Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven'

[outhouse]

Cosmic Log - Hawking: 'There is no heaven'

Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist, called the notion of heaven a "fairy story"


Now I certainly agree :bow:

And you want to argue with one of the top physicist?????

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Yes, but isn't he also deistic?

 

[fallingblood]

I'd like to see him prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no heaven. I personally believe that there may be an afterlife, but it is something I don't feel one can really prove either way.

 

[Pegg]

Cosmic Log - Hawking: 'There is no heaven'

Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist, called the notion of heaven a "fairy story"


Now I certainly agree :bow:

And you want to argue with one of the top physicist?????

LOL sorry, that made me laugh

 

[horizon_mj1]

Yeah, I would argue with this physicist considering his track record with black holes.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Yes, but isn't he also deistic?

And..?

 

[outhouse]

LOL sorry, that made me laugh

well humor was partially intended

 

[Levite]

Cosmic Log - Hawking: 'There is no heaven'

Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist, called the notion of heaven a "fairy story"

Now I certainly agree

And you want to argue with one of the top physicist?????

What makes a physicist qualified to make pronouncements about theology?

If Hawking tells me something about black holes, or the curvature of spacetime, or the probabilities of the Higgs-Boson being found next year, I will pay close attention and presume that his qualifications are beyond reproach, and above nearly anyone alive.

But his unquestioned genius for physics doesn't make him uniquely qualified to speak about spiritual and theological matters, anymore than it makes him uniquely qualified to make definitive pronouncements about Shakespeare's motivations in composing one of his sonnets. That simply isn't Hawking's area of training and expertise.

He is entitled to his theological, or atheological, opinions, as is anyone; but he is no more qualified to state that there absolutely is no afterlife than I would be to state that there will absolutely be a contraction of the universe followed by a Big Crunch.

 

[outhouse]

I'd like to see him prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no heaven. I personally believe that there may be an afterlife, but it is something I don't feel one can really prove either way.

I agree he cannot prove it one way or another as far as I know.

well, no one for that matter.

For years I thought there was an afterlife, sometimes I thought I had a angel keeping me alive.

Now Im under the impression once the blood flow stops going to the brain the shows over.

I think we live on in the minds of our loved ones left alive.

 

[Tathagata]

Yes, but isn't he also deistic?

No. He's an Atheist. In fact, his latest book has made popular the idea that science disproves God.

"Hawking's latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God. '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. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going.'"
-- Stephen Hawking says afterlife is a fairy story - Yahoo! News


.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Since he made the statement in reply to a question asked about fearing death, it was not "hard science" reply. It was a reply based on a lack of belief in the supernatural.

(For 'The Sum Of Awe", no, he is not a Deist, he is a declared Atheist.)

 

[outhouse]

What makes a physicist qualified to make pronouncements about theology?

If Hawking tells me something about black holes, or the curvature of spacetime, or the probabilities of the Higgs-Boson being found next year, I will pay close attention and presume that his qualifications are beyond reproach, and above nearly anyone alive.

But his unquestioned genius for physics doesn't make him uniquely qualified to speak about spiritual and theological matters, anymore than it makes him uniquely qualified to make definitive pronouncements about Shakespeare's motivations in composing one of his sonnets. That simply isn't Hawking's area of training and expertise.

He is entitled to his theological, or atheological, opinions, as is anyone; but he is no more qualified to state that there absolutely is no afterlife than I would be to state that there will absolutely be a contraction of the universe followed by a Big Crunch.

fair enough bud.

I dont think a theistic specialist is qualified to talk about heaven as little is ever said about such a place.

No one has ever been there and came back to talk about it.

heaven leaves open such a can of worms because everyone and every religion has such a different view.

we know its not a physical place

does it live on in imagination only? this question has as much reality of that followed by most religions that have said notion as far as I can tell.

what does any living human know about such a place with certainty? other then a afterlife started in egyptian and sumerian cultures over 6000 years ago as far as we know, since thats all that written history goes back

 

[Tathagata]

What makes a physicist qualified to make pronouncements about theology?

If Hawking tells me something about black holes, or the curvature of spacetime, or the probabilities of the Higgs-Boson being found next year, I will pay close attention and presume that his qualifications are beyond reproach, and above nearly anyone alive.

But his unquestioned genius for physics doesn't make him uniquely qualified to speak about spiritual and theological matters, anymore than it makes him uniquely qualified to make definitive pronouncements about Shakespeare's motivations in composing one of his sonnets. That simply isn't Hawking's area of training and expertise.

He is entitled to his theological, or atheological, opinions, as is anyone; but he is no more qualified to state that there absolutely is no afterlife than I would be to state that there will absolutely be a contraction of the universe followed by a Big Crunch.

You are almost correct and on point, however, you are not.

Heaven would certainly be an aspect of Cosmology; Cosmology is a field that Stephen Hawking specializes in and thus he is qualified to make such evaluations as to whether there is a heaven or not.


.

 

[Penumbra]

What makes a physicist qualified to make pronouncements about theology?

If Hawking tells me something about black holes, or the curvature of spacetime, or the probabilities of the Higgs-Boson being found next year, I will pay close attention and presume that his qualifications are beyond reproach, and above nearly anyone alive.

But his unquestioned genius for physics doesn't make him uniquely qualified to speak about spiritual and theological matters, anymore than it makes him uniquely qualified to make definitive pronouncements about Shakespeare's motivations in composing one of his sonnets. That simply isn't Hawking's area of training and expertise.

He is entitled to his theological, or atheological, opinions, as is anyone; but he is no more qualified to state that there absolutely is no afterlife than I would be to state that there will absolutely be a contraction of the universe followed by a Big Crunch.

For one, he was merely answering a question given to him.

Secondly, he supported it with a physical reason rather than making a purely theological statement.

=Hawking from the Article]"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he told the newspaper.
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven of afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark."

He's basically just agreeing with a somewhat commonly argued position that there is no mind-brain duality, and that when the brain dies, the person is simply dead.

 

[Alceste]

I'd like to see him prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no heaven. I personally believe that there may be an afterlife, but it is something I don't feel one can really prove either way.

Proof is not necessary in order to dismiss the notion of heaven as a "fairy tale" on empirical or rational grounds. There is no empirical or rational reason to believe we will continue to exist in some form after death. No compelling evidence has ever been presented in the entire history of human belief in an afterlife. From a logical / empirical perspective, the pertinent question is not "Why shouldn't we believe in an afterlife?", but "Why should we?" If there is no logical / empirical reason to believe in a proposition, then an empiricist must not do so.

Both questions are of interest, I suppose, to different sorts of people, and they are surely both worth asking depending on your point of view. I imagine that from a religious perspective, the most important question might be "Why shouldn't we believe?" And of course, just as there is no empirical reason to believe in an afterlife, there is no religious reason not to believe.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. For the record, I come down on Hawkings' side of the afterlife debate and defer to his superior empirical assessment of what is most likely to exist (or not exist) in all the universes.

 

[Quagmire]

I'd like to see him prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no heaven. I personally believe that there may be an afterlife, but it is something I don't feel one can really prove either way.

Of course one can, but only to one's self and only once (as far as we know).

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I'd like to see him prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no heaven. I personally believe that there may be an afterlife, but it is something I don't feel one can really prove either way.

You would have to prove it does in order for it to be true. Burden of proof is on the one who made the idea.

 

[Penumbra]

You would have to prove it does in order for it to be true. Burden of proof is on the one who made the idea.

The first sentence is incorrect and the second one is correct.

Something is true or false regardless of whether it's proven or unproven. But yes, the burden of proof is on those that make claims, especially extraordinary claims.

 

[Quagmire]

You would have to prove it does in order for it to be true. Burden of proof is on the one who made the idea.

Isn't the idea that "there is no heaven" an idea?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

And..?

He said you can't argue with a physicist so I assumed that that was like saying we should all be deistic,