…thinking back he realized that the God his brother had believed in had
been a kind of ultimate secular humanist, with a gentle and
abiding love for all people, patience with their folly, pride in
humankind’s accomplishments, and sorrow at their suffering. The
God my brother had believed in had been a Creator, not an ad-
ministrator or auditor, and had had no need to be noticed, much
less worshipped; He certainly had no need to witness ritual
posturing, and to demand it of the creatures of His creation would
smack of pettiness and insecurity.
Everyone takes what Stephen Hawking says as if written in stone and can not be questioned. In the end, nobody knows what happens when you die and if someone tells you they know what happens when you die they’re full of shit, plain and simple.
Nobody knows. If someone is comfortable convincing themselves they know what will happen to them when they die, they are either lying or they are self deluded. Exhibit A, B and C: Judeo-xtian religions.
Religions exist because we don’t know what happens to “us” after we die. That they were twisted and perverted into power systems is a shame, but I truly believe most of them were started honestly. For a few hours, anyway.
The more people accept there is no God (or at least that they shouldn’t follow the dogmas of those who insist they know who God is and what s/h/it wants you to do) the more they can see what’s going on with climate change.
Too many people might remain sheep for too long I’m afraid. especially with authoritarian religious tricksters like Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham et al cozying up to the orange mop.
I agree, and the other answers given here to the other questions, however briefly are probably what I’d answer also. Not equating myself with Hawking obviously, it just points out how obvious the answers to basic questions are, given the data amassed over time. There can always be conflicting or even disproving data/evidence coming in the future, but we are where we are now.
I don’t take what he says as definitively permanent. Stephen Hawking would be the first guy to say that current science is only what we can likely deduce from the knowledge we have on hand today and that everything is subject to change, given new data.
Hawkins probably went the extra step to make sure that there was no mistaking him for a religious person. I’ve personally encountered people who are convinced that Einstein was a tongue speaking Evangelical Christian before he died.
You or I cannot say that we are not brains in a jar and the whole sum of our perceptions in not a simulation. While it might make more data than the universe to simulate it, we could probably get away with a much simpler simulation if we are also programmed to be blind to certain errors.
I may not be able to prove that either of us exists. The hypothesis that I might be a brain in a jar is not help to me unless it explains something that I cannot explain otherwise. The hypothesis that there may be many parallel universes, so the evolution of intelligent life in one of them is very likely is equally unhelpful, unless we can actually show these parallel universes exist. Otherwise, the count of universes is just a random multiplier to get the answer we want.
If we are arguing for the immortal soul, things get harder. What I am is an arrangement of brain cells that has what I choose to call ‘awareness’. If that arrangement is destroyed, then I am destroyed too. This seems sensible - everything is new, then useful, then worn out, and then useless. Entropy may not be your friend when you are my age, but I understand it. Making an immortal copy of Steven Hawking so you can punish him in Hell Fiiyah for all eternity for being ‘full of shit’ and denying the God of Abraham, well, not so much.
Terry seemed particularly fond of the idea that only worship makes gods.
“Small Gods” is pretty much all about that, and the idea that you get the gods you make, and deserve and that perhaps you don’t have to act blindly just because “it says so in the book!”
Liberation theology is a secularization of Christianity, using the Bible as a framework to speak to people’s longing for freedom. It is an abandonment of the message of the Bible. Instead of applying the full breath of scriptural to the hearers, it constructs a new theology to appeal to your worldly needs.
I mean… he had a degree in theology and was a preacher. Plenty of Christians don’t see doctrine as some inerrant words handed down directly by god, but as a set of allegorical and semi-historical works that connect them to the community of faith. Liberation theology is still rooted in a modernist take on the teachings of Jesus, connecting them to Jesus, even if they question his divine nature.
Not going to defend or explain that one. Withdrew the post. I should have read the article more closely. The source was Conservative Christian apologetic garbage.
