” isn’t debunkable at this time….so I’d be interested to read what scientists you are referring to, but it is a fact that as of this time in science….there is no such thing as absolute or true nothing. I don’t know what else to tell you except perhaps your scope of research has been too narrow and perhaps focused in creationist literature….instead of scientific?
Author
Hi Ed, I do respect your point of view. In my opinion, I believe that the invention of absolute nothing is just something that’s trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Additionally in my opinion, the living room furniture example that you gave cannot be a comparable analogy to our universe because it just doesn’t work on several levels. All of the fifth century people that you mentioned in your comment did not have the scientific tools and knowledge that we have today so their point of view has little weight on my views..
As for debunking Lawrence Krauss, Dr. John Lennox has done a great job in debunking the universe from nothing theory. There are multiple videos and books by him. And there are other people out there that are pointing out the critical flaws with the universe from nothing theory.
First and foremost, I agree that the prior scientists I referenced do not have the tools we have today, but it does matter, because their ideas on “nothing” and “absolute nothing” bear on this conversation and specifically how you said that the definition of “nothing” has never changed. It has and these scientists bear that fruit! The dictionary version of “nothing” as we know today is not “absolute nothing”, because there is not a single example of this to compare to….or even conceptually in science. I’m trying to show you that how you use nothing…as well as other christians….is a meaningless concept to use, because it hasn’t even been demonstrated to be possible….nor is there even evidence to indicate that our universe was ever “absolute nothing”. So in a way what you say of the “square peg in a round hole” is true….just with you using the statement “something from nothing”. You are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole because you are using a concept that isn’t tenable.
John Lennox is a christian apologist and a mathematician and quite frankly has the same problem you do. He doesn’t understand the difference in between the word “nothing” as he uses it and “nothing” as Hawking or Krauss uses it. He begs questions such as “but why is there a law of gravity…there must be a designer”. This isn’t debunking, it’s logical fallacy after logical fallacy. If you want to “debunk” Krauss, you cannot do it with mere words and misrepresented concepts….you must do it with scientific evidence. Lennox doesn’t do this, so I’m sorry to say, but you are about as close to debunking Krauss as Lennox….that is to say not at all. Lennox has not said anything original that hasn’t already been said by christians prior to him, just in different forms. A good way to actually debunk Krauss is to show that energy is not eternal…..that the universe was actually a void with absolutely nothing….or to create a vacuum completely devoid of anything…even particles. That would at least validate the concept of absolute nothing as a tenable position. Showing that the laws of physics aren’t a constant…..that would point towards a potential designer! Instead, guys like Lennox resort to intellectual dishonesty. That doesn’t impress me in the least and it shouldn’t impress you either.
Author
Okay Ed, I have a question for you. Is a “universe from nothing” a fact or a theory?
“Okay Ed, I have a question for you. Is a “universe from nothing” a fact or a theory?”
Peter…..this whole conversation I have been trying to show you that your question is not a legitimate question. It is very frustrating to repeat this over and over, but how you use “universe from nothing” as well as other christians…is not remotely the same as how scientists use it. The big bang doesn’t describe a universe occurring from “absolute nothing” as how you define the word “nothing”. It describes a densely compressed ball of energy that began an expansion and over billions of years, formed into matter, into stars, planets, etc….. So the big bang does not describe a “universe from nothing”….but a universe FROM something and that something is energy, which so far as science can tell….is eternal.
Also, here is where once again you do not understand basic terms in science. A scientific theory is NOT a fact. A scientific theory is a framework centered around an idea, that is supported by a multitude of facts. For example with the big bang….it is not the “theory” that is a fact, the theory is supported BY facts, such as the red light shift, cosmic background radiation, mixture of elements and the steady state. So the Big Bang is both a scientific theory and supported by facts. Put it this way…in court, they present evidence in a case to either prove or disprove a claim. The verdict doesn’t decide “truth”, but whether the evidence was compelling enough to render a verdict of guilty or not-guilty. Science works the same way…they aren’t deciding the “truth”, but following the evidence where it leads and rendering a verdict on whether the idea behind it has merit.
I have thus far enjoyed our conversation, but I really feel like you are in need of some basic research into scientific terms….real science, not creationist pseudoscience that misrepresent very basic concepts. At least research what a scientific theory is and what I have told you about what science refers to as “nothing”. You can get this info from academic institutions, or the National Center for Science Education online. We can’t really have a constructive conversation if we aren’t speaking the same language. I’m trying to help you understand these concepts, but you don’t seem to be taking this seriously.
Author
Ed, I can tell that you are getting frustrated through your comments and I think it it is causing you to see things in our conversations that I never said. It looks like you are jumping to conclusions and making inferences that I never mentioned in my previous comments.
Nowhere did I ever say anything about the Big Bang claiming that the universe came from nothing. I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that I was saying that. This is something that’s very simple and that is taught in seventh-grade science class. In fact, I tout on several places on my blog that the Big Bang does not explain the origins at all, and it doesn’t claim to be able to explain the origins of our universe.
As for what is a scientific theory, yes, I do have a good understanding of what a theory is. The mere point that I was trying to make is that a theory is a theory because it cannot be 100% verified by repeatable tests. That’s because once a theory has been verified thousands of times, then it’s no longer a theory and it becomes a law. Therefore, when you say that you support Lawrence Krauss’s theory about a universe from nothing, then you are not supporting a scientific fact that is 100% verifiable through the scientific method. You are supporting a scientific belief, and there is a big difference.
I have been reading this thread and I have Christian and non Christian friends.People have the choice to believe what they want but I have only to offer this.I experienced something “supernatural” .When I was falling from a height I raised up my hands and my head went back there is a photo of it I saw and I cant describe how that happened and how I saw and felt something I cant describe in natural way.It was such an intense joy like not worldly and a vision within my mind that was like out of this world.I was caught up in something that was supernatural as I approached the ground .The vision that I saw was Christ.It just happened there is no way to explain it but it was real.You cant look for ways to explain everything and then somethings you cant explain like what happened to me.Why God met me that day when I was falling I dont know but it happened .You can go back and forth but I know that day something supernatural happened .If this happens before death or not I dont know but the love I felt and no fear of falling just tells me wow that was God
Have you done research on supernatural events ever in Africa specifically Ghana and Nigeria. If not their local idoltry leaders, you should investigate T.B Joshua(i don’t trust him) fron Nigeria and Pastor Anthony kwadwo yiadom Boakye from Ghana
Every Supernatural event that I have researched comes up either extremely questionable, or outright fraudulent. I have never heard of TB Joshua, but my first search yielded some pretty good results of where TB claims to speak directly to god and has powers to heal, etc…For example he claims to have predicted major events, such as 9/11, even though there’s no evidence that he did. He did predict who would win the presidential election according to “god”…and he predicted Hilary Clinton…. He had a 50/50 chance of getting it right and he still got it wrong. As far as his “miracle” healings. I don’t see anything noteworthy here. I watched a few videos of these and it falls into the classic case of the people having some kind of pain from an injury, surgery, or age and he does the “god is healing you now” stuff and then the pains go away. Cases like these are temporary and psychological and have been studied. It is the placebo effect. No one was truly healed. If he really had powers, he would take those that are confirmed handicapped, bound to a wheelchair for life and help them walk again. Or perhaps help regrow an amputees arm or leg. But he doesn’t do these, because it is all a big scam.
I DONT BELIVE IN GOD ITS OUR IMAGINATION AND CREATED BY OUR SELF. WHEN WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING IN CASE OF EMERGENCY WE THOUGHT OF SUPERNATURAL POWER OR GOD WHICH WILL MAKE OUR WAY EASY OR YOU CAN SAY HUMAN BEING’S ALWAYS TRYING MAKING SHORTCUTS AND GETTING THINGS WHICH HE WANT EASILY.HE DOESN’T WANT TO DO HARD WORK,ONLY WANTS THINGS WHICH HE LIKE EASILY.I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS -FIRST,WHY GOD FORMS ONLY EXIST IN HUMAN FORMS WHY NOT AS A DOG,LION,CAT,ANT OR RHINO,,,..IT IS BECAUSE WE HUMANS HAVE GOT A GREAT MIND AND THINKS THAT HE IS SUPERIOR OF ALL ANIMALS.THAT’S WHY GOD LOOK LIKE HUMANS BUT IN MYTHOLOGY OR BIBLE IT IS SAID THAT GOD IS SAME FOR ALL LIFE FORMS…answer this question.IN BIBLE OR
SOME OTHER MYTHS OF RLEGION GODS PERSONALITY IS SHOWN THAT HE IS HONEST ,POLITE,PATIENT,SELFISHLESS AND INTELLIGENT.THEN WHY PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO WORSHIP HIM OR HUMAN BELIVES OR GOD SAY THAT IF YOU WORSHIP GOD YOUR LIFE WILL BECOME COMFORTABLE AND HAPPY.WHAT IF ANYBODY DOESN’T WORSHIP HIM DOES GOD WILL MAKE HIS LIFE HELL,NO HE DOES NOT BECAUSE IT DOES NOT SUIT ON GOD IF GOD WILL DO THAT THEN NO ONE WILL SAY THAT HE IS NOT SELFISH,ALL WILL SAY THAT GOD IS HIGHBROW AND CRUEL……..MY OPINION IS THAT IT IS VERY COMPLEX AND DIFFICULT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT GOD NOT EXIST BECAUSE WE HAVE MAKE THIS QUESTION COMPLEX WITH OUR SUPERSTIOUS BELIEFS..
I have entered a couple of comments about Hawking contradicting himself by saying that the Big Bang came from “Nothing” then how the Big Bang came from a “Black Hole”.
Then I forgot to say what a great article it is that Peter wrote Defending the ONE TRUE and ONLY GOD!
We need more people like him who are passionate about our Creator and His Son Jesus Christ!
People who are willing to defend against anything evil throws at us to get us to disbelieve the Truth!
I am not saying Hawking is evil.
There are however, many who don’t accept GOD simply because HE does not throw proof right at them.
Well, that is the whole point!
We are not supposed to have the proof until AFTER our trial of faith.
James 1:3-4
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
1 Peter 1:7-9
7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls
How else is Our character proven?
Even to ourselves.
Unfortunately, there is evil in this world using people and how it has increased in these days we live in now.
How do we know “Good” unless there is evil?
Happiness, but for sadness?
Feeling great, health without pain?
We have to have opposites in order to spiritually evolve back to our Creator.
For “for the Lord seeth not as man seeth” 1 Samuel 16:7
Then my favorite:
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22:37-40 KJV
Nothing better, yet we still have evil trying to make a fight of it here on this earth!
Yet as Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians 6:13-17
…
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
…
Point is, each of us in the privacy of our own prayers can know God and it is not endorphins as the skeptics proclaim-
(An entirely different subject that those who – well, those who do KNOW – I’m not going into that one here like throwing a pearl down-Matt. 13:45-46)
Thanks Peter,
for wearing God’s armour and writing this article
This isn’t a prove God exists blog but more of a Hawking is wrong, unqualified to prove or disprove anything spiritual.
He is just good at math yet contradicted himself in that show when he said the big bang came from “Nothing” then at the very end he said it came from a black hole “Something”
Man cannot go to another man for proof of God.
But only reach out To God.
Sincerity!
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
Beginning=Time
Heavens=Space
Earth=Matter
Hmm
Well now he has passed away. I wonder if he changed his belief just before he passed and asked for forgiveness?
I draw your attention to a comment in the second video that stated that Fred Hoyle ‘coined the term the Big Bang Theory’. This research and thesis was proclaimed several years before Hoyle by the Belgian Catholic Priest, Georges Lemaitre at the Catholic University. Louvaine (now KU Leuven).
What does it prove? We see that universe is in constant flux of creation and destruction and I do not see any place for God of Bible or any other scripture.
Hawking Contradicted himself on that show-
I could not find anywhere to comment except to reply–
However,
I watched that “There is no God” show because my Son watched it and called me up to ask questions about it.
After I watched it, I actually had to laugh about some things Hawking said.
Perhaps the biggest mistake he made was that major contradiction at the end of the show.
I am surprised no one caught it, at least no one that I noticed anyway.
Perhaps most people think Hawking is so smart that he is infallible.
He is not.
Don’t get me wrong, we like the guy, we just can’t help feeling sorry for him being a quadriplegic with ALS and having to twitch type on that computer screen.
The contradiction was this, remember he said that the universe came into being and was made from “nothing”? How he figured it out from his equations wouldn’t show but to just take his word that the math was correct?
Then at the end of the show he said the big bang came from a “Black Hole”
Now, that comes from “something” does it not?
Forget the math for a minute and lets look at what we know the definition of a Black Hole is.
Put simply, a Black Hole is surrounded by a galaxy, that is, all of the Black Holes we know about are in the center of a galaxy.
Next, a galaxy has to have a universe to exist in, correct?
Actually I skipped a number of things besides galaxy, universe, etc.
But the point is, Hawking says the universe came from “nothing” but it came out of a “Black Hole” which by definition has to exist in a universe.
Besides, even if he did not contradict himself, theologians can simply say that GOD transcends space and time and there is no proof against that statement. That right there makes them correct. There is no contradiction in that statement.
As far as atheists are concerned who want “proof” first. That is like asking for a paycheck before you do the work!
It doesn’t work that way! Work 1st, then get paid.
Have faith 1st, then know the truth of there being a God who sent His Son here.
Anyway, because we do like him, we all wish Stephen Hawking the best regardless of his contradiction and congratulate him on the things that he has been successful!
I’m sorry Zane, but your definition of a black hole was not correct, “A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it”. Now take that in context of what Hawking said and it makes perfect sense. Also, I’ve explained this before to Peter, but “nothing” is also a concept in science which doesn’t actually mean “absolute non existence of anything”. It just means absence of matter and particles, but science can’t define something that they can’t measure or quantify….and absolute nothing qualifies under this category. Particles have been observed however, to spontaneously pop in and out of existence. The how or why is still unknown, but it has been observed. So that, combined with natural laws and forces….and you get an explanation (even if incomplete) of how the current universe came about without supernatural intervention.
As far as your last statement on “theologians can simply say that GOD transcends space and time”….you are correct that there is no proof against that statement, but that doesn’t make them correct, it just makes the statement not worthy of consideration in science because it isn’t testable. There are all kinds of statements that aren’t testable, such as that planet earth was once inhabited by aliens that were wiped away by nuclear annihilation a billion years ago and now their souls reside inside of us (The Scientology belief)….or that the universe rests on the back of a giant turtle, or many, many other non-testable claims and I’m sure you wouldn’t acknowledge for a second that any of these are true because they cannot be proven incorrect.
So your argument about “faith first” can literally work for any erroneous belief. There is literally nothing that cannot be believed on faith alone. You can justify any belief with the concept of faith. Therefore faith is an extremely unreliable method for discerning the truth and should not be used by anyone.
Sorry, Black Holes exist inside of galaxies and universes,
your statement lacks credibility.
Of course Black Holes are a region of space having a gravitational field, but in order to twist your opinion into an opposing one, you left out the most important part.
Perhaps this will help.
This quote was taken from a “Where are Black Holes” search:
How many black holes are there in our galaxy?
A very small patch of our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius. In total, our galaxy contains some 100 billion stars and 100 million black holes. Any small patch of the sky shows many distant galaxies. Each (GALAXY) probably contains a supermassive black hole and millions of stellar-mass black holes
In other words
Black Holes are inside of galaxies and galaxies are inside of universes, just as I said.
Besides, being an amateur astronomer with telescopes capable of submitting Binary Star splits to NASA and also an accomplished ATM’r, Facts like that are common knowledge to ALL astronomers and amateur astronomers.
Don’t let the word “Amateur” fool you, as in this context, though Non-Paid, it is still the scientific study of celestial objects.
Fact is, Hawking contradicted himself because a “Black Hole” having to have a galaxy and a universe to exist in is about the biggest “Something” that there is.
Or perhaps you know about Black Holes that exist outside of a Universe?
If so and you can prove it, I will concede.
If you watched the show it was clear that Hawking meant the Big Band came from “NOTHING”
The statement that nothing means something else in science is simply not true.
Here is a definition of “Nothing” which came from a “what is the definition of nothing, in science” search:
“Nothing is a concept denoting the absence of something, and is associated with nothingness. In nontechnical uses, nothing denotes things lacking importance, interest, value, relevance, or significance. Nothingness is the state of being nothing, the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing”
Hawking used the word “Nothing” He is wrong
You quoted ““faith first” can literally work for ANY erroneous belief” implying that I typed it.
I NEVER TYPED THAT so don’t change my wording to make a point.
I DID say
Have faith 1st, then know the truth of there being a God who sent His Son here.
There are many Christians who have
You obviously haven’t.
You actually Can – You—can
But only if you are sincere and not argumentative
Also if this helps you, the particles you refer to that “pop in and out of existence” as you put it is better calling them for what they really are to avoid confusion and make people think that just anything in our dimension is able to achieve that phenomenon.
(because of faith? NO)
Those particles are in reference to electrons which go in and out at while in rotation, to make an analogy, at different points on a clock. Going out say, at 3 o’clock, and coming back in at 9 o’clock to make an approximation for the sake of discussion.
In fact, electrons go in and out at variable points of their respective rotations depending “which kind” and also “which” atom of their respective rotation.
But again, poping in and out of existence has nothing to do with Hawking contradicting himself because Black Holes are not electrons and neither was the Big Bang.
They are simple a small percentage of matter.
I realize that does not clear up anything for you because as Dale Carnegie once said about winning an argument, the loser never accepts it.
However I sincerely hope you do not go around believing that Black Holes are merely a region of space having a gravitational field that can exist without a universe and galaxies anymore. They are BOTH.
Also if you choose to try.
You—can
I wish you the best.
Sincerely
Z
Who knows, could this could go for a hundred posts?
I think I understand the problem here. I think you are hung up on the beginning of our universe, versus what was before it. I encounter this quite often with christians is that they assume that since our universe had a beginning, that there was absolutely nothing before it, including the laws of physics. No one in astrophysics believes this. There are differing theories about what was before our universe, including string theory and the theory of eternal inflation, but what matters is that science operates on the known and so far as they can tell, there’s no reason to think the laws of physics were any different before the big bang, so while the universe might have been in a drastically different form, a big bang could still occur. Also, I still don’t know where you are getting this “Black holes only occur inside universes or galaxies”. There’s nothing in what you posted that indicates that, it just speaks about the black holes currently known. So you are drawing a conclusion that fits with your opinion, but isn’t actually there. I did a few searches on this and there was nothing to indicate this at all. I did encounter a few interesting articles though such as https://www.insidescience.org/news/every-black-hole-contains-new-universe, which speaks about at theory which solves some of the major questions and proposes that our universe actually is inside a black hole. This very proposition actually has the idea you said in reverse….not the black holes occur inside of a universe, but that black holes actually cause a new universe! There couldn’t be a more clear showing here that you are wrong in your assessment. So when Hawking is talking about this, he isn’t saying that the universe formed “from” a black hole, but inside of one, but was still formed from “nothing” (no matter). So it is only a contradiction if you don’t understand the distinction in between the two. Now you are entitled to ask, “Where did the black hole come from”…that would be a more appropriate question, instead of accusing him of contradicting himself. I hope this helped you clear things up a bit, but I doubt it.
Back on to faith, I never accused you of saying anything, I was pointing out the flaw in your words of “faith first”. Anyone can use the same words you are using, with the only distinction being that they are speaking of a different god or belief. Anything can be justified using the concept of faith and the user will consider their beliefs as “truth”, because faith isn’t about facts or evidence, but a conviction to a belief in spite of these things. Unless you can show why faith is a reliable path to the truth, or why yours is superior to all the others, I have no reason to believe you or anyone else that uses it. Truth also doesn’t work the way you propose….you don’t “believe first” then know the truth…that’s contradictory to every other discourse we perform as humans when evaluating something. In court, we don’t “believe” first that the accused is guilty and then all of a sudden know that he is. You reserve judgment until evidence is presented. Only after looking at all the evidence, do you then make a determination of guilty or not guilty.
Lastly, don’t presume to know me or my background or what I have or haven’t done. I’m happy to share with anyone, but I often encounter this with christians that they lash out at me when I disagree with them that I must have “never read the bible” or “never truly believed” or “never prayed or tried to find god”….etc, ad nauseam. Truth is, I’ve done more research into my beliefs and know more about christianity than most ministers…..mainly because I was studying to become one. So kind advice, try to avoid that type of behavior in the future, it really comes off condescendingly.
Sorry, you are wrong again.
You see, I am visiting a site that has similar viewpoints, you are not.
Your assessment is so far off of what my beliefs are you wasted your time typing.
Perhaps instead of trying to to push preconceived opinions about people you do not know or have even heard, looking inward would be more self serving.
This is a Christian based forum yet you use it as place to exhibit narcissism.
Psychological studies show that such antisocial online behavior is performed by those unable to function in society.
The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act definition of anti-social behavior is acting in a manner that has “caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household” as the perpetrator.
Or in this case “not of the same beliefs and opinions” hence the desire to go online to site that has opposing viewpoints.
I would almost even say xenophobic but I suspect you are indigenous to this country.
However I will give you the benefit of the doubt since I have not and do not want to be part of your diagnosis.
Perhaps a clinic recommendation is in order?
Although you will not find total agreement there, you will receive empathy and treatment.
The only other thing that could be recommended for you is a forum where most will agree with your opinions unless argument on this one or ones like it stimulate your narcissism?
Pretty close, isn’t it?
Of course it will not be admitted but you are already in an online opposition profile category to a site with opposing viewpoints.
There’s an old idiom
“He knew not what to say so he cursed”
Add to it, “argue on opposition websites”
“He grew red with anger”
“Insulted”
“Name Calling”
Quite common. Is that next?
Waiting patiently.
by the way, I did read your first sentence and a half
I am very confused by your reply as it was just bizarre. You keep insisting that I’m representing your viewpoint or saying things on your behalf……I have not done this at all! I didn’t offer an opinion on you personally at all, the only thing I was addressing was the arguments you made in prior posts, specifically on how you were wrong about what Hawking said and how “faith” is not a pathway to truth. None of that is personally attacking you! The final section of what I wrote was about you judging me, not vice versa. You made a lot of claims about me….rather spitefully might I add. As far as the rest of what you wrote here, it all is completely unnecessary and angry at something that I didn’t do. At no time did I attack you, but you seem hell bent on personally attacking me and this is the 2nd time now. Perhaps you should follow your own advice of what you wrote. “Thou doth protest too much”. By the way, I was invited to this forum and myself and Peter have had very thoughtful, tame discussion on his article.
I guess we’re done here because if you can’t stick to the facts, or address the actual arguments I made and keep inventing things I didn’t say, not to mention insulting me over and over for no reason….there is no point to continue further. I wish you a good life and hope you don’t hurt someone (not trying to be insulting, your reply concerns me greatly for your mental stability).
Thanks for the reply
I have no idea what makes you think that I believe YOU represent my viewpoints.
That is very weird. Perhaps you misread a response someone else made and got mixed up with someone who thought you did agree and represent them. I do however agree with the part about you typing that you are “confused” Read what I typed again and it will be clear I know you DISAGREE and DO NOT “represent my viewpoints” as you say. It was so far off base I still cannot believe you actually wrote that, however it does substantiate a previous response.
Certainly if someone sober reads what I typed it is apparent I never said you agree and represent my view points. I therefore understand why you say you are “confused”
Again, I am on a Christian site where people agree with the author and why people come to site like this to argue with the fact that Hawking is wrong, well, that is apparent. Don’t get me wrong, it is fun to win an argument as you never brought back up the original part you were wrong about to start with. Nothing being “something and half definitions of “Galaxy” to support a point.
But now we have a pool going.
$100 a pop.
Whether or not there’s a response. And/or what will be the next confusing thing you bring up. You represent me? Wow. No thanks.
Anyway, won’t say which one I picked, it’ll ruin the bet! Right? Might as well get paid
cheers
Author
You wrote, “As far as your last statement on ‘theologians can simply say that GOD transcends space and time….you are correct that there is no proof against that statement, but that doesn’t make them correct, it just makes the statement not worthy of consideration in science because it isn’t testable.”
If that sentence is true, and in my opinion, it is true, so then would that make the Big Bang untestable too?
“If that sentence is true, and in my opinion, it is true, so then would that make the Big Bang untestable too?”
Not true. The big bang wasn’t just proposed and then they went searching for evidence. Before the theory was ever born, astronomers and astrophysists were looking at the universe and noticing that everything seemed to be moving further apart and from an equal direction pointing back to a central point. You might know this, but the first one to propose the idea was a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre who described it as, “the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation”. This was in 1927. It was Edwin Hubble who brought observational evidence through “Hubble’s Law” of an expanding universe, mainly through math and the constant and predictable movement of the stars expansion in distance through the red shift. There was a prediction made by Hubble, Lemaitre and other astrophysists back in the 1930’s that if the theory was correct, that there should be as a result of the hot gases expanding after the big bang, microwave background radiation of a particular frequency should be present throughout the universe which was confirmed in 1964. Also, a prediction was made that the big bang should have produced an abundance of hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and lithium. This has also proven to be correct. The last prediction that was recently confirmed was that there should be a ripple of gravitational waves that could only be produced by inflation. This was discovered only in 2014.
These predictions were all made using assumptions of what they would expect to find out in the universe if the big bang was true, based upon mathematics, knowledge of physics, astronomy and were the very “tests” you propose do not exist for the big bang. Let’s be clear though, they do not 100% confirm the big bang theory, that’s not how science works and there are still unanswered questions. But they do provide strong evidence, since the predictions were all proven to be correct that the big bang is the most likely explanation for how our universe came about. Nothing like this exists for “god” or the statement “outside of space and time”. The big bang theory is a model that has been tested and shows evidence that it is true. “God” cannot be tested and no evidence has been presented that there is anything outside of time and space where a god could exist. So long story short, these two things aren’t remotely comparable.
Author
Okay, thank you very much, Ed, for your response. I have another question for you please, if you don’t mind 😊:
Who or what do you think initiated the Big Bang to start in the first place?
There’s no reason to think it was a “who” and as far as “what”…I guess you could define that as what most astrophysists propose which is that the big bang is a natural result of the laws of nature….a rather inescapable one at that (in other words, it was bound to happen and probably has before).
Author
Okay, thanks Ed. I don’t know how much you know about me. But if you read my comments and my replies to those who comment on my blog posts, you might have gathered that I I welcome other people’s views on my blog and that I encourage them. I enjoy hearing from people who have different views than myself and I don’t behave like some other bloggers who only want to keep the comments that agree with their own point of view.
So in response to your comment, here are my thoughts. In my opinion, I do believe that there is a reason to think that there might be a “who” behind the Big Bang. I believe that through the observance of nature both through the human lens as well as through the scientific lens, that it’s logical to deduce that there is an intelligent designer behind the world and the universe that we live in.
As far as the Big Bang being a natural result of the laws of nature, that is a theory at the moment that cannot be tested and that has both philosophical and scientific challenges.
You may have all of those fancy degrees from all well known Universities, Stephen Hawkins,
but to me, as a Believer in God,
YOU ARE A FOOL.
There is a lot of PROOF of that.
Just listen to your self……
It would SUCK to live life without GOD
Like your life……..
It would suck to be as foolish as you two…..
Are you blind? Something from nothing = nothing. Without God then all that you can see in the Universe is empty. Without God then there’s no Universe. You see nothing, I see a moon and distant stars. The earth was created in the beginning but without form. So to age the earth it appears to be millions of years old. God eventually decided to inhabit earth with a population that could decide good from evil. Angels hadn’t any chose so Lucifer believed in himself as you do. He’s the master of lies that you believe are the truth as only you can see it.
Who says something comes from nothing? So far as I can see only the religious say this because they don’t understand what science actually says. All the rest of what you say is just you insisting things are the way you see it. I hear no different from any other religion….making absolute truth statements about reality, with zero backing. You are no different than the Muslims, Hindu’s, Zoroastrians, Mormons, etc…who all insist that their god(s) are the ones who created the universe, life…etc, etc…blah, blah, it’s all unsubstantiated opinion, nothing more. Grow up.
Author
Please forgive me, Ed, but I forgot what was your point of view when it comes to how the universe began to exist. Would you mind re-sharing your viewpoint in the comments?
Author
Ed, in the future, please be nicer in your comments. I do have a comments policy and I don’t want to see your account blocked. So please review section 4a of the policy https://notashamedofthegospel.com/comments-policy/
Great article Peter! I really enjoyed that video about the Richard Dawkins fan too. Thanks for sharing this.
You’re welcome Kurt, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thanks also for posting it on God Running, I hope that the Lord will bring people who need to watch it.
Thanks for all your support as we grieve the loss of our Pastor. Having great brothers like yourself is a wonderful thing in such a time as this.
My condolences to you my friend, I did not know this. May God bless you and the rest of Pastor Steve’s flock as you celebrate where he is now, and remember him as he was.
That was such a poorly written article.
I’m open to criticism Jamieson, but please state your reason.
I love and have faith in God. But do you have any philosophy on why God doesn’t save all children? I mean those who don’t believe are simply misguided. If they knew better, certainly hell would not be their first choice.
Author
Yes Dominic, I do have some insight about your question about children. May I please ask you how old are the children that you are talking about?
I don’t believe that your article was poorly written, some people take pleasure in criticising without even stating the reasons, I enjoyed it, and I happen to share most of your points, nowadays, they tend to bring people right up on the world stage, and “give them” the highest intellectual status, example Hawking, Dawkins, Harris, Shermer, etc… it is obvious why they are doing this,
Have you seen a theist considered as a bright scientist?
People like Dean Kenyon, he used to be an evolutionist, atheist he was considered to be a great scientist the minute he became a creationist, they dropped him like a dirty shirt.
When somebody who is say non believer at later age becomes theist, he starts to suffer from delusions. What I call late age schizophrenia which can be very mild and on surface persons acts normally, but part of his mind lives outside of his senses. I have an example in my family. Also I found that several people who develop schizophrenia and previously were non believers without exception turned towards religion in one or other form. This has nothing to do with persons intelligence. You my be Stephen Hawking bur if for some reason you develop schizophrenia you have very great chance to become believer. Word “believe” for me needs to be excluded as it is not based on observable facts. Anything what cant be observed for me does not exist and is not relevant for everyday life. Old Romans would say: Sapienti sat est.
Oo. What are you talking about? Every human being has believes. Isn’t it fact enough that you did believe that you had to write this senseless sentences? ^^
Believes are observable. You see them in every thing that humanity created. By the way, there is an observable, testable area in our brain that gets busy when people think about their believes.
But you’ve got to believe in science, repetitions
And probabilities to believe that these are facts. 😉
Peter,
God of the Bible because He is the only LIVING God who interacts and reveals Himself to His people-all others are statues and demonic interactions (the fruit shows such). Christianity is also the ONLY religion that does NOT rely on self to be saved, grow or become enlightened. In fact, you must deny self to grow in Him.
With regard to mental illness, there is much going on that we do not see, without God revealing it, nor can we measure with available instruments. Physical and spiritual are completely different dimensions. Your reasoning is based on very limited observation (you cannot see/feel/experience what your son is going through or whether or not he is interacting with unmeasureable spirits) as well as a lack of instruments (not created by man yet nor probably will be before it is too late).
I realize scientists work hard to understand the world around them as best as they are able but we are severely limited in the means to understanding the deep things. We are only able to create tools to help that fall within our limited and finite minds and understanding. Like the view of the world a bug has, there is so much beyond their comprehension of the world.
My experience with shared stories of those with schizophrenia tend to be that they are sensitive to the spiritual world and thus tend to be tormented by the dark entities within that world. These tell them horrible things they will do to them or their loved ones. These feed on fear surfacing within those who are sensitive as well as bringing great confusion and embarrassment to them and their families. Very rarely, is one with this condition walking in obedience to God. If they were there would be present the fruit of the Spirit such as peace, joy, compassion, self-control, love etc. They are very much tormented by the dark entities typically. I am willing to say that many Christ called demons out of suffered similar anguish. Just do not close the door to understanding based on limited observations.
Sapienti sat est
I like it when someone speaks intelligently!
Wisdom surely is listening over being introspective
Prudentia Christiana!
Let me start off by saying that I’d LOVE to believe in God ,it makes my life so much simpler to just trust somebody ..BUT let me ask you the same question which millions of atheists have : how can a God be peaceful & violent, cause happiness and sadness, be compassionate to the maximum extent but be unforgiving at times too, cause birth And death to happen , have someone killed in an accident AND save someone miraculously ALL at the SAME time ?? As it happens on earth …simultaneously?? Is he not watching?? Why mKe us do evil only to punish us later? Even parents don’t do that …they forgive their kids . Would never wNt to see them maimed, blind, insane etc . God does not mind however though he is the one with infinite compassion . How can an entity endorse ALL the contradictory emotions?? Why have fun at our expense??
Author
That’s a great question, Vidya. So in your scenario, God is the One that causes all of these bad things to happen. But what if He is not the instigator? What if the reason why all these bad and violent things happen is because humans are sinful creatures who naturally do harm to the people in their lives and to the world around them?
Peter, Humans don’t cause natural diseases. They didn’t cause some of the random natural calamities like the past mass extinction events that have been happening on the planet to other now extinct organisms long before the human species emerged. Humans don’t cause galaxy collisions or other major destructive forces that happen constantly throughout the universe. You can’t blame every little thing on human behavior.
Although is was several months ago,
Vidya, You ask, How can an entity endorse ALL the contradictory emotions?? Why have fun at our expense??
To TRY and answer that, which I will not get the answer perfect by any means. But Christians have something that those who do not believe are lacking, which is “HOPE”
Hope actually helps provide happiness, something to look forward to, and unshaken by opposition. Combined with faith and love, those three give the Christian joy in this world, whether in pain or not because it is KNOWN that things unpleasant do not last anyway.
No one ever said God has fun watching pain. actually He does not.
However, the world we live in has opposites in order to understand.
How can we understand joy if we do not have a frame of reference to compare it to? Sadness has to be understood as well. The same thing has to do with every other emotion, physical ailments etc. We look at things from a 3 dimensional mortal viewpoint which makes it impossible for us to be able to understand God in a way of “proving He is” etc. You have to realize that the amount of time we are here upon this earth when compared to “Forever” or “Eternity” is not even a second. The same thing happens if you compare the amount of time we are here to how long the solar system has existed 4-1/2 billion years. When viewed from that aspect, how long do we really have to figure all this out?
“God” cannot be understood if He is merely compared to the “This life” that we know now.
Take little children for example, they get hurt, as parents, we feel their pain, not wanting them to go through it. Yet when it is all over and done, that fire they got burnt by will be respected in the future because they understand it. We are not here very long, life is short, but the things we learn while we are here!
Hopefully most of us will learn the things that are most important and they are not stubbing your toe or even getting cancer.
It is learning much higher emotions, like love. That is what we want to take with us into the eternities where pain of mortality is realized as nothing but a memory and the joy of Our God is realized.
Terrible criticism by Jamieson
It was WELL written Article.
It was well thought out and presented as a progressing concept finalizing into an appropriate ending!
Very WELL written indeed!
Of course it cannot be stated why it was poorly written.
Any elaboration there would be false by someone who dislikes Christianity,
Reminds me of Act III Scene II of Hamlet
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
The implication there being that people judge according to the degree of their own corruption making it hard to understand you while being introspective.
Which is why the Savior said in a couple of places
Matthew 5:44
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Basically the same thing in Luke 6:28 KJV
Having over 10 versions incl Hebrew & Greek and the Torah, I have to say that the beauty of 1611-King James Version is truly beautiful.
Especially John 3:16- Analyzing the 25 words it was written in. (Other versions change even the amount of words)
Here it is, I realize it is not exactly on topic-yet maybe it is- as we are being Pro-Christian here, it could benefit someone.
This is an excerpt from a talk I gave at Church a couple of months ago but slightly changed for this comment.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten
Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Lets analyze that verse!
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten
Those are the first 12 words of
John 3:16
12 words telling us 2 things that God does.
God Loves
God Gives
Now for the last 12 words
out of a total of 25 words in the whole verse.
That whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life
Those words are about us,
what we can do with our free will.
whosoever believeth – we believe
but have everlasting life – we receive
Therefore the last 12 words are 2 things WE do
We Believe
We Receive
So the first 12 words are about God
The last 12 words are about us
And the WORD in the center
The WORD
Between God
and us
John
Chapter 1, verse 1
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
The WORD – SON
the Word in between the first 12 words and the last 12 words
Brings the 1st 12 words about God
and the last 12 words about us,
together
Of course the Word, the Son, brings us together with God as Only He can.
And that’s the inner meaning besides the obvious.
The harmony and the beauty
of the WORD of GOD
Awesome, isn’t it!?
Anyway, just wanted to share that.
Great article Peter!
Thanks for writing it!
The world needs it!
Z
I agree. I actually was looking forward to reading it after the introduction. I thought that, perhaps, someone would present arguments that would make me pause. give potential credence to the existence of God, at least make me question my own disbelief. However your arguments invariably boil down to mirror image of the very thing you accuse Hawking of. They all, in essence, say “because I cannot explain it in any other way, it must be true.” I am no more convinced by your claims than you are by Hawking’s.
Author
Ilise, I’m afraid you misunderstood the point of this article. Please read the title. You’ll find that it doesn’t have to do with proving that Go exists. It’s about proving Stephen Hawking’s claim about God to be wrong.
I do have other articles about the best evidence for God’s existence if you’re interested.
You are stating that the God exists before creation of universe as we know it. Your statement is equally valid as my statement that God does not exists. Any discussion is futile and we will never find the truth.The fact that God exist or does not exist is totally irrelevant from the aspect of our daily lives.
Author
I understand where you’re coming from and I respect your point of view. Yet, I don’t believe that your statement is equally as valid as my statement since with my statement, I can provide evidences about God’s existence. However, it’s impossible to prove that no gods exist (your claim) as this is one of the atheist tenants.
Peter G,
If you can provide evidence about “God’s existence”…..then it wouldn’t be faith based. There would be no need for belief. You just stated in the article, “You Can’t Measure God Through Science”. Well…guess what….the same applies to ANY imaginary entity….because there’s NOTHING there to measure! It’s impossible to prove the non-existence of any imaginary thing. Thus, we can reject an unsupported assertion that fails to produce confirm-able facts. Evidence is detectable. It helps confirm the validity of a claim. One of the atheist tenants is the REJECTION of an unsupported religious assertion. It’s the disbelief of a claim. Atheism doesn’t claim to KNOW no gods exist in the same way one can’t claim to know magical leprechauns don’t exist. We CAN reject a claim as untruthful due to lack of facts supporting it as truthful.
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This was a great article Peter and I did enjoy the video as Kurt said. 🙂
For a highly intelligent man it is amazing the foolishness he believes. The universe came from nothing – that is not even scientific let alone logical!
Atheists wanting different signs: that is simply making life all about themselves. “I” need this reason, “I” need to see that, “I” need God to appear next to me, speak to me etc. Atheism grants one the right to be as self-centered as one wants to be, after all the world is all about “me” right? 🙂
You were atheistic and that grants you insights others would not have, so in a way that period was like a gift from God that He is now using mightily in your life.
Blessings brother, praying for you.
Thanks Greg for your encouraging feedback. I think that when it comes to atheists, what Romans 1 says about them is true. They “suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. Many of them just want to have a license to sin without having to be accountable to God. They don’t realize that of course. Many of them also have unresolved pain in which they believe that “God failed” them somehow.
Thanks for all of your support as well Greg with the passing of my pastor. It really means a lot brother. The last few days have been extremely difficult.
I agree, Most people do not want to live up to a moral standard. It seems like people are numb to sin. No one is surprised if you spent time in jail, there is so much crime that we have become numb. It seems like it is to the point that people weigh the severity of sin against the majority of people who commit it. Does that make sense?. I believe most people measure there standard of morality against the people in the world by saying : Well I am not as bad as Joe Moe who had 6 DUI’s, I have only had 1 DUI. Or I never stole a car like Joe Moe, but I cheat on my taxes etc.
The one we should be measuring out morality to is Jesus Christ himself.
Have you ever seen the Truth Project? Google it on you tube. We are going through it in Bible Study. Fascinating. Have a blessed day! Please keep my Dad in your prayers who is having surgery on Monday to rid cancer. Thank You 🙂
I totally agree with everything that you said Suzy. I did see the truth project by the way, but I only saw the first two videos. It looked really good.
Hope your dad’s surgery goes wonderfully well 🙂
Greg:
The big bang never says the universe expanded from nothing. There is no such thing as “nothing” in physics. However, the universe didn’t exist in the same form that it has today. The vast amount of space it has now was not there before the expansion. Perhaps that’s what he meant by nothing.
“Atheists wanting different signs: that is simply making life all about themselves.” Don’t you think that’s a foolish statement in itself? It makes no logical sense. Why do you think there’s such a thing as facts? You somehow believe people shouldn’t use common sense. No one should question claims, such as those followers of Heaven’s Gate. And what was the outcome to that? I guess they didn’t want to make it “all about me” since looking for facts to validate something as true is suddenly being “self-centered”. No, we don’t need facts to verify the validity that believing some magical deity will bless you for killing a certain amount of unbelievers. That’s self-centered. Why even need proof for magical fairies? That would make the world about “me”. Why is it you think we gather facts in the first place, Greg? What is its significance?
“Because there are so many people who are putting their trust in this man for truth, and he is failing them in a big way!” Excuse me for pointing out the obvious but is this not a big problem in of itself? We are trusting in Hawking for truth? Especially in philosophical and theological issues of such importance as God’s existence (and obviously the Love of Jesus as Lord and Savior). Why trust a this man? Why would so many people place trust in anything except something of interest in theoretical physics (he has already admitted he has been wrong before, why should people trust him here). Is this not a problem with our society? We place our trust in the wrong sources?
May I suggest that the only thing worse than a philosopher trying to do physics is a physicists trying to do philosophy! And Hawking seems to prove this quite well. It seems any first year philosophy student can refute this man. Which makes it so sad when people are taken in by him, Krauss, Dawkins and others like them. The basics of philosophy nor theology do not seem to be taught in the schools nor the churches in western society.
“Atheists Want Different Signs in Order to Believe in God”
But then the question comes down to, would they believe in these signs? If Jesus came down to them directly, turned water into a nice Pinot Grigio why would anyone assume this is anything more than a trick? If all the stars in the sky made the words “I EXIST – GOD” would not the same atheists who claim that reason is the sole arbiter for truth them then deny what they see? Why would we assume the atheists or non-believers would take this as a miraculous sing from an all loving God? Would not the committed atheists set out to show how these signs to be somewhat ambiguous and then try to argue for some naturalistic explanation for said event? Many atheists demand proof or God to make a compelling reason for them to believe. But does God only want us to believe He exists, or does He want much more than a simple acknowledgement of His existence?
These sorts of defeater beliefs make me rather sad. These people do not recognize their own sinful natures and would rather live without God’s love than with Him.
Good day to you and God Bless.
Excellent points Jeff, I agree with everything that you said there brother 🙂
Thank You 🙂
Bad things don’t happen because of God, they happen because of an absence of God. Stephan, explain your health.
If and thats a big IF god exists…. may there be mercy on all of humanities souls. God is pure unadulterated Evil. Sorry if it breaks peoples hearts, but read the bible over again, Kills 2 entires citys filled with people who sexual inclination was not in his eyes correct. As payback Kills the first born sons of the Egyptians (mainly children as well as torture them in the plagues), allowed the hebrew children to be slaughtered and slaved the rest. MADE THEM WALK FOR 40 YEARS in the desert. Killed all of humanity in a flood. Approves of slavery and is against women rights, i mean i can go all day with this. Plus theres a dragon and a jinni, but nobody cares to mention that, and 1 of the 2 books has so much WAR its to make your eyes bleed. IF god exist i pray that he is NOTHING LIKE this god, if so i rather go to hell. Lucifer is better at this point. Not nearly as much dirty hands as god, (or so we know). I welcome you to tell me all the evil things Lucifer brought and did to humanity besides getting us kicked out of a party.
you all speak of god and not god ,with the data you have right now
you dont have all the data.
you can not use incomplete data to explain complete data.
theoretically.
mathematics is completed / finished logical data with all calculations completed before it is sent
god = mathematics
math is invisible yet we all use it.
it is impossible to put in a container because that would stop the transmission of math.
we all live in a container of a certain density. more dense than no density at all.
a bowl of water where things move slower within and the observer outside of the bowl can move around it without anyone inside the bowl beeing able to keep up with that person who lives in the absolute ,not inside our time but outside it.
mathematics is the creator
dead data creating living data from itself
explosion of mathematics in all directions maximizes life with all the data passing through
if we dont make it something else will.
but all of it is just a phase before the next.
the purpose of it all is to have it all be equal to all that is and all that is still in the process of becoming yet more
when the big bang reaches maximum expansion with the at that moment maximized data the process will reboot with more data and matter to begin with than the previous big bang producing a bigger big bang with a maximized new packet of data.
expansion is forever expanding.
it needs bigger space
it produces more space
even in a small pea sized brain we can fit it all in
if we can then everything can
everything does
we are at phase > 0
and we can in our minds make everything in it smaller to fit more in.
Wish I could tell you all, “I told you so” when we’re all dead, but that is not likely. Still, no hate from me, I just wish you evangelicals would stop trying to legitimize your religion in political and social structures.
Author
Lol, I like your sense of humor Andrew 🙂
Personally, I don’t like to mix faith with politics. But that’s just me 🙂
Reason # 2 the laws of gravity exist because of God ? That may be a poor defense of your hypothesis. No that’s just ignorant
Author
No problem Danny, you’re entitled to your opinion, and I welcome it 🙂
May I please ask you how you explain why the law of gravity exists or how it came into place?
I absolutely agree with you, we can’t just assume that “God” created everything just because we can’t figure something out.
Author
Using your same logic, we can’t assume that the TOE or that the Big Bang is responsible for the universe that we live in either. There are several scientific problems with the TOE and Big Bag that even secular scientists point out.
They are both unsolved theories. But science is trying to provide evidence to support that theory.
Author
But the problem with saying that science is still trying to discover “the truth” is that it wrongfully assumes that intelligent design is false. Because if intelligent design is true and there is a God, then there is moral accountability and an afterlife.
So people are slipping into the afterlife having broken God’s law by lying, stealing, and committing all sorts of sins. They end up going to hell because they’re guilty of doing, saying, and thinking bad things.
But God made a way to get out of hell and go to heaven by believing in Jesus. That’s why there’s a sense of urgency to be absolutely positively sure about whether there is no God or whether there is One. Anyone can die at any time and it’ll be too late.
Peter, to be honest I’m only 15, so I can’t give you a proper argument.
But I want to know why you believe in God, and your version of God.
Even though I don’t believe in God, I would like to know, but I can’t deny that Hawking’s statement about there not being a God is a bit arrogant.
Peter,
All the physics of this universe is the direct outcome to the WAY the universe formed from the point of expansion. If it formed a different way, we would have a different set of physics. Our physics that governed our universe today were not the same before the expansion which is where our laws of physics appear to break down. That doesn’t mean there was nothing existing, simply that current mathematical equations can’t explain the type of physical laws that would be occurring at that stage of the universe’s formation. The big bang doesn’t claim to be the origin of the universe, it merely explains stages of formation of the universe. It posits that the universe was extremely hot and dense, not that the universe came out of nothing.
Science doesn’t “wrongly assume” intelligent design is false. Intelligent design is basically a form of creationism. It primarily originated from young earth creationist believers as a result of opposition to the discoveries of evolution that contradicted biblical claims. It is basically a view that does not adhere to the scientific method, not much different than faith based beliefs. It isn’t a scientific argument and scientists have correctly pointed that out. Intelligent design an argument from incredulity and it is also subjective.
You apparently seem to hing this whole concept on the basis of biblical morality. It makes the whole thing irrelevant since biblical morality is basically another form of subjective morality. It cannot be objective when it is bound on a faith based position. A faith based belief is itself subjective. Not to mention the fact that you are attaching Intelligent design specifically to the christian deity, when the view deliberately avoid assigning a personality to the designer, which mean Intelligent design could be assigned to any manner of gods or entities with their own supposed moral codes making your position pointless. One would then have to be concerned with the ramifications of all supposed deities instead of just one.
The thing you have to ask yourself is how would you know there is such a thing as an afterlife if no such thing is detectable? Where then did all that information come from? The bible? Not valid, particularly when ancient Israel had no concept of an afterlife. That was a later invention started primary with Greek philosophy at a time when Israel later became Hellenized during the Hellenistic period of 300s BCE. That’s when pseudepigrapha books like The book of Enoch began emerging describing fallen angels, trips to heaven, hell, so on. Ancient Israel believed death was the fate of everyone good or bad, and that was it. The book of Ecclesiastes even scoffs at the meaningless task of living. Concepts about Jesus and afterlife found in the new testament share many similarities with Greek philosophy and that’s not surprising. The new testament was written by Greek speaking believers who were well knowledgeable in Greek composition. The amount of evidence for a historical Jesus is exactly the same for Hercules. They are both even mentioned by some of the same ancient historians in the same works.
You believe God created gravity because you were told to believe it by a book that is only assumed as truth. Anything without proof is speculation, including god. I notice more and more that christians are tasking atheists to prove that there is not a god, and since there is no logical way to prove that something (or someone….like God for example), that has the same physical properties as an idea in our head, does not exist…..They find this to offer proof god does exist. So if I follow that same logic and say that unicorns, leprechauns and Frank the flying space bear are real, then they are in fact real until you prove that they are not real….correct?
Just because we do not yet know the origins of our universe does not mean that god created by default. The bible was wrong about the heliocentric universe, wrong about the value of pi, wrong about the earth being an immovable object..etc. I refuse to take the word of something that has so many provable errors.
Also, not one of the five reasons given in this article hold any weight.
Reason 1: Stephen isn’t smart enough.
Reasons 2 thru 5: god did it.
Doesn’t disprove anything…sorry.
Author
Hi Chad,
Thank you for your comment. As a former atheist, I totally understand where you are coming from. I had very similar views to some of the points that you made in your comment.
So here are my thoughts on some of the things that you wrote in your comment:
-Atheism has no way to explain how gravity came to exist. Yes, I do believe that the God of the Bible is the one who created the universe. I believe that the evidence that we examine in our world today does point towards intelligent design, and that there are major problems with some parts of the theory of evolution.
-I believe that the Bible does claim that it is divinely inspired and that it is the only book in the world that proves its claim. I can share with you a little bit more about this if you’re interested.
-You’re right, about atheists not being able to prove that there is no God. And you’re also right about no one being able to prove something that is a negative, like unicorns and leprechauns not existing. However, there is a major difference between God, leprechauns, and unicorns.. I created a video about it if you’re interested https://youtu.be/BIhV9_tNIU8
-You say that we do not yet know the origins of the universe. However, that is just a claim that you make. Christians do know the origins of the universe. Atheists that say that we do not know the origins of the universe are using a stall tactic to buy time so that they can avoid saying that God is the one who created the universe.
-You say that none of my five reasons in my article hold any weight. Then after that you go on to say that reason 1 is, “Stephen isn’t smart enough.” If you would be so kind as to go back and reread the article, then you’ll see that I never said that. Reason #1 was, “Stephen Hawking Doesn’t Have Absolute Knowledge.” This is a philosophical and logical reason and I go on to explain it in the subsequent paragraphs.
As for reasons 2 through 5, you oversimplified my statements by saying that “God did it.” My statements are much more complex than that, and they give deeper explanations for my reasoning.
Anyway, that’s just some of my thoughts on your comment, Chad. You’re more than welcome to reply to this comment. Additionally, you can always email me by using the contact link in the navigation.
I wish you all the best Chad,
Peter
Why God of the Bible? Why not God of Torah or Koran?
Author
Well the God of the Bible is the same as the God of Torah.
As for the God of the Koran, the reason is because the Koran can’t be trusted for several different reasons. I can cite those reasons if you want, or link you to an article about them.
You can’t trust God of Koran for several different reasons but you want me to trust God of Bible for what reason?I asked you this question because I realize my believe is even different from yours.I believe being a Christian,Muslim,Jew or any other religion is just a platform we all chose to communicate with God.Remember,Segregation is just an invitation to extremism.God of Bible,God of Torah,God of Koran,God of any other I can’t mention are all the same as long as you believe there is GOD.
Author
But each one of the gods that you mentioned in these different religions has requirements that contradict each other. So how can you reconcile them?
Peter:
“Atheism has no way to explain how gravity came to exist.” – It isn’t the position of Atheism to explain natural phenomenon. That’s what science is for. Scientific theories offer explanations to natural phenomenon. They help us understand why a phenomenon occur. Science studies the natural physical world because it is detectable and testable. Atheism make no claims about the natural world. It simply rejects unfounded religious assertions and nothing more.
In your video, you’re calling something evidence for a god that really isn’t. You haven’t really shown what data defines a god or its attributes other than human invention. Everyone, for example, can see the objective evidence for the existence of our star, the sun. It’s observable, detectable, it’s effects are felt by everyone and can be studied. It produces predictions we can confirm on the earth. No one can deny or have any doubt about that.
Any religion can claim to be divine. The bible hasn’t proved its claims but rather the opposite. Many of its claims have been disproved by many fields of science and certainly the archeological record. From that alone, we learn the bible is not a historicity, but rather a work of literature.
Christians claim to know the origin of the universe based on their particular knowledge to certain interpreted passages of biblical scripture. But that’s not evidence validated by actual facts. It’s merely reference to literature written by whatever the writers wanted to write.
Job 26:7: “He hangeth the earth upon nothing.”
This is only one of the many verses in that Book you were talking about, the truth of which scientists of the later times were able to validate (Earth is suspended, only the sun’s gravity holds it in its orbit). Have you read that Book from cover to cover? I am guessing you have not. It has an immense number of verses on scientific data known to man–oceanography, atmospheric pressure, meteorological and astronomical information, energy and force, including (yep, you guessed it!) gravity. Many modern scientists (E.g. Morris, Collins of the HGP) have established consistencies between the Bible and Science. It’s just that they don’t have a dramatic story to tell the public unlike Stephen Hawking.
Read the Book from cover to cover, then read it again side by side with a physics book, get a highlighter and spot the similarities. That’s all it takes.
PS: Back in the old days, It was only one powerful Church which promoted the idea of the geocentric universe.
I think that all of what is and what we know did come from “something” not nothing. I just don’t understand where our consiousness goes when we die. I am personally, specifically of late, been struggling frustratingly with the answer to why and how we are self aware, make choices but what exactly is it all for. Why, for example am I any different in a sense from my dog. I understand the physical and mental aspect but why doesn’t he have free will and or “soul” per say. Aren’t all animals precious to God. Also can you believe in evolution yet still belive in a godly power. I struggle with this. Why is our consiousness not part of evolution of man. This is my biggest struggle. We became so smart we have 100 % free will. All have to admit we still carry true basic animal traits and behaviors. I’m not saying I don’t think there is a God I just can’t for the life of me turn my darn brain off. I’ve been researching all of this daily for hours. It’s frustrating and upsetting me. Geez I’ll stop now, for now. Maybe one of you can help me.
Author
Those are all really great questions Nate. I thought about some of them before. It sounds to me like you are currently an agnostic. If you’d like, you can click on the contact link on my website and we can have a conversation through email.
Or, we can continue our conversation through the comments if you like. The important thing is to please don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for the thoughts that you’re having. I think they are completely normal for some of us.
Nate – we believe we have a soul because God created us in his image and gave us a soul. All God’s creatures are precious to him, but people are his greatest creation (and with that it is our obligation to take care of each other, including God’s other creatures and the earth he created). We have free will because God gave us free will — but, unfortunately, we often use that free will to turn away from him. Still, he is always willing to take us back if we only turn back to him and repent — an all forgiving God who knows our weaknesses. So I’ll pray for you (that you will work through your struggles to believe) — and everyone (including myself) that we who believe and follow his ways will continue to do so (it is so easy to fall away) and for those who don’t know him (yes, I pray for Hawkins too) that they will come to know him in time. There’s a lot of information out there on Jesus Christ and Church History. I go to catholic.com whenever I have a question about my faith that I am having trouble answering. And if you look at it from God’s perspective, it all makes sense. I’ve learned a lot — but am still learning. God Bless you all.
What about Artificial Intelligence, which is on the way and it is only mater of time before computers will become consciences. Regarding free will I think you are wrong, because your will depends on information’s stored in your brain as result of your life experience.
Nate: It seem one main struggle is that you might assume everything should have a “purpose”. As if there should be some ultimate purpose or point to the emergence our consciousness, or a purpose for the existence of life, or that our consciousness continues after we die when there’s no such thing to suggest that. There have been several mass extinction events in earth’s history long before humans existed suggesting no real purpose for the existence of living organism to begin with if they go extinct anyway. There’s nothing to suggest our consciousness is not part of evolution. Our consciousness is dependent on our physical brain. We know this because altering the brain alters our consciousness. The problems emerge when people start assigning certain terms to define life or existence in general that aren’t really reflected in reality.
Thanks I’ll email instead of clogging up with comments!
by the way where is your contact link haha can’t find it
Hey Peter,
Just wondering, what are your thoughts and opinions on the end of the days? Using biblical scripture and observing what is currently going on worldwide do you believe the hype that something big is coming up? I’ve been researching it more and more recently and its filling my mind with thought after thought! If you’d be interested in exchanging knowledge and beliefs contact me at th3greatscott@gmail.com
Regards,
Aaron
Author
I believe Aaron that we are living in the end days and I hold a pre-tribulation view of the rapture. I don’t really engage in much conversation about it. Although my pastor is currently teaching through the Book of Revelation.
“Stephen Hawking does not have absolute knowledge” So then people who believe in God have absolute knowledge?….flawed argument.
Hi Allen, thank you for your feedback.
In your comment, you compared humans to God. However, the analogy falls short in several areas. The main one is that the Christian God is infinite while humans are finite. Therefore, there is only one eternal and infinite Being that has absolute knowledge, and that would be God.
Wish you all the best, Allen 🙂
Very good argument.
I get the impression that Christians need God to exist, therefore, he does.
I don’t believe in God, does that mean I dismiss the right and wrong morals?
Sometimes when I’m lying in my bed trying to sleep, I twinge at the thought of death… Not just mine, but strangers who die on the news. If I believed in life after death, I wouldn’t care about death so much. That’s why God only exists because believers (of any religion) need him to.
I loved your comment Charlie because that’s exactly the same thought that I used to have when I was an atheist.
I remember visiting a church when I was an atheist because a family member invited me. During the sermon, I remember looking at all of the people that were sitting in the church.
I remember thinking, “What a bunch of very unintelligent people! They don’t have any of the true scientific facts about the world today. They are so weak, that they need to make up a God of their own imagination to get through life. I feel sorry for these people!”
But there were some things that happened to me that made me change my mind about God. Do you have a religious background or upbringing?
I was christened has a baby, and when I was a kid I used to attend Sunday school. Most of my family don’t follow God so I guess my baptising was more for traditional purposes.
It’s not fair for me to say I look down on Christians, I know there are plenty of smart and respectable followers out there. I guess we all have a stupid side to us… I’m certainly no exception to that rule!
That’s cool Charlie, I respect you for not looking down on Christians. Was there a particular point in your life when you stopped believing?
I’m not too sure I ever did have a vision of God. However, during my childhood, I was afraid of ghosts… The theory of God, ghosts and afterlife must be related, right?
I cannot pin point the moment ghosts stopped scaring me, but I suspect it was around the same time I realised Santa Claus was my Dad.
The bible to me seems like a long, drawn out, boring Hollywood movie. Also, the site of a cross makes me feel sick. Why would so many people devote their spare time worshiping thin air?
Time is a human perception of measuring changes. When you think about it, time doesn’t really exist. So the universe has always been here but our brains are restricted to imagining a beginning, middle and ending to everything.
When I was 6 years old I believed and was afraid of God and gradually by reasoning I become atheist. On other side my soon was brought up as non believer, but after he developed paranoid schizophrenia he become believer.
I know some other people who after developing mental illness become believers. That makes me to think that ( I never use world “believe”, I reason or think.) extreme believes are related to mental state of persons mind. How else to explain suicidal bombers?
Author
So are you saying that people who are diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia are more likely to become believers? And are you saying that you don’t believe in anything but that you only have reasoning?
I found correlation with peoples mental state and religion. Religious siting are most probably delusions of individuals. Why siting of God, Virgin Mary or Jesus are privileges of individuals and not all people of the earth?
Will a pet hamster in a cage in a house ever understand how the house was built that protects him?
Why is it more likely to you that a God that cannot be observed or studied always existed, while gravity, (along with the rest of the universe), which can be observed and studied required a creator? When people like you say well something had to have created the universe you seem to be implying that everything required creation. Yet you can easily say that a God did not need creation. There’s no logic in this argument. Either EVERYTHING required a creator, or something had to have been here forever. it’s quite obvious something was here forever, as something can’t come from nothing. All things being equal that something could’ve been anything. Yet all things aren’t equal. There is no good evidence for the existence of a God, yet an abundance of evidence for the existence of the universe. And it sounds a lot less ridiculous to say that a universe with a few physical laws that we can see and observe always existed than an all powerful all knowing all loving God which we can’t see, study, communicate with, or observe always existed. No I can’t disprove that God exists, but until astronauts drill into the moon, I also can’t disprove that the moon isn’t full of tuna salad. I’m simply saying that once the need for a God to explain things vanishes, (which I can assure you it has), the very notion of the existence of a God, heaven, and afterlife becomes ridiculous.
Stephen Hawking is correct, God is not needed to explain anything. You want to believe in God, and maintain your faith, and I certainly don’t want to get in the way of that, but when you make claims that Hawking, and atheists in general, are wrong, I find myself with little choice but to retort. I once was a very strong Christian, and it’s not easy to give up that kind of a belief. Who wouldn’t want to believe that we have a chance for eternal happiness after we die? I hate to say it, however, but it’s just simply not true, (or at least as unlikely as the moon having a core rich with tuna salad). We as a human race were heartbroken when we discovered the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe, (something just about everyone believed prior to Galileo), but we had to accept it given the evidence. Someday everyone is gonna have to accept this too, as harsh as it may seem. Stephen Hawking is simply asserting that he’s smart enough and brave enough to admit what he really believes, and I respect him for this. To say there is no God is also no different than to say the Earth is round. Would you criticize someone for saying the Earth is round based on the claim that they didn’t have “absolute knowledge?” Get real! When you’re 99.99999 percent sure of something you should be able to say you’re certain of it without being attacked. (And btw, in Kings 8:27 Solomon is not saying God lives outside of time and space, he’s simply expressing astonishment as to why God would spend time in his house.
As for the rest of your arguments, I think putting “I wish” before each of the sub-titles is the only way for any of them to make any sense. Otherwise they’re simply assertions without any supporting evidence. One example, you’ve stated it was necessary for a God to explain the laws of logic. You then describe the three laws of logic, but you don’t explain why it’s necessary for God to have been responsible for them, you just say Christians believe it. The truth is, Aristotle invented the laws of logic, and they’re nothing more than an observation about communication. They’re not something we needed to distinguish truth from fiction. They were merely nice rules of thumb to follow in ancient Greece.
To conclude, I have to say that I apologize for posting this comment. I’m sure I’m gonna feel bad for doing so. It’s just so insulting to hear someone say confidently that I and other atheists are dead wrong, and then present a couple of ridiculous arguments to support such a claim. There very likely is no God, I’m sorry to say. I know you want to believe you discovered the holy grail for God’s existence, but I’m afraid to say there’s nothing in your article that demonstrates Stephen Hawking is in any wrong for asserting his atheist beliefs. Remember, religion is about faith, not evidence. You can have faith in God without attacking Stephen Hawking.
I think Luke that you deserve an award for longest comment that was posted on this blog 🙂
There are so many things I could respond to but I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the time to put them all in a comment. However, I do feel passionate about this topic because I’m a former atheist. I was an atheist for eight years of my life and am fully aware of every single argument there is to support atheism.
However, I went back to believing in God and Christianity in 2006.
I honestly think that’s awesome. I have absolutely nothing against people who believe in God and Christianity. Most of my relatives and direct family are strong Christians, and are always trying to pull me back into it as well. It was hard for me personally to change this belief. It started with an atheist Western Civilization instructor in college, (who I hated at the time for making me question my faith), but after years of loosing sleep at night trying to figure it all out, (along with occasional research), I simply couldn’t maintain it anymore. Maybe I like to think too much to accept the simple explanations. Faith, however, is a good thing to have, and I truly hope you maintain yours.
May I please ask you Luke what it was that your Western Civilization instructor said in college that made you doubt Christianity?
Adam and Eve descended to earth from heaven. When was it?.Stone age, bronze age, or Iron. Just like story telling of Lord of the Ring.
I don’t think the story says that they descended from heaven but that they were created. Adam was created from the clay of the earth and Eve was created from Adam’s rib. You can check out Genesis 1 in the Bible if you like.
As far as the age of the earth goes, nobody is able to give you a precise answer as to how old it is. That means that no one is able to answer whether it was Stone Age, Bronze Age, or any other age.
4.5 billion years.. Now you know 😉
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15 NIV). What do you lose trusting in God if he doesn’t exist? What do you lose NOT trusting in God if he does? For it is by faith we are saved not by works… It’s takes no physical action to enter the kingdom of God. There are times that even the most devout Christians come to a point of disparity. The one question I always rationalize is this; is it more logical to simply believe this was all creates by an infinite being that is beyond my reasoning or that all this came from nothing. That there was absolutely nothing but a void that created everything that exist today. Quite frankly I’ve never seen anything come from nothing, more less anything so vast come from absolutely nothing. Furthermore, logically reference the laws of centripetal motion and answer why all the objects in space don’t maintain the same direction of motion if they indeed did all come from a single explosion of matter “spinning” so fast that it collapsed into itself. Scientists make laws. They only fail to put them all together in the same theory. Leaving me to always question, what salad bar items does this “new” theory contain.
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if stephen hawking is so smart, why can’t he walk?
Um, im a sophomore in highschool and I can refute all 5 of these ignorant points you made in about 5 minutes total
Author
I highly doubt that. There will be a flaw in every single point that you come up with that you didn’t think of.
And they call us illogical?
I concurr, Ben.
Author
Ajmac, I asked Ben to provide any evidence to support his claims but he wasn’t able to bring any. If you’re able to bring any evidence that refutes this article, please feel free to share it with the community so we can start a dialogue. Wish you all the best ?.
I just read this article and it is absolutely written logically, not philosophically. Unfortunately atheists doesn’t understand the difference. Deductive reasoning will show me that if I can’t prove there is a God it doesn’t necessarily mean he does not exist (specially because I haven’t died yet), whereas atheists use inductive reasoning which involves generalization of things they have no knowledge of. Their reasoning: because I have no way of gathering proof of its existence I must conclude it does not exist. That is so illogical. It’s like walking in the middle of what seems an abandoned road while listening full blast to your IPod. Just because you can’t see or hear the truck coming at you doesn’t mean it’s not going to hit you.
Author
Good point Chuck, thank you for sharing that.
Your 5th point states god lives outside of time and space. You basically proved Hawkings point. If god lives outside time and space he lives outside this universe which means god does not exist in THIS time-space continuum.
Author
But when you read the statement that Stephen Hawking wrote, he did not say that God lives outside of time and space. He says that God does not exist period.
That means that Stephen Hawking is saying that God does not exist in our universe or any other universe. Additionally, there have been no scientific discoveries of other universes besides ours. It’s only a theory.
Ok. But why doesn’t god do all the things that atheists are asking for. I mean after all he is Omnipotent too, isn’t he?
Author
That’s a great question Aroy but the answer to that is quite long. It’s too long for me to write in a comment.
If you’re interested, we can dialogue about the subject in a direct message on Twitter over email. My Twitter handle is @petenaotg You can use the contact link in the navigation to send me a message and I will send you my email if you like.
My email is Alex skywards outlook.com or Alexskywards outlook.com.
Mjpass@outlook.com** .. Oh god
I disagree with the statement that there is no God because like you said, he can’t have absolute knowledge of that. But how would not being able prove that God isn’t real be absolute knowledge that he is? People want to have an explanation for everything, so we try and find an explanation for something and we either find it or we don’t, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be found at a later date? All throughout history we have had questions for things that we don’t understand and so we search for an answer to understand it. That’s how we progress socially, technologically etc.. So just because we can’t understand it now, how would it make sense to just say “God’s why”? The ancient Greeks believed Apollo and Helios were the Sun gods and the Sun was responsible for many things, such as helping crops grow. They just knew that those two things went hand in hand, but couldn’t explain why. But now we have scientific facts for both of those things leaving no other reason to believe somethings else is responsible. Now we have to get broader and try and figure out why are there plants, why is there a sun, why do we need them, where do they come from? We know this as well. What I’m trying to say is there are many other religions with almost all the same questions, just different answers. So When it comes to the broadest, vaguest question of what is the Origin of everything, what makes one religion more correct than the other and who’s to say us as humans might find an answer or selves.
This article is just a rubbish truth. Nobody has proof about god existence. You all doesn’t have a logical mind to think perfectly.
Give me a proof that god is exist….
Author
Amex, when you say that you want proof for God’s existence, do you mean like something that would prove that He exists 100%? Or do you mean like evidence, the kind that would be presented in a court room trial?
First of all a super nova created our galaxy and the earth. And all your evidence comes from a book. And evaluation proves it’s wrong
Author
Can you please provide proof that a super nova created the galaxy so we further examine your claim?
Super novas form black holes which have a gravitational pull so powerful that they attract stars and other objects in space. They attract stars almost the same way our Sun attracts the planets in our solar system.
That’s funny, because I’m pretty sure the Bible proves evolution was wrong.. Anything is possible with Jesus. Satan is the master or lies and he is the ruler over the world. Still nothing is more powerful than our loving God. He gave his only begotten son to die for you on the cross, and you still want to turn your back on him. There’s a special place for you, because you want to lean on your own understanding and try to figure out how everything works. Good luck.. People have been trying and failing for all of existence, yet you are too ignorant to believe all of what the Bible is very clear to establish. “God created the heavens and the earth”. -Genesis 1:1 have faith and realize it’s not too late to trust and understand Him. Stephen hawking will be judged too..
I believe also that the Bible says something about he who searches for answers will never find them. I am not being exact and have not read the bible from cover to cover, sorry to say.
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Not sure where that is found either, Brian. If you ever find it, please do share it with the community.
Thank you for this article Peter. Was having a difficult time trying to wrap my head around why someone with such high iq as this man would be atheist, but it makes much more sense to me now. And you put it into perfect perspective for people on both sides of this spiritual battle called life. God bless you man!
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You’re welcome Oliver, I’m glad you found this article helpful. God bless you 🙂
Hey peter, I think I have one of the strongest arguments in this comment section. Why must you respond to the typical atheist claims with zero ground and not respond to my reasonable and well written question? I bring that argument to these kind of discussions alot and it’s often ignored because the person can’t counter with an equally substantial argument. Please don’t further prove this by ignoring this one as well.
You bring up a good point Daniel. I’m planning on writing an article addressing your point soon on my blog. Answering your comment here would take me quite a while. Unfortunately, I’m overcommitted with many different projects so I’m not able to write the kind of response that I would like. However, I am willing to communicate with you over email over a few days if you’re interested.
If you are, just click on the contact link in the navigation and send me a message. Thanks Daniel 🙂
It’s a difficult question to answer because it really can’t be answered as a whole. It just turns into a vicious cycle of counters to answers and answers to counters, only to end at a moot point of uncertainty. I accept that I can’t know for sure, but rarely will a religious person say that can’t know for sure either. Faith isn’t a reason for that, but rather a form of denial. For example I can have the strongest, deepest, most passionate belief that big foot is real, but until I have solid analytical evidence I have to except that I don’t know for sure.
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The only difference here, Daniel, is the authentic Christians claim to have a relationship with God. That means that they claim that they can communicate with Him and that He communicates with them back.
I don’t see millions of people saying that they can communicate with Big Foot. I don’t see millions f Muslims either saying they can communicate with Allah. Same thing with Hindus.
I suppose you can say that Christians are delusional. But really? Millions of them? 🙂
Yes. Million of people are delusional. Wiring of our mind is maid to be delusional. Delusion can happen because of our genetic make up, some kind of mental illness, under of influence of different chemicals, by electrical stimulation of our brain or even physically touching some regions of human brain. If you follow development in neuroscience you should be aware of this. The science is saying that they located areas of our brain which are susceptible to religious believes. If that area is more expressed (developed) there is very high probability that you will be believer. So believes are in our mind. We are on doorstep of Artificial Intelligence and it will be interesting to see once when machine becomes conscientious what they will think about God, or will they also develop religious thoughts. Will those machines think that we are Goods because we have created them? Food for thought.
You claim in argument 1 that “No one can prove, using logic, that something or someone doesn’t exist,…” Well, here is one person and one thing I can prove, using logic, that don’t exist: A married bachelor and a complete consistent axiomatisation of arithmetic. It *may* be that conceptions of god are similarly contradictory but we can only test that depending on the definition of god. The general refutation however stands
Yossarian, the problem with the statement that you bought up about the married bachelor is that it contradicts the second law of logic known as the law of non-contradiction. I referenced it in this article so please feel free to re-read it.
So making the comparison between God and a married bachelor are two different things and they’re not the same kind of argument.
Thanks Peter, The claim of yours I am disputing is where you state “No one can prove, using logic, that something or someone doesn’t exist,…” By giving a counter-example of something we can use logic only to prove doesnt exist I am also using the same law of logic to show your claim is false.
If I may expand: The contradiction (violation of the 2nd law) in the case of a “married bachelor” is obvious; in the second case I mentioned “a complete consistent axiomatisation of arithmetic” it is far from obvious and took one of the greatest logicians of the 20th C to show that this would lead to a contradiction.
It is not directly relevant to my main point but it may be the case that some conceptions of god also contain a hidden contradiction and could therefore be shown to be false using logic only.
As a further aside, the logician mentioned above, Kurt Godel, was himself a theist and in unpublished work tried to use model logic and a development of the ontological argument to prove the existence of god, I only mention as you too are clearly interested in logic which as you may have guessed was my field of study.
A further minor point, I am sure you know that there isnt one set of laws or axioms for logic. Some, such as constructavist or intuitionist axiomatisations reject the law of the excluded middle which you include in your list.
Ahh, I see now the point that you’re making, Yossarian. How about if I change the sentence to read, “No one can prove, using logic, that something or someone that’s invisible doesn’t exist”?
I don’t think that helps Peter; I can just as easily use logic to show invisible married bachelors don’t exist as I can visible ones!
A more pertinent distinction may be that one can’t use logic alone to disprove the existence of somethng the existence of which is possible. Although that’s close to a tautology.
One may be able to use logic alone also to refute claims that the existence of something is necessary rather than only possible – I need to think about that. I assume you believe that the existence of God is necessary rather than contingent? (This of course is the basis of ontological arguments including Godels).
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You can do that, Yossarian, because we can see bachelors with the eye. But what about things that we can’t see with the naked eye or with a scientific tool? Or what about things that exist in our universe but we still haven’t discovered a way to see them?
Visible or not, measurable or not, if an object’s existence would logically violate the second law, I can conclude with no need for empirical evidence that it doesnt exist.
Sorry Yossarian, I had to reply to your comment here because we exhausted the number of replies in our other comment thread.
Can you prove, using logic, that a unicorn does not exist? If so, then please demonstrate how you’d do that.
I have not claimed that logic can prove the non existence of everything that doesnt exist;only those things the definition of which contains a contradiction. So, no, unless you define a unicorn as “an animal that allows 1+1 to equal 3” for example, then I cant prove it doesnt exist. I also cant use science to prove it doesnt exist; science, technically, (unlike logic or maths) doesnt deal in proof, only evidence and probabilities.
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I agree with your statement.
Do you agree that no one can prove that God does not exist?
Generally, yes, I agree. With one caveat as I suggested in earlier comments: some definitions of “God” may contain a (hidden) inconsistency and, in those cases only, the existence of that type of “God” could be disproved by logic alone.
Thing is science is made by man so of course they will say what they want and believe what they want cause they are making up there own god/idle of no god and belief in science. They write down numbers, letters on a board on what they think means something but really means nothing as God created everything and those numbers and letters they write down God gave them the ability to do so. The sad fact is they will not enter heaven if they keep thinking that they are God as they think knowledge is power to the ends of the universe but as much as they try and try they will never ever have limitless knowledge even if they create a quantum computer which they think will unlock everything (utter crap).
this is an interesting post. I am currently in the process of rethinking my belief system. I used to believe in god, but didn’t really go to church. However, I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether god exists or not. so for now agnostic. However, it amazes me how many religious people are so worried about people not believing in god that they miss the real danger.Look up the transhuman movement which is imo dangerous. When you combine atheism and scientific physicalist materialism with an utter distain for most of humanity and large amounts of money that combination is a very bad sign. Then look at the current breakthrough’s in artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, internet of things, and nanotechnology and the huge potential for misuse.
You bring up some interesting points Elizabeth. It looks like your interests are quite broad. If you’d like to chate more about these topics, send me a message. Click on the contact link on my website.
God is something the human race came up with when they didn’t know anything about the natural disasters on Earth, since they had nothing, they decided to believe that there was a God either among the skies or below the seas.
Science has helped understand the secrets behind all natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
Although I believe that those who believe in God are people who are just scared of the fact that they don’t know ANYTHING about the universe.
Plus, meanwhile people spend their time praying to their dear God, great scientists like him spend their time RESEARCHING about the universe, and trying to solve it’s mysteries any way they can.
And no matter how much we pray, this “God” is never gonna listen to us, so we can’t just believe in some God that people have been making up in order to hide their ignorance, we can only believe in ourselves and that we can solve the mysteries of this universe with evidence.
If people still want to believe that there is a God, then try to find actual proof to support that fact.
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There is no proof that God exists. But there are many evidences that show that God DOES exist. If you’re interested in examining these evidences to find out once and for all if God is real, then please let me know.
Pingback: This is Why I Stopped Being an Atheist and Started Believing in God
I have a friend who doesnt believe in God ou creator and we are going to have a nice long chat and this was very helpfull thank you!!
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I’m glad to hear that, Mark. Praying for you.
I am very involved in the Quantum Mechanics and design of the known universe, and there is no way this is an accident, it is designed and if there is complex design there has to be a designer, however I cannot prove or disprove that the designer is involved in our lives as the popular religions imply. The concept of good and evil and having a moral compass is based on simple facts. my behavior in most cases is very Christian like but it is not based on fearing hell or heaven, I chose to help people to give without expecting anything in return, to love the creation and the people in it, to forgive and I know if I ever get to my death bed I will leave with a smile being grateful for the time had in this world. Please know that I studied the Bible for 5 years and my parents were Muslims, my father never forced it on his children and we chose our own path in search of God the Designer.
I am in love with God the Designer but to think that I will go to hell because I will not confess to Christ being the only way is not the way of the God I know. Please know that I do not say that Christ is not who the book claims him to be I simply do not know and all of your proof is not good enough to convince me. I do know for a fact that God the Designer exists and I love him for creating the environment where I had a chance to exist and know this FACT.
I think Stephen Hawking is misunderstood and most Geniuses know there is a Designer (God).
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Hi Nadre, Would you say that your version of God is a personal God? That means, can you talk to Him and can He talk to you?
peter i love god i believe in him but my neighboor atheist and he always tells me shit why god not real can you give me a list to tell him why because he always ask me why?
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Nick, so what you’re asking for me is a list of why God is real?
Why does the Universe exist?
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Why do you think it exists, Josh?
No Peter, you are no aware of every single argument to support atheism. If you did, and you understood them, you would be an atheist. One cannot see if one is blind. Religious delusions are a blindness to reality.
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Ambrose, since you don’t know me, you can’t possibly know whether I know every single argument to support atheism or not. Just because it isn’t listed in this article then it doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of it.
Additionally, I’m sure there are plenty of people in the world who do know every single argument to support atheism and still believe in a deity. I think your comment is emotionally charged and irrational.
If he stated leprechauns do not exist would you have a problem with that?
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Before I answer, I need to ask you a question to gain some clarity. Are you asking me about the leprechaun because you’re comparing the leprechaun to God?
Actually scientists don’t believe they have access to true knowledge of objective reality in the way you describe, that’s why we need science, only the religious are that egotistical. To a scientist we are not even a speck of dust on a tiny dot in an incomprehensible universe, always aware of our subjectivity and that we will always find new information to challenge the way we think, our senses send electrical signals through the brain, we perceive ‘colour’ and ‘sound’, we don’t feel the temperature of anything else, we feel the temp of OURSELVES change relative to it, i.e you feel your skin get hot, you don’t feel the heat of the kettle because you are not the kettle, you never directly ‘touch’ anything else, even the chair you’re sitting on. You see how limited we are? You don’t directly experience, you ‘perceive’, like a….biological machine. Do you know what anything, any ‘object’ looks like, how about light? How does your eye work? Who told you scientists thought they’d have infinite knowledge? There will always be updates and this being ‘wrong’ is called LEARNING. It’s the religious that refuse to do that. Willful ignorance.
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I wasn’t saying that scientists have infinite knowledge. The premise of my article is that in order for someone to reach the conclusion that God does not exist, then they would require infinite knowledge. That’s because they would need to be able to search the entire universe and know everything about the universe to be able to make that statement.
Since Stephen Hawking does not have infinite knowledge, therefore, his statement about there not being a God who exists is wrong. See my point?
If the statement that God exists and has always existed sounds resonable to you, than why deny the exact same statement about the universe? What if the universe was just always there? Exploading and then expanding to its limits, then shrinking and exploading again? And the possibility that the God has created these conditions for us to live in is the same as it could’ve just happened (by an accident, as you say). No God. EVERYTHING in this universe is in the perfect cosmic harmony. Everything that happens leaves consequences, and that’s just how everything is. The possibility that there is some misterious force that somehow put everything in order is just ridiculous. Your arguments are really bad, in fact, I think it’s just your desperate try to defend something that you so deeply want to believe in. If you really did deeply believe, you wouldn’t just go around prooving something to others but mostly to yourself. As I said, you are desperate. And, just maybe, why would a person with such a high intelligence level be so incapable of coming to the same colnclusions like you did? Umm, because maybe, just maybe, your conclusions could be wrong? As your holy book says, God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. So, if he is omnipotent, why do you underestimate him by suggesting that he CAN’T satisfy everyones wish of prooving his existance? And how could you explain the statement that the God made gravity?! Also, logic isn’t something God has just ‘injected’ in us. It’s common sense that human beings have developed their way of thinking, their logics, moral and skills through the EVOLUTION. I hope you have some pretty damn good argument to deny that fact. Extreme (you would do and say almost anything no matter how irrational it sounds just to prove the existance of God) ‘modern’ christians like you never fail to make me laugh. I hope you’ll find a way ro REASONABLY answer my doubts, which I don’t really think I should expect from you.
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Hi Bella, please forgive me, I’m not able to type up a long answer to your comment because I’m about to leave work right now. However, the short version is that the scientific community rejects that the universe has always existed.
It’s been proven that the universe began a certain amount of time ago. Scientists disagree about how old the universe is but we know that there was a certain point of time in which it appeared out of nothing.
If you’re interested in talking more about this, please feel free to send me a message using the contact form on my website. It will go to my email and I’ll be able to reply back to you. Thanks Bella 🙂
Sorry my post about objective knowledge was a reply to someone else but it’s not letting me reply directly for some reason. In any case, yeah I was comparing the leprechaun to god and your comment says why: ‘they would need to be able to search the entire universe and know everything about the universe to be able to make that statement.
Since Stephen Hawking does not have infinite knowledge, therefore, his statement about there not being a God who exists is wrong. See my point?
This reasoning can be said for leprechauns, zeus, the flying spaghetti monster and invisible dragons and it is the reason we have science to begin with. All atheists agree with you that no one can prove god doesn’t exist because if he doesn’t exist as they suspect….it would be impossible to test him. Not that it matters because christians claim that’s impossible anyway. So I can create any entity I like so long as I stick him outside of the realms of everything. Now I’m not saying such a thing doesn’t exist, but if it does, it wouldn’t be the god most claim to know. How many layers do you see in the bible, qu’ran or any other holy book? What exactly is your version of god? It isn’t God Himself I have a problem with…it’s the ‘logic’ used to prove his existence.
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I’m sorry that you are having problems with the commenting system.
I read your comment about not having infinite knowledge. Here’s the thing, no one can prove that leprechauns, Zeus, and the flying spaghetti monster do not exist. It’s a logical impossibility. When we say that those things don’t exist, we are really making an assumption. If you have a logical statement that you can share in the comments in which you can prove that these things do not exist, please go ahead and share it.
Just to clarify, what I mean by logical statement is the use of a premise, or a series of premises, to lead to an irrefutable conclusion.
If you’re able to come up with one, I will then share with you the problem with comparing leprechauns, Zeus, and the flying spaghetti monster to God.
Totally agree
Sorry, also in your comment to someone else, the scientific community DOES NOT reject the universe having always existed and if you get technical about it, really all believers in the big bang believe that the universe has always existed because they have a specific idea about the beginning of time here, ‘always’ is a word concerning time and you cannot have ‘before’ time since before is a property of time, like trying to find north of the north pole, eventually you will end up where you started. The beginning of time itself is necessary for everything to happen the way we think it did, what scientists are actually rejecting is the notion of time existing ‘before time’ because that would be ridiculous. They say the universe has existed for about 14 million years, well that is all of time…always = 14b yrs. Likewise, a universe from ‘nothing’…nothing may be very different from your idea of nothing. Don’t write off science x
Yeah I get it, but that’s what I’m saying. If the point you are making is ‘God is as likely to exist as leprechauns or flying spaghetti monsters’ then I have no issue with your logic. But if you’re saying this is reason to believe in god then I don’t see how. There could be reasons to believe in god but this definitely wouldn’t be one of them. Using this to believe in anything would mean you should believe in EVERYTHING until proved otherwise rather than the other way around. It would mean the devil is just as likely to have created god since you can’t prove otherwise. The universe is a giant coffee cup made by a 4 headed fish until you can prove otherwise. My keyboard is actually a shape shifting unicorn until you can prove otherwise. A scientist (well, anyone really) will tell me my keyboard is a keyboard, they will tell me exactly what it’s made of and it’s up to me to prove otherwise. They know they can’t prove it isn’t if I make shape shifting unicorns ‘magical’ but they aren’t being unreasonable in telling me I’m wrong. What’s more, when it’s shown on TV how keyboards are made or the factory name is stated on the box, they aren’t doing it to spite my belief and I don’t expect a disclaimer saying (also could be made from unicorn magic…we don’t really know)
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I’m not saying that God is as likely to exist as leprechauns or flying spaghetti monster’s. What I am saying is that Steven Hawking’s statement “there is no God” is an absolute statement that he cannot make. That’s why the title of this article is, ” Steven Hawking says there is no God but here’s why he’s wrong”.
I have plenty of other articles that talk about reasons to believe in God. Some of them are based on philosophy and others are based on science.
Okay, I agree that talking in absolutes like that probably harms his position more than helps it, purely because of who he is but I still don’t think anyone would have had an issue if he’d said ‘There are no leprechauns’ which is essentially doing the same thing, if he’d said Zeus didn’t exist I’m guessing you’d probably be fine with that, most of us are atheists concerning most gods throughout history. Otherwise we’d be going round in circles.
I will definitely check out your other articles, I’d be interested to know what exactly your definition of god is, I think you get to a point in both science and religion where you’re essentially talking about the same things in different languages, not religion in the sense of praying to a personal god and hating gay people, but more in the belief of an ultimate source of everything, us being just a small part of the manifestation of that ‘everything’. ‘Inspired’ rather than ‘literal word of god’.That source would have to be eternally true and not reachable through just a single religion, enlightenment and being born again would become the same thing expressed culturally. Maybe we are all searching for the same thing and the word ‘god’ just comes with too much baggage for some of us. Thank you for taking the time to respond x
I don’t understand why people say that the universe has to have a creator and a beginning but god doesn’t need one. Why can’t the universe be eternal and always be here? There are actually models of the universe that have the universe always have been here and will always be here so there does not need to be a god.
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From the research that I’ve seen, Thomas, most believing and unbelieving scientists have found evidence that the universe does have a beginning which rules out that it was eternal.
If you try to explain your way out of the existence of the universe with god,
how do you explain the existence of god?
You’re best to just explain the world as a big I don’t know.
You can’t use logic with god.
Best comment yet.
Not necessarily because most of that evidence proves that there was a Big Bang and everything has accelerated from that point. But, there is no evidence in our universe of what happened before the Big Bang so the universe could be eternal.
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Please google “is the universe eternal” and see what comes up.
I did google that and mixed results came because we don’t know enough and like I said, there are models of the universe that are eternal and aren’t. We can’t just make a firm decision though with this or it’s like saying that there is definitely a god or there is definitely no god. We just don’t know enough.
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And hence is the dilemma, Thomas. For example, I can provide for you two different books, written by two different authors, published by two different publishers. In the first book, the author provides evidence for the Holocaust being a fabricated historical event. In the second book, the author provides evidence for the Holocaust being an actual historical event that took place.
Some people will believe the first author. And others are going to believe the second author. So then if this is the case, how do you search for truth?
What created God then, and then what created what created God? By your own logic, everything must have a creator. So where did God come from, and who made that happen?
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That’s a great question. Since I get asked this question often, I created a blog post that answers it. The answer is in the middle of this article if you scroll down to the heading, “Who Created God?” You may be interested in reading the entire blog post.
http://notashamedofthegospel.com/apologetics/proof-that-god-exists/
There is no evidence of God’s existence. None. Just the flawed thought of “well, if there isn’t a God, how did it happen then?” That’s not evidence. That is, quite simply, our need as humans to make sense of things
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Well, Steven, I think that your comment is missing 4 words and they are, “In my opinion.” That’s because tens of millions of people from today and throughout history would disagree with your statement that there is no evidence for God’s existence.
1. “Hawking didn’t say that he doesn’t believe in God, he said that there is no God.” Scientist rely on empirical evidence. By taking a or any theory and proving or disproving it/them by analyzing evidence. It is therefore impossible for a scientist to prove the existence of anything that provides no evidence of it existing.
2. “Stephen Hawking Doesn’t Have Absolute Knowledge” I am sure that Hawking would absolutely agree with that statement… it is logical. He is a man an obviously not omnipresent. “No one can prove, using logic, that something or someone that’s invisible doesn’t exist.” That’s because it would require absolute knowledge.” Revert to the (1) Something that is invisible… to what? the eye? to scientific testing? that leaves no trace of it’s existence? Air is invisible, but, its existence can be proved. Many things are invisible to the eye as well, many things have been invisible to scientific testing with the equipment available at the time. For god to exist to Steven Hawking, he would not need to be omnipresent. He would only need to be around when Jesus shows up and makes his presence known. Physical proof of the existence of god is impossible with the equipment currently available.
3. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” -S. Hawking This not a true statement? but, “The laws of the universe were created by God, and no one else.” is supposed to be true? Not scientifically. If the existence of god cannot be proved, then the later statement cannot be true… scientifically. Albert Einstein had a theory that gravitational waves existed. Through theoretical physics, though they were invisible and no proof of their existence was found until just recently when the equipment to measure them was created. Now we KNOW gravitational waves exist.
4.”The answer is by using the laws of logic. Without the laws of logic, we wouldn’t be able to know whether a statement is true or false.” I agree. Using logic however, if you cannot prove the existence of something, then logically it cannot exist. “In fact, Hawking wouldn’t even be able to know whether any of his statements are true or false if it weren’t for the laws of logic.” YES! Very true. “Christians believe that the laws of logic come from God.” True, however, scientifically, one can believe something exists but that does not make it so until it is proven with evidence. i.e: Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves.
5. “The universe began to exist at a certain point in time. Since we know that it’s impossible that the universe created itself, then it must have had a Creator.” No we do not know that it was impossible. The “Big Bang” is a theory that has become more accepted as more empirical proof has been detected. “Then I answer, “No one created God. He is eternal, He has always existed.” “There must always be an uncaused first cause that created everything that began to exist. So Stephen Hawking’s statement that there is no God is obviously false.” This statement is in contradiction with the first statement, logically. The law of non-contradiction? It is impossible for something to create itself, but it is possible for something to exist that was never created? Scientifically doesn’t float.
6. “You Can’t Measure God Through Science” An absolute truth! “Therefore, a physical detection of God using scientific measurement isn’t possible.” If you know that to be true, then why would you ask a trained scientist this question, or question his reasoning. No one has seen god and there is no evidence of his existence. Therefore, BELIEF is all we have until science comes up with the equipment to prove his existence or Jesus returns. Or you die and come face to face with the almighty. But then, only you would know and not the world.
7. “Stephen Hawking is Wrong About God” Not true. Scientifically speaking his is absolutely correct. You could say ” I believe Steven Hawking is wrong about god, and you would be correct. Because “you believe”. Still that that doesn’t prove god exists or that Hawking is incorrect.
8. “But the problem is that every skeptic wants their own sign in order to believe in God.” I don’t believe that to be true. There are a lot of skeptics, and if you polled them all… I would venture to say that many would ask for the same signs.
However, if you asked a scientist, I believe he most would say that a sign may not be proof. But, show me some empirical evidence, that I can test and prove… I’m in!
Keep on believing… It works for you. But, as it is impossible to prove god exists… I’d keep science out of it. There is no win there.
Author
I read your comment and I found myself questioning your position on the subject. After reading it, I’m not sure where you stand on the topic of the existence of God. If you’d like, feel free to share with the community.
There is a theory that “the big bang” was not the first but the last in a series of big bangs. The theory is that expansion slows and gravity pulls everything back together to a singularity. Similar to a supernova. Then an explosion or big bang occurs where upon the matter spreads and expands until it can no longer, and so on.
There LOTS of things we as humans cannot prove or know for sure. This thing about god existing or not, whether the universe is eternal or not, whether the universe was created or not and who created god (if existing) etc etc are just stacks of problems where you either accept the fact that nobody knows, or you fool yourself into believing. It is called believing simply because you cannot and you will not know, as opposed to knowing (when there is no place for believing).
Come off your horses folks. Face reality. It does not matter if you are Steven Hawking or anybody else. We do not know! What I do know is that the overall content of the bible, the koran and the stack of other “holy” books out there is logically and evaluated based on simple probability impossible. You may as well resort to the weekly analysis of the positions of the stars….
Okay genius, by your own admission you say that something cannot come from nothing. Therefore, where did God come from?
Author
That is a simple answer, Thom. In the logical argument for the existence of God, there must be an uncaused first cause. That first cause is God and He is eternal. He is uncaused, He wasn’t created, and He has always existed.
I don’t really know about that…. AND neither do you. Your argumentation has no basis of any kind, which is the reason why you and many with you BELIEVE, exactly because you cannot possibly know.
On the other hand, if you apply probability to all the fantastic capabilities you claim your god is equipped with, then the probability of such an existence is negligible since there is nothing that can be positively attached to this god.
Author
So if I show you that the probability for God’s existence is greater than the probability of His nonexistence, would you become a believer?
Be my guest and give it a try, but I am certainly not holding my breath.
Probabilities prove nothing. If you’ve ever really dealt with math much. The probability of even being born is quite low.
Totally illogical article. I am neutral in this debate but if you want to post about anything just dont post the thoughts that are totally illogical in scientific point of view. Peace out… 🙂
Author
And what is it about this article that you find illogical?
Thank God for believers like you Peter and thank you for this article. I was looking for answers how to respond to those who say there is no God, and found this article. It has bee a help to me.
Hey i am confused about gods as there are many religions. Every religion has there own gods . Then which God has made this universe.
That is a very good question that the religious believers do their best NOT to answer by avoiding the question and commenting on all sorts of other things. Anybody who can use their “godgiven” intelligence will understand that all these religions are man made and not reflecting anything anchored in reality. Today, they claim that there has to be a god since the creation of the universe has not been 100% explained by science. They have stopped commenting on the fact that the planets, the moon and the stars at one stage were equally shrouded in mystery and could only be explained by the existence of a god…. There will probably always be observed reality that we cannot explain or understand completely, so the religious priesthood can continue claiming that there must be a god. History shows that they are just moving to new positions as science makes progress. It simply is ridiculous.
OK .. so, as many six year-olds ask, who created God? And … what difference does it make whether he exists or not?
Hi Kit, you are hitting the nail (the problem) on the head in the simplest and clearest way possible!
Elegant and powerfully clear. Especially the last part should stop the faithful (but of course it will not, because all real life experience demonstrates in a crystal clear fashion that the “all powerful god” makes absolutely no difference at all on this planet. Then the faithful may continue their song and dance about us stupid humans not understanding “his ways” when earthquakes and hurricanes hit and kill. Or whatever.
Seems pretty arogant for any human being to think that they can KNOW not just the existence of a supreme being, but think they can know, and do in fact know, the nature of that being. If you contest Hawking saying what does not exist, how can you then say no more than one god exists without bathing in hypocrisy? believe what makes your life better. Use faith where needed. All fine and good, but do not try to prove you have a leg up on the atheist. Moral or factual.
Hi Peter, I’ve read your article, and have many questions, but I would like to focus on a couple of points in the first instance….
Your article title indicates that Hawking’s reasoning for the non-existence of God is incorrect. You have correctly pointed out that it’s not possible to logically prove a negative *in this context*. However, during the article, you flipped from demonstrating that Hawking’s statement was technically incorrect, to claiming that God exists.
For example, in Point 2) “A God is Necessary to Explain the Law of Gravity”, you have quoted Hawking, and stated that he is wrong. For the sake of this discussion, let’s agree that he is wrong. You then ask, “Where did the law of gravity come from?…The fact that there is a law of gravity in the first place points to the existence of a series of laws that govern the universe”.
From this, you then assert, “The laws of the universe were created by God, and no one else”.
Nowhere in the text of Point (2), have you explained how or why the existence of the ‘laws of the universe’ *must* be attributed to God. You have made an assertion without any basis. You may have a basis, but you haven’t explained it here.
All that I can gain from your article is an assertion that because Hawking is wrong to have made a logically incorrect statement, then the answer to certain questions, such as “Where did the law of gravity come from?”, must be, “God did it” (for the purposes of clarity, I am paraphrasing). In order for your article to be useful, you will need to explain why your assertions are valid.
Why must it have been a god? Why could it not have been something else?
I think that there is also be a problem of conflation relating to your use of the word ‘law’. When you refer to the ‘laws of the universe’, you are using the word ‘law’ to indicate that certain ‘rules’ were ‘created’ by a being, in the same way that we have ‘enforced rules’ in our society; indeed, societal laws are ‘created’. The conflation occurs, because your use of the word law suggests that the ‘laws’ of the universe must also have been ‘created’. However, when we refer to ‘laws’ in science, we are referring to ‘scientific laws’. These are not enforced rules that were created by a being; they are statements based on repeated experimental observations that describe some aspects of the universe. In other words, scientific laws are ‘descriptions’, not ‘enforced rules’.
Well stated (and diplomatic) about the hodge podge of claims produced by Peter. Supported 100%. I would also like to remind readers about the fact that believers and church authorities have moved their position about their examples proving that there has to be a god. 300 years ago, almost anything observed in the sky could not be explained, “proving” that there must be a god. Today, it is hard to say that science can explain dark matter, the big bang etc., so again “there has to be a god” to explain it. May be the most troubling fact (for the believers) is the proven evolution, which they now fight tooth and nail by introducing intelligent design. It is certainly not intelligent to stick your head in the sand and reject evolution so you can “prove” the existence of a god. Nonsense from one end to the other.
But what is your evidence for God over the possibility that we are genetically modified beings created by a higher technologically/intelligent race that may appear to be God Like. Jesus Chris could well be of extra terrestrial origin and may appear to have super natural powers but he may just be from a more advanced race sent here to guide us!
Who says you are more right than the possible explanation I suggest!
Thanks
Nick
One “explanation” is as unlikely as the other. That is all there is to it 🙂
Jesus speaks of this when He says that even if someone was brought back from the dead they would not believe….your comment just reminded me of that ?
Tamara, the whole resurrection story is as unlikely as the rest of the unproven claims of the bible. You are not using evidence to prove claims, but claims to prove claims, which of course does not make sense. 🙂
Only faith can show you the truth thus those with worldly wisdom will not see. My own experiences validate His existence for me and, hopefully, for others who read about it. There is nothing more to be said; sadly you do not see. I hope someday you will ?
Chad from April 2015 here is an interesting link that counters your misstatements about the inaccuracy of the Bible:
https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/taking-back-astronomy/the-universe-confirms-the-bible/
Luke B
You having been Christian know that God is Spirit. This is something that cannot be measured in our scientific sense or mathematical sense for that matter seeing as the plane is different. He is able to interact with ours far more easily as well as other spirits (devil and his angels, God’s angels). Child-like awareness opens you up to such experiences.
Yes God can be seen, felt, and He also communicates, true faith allows such. Coincidentally I was pursuing science when Christ pursued me. All I have is testimony to my own experiences but when you interact with spiritual things the only way I found to measure it was taking it’s interactions with me to others for observation. It validated the experience I had proving to myself and others within the test I performed that God is real and so is the devil. (I was actually hoping to disprove the experiences when I did this.)
I have seen, felt and heard spiritual things and still do. By listening to the guidance I have improved my health drastically before ever knowing I was headed toward dangerously unhealthy living (diet related), I quit smoking with no withdrawals when I gave it to Christ (every time prior to this the withdrawals were intense), I have seen spirits in peoples’ eyes who were severely cruel individuals (serial killer level cruel- one wanted to be a serial killer and the other abused my friend so badly she tried to commit suicide to escape), I have known deep, hidden things about people that there is no way to explain-tested 3 different times in my life by those who doubted (This is not with me anymore-it is quite saddening having it because the things were always bad but it was a blessing in that I was able to see, during this time, that all people are flawed and hide darkness), I have been to places after dying and both places matched what I saw in the eyes of people in color (an incredibly dark black like nothing here), and I saw Christ’s righteous right hand pull me back to life. My life has always been full of suffering and weirdness that I cannot explain or escape from. I, like others on here, have a broken heart over those who do not have their eyes opened, only intensified by where I have been.
Ironically, when I was in college I was pushed by professors to be both a physicist because of my natural ability to solve problems as well as a philosopher (having been told I was a natural philosopher after asking only one question all semester of which I do not recall). I, personally, do not see either in myself feeling more clueless than anything. It was just funny to mention in this post.
Having been one who ran from religion early on (I have only been focused on God for about 2 years) I must now say that God is real and alive even giving us life within of whom there is nowhere you can go without Him being there, not even death separated me from Him….omnipresent most definitely. Many people are too focused on the world to be aware of His presence. God is meek…most powerful yet gentle not interfering with the free will He gave us. He HATES sin which is why He was so destructive with people in the Old Testament (the more one walks with Him the more one feels the same way especially when it comes to self). Good does not blend with evil; evil must be expelled through cleansing (fire, water, blood). Christ balanced the debt we owed to the Creator, who is perfectly just, so there would even be a chance for us to dwell with Him. He is the only way because He was the only perfect sacrifice that could settle the debt owed and through His blood we are cleansed and pure in the eyes of the Father; there is no other way.
I pray you reconsider your stance?
Bella
With reference to worldly intelligence:
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”
1Corinthians 3:19
Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
1Corinthians 1:27
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!
Isaiah 5:21
Basically, worldly wisdom is not Godly wisdom they are not at par with one another. The spiritual wisdom is only discerned by those faithful to God.
Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
Why will God not gives signs to everyone?
And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.
Matthew 16:4
God wants those who choose Him not those who expect Him to prove Himself so they might believe. These types will only see Him at the end. He does not bow down to us. He has given us more, already, than we deserve. Of course, you will not see nor understand this without first choosing to seek Him.
Well
I would just like to say that there are different ‘flavors’ of Christians out there. There are those who claim it and then kill people in abortion clinics, there are those who claim it and then hate homosexual people (both of these types only ever read the literal surface understanding of the Bible). Christ did NOT walk that way (a clear surface reading of the Bible will show such). But there are those who seek Him diligently that do not hate any people or condemn and judge them; they merely hate sin and what sin does to the world. I felt compelled to answer that because the hate that comes out of some who claim to walk with Christ poorly represents the truth. Peace to you?
The God of Israel is the only LIVING God and He does show Himself to those who have faith and seek Him. He consistently answers the prayers of the righteous and communicates with those who love Him. No other god does that. You will not believe unless you seek Him earnestly. No other god sacrificed self to save people.
I do not believe out of boredom, lack of an inability to explain, fear of death (been there, done that), hatred of science (in fact I believe the truth in science perfectly matches with God) or weakness of self. I believe because there are things in life science cannot explain nor ever will (science was my favorite subject and major in college). Like conscience, or someone completely cruel changing heart and becoming loving, compassionate and kind; someone with terminal illness suddenly going into remission when they were just told they would die within weeks/months, knowing things that there is no way one should know etc. this list goes on and on in daily experiences if one only learns to be still.
Max
To assume it is arrogance to know a God that wants to know you is flawed. It is actually quite humbling to be aware of the fact that the Creator wants to know us. As King David said:
Who are we that You are mindful of us?
Psalm 8:4
Those who draw near to Him see their inferiority and desire to be near anyway because of His awesome beauty.
Just because, historically, religions and peoples attributed the unkowns to a god it does not disprove that a genuine God exists.
Who is to say there is not a perfect match of explanation for evolution and God. There are layers to the Bible. The more you seek the deeper things are revealed to you. I do not claim majority understanding of this but I have experienced my eyes being opened to deeper things within it. Those who do not believe only ever read the surface words and generally take all of it literally not realizing that it almost like code that cannot be decoded without the Holy Spirit within to reveal it to you.
Read Ethics by Benedict de Spinoza. He was labeled a Heretic and excommunicated for his writings. Mostly, I believe, because it threatened the power base of those who use religion and faith as a tool of power to exploit people who either cannot or have not been introduced to the notion of critical thinking. God exists in the mind of the believer so long as the believer exists in the flesh. When the believer is gone, so is his God. The true believer knows God asks nothing from him other than tolerance and love for his fellow man. God did not invent tithing or the compulsory offering of one’s assets to attain a place in heaven. These were an invention of evil men in a quest to foist their power on others and accrue wealth through fear and the unknown.
2 Corinthians 9:7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
You should NOT give under compulsion but this does NOT mean you should not give.
Also God did include tithing in His Law to Moses.
Malachi 3:10
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
Proverbs 11:24
Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
Proverbs 3:9
One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.
Malachi 3:8-10
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
Deuteronomy 14:22
You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.
God does NOT change:
Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
2Corintians 9:6-7
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Acts 20:35
In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Matthew 6:1-4
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 23:23
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. (Note: None of these should be neglected (tithing, justice, mercy and faithfulness).
Giving to others is NOT something that Christ did away with and tithing, when not given to those who are corrupt, is a large way people are helped in ways individuals are not always able to accomplish on their own- such as medicine for those in third world countries. Although tithing can include money/time/talent you use specifically to help those in need without giving to a church denomination. If Jesus did away with such then He would have at least brought its doing away up when He mentioned the widow and her mites.
Mark 12:42-44
A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”
God ALWAYS wants us to display love and a great way of doing such is helping those who cannot return the favor.
Luke 14:12-13
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.
But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
You refer to those who abuse the Law but God’s Law still stands regardless of those who abuse it. They have been abusing it since before Christ was here and during His walk here but it does not void the Law. Christ dying did not make it so we should not be compassionate and care. That is NOT how He is. His dying nullified the sacrificial laws because He was the perfect sacrifice. It did not change tithing (tithing is a way we care for others and glorify God in the process-why would He want to do away with that? That is ludacris.)
Mark 7:9-13
And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.
Men will always find a way to twist things to suit their needs (at least until Christ’s return) but by them twisting it the original has not become wrong or bad, only the twisted version is.
May God bless you ?
God exists inside and outside of the believer. He does not ‘disappear’ when the believer dies. We would disappear before He ever did. He is the Creator. He calls you to Him before you even care to think on Him fondly. We love Him because He first loved us. What you are reading, based on these disturbing beliefs you state, is misguided and not of God.
Also He does NOT like ‘tolerance’ if one is expected to be tolerant of sinful behavior. God HATES sin so how could He be tolerant of such? He loves people and is patient so as to give us a chance and time to repent and grow in Him but He is NEVER tolerant of sin. Anyone who walks with Him is the same way. They love people but HATE sin, even within themselves. This spurs growth away from sin and closer toward Him. Tolerance encompasses too much acceptance. Darkness will not mix with light. The path to Christ is narrow and many take the wide path. Love is included in the narrow path but not tolerance. Remember, love may be patient, kind, not boasting etc but it also rebukes and disciplines of which are needed for growth.
May you see this clearly ?
Now, I believe in Christ… But I also believe that God is an unproven entity and always will be unproven. I believe to believe in God is purely a leap of faith. The arguments presented by Christian apologetics are either Illogical and/or invalid. If a person takes a completely logical and scientific standpoint, in a completely logical argument, they will win. So I will come from a completely logical standpoint.
The premises you Claim that “Hawing is dead wrong about God” don’t actually prove your claim…
1. Hawking doesn’t have absolute knowledge.
While this is obviously correct, this doesn’t prove the negation of Hawking’s claim
2. God is necessary to explain the law of gravity.
This statement arises from a misunderstanding of a what a Law is. A law is NOT an object. It cannot be created or destroyed. Laws arise and appear from the properties of objects and how different properties of object interact with each other.
3. God is necessary to explain the laws of logic.
This arises from the misunderstanding that the laws of logic are universal. They aren’t. Logic was created by Aristotle and studied and made stronger over the years. A good example is the law of Identity. If the law of identity were truly universal, then it must apply everywhere in our universe in all realms. But it doesn’t, not in the Quantum world. The law of superposition, which is a well documented, well-understood, and has been verified through countless experiments, completely contradicts the law of identity and the law of non-contridiction. Another example is light. Light has a dual nature(Einstein Won a Nobel prize for proving this). It exists as both a wave AND a particle. So, as we can conclude, logic is not universal.
4. Everything that exists had a cause.
Correct. But you commit a logical fallacy when you assert a certain answer over another, just because you believe in it.
Your 5th one is correct.
Author
Hi Daniel, here is my response to the points that you are making:
1. Hawking doesn’t have absolute knowledge
You say that this does not prove the negation of Hawking’s claim. But if Hawking is not able to prove his own claim, then his claim is false to begin with and that’s the point that I’m making here.
2. God is necessary to explain the law of gravity
I never said that a law is an object. I was saying that because there is a law of gravity that exists, then how did that law come to exist in the first place? It must have been placed by an Intelligent Designer along with all of the other necessary parts for life.
3. God is necessary to explain the laws of logic
I went and did a search to see if I can substantiate your claim. I couldn’t find any websites that say that the laws of logic aren’t true. If you can prove otherwise, then please cite your source.
4. Everything that exists had a cause
I admit that I ascertain that the cause of this universe is God. If you can bring evidence that shows otherwise, then please share it here in the comments.
Thank you
The problem I have with this is that you simply do not go back in time far enough. And I don’t mean the big bang. I’m talking about human existence on planet earth. We know that homo sapiens are at the very least,well over 100,000 years old. That’s roughly 98,000 years (or more)) of humans walking around on this planet before God supposedly decided to give His special creation His divinely inspired word. If that is not problematic for you, then I don’t know what to say. Never mind that Genesis 1 is completely at odds with science. The 1st chapter has the earth made first, then ‘the lights in the sky’. Excuse me, but I simply cannot put any faith into a book that can’t even get the birth of our planet & the creation of the stars right. The big bang might have some holes in it, but at least it explains how those ‘lights in the sky’ came about. I’ll stick with science, thank you.
Author
Here’s the way that I see it John. Both Christians and atheists who are in the science field all have the same data in front of them. It’s not like one group is not as smart as the other, even though we tend to believe that depending on our own bias. But you can find people from prestigious universities that have high degrees that fall in both groups.
What matters is your starting point. If your starting point is that there is no God and we all evolved from a single cell, then that is going to cause you to interpret the data in a specific way. And on the contrary, if your starting point is that there is a God and He first created the universe, plants, animals, and humans, then that is going to affect how you interpret the scientific data.
So in my opinion, it all comes down to your starting point.
Hi Peter! Yes, you are right that it comes down to the starting point. The fact is that any scientist within the biological field who has not made up his mind in advance based on blind faith in something that is supported by zero evidence, will accept the load of evidence that proves evolution on this planet. The fact that there is a small number of scientists that have fallen into the faith trap and therefore are blinded to any and all evidence, does not change a thing.
Hi Knut, I have two questions for you please:
1) What kind of evidence would you need to believe that a God exists?
2) Do you believe that most scientists are unbiased?
1) Something that is NOT just another baseless claim with no other “support” than belief. Verification, evidence, undeniable facts, those are the things that could make me change my opinion, but I am not holding my breath.
2) Scientists are human beings and we are all subject to bias to some degree, whether we like it or not.
Food For Thought for naysayers. Genesis is not at odds with science and here’s the understanding: in a German version of the Bible the word “formed” is used instead of created, that makes all the difference, when you really contemplate and think about what’s going on, and what has gone on. If you take rocks that are 4.3 billion years old and you “form” a tower out of those rocks, is the tower 20 minutes old or 4.3 billion years old? Atheist science will say 4.3 billion years that’s how will the Rockstar but any child understands that the tower really is only 20 minutes old. Both the science and religion can live together. In using the word formed everything comes into place. God formed the Earth out of material already available that was 4.3 billion years old and it had some dinosaur bones in it everything else there’s not a problem. One thing an atheist will never do is try to use science to explain what the weight loss at death that occurs after all breathing has stopped, let me reiterate, what the measured actual, albeit very small weight loss is at death. The religious call that the soul. Scientists have accurately measured in humans and animals , a mass loss, a measurable calculated observable loss of mass at death of a body, that is not a bodily function like loss of breathing and/or evacuation of fluids or solids, but something else. And the atheist scientists run screaming from the room away from the question… So what was that then? Max Planck the father of quantum theory believed in God and said atheists are shallow. He said Atheists look at “symbols” as he called them, kind of like judging a book by it’s cover or can’t see the forest for the trees. he said atheists are dead wrong and he’s basically the father of Stephen Hawking’s theories.
I apologize for my voice texting. The word Rockstar should be rocks are
Mark what a nonsense your text. is. If soul is non material then should not have any weight. For centuries religion was fighting science and now in 21st century is trying to use science to justify beliefs. Beliefs are not based on facts which can be measured. Beliefs are construction of human mind which feels very uncomfortable with a chaos and always trays to see order even if there is no order.
Peter
John,
I have found in my own faith journey that there are many things I do not know that peak my curiosity within the Bible and the only way it ever gets resolved for me is through the revealing of its’ truth by the Holy Spirit. I do not have an answer to the creation question but I have learned to trust God in His word and if He wants me to know such then He will reveal it in His own time.
Mark,
What you stated was a fleshly explanation which is taking away/adding to His word. I recommend not answering before receiving an answer from Him. That is dangerous ground. I do not know the answer myself but I most definitely know that what you stated was false. You discredit God when you say He formed the earth out of stuff that already existed (like a child builds a sandcastle). This is apostacy. He created something out of NOTHING. Not random materials floating around carrying dinosaur bones. Please be careful about what you say; there are many eyes reading that might go astray from such comments and you are hurting yourself as well.
God bless you both (whether you believe or not).
1. That is NOT how logic works. If one cannot prove his claim, it doesn’t mean that it’s negation is true.
If you say a claim is false, then you claim that its negation is true… and every claim needs evidence. Yes, Hawing needs his evidence for his extraordinary claim(and extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence), but you are no better making extraordinary claims that you have not proven.
Let’s say there is a unbreakable box infront of me. There is either a cat or a dog. I claim that, “There is a cat within the box”. Just because I have know way of proving that a cat is in that box, DOESN’T mean that a cat isn’t in that box. That is Absolutely fallacious. What if a cat is really in that box?
2. If you say that you are not claiming the law of gravity to be an Object, then why are treating as such? Physical laws don’t need to be created. By using simple logic and using some eyes, one can conclude that physical laws arise due to the properties of Objects, and how those properties interact with each other; which comes from the properties of the Objects themselves. Properties come about because everything in Existence has a nature. So one can conclude that laws come about as a consequence of something existing, NOT an external being.
3. How did you not find the information that I put word for word in my last comment? Did you type in “Quantum superposition” and “Einstein’s Nobel Prize for Light”? Did you read my entire comment, or did you just read two lines and reaserched my claim pertaining to those two lines?
4. Ascertain on what evidence? Strawman and factually incorrect claims? I provided information that our Logical laws don’t apply anywhere(Quantum superposition and Einstein’s Nobel prize), used simple logic and basic visual skills to conclude that physical laws arise as a consequence of the properties of an Object and the interaction of two objects with properties, and you just used a strawman of logic to try to prove Hawking wrong.
Here are my answers to your points:
“1. That is NOT how logic works. If one cannot prove his claim, it doesn’t mean that it’s negation is true.”
And neither does it prove that the original claim is true. I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this point. What I’m trying to say is that I am not making a claim here. I’m only going out to show where Stephen Hawking is wrong in his statement that there is no God.
“2. If you say that you are not claiming the law of gravity to be an Object, then why are treating as such?”
I’m not sure if we’re going to agree on this point, but I’m not treating the law of gravity as if it’s an object. I am treating it as if it is a force. And the point that I’m trying to make is that gravity as a force did not always exist. But according to Stephen Hawking, the law of gravity existed before the universe began to exist.
3. How did you not find the information that I put word for word in my last comment? Did you type in “Quantum superposition” and “Einstein’s Nobel Prize for Light”?
I’m not sure how the quantum superposition or Einstein’s noble prize for light prove that the laws of logic are not valid. I would very much appreciate an article that you can share that talks about this so I can learn more about these topics.
Thanks Daniel ?
*Anywhere should be “everywhere”
*Know should be “No”
Why is he trying to do that (to trap/fool) the wise? Looks like he’d want us to be able to use the brains he gave us to reason out the truth…no penalize people for being smart.
He does this so people learn that they need Him rather than depending on themselves. We cannot live without Him so we need to learn that truth through such things as making the wise in their own mind (worldly wisdom) foolish. It is one of many ways God teaches us in order to help us grow in Him.
I agree, it wasn’t right from him to say there is no God. It makes him sound like a nogstic atheist, and I’m not sure if he is one. I’m personally an agnostic athiest and there’s no way to prove the claim “there is no God” but if you say, “I do not believe there is a God” its just a response to the claim that there is a God. Question to anyone who sees this, do you think that atheists should prove that there isn’t a God, or should Christians prove that there is?
We all have free will giving us the ability to choose how to walk in this life. Neither side has to prove anything. If you choose not to believe you have selected your path. If you believe, genuinely, then it is by faith and you have selected your path.
Those who walk in the Spirit can see God everywhere, from the natural environment to the daily interactions with others or through the Holy Spirit revealing truths within the Bible. Those who go against God will not see His beauty. He shows Himself to those who love Him only.
So you see, it is not about Christians having to prove His existence or atheists proving He does not exist (no true Christian would ever believe this no matter what science says-it does change after all).
If you really want to see if He exists then seek Him with all you have then you will find Him. It is the only way…..faith (belief).
The only time those who do not love Him will see Him will be in the end. Just felt compelled to correct my earlier comment.
As long as christians, muslims and others not only claim that there is a god, but also do their best to push and force their opinions on the rest of society and the world and want values and laws to be based on their religious beliefs, THEY are the ones to prove that there is a basis for their claims.
The fact that non-believers have only negative evidence and probability that there is no god cannot be turned around into a requirement to prove that god does not exist. I do not believe that there are winged horses, or that Thor with his hammer is the one who creates lightning, but I cannot possibly prove it.
The fact that all religions and their scriptures present a load of self-contradictions and nonsense makes me positively sure that religions are human folly that I stay far away from. However, regarding the possibility that there are some sort of existence after life are things we cannot possibly know anything about during our lifetime. Nobody knows anything and nobody can provide evidence. I can live and die with such a basic fact, completely detached from religions and their nonsensical claims.
You are not being fair in a statement such as this. You say as long as those with faith push their beliefs on others they have to prove and yet science (your belief system) is pushed on ALL children. What is science? The study of the world around us but it can only be studied within our limited understanding hence why views of it change. Who is to say we have it right this time? In the grand scheme of things it is merely conjecture and it is pushed on all.
I stand firm in saying no one has to prove anything and Christians should not push, merely share and leave the rest to God. It is impossible to prove God exists to someone who has no faith. He will prove it Himself in the end.
You are wrong. Religion is based on beliefs and science on measurable facts. Do not play with words.
I do not ‘play’. Measured by what? Instruments we create from our limited bank of knowledge. Science, throughout history, has ‘adjusted’ based on new findings. This does not change because we have NO means to grasp the full scope of the world around us only to build and adjust accordingly with new discoveries. Does this make it fact? No.
Hi, our discussion has very little bearing on fairness or not, but I do think your stated views on science are more than unfair. Science is evidence based and in a process where the limits of knowledge are being pushed, you are right that the current findings are often incomplete, hard to interpret correctly and it may take time to get it completely right. However, we are talking about a large number of researchers that are checking and double checking each other (peer review) in an effort to learn more by experiments, observation and verification by others, so this is NOT a belief system. It is knowledge by evidence. There is no comparison whatsoever with the the major religions, who’s believers have concluded already about life and death and the realities of our world based on ZERO evidence. Without science and just following the scriptures, we would still have no idea about our solar system or the rest of the universe.
As you say: “I stand firm in saying no one has to prove anything and Christians should not push, merely share and leave the rest to God.” I agree with you that christians should NOT push, but leaving everything to god is certainly going to stop development and widening of the knowledge that we all benefit from in daily life. Kids need to learn critical thinking and be trained in logic and science. If they are brainwashed into taking beliefs as fact and the mentality of “leaving it to god” becomes their general life approach, then they are also easily lost as contributors in our real world!
I mention fairness because values are core for ANY society to function in a mature way and someone’s values are always pushed for that society to follow.
I do not actually have a problem with the study of the world around us, being a science major myself or of my children learning such. I do have a problem when people state that science is ultimate truth thus discrediting faith in God when science is no different than the view a caterpillar might have which then changes when it becomes a butterfly but still it is unaware of so much beyond its surroundings. This slow awareness beyond also changes its original beliefs of smaller surroundings. This is not ultimate truth to me. But the amazing things God does within those who believe is. I do not push people but I will stand up for my God (Christ) because He did for me. If God were not real than why are there so many people touched by Him and strongly believing in Him? I do not care to hear a weak response like the followers are weak minded or are seeking attention etc. because that could not be further from the truth.
Also the Bible is only nonsense and contradictory for those who do not have eyes to see. You can change this if you so choose.
Yes, that is right! If you choose to fool yourself and disregard all the nonsensical and cruel and inhuman parts, you will end up seeing what you want to see and believe. Exactly the same goes for those brainwashed into taking the koran as fact and god’s words in spite of all the nonsense also in this book.
Why is it that believers do not see (or want to see) that with thousands of religions, all claiming to hold the only truth, that there is no real probability that ANY of them are right?
Interestingly enough I viewed the Bible exactly the same way you do until I died. The Holy Spirit within has opened my eyes to what can really be seen when this book is read. To insult and discredit those who view the words differently than yourself is shallow. Please reconsider your attacks.
What you classify as attacks is not meant to be more than statements of opinion and if you choose to be offended or insulted, there is not much I can do about that. What it all boils down to is that I do not see any reason (and I do mean any reason supported by the available facts and probabilistic indications) to reconsider my opinion. If the use of the brain we are equipped with is “shallow”, then I would feel that believers are wasting their most important asset on smoke and mirrors.
You have chosen to put reason aside and to base your world view on beliefs, which you are of course fully entitled to do. I can only remind you that that you do NOT believe in one religion less than me. So how do you as an example prove to yourself that the christian approach is right while islam is not right (also being faith-based and claiming to be the only way to a non-existing paradise).
The only way to implement your faith is to decide to throw reason aside.
Others are always considered in my replie. Those of the world do not hurt me. I am saddened, however, and will now shake the dust from my feet and continue on. May your eyes be opened before it is too late. ♡
Also Christianity has the only living God who came down in the flesh to take sin away and rose from the dead thus providing a way for us to be with Him. He is the only God who interacts on a personal level with His people and is known for His goodness and truth. Sadly, none of this will matter to you. I lived with logic and used it to fight against a belief in God only to have logic thrown out the window due to experiences I could not write off in any logical way. Please do not assume I cannot keep up with the best of them academically merely because I believe in God. Logic goes out the window when trying to disprove interactions from Him. He wins EVERYTIME.
Okay there really is only one religion that tries to force people to either join it or kills them and that is the Islamic religion. I know what has been done in the past with the Crusades and all that crap but wasn’t that over four hundred years ago? We have people being killed if they don’t convert to Islam, Today. it is happening today no other religion currently does that. I am LDS and we invite but no other religions besides Islam kills people for not joining it. You cannot categorize religion by what has happened 6 Generations ago let’s work with today that’s what we have, you shouldn’t be fighting against all the other religions you should leave especially Christianity and Buddhism alone and go after the Muslims period
I do agree that islam is the worst of the lot and as such serves well to demonstrate what religious indoctrination from childhood onward can lead to. Christianity is also not today as innocent as you try to tell me. Look at all the crap going on in relation to abortion where christians clearly want to push their opinions and beliefs on everybody else. A fanatic even went as far as killing a doctor as you probably know. Society must be ruled by reason and common values and not by doctrine without any basis and to choose between pest or cholera was never a good idea.
People who kill are not genuine Christians. Though shall not kill is one of the ten commandments. If you try to refer back to the old testament as rebuttle you must realize things were added after Christ such as gentiles being included with the Jews and Christ telling us to turn the other cheek and love our enemies, pray for those who persecute you. People who kill are NOT following Christ thus NOT genuine Christians.
I do appreciate what you are saying and agree that there are lots of very nice “genuine christians”, but you do conveniently not comment on my main point. Regardless of your wish to classify the christian religion as superior to e.g. islam and to exclude those being extreme in any religion, I do see clearly how your “genuine christians” try to apply their religious beliefs and rules on what should be a secular society. When the law states that freedom of religion is a human right, then your christian preferences must carry as little weight as the folly of islam. The laws of the land should also avoid direct conflict with those who do not believe in any religion. The important point is that both the bible and the koran are 100% man-made (nothing else can be proven) and should have no influence outside of special interest groups (read faithbased groups).
I do not expect that we will reach any full agreement about any of this, but I certainly respect your right to believe whatever you decide. I do however, not respect or accept ANY religious faith to receive special treatment or preference in anything having to do with laws, rules and regulations for how society is supposed to work at its best.
First I must say that although the Bible was written by man physically these men were inspired by God or walked with Him as in Christ. You do not have to believe this but please do not throw your opinion out as truth in this matter when you do not honestly know.
Here is an example of how I have been guided to walk. I do not believe in mixing government and religion (although many of the commandments are fitting as laws for a civilized society-not kill, not steal, not covet neighbors goods/wife, not bear false witness etc.) Let the world run the world, they are welcome to it and I choose to live in it but not of it.
I walk peaceably with my God and do not push my God on others but I love Him so I speak of Him in praise. I believe those who are to walk with Him will hear and be drawn toward Him. Nothing more is needed to be done because God will do the true work. By praising Him, which I naturally enjoy doing now, His word comes out. All we are told to do is speak His word. The rest He does. I do not push but some people really, I can almost say hate, dislike hearing anything about God even if it is something as simple as thanking Him for a beautiful day.
It is in what I say and how I treat others that He is glorified and honored. The hardest I get is when I am defending an underdog who is being treated unfairly and this is merely speaking truth with no intent to hurt just educate but NEVER violence in language or action. Anyone who truly walks with Him would walk similarly to the above mentioned.
I hope you are more aware now of a remnant who follow peaceably.
I apologize for the opinion remark…I forgot you mentioned that there has not been found any proof regarding the Bible.
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