The Wordsmith&#39;s Forge

Agree, Hawking is stating his *opinion* (to which he is, of course, entitled), nothing more. I don't get why some people think that his opinion in a matter he has no special competence about weights more than the average Joe's.

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ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com

I think it's because he's one of the smartest guys the human race has ever produced. Okay, great. He has a brilliant mind. But take him outside his areas of expertise and he's just an ordinary genius, not an expert. Also, the tighter someone's field focus, the less experience they have with interdisciplinary work. On some topics, that's a nasty handicap, especially if you aren't already aware of the many ways it can bite you in the ass.

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ankewehner.livejournal.com

The "it's been around for a long time" argument doesn't make particularly much sense to me, either.

War and racism/considering everybody not in one's own "group" not fully human have been around for a long time, too.

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Apparently he's never watched Twilight Zone reruns...
The Old Man in the Cave...
Whether God is real or not,
religious beliefs are part of our evolution...

And I must take this opportunity to point out that while Hawking my discount religion,
the Vatican has a history of regard for science.

While protestants in Massachussetts were burning witches,
Galileo was being held under house arrest
until the revealed truth of scripture
and the demonstrated truth of science
could be reconciled.

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there hasn't been anything remotely like consensus on the afterlife across religions, either. particularly not among religious "experts", if you consider being an appointed head (such as the pope) to count for religious expertise. scholars of religion in general have made very few claims about the afterlife for this reason.

that said, popes have certainly attempted to impose their views on matters such as cosmology, which i think they have since ceded to physicists in some public arenas -- though of course there are still all the billboards proclaiming the end times as of saturday the 21st. "religious experts" still attempt to impose their views on other areas such as medicine, women's roles, &c., that one might imagine would be better served by biologists or physicians, or perhaps patients or women.

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Indeed.

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True, and thank you for pointing that out.

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do you have some reason to believe that dr hawking is so narrowminded that he would be thus bitten? remember, this is the guy who not only revolutionized cosmology, but managed to write about it so beautifully that he's a bestselling popular author -- that demonstrates amazing interdisciplinary chops with writing.

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raindrops.livejournal.com

It's highly unlikely that Hawkings' opinion about the non-existence of an afterlife will have an effect on anyone, other than to ruffle the feathers of religionists who believe that he is wrong and to prompt non-believers to say "aha! I must be right!"

Net effect, 0 (beyond of course all the electrons moving around these intarwebz to convey the opinions of both sides).

Sure, you could say he's arguing from authority about a subject in which he may not be acknowledged as an expert, but the very fact that he is not acknowledged as such by those who believe differently means that he's not going to change their minds.

No Pope, no high priestess, no imam, no rabbi is going to suddenly say, "Well, now that you put it like that, Stephen, I can see that you're right. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can get on with my finite life."

I do think you draw an incorrect contrast between science and religion. The goal of science is (ideally) to understand the world and the universe around us. The goal of religion (in my opinion based upon observation of how it tends to work, and of course my data set is biased toward organized religion because it is the most vocal) seems to be to provide comfort despite a lack of understanding - and in many cases insists that there must be a limit to what we understand (often using violence toward that end).

Where science says, "I don't know, let me try to sort it out," religion says, "have faith, you cannot know, but faith brings conviction, and conviction means you can say that you know what you do not know and that's the truth."

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So it happens that he has no training whatsoever in theology, no one puts under discussion his abilities and competence in his chosen field, but that on its own gives him no particular credit outside it.

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how do you know that? have you seen his transcript or recorded what he studies?

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You're welcome.

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And just in case those wackos have guessed right this time,
and I'm taken up on saturday,
I'll be praying for all you over the next seven years...
:)

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paka.livejournal.com

Science exists in some but not all human cultures

I'd disagree, since I'd argue that a need to understand the world and why it's come to be, backed up by field observations, as universal. That statement comes uncomfortably close to Eurocentrism, for me. Is your definition the pretty rigorous, repeatable, modern definition? Because then yeah, I'd agree with you.

I don't like the idea of defining any external authority as the be-all and end-all for what I think about spirituality, including an afterlife. I don't really believe in an afterlife - actually, I'm pretty unsure of what I do believe - but I bristle at the idea of blankly accepting what some external authority says because it's "childish" for me to think differently.

Also, from a spiritual standpoint, I think the whole question is academic anyway. We're here, now. The world needs both justice and love, and if someone is just and compassionate because they're looking for some sort of divine pay-back, then at least it gets the job done.

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i'm sure that's very kind of you :)

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But science is still new...

Religion almost certainly began that same way,
and organized science has already behaved,
in some instances, much the same way organized religion behaves...

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possibly worth mentioning that on the evolutionary scale, "it works" means precisely: "it has not yet killed off every creature who does it before breeding age".

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also possibly worth mentioning that evolution isn't too popular with religious authorities.

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raindrops.livejournal.com

OK, I can see the (unintentional) tautology in my characterization.

I'll have another go in a bit.

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Well let's see: his bios (and his books)all mention his chair as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, his scholarship in Natural Sciences and specialization in Physics, his interests in thermodinamics, relativity, quantum mechanics, theoretical astronomy and cosmology.
His main research fields are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.
Nowhere are interest or studies in theology mentioned at all, not even by himself as a way to substantiate his views on the matter, he only and always refers to physics when talking of his views about religion.

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With *some* religious authorities at least.

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he doesn't have any degrees in writing either, and yet has written several best-sellers. in fact i suspect it's more his popularity as an author than his standing as a physicist that has caused this much outcry. have you even heard of andrei geim, konstantin novoselov, charles kao, willard boyle, or george smith as physicists, let alone their views on religion? (i'll save you the google: they're the last winners of the latest nobel prizes.)

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Not as kind as the atheist who has agreed to look after
the pets of anyone who's raptured...

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