Steven Hawking COMES OUT! I am an atheist, SCIENCE is more convincing than GOD!

It appears so.

I am in the middle somewhere. I don't take the bible literally and I don't think it's literal translation means anything either.

I believe science and religion go hand-in-hand, actually.

I have a certain level of arrogance, we all as humans do, I refuse to believe I am meaningless, therefore I believe there is a higher power out there, somewhere. Maybe not so much that it is "God" as Christian religions teach, but I can look at science that tells us there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and billions more galaxies and conclude to the satisfaction of my ego that somewhere out there, there is probably something or someone much more advanced that quite possibly has a hand in my existence.

Since we have absolutely zero proof one way or the other, it's as valid a belief as any.

 

Where did he or anyone other than those of religious faith claim we are the "ultimate being" in the universe.

 

An agnostic/deist who believes in sin? I find that highly unlikely.

 

Because some people put it together at the council of nicea and weee looking to unite the church under one creed. At the time there were plenty of religious text and sects thst recognized metaphor, analogies, and euphemisms and that is ghe overwhelming concensus today in the west.

Why do you approach religion like someone who is ready to strap a bomb on his chedt and kill everyone who doesn't think like he does?

 

Define sin, yes I believe that you can take actions ir even have thoughts and negative emotions that scar the true you.

 

That isn't what the Bible says; but in view of some of the absurdities contained within isn't it convenient to ascribe metaphor or 'what it really means...' to it in order to avoid ridicule?
http://biblehub.com/2_peter/1-20.htm

You either have faith in the immutability of god's word as written or you don't. In the latter instance you then have no right to call yourself a Christian. The Earth was 'created' in 6 days. That is the Biblical 'truth'. Nowhere in the Bible does it give permission to interpret those words as you see fit.

 

The council of nicea which put the Bible together was just an evolution if religion to suit modern needs. It worked to the empire held together a lot longer than it shoukd have.

Im not yhe fanatic here. You need only a mirror.

 

My guess is he bloody well deserves it.

That God exists. To put a little finer point on it, atheists and agnostics aren't born, they're made.

Seeing I wasn't responding to a fact, I fail to see the relevance.

I don't suppose it occurs to you that a person may know all manner of things without being able to prove any of them.

We're not all His children, because some of us have become children of the devil; but as to the rest, all you need do is consider the example of Christ, Who died a horrible death and was better off for it in the end.

 

I find that to be absolutely true. Making excuses for the obviously nonsensical and inconsistent stories in the bible can become a full time job.

 

I see... so the laws exist in a vacuum. Even if matter didn't exist, the laws would still exist. Got it!

The thing I'm not going to do is deny these laws exist. Of course they exist. But I find it intriguing that inanimate matter can react to each other without some form of intelligence to define those reactions. I find it impossible to accept that it just is.

 

Ah yes. "This sounds implausible/dumb/archaic/superstitious so we'll change it or attribute a more acceptable interpretation to it". Trouble is God doesn't allow for that.

I have no faith in any religious teaching. They are all beyond hypocritical.

 

So can sifting through the Bible for nonsensical and inconsistent stories to justify your own faith.

Seriously what separates you from them?

 

You lost it at the bolded part. Matter acts the way it does because of the various energies it possesses and we can measure and predict those and create certain "laws" about how they react to each other. Your assumption that ends with a god has no basis in empirical evidence it is a matter of faith on your part.

 

Faith in no faith is still faith. You sift through the Bible for things to justify your faith. You seek out both religious and atheist blogs to justify your faith.

Seriously what separates you from them?

- - - Updated - - -

Well someone may have heard of Heisenburg but it most certainly didn't click.

 

That's like saying my automobile exists simply because it exists. In reality it's a complex machine that is the end result of the work of hundreds of individual engineers and workmen. Someone made it.

Is the vast unfathomable universe, in the micro and macrocosm, with all it's laws and governing principles infinitely more impressive and complex than a Honda Civic or not?

If you could somehow drop a Honda in the middle of a bunch of stone age people would they marvel and puzzle at it? Or would they simply shrug their shoulders and accept this machine (something they couldn't possibly conceptualize themselves) as just part of the landscape with no particular significance?

Saying the vast universe with it's billions of star and galaxies and the rules of physics that govern them all just are is tremendous intellectual impoverishment. We many not know what God or the God force is but since it is the only thing we can possibly imagine capable of such creation
I think it's foolish to disregard such a possibility. I mean, after all, here we and everything else all are.

As probable as throwing a fine Swiss watch in a bag, hitting it with a hammer, throwing it up in the air and having it come down fully assembled down to the most minute gear wheel.

Purely as an intellectual pursuit I would say existence itself is proof of some creating force, whatever that may be. Now that there is scientific proof for the Big Bang singularity we definitely have a point where we can say nothing existed before and all of existence sprang forth.
We have a real act of creation! So there's no need to pretend that everything just happens to be and always was.

 

You seem to have propensity for assuming things.
Separates me from whom?

 

Who do you think?

 

God sits at a drafting table with an awful lot of sharpened pencils and other various architectural tools, but still cannot get it right. He created a self sustaining perfect world and then proceeded to create the creatures in his likeness that would screw it all up. Makes so much sense. Not to mention that he has not even managed to yet convince the entire world that he is the only true God. Oh brother!

 

You blame God because people are not other directed automatons and think for themselves (no matter how stupid some of those thoughts may be). Existence would be pointless if he did.

 

Why is asking questions nonsensical? I thought that was what science was all about. If you are set on the FACT that there was a big bang, the next logical step is to ask “what came before it”. Isn’t that singularity that existed before the big bang still the universe and requires understanding in order to understand why a big bang would have occurred in the first place?

And now we get some of these physicists raising theories of multiverses and parallel universes which kind of destroys the possibility of a big bang. It would require multiple big bangs; we would have multiple space-time continuums. It seems to me physicists are asking a lot of nonsensical questions.

 

And presumably you're in a position to know, your prejudices apparently being a more authoritative standard than the entirety of the knowledge possessed by the Creator of the universe.

 

I could never lay blame with an entity that does not exist for me, now could I?. People are screwed up because they are totally imperfect creatures that nature needs to do more work on. As I previously stated...God exists for the people that need for him to exist in their private world...to each his own.

 

You are correct. I implied it without it being specifically mentioned. My bad.

 

Oh God....Micketto liked your post. ....that explains a lot.

I did not address M theory.

I don't have an ounce of faith in science.

I made no preliminary assumptions

I'm not Catholic

I'm not an atheist

I'm not a radical Muslim

Science is not a religion, and "faith" has no place in it's processes.

Satan is riding you with a whip. And he's doing it on a road paved with good intentions.

Are you a happy person?

What makes you experience joy?

 

Why would the gods get upset at any person who does not believe that all of them or some of them exist?