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Syndicate
by the way how do you insert a picture into your post?
Maybe that's what she wants us to do if it makes us happy, trippie.
You know what Hawkins problem with explaining god is?
He has a weak understanding of politics. He doesn't really understand how the bourgeoisie propagate capitalsim and what happened politically to all the workers revolutions in the last century.
Do what? And who is she? How do you insert apicture into a post? Now learning that would make me happy.
If you teach me that , I'll refer to you as God for today. kinda like "My God Fidel".
Eagle Eye Hawking does not know how to insert politics into the the unyielding argument about a God.
Kinda like, "Why don;t people understand there is no God? Science has already shown evolution to be real, I don;t understand... Oh Ill just write another boring science book and then they'll understand'.
[ img]http://www.somewebaddress/Anyphotofile.jpg[/img ]
Note: The photo file doesn't have to have a JPG OR JPEG file extension at the end. It can be GIF. Those are the only two I ever use.
And don't insert ANY spaces in the above example, like I did at after the first square bracket and the very last one at the far right-hand end. If the whole image address is one with no spaces anywhere within, then the HTML interpreter part of your browser will see it as a valid address pointing to a photo stored somewhere on the web, and then display it for you on your screen.
And if this doesn't work for you, don't be afraid to say so. I'm not real good with instructions, I confess.
ETA: You'll have to experiment a few times before you are able to master it. Here is a valid address for a photo you can use to play with. Just append and prefix the address below with [img] on the extreme left end, and append [/img] on the right-hand end.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/foo/scotland1947.jpg
Fidel; you are a God!, Thanx.
My God Fidel:
That is awesome. I just posted a picture at the discussion called. Art's Sake: wherefore Art Thou?
It's to be expected I think. Not all scientists are as hawkish as Hawking. Hawking also said that we should be afraid of making contact with ET' civilizations. He says they could be meanies. I don't think there are any meanies out there with the technical ability to destroy us or enslave us anytime soon though. Of course, that's just my opinion. Perhaps all our world leaders have had their brains sucked out through their nostrils and are now drones working for an alien army of darkness, or something.
Both the Catholic and Anglican churches accept the theory of evolution today. And Fr. Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican observatory, says that the real possibility of extraterrestrial life doesn't conflict with the faith.
but fidel, "god" doesn't meet even that minimal level of circumstantial evidence.
the point is to me, how on earth can science take god into account, even if you did assume god exists? It would amount to nothing more than saying
"i don't know, maybe god did it?". Why not take into account the effect of mermaids on shrinking tuna populations, who knows--if mermaids did exist, maybe they eat tuna? where would that get you?
if science took god seriously then why bother with evolution, we already have the answer, why study plate tectonics? we already know that earthquakes are a punishment from god! i mean those are the kind of answers you would get if science took the idea of gods seriously.
i think your taking my point about no proof to an extreme. I mean, there's no proof that there's life on another planet but i'd still agree it's highly likely. and if the definition of god was: "whatever created our universe be it a collision of elements or a a force in space from another dimension or an intelligent being" then maybe science could use the concept.
But let's be honest. when you say god, you are referring to an all knowing supernatural being who "designed" the universe.
Well as I've mentioned before, there are scientists who are open to certain possibilities that there may be civilizations out there with what would certainly seem to be god-like abilities given what we understand about our own human evolution. The question is, does evolution only work here on this planet?
I think it's probable that evolution works everywhere else in the universe as do Catholic and Anglican Churches today. That in itself requires a certain leap of faith, but according to science, it's not inconceivable. I think it's possible that there are sentient beings throughout the universe, and some may have evolved for many millions and perhaps billions of years. Perhaps they have even evolved into other non-material states of being. Perhaps some have learned to travel between worlds or parallel universes, which is a theoretical reality today that would have been scoffed at by most scientists 10 years ago. And the evidence for this is our own evolution. Have we stopped evolving? According to science, we will continue to evolve into the future unless something drastic happens in the mean time.
It's not necessarily my point of view. I tend not to believe in religious dogmas. I am not a religious fundamentalist. On the other hand, I don't hold the extremist point of view that says, this is all there is, and that there is no god or anything that would appear to be supernatural. This is a fundamentalist view of reality shared among atheists of today and religious inquisitors of medieval times.
OTOH, I am not afraid to admit that I don't know. But I tend to lean toward the view that says, we are not alone in the universe. And there is plenty of physical evidence for this view, like that photo of the shiny object in the sky.
Baroness attacks Hawking as being Taliban-like. A real airhead.
http://tinyurl.com/39d6lh9
It's fascinating to see how such an innocuous statement is causing so many people to lose their wigs.
Hawking didn't say "there is no God" or "there cannot be a God" or "I have proven that there is no God, QED". All he's suggesting is that magick isn't necessary to explain the origins of the universe.
And it's really telling to watch people freaking out about that.
Lovelock says we're too stupid to handle climate change.
Rees says we're too stupid to understand the universe.
okay fidel, but there is a HUGE difference between "god like abilities" such as interstellar travel, inter dimensional travel and the like ( which are mostly theoretical concepts at this point) and the existence of god. And that evolution exists elsewhere in the universe is not a leap of faith like believing in god, but an actual observable phenomenon. space is expanding, we can see light from millions of years ago and of course WE are in space and we're evolving so that's pretty good proof it exists in the universe, also we can observe changes in planets that can be considered evolution. And if life exists out there, it is most likely evolving: most biologists would agree with that.
but you seem to be equating belief in gods with belief that life exists elsewhere in the universe, and specifically belief that those beings have actually visited earth. I'd agree it would be highly unlikely that earth is the only planet among billions that has life of some kind, but i'm not so convinced that those forms of life built ships and came to earth, and to me that doesn't have a big connection with the idea there is a god. As for the subject of the thread, i don't think most people view god as a being from another planet, but the being that CREATED the planets (and everything else) and that is obviously what Hawking is referring to, and what i'm referring to when i say there is no reason to believe god exists.
Yes, there is a difference. But the idea for these technical capabilities are not totally alien to us. Ancient cultures around the world have suggested as much by their religious beliefs, myths, folklore and legends. Some Hindu myths describing gods racing around the heavens are just as fantastic as modern science fiction. Dogon people of West Africa, for example, believed for centuries that they have an important connection with a planet 8 light years from here and which was only identified by astronomers in the 19th century according to the CBC's Jay Ingram.
How did European explorers find the wrong path to India via North America?
If you'd said to people living in 1890s Toronto that it would be possible to fly to Los Angeles in a few hours' time, they'd have probably thought you were off your rocker.
I don't think it's a traditional view of god or gods either. Some ancient cultures don't believe in god as if an all-knowing ever present being either. But some do go by the notion that friendly beings came from the stars and helped them with agricultural methods and understanding the seasons, etc long ago
but isn't the origin of these claims (friendly beings helping with agriculture, seasons etc.) just the astrological observations made from earth? In fact all the stories modern religion uses are based on these principles. So for example, the idea of the virgin birth is derived from the story made up around the constellation virgo, or the idea of the resurrection is based on the position of the sun on earths horizon when it reaches it's lowest point, stays there for about three days and then starts rising again (dead for three days, resurrected. a story found in almost every religion that has existed from the egyptians to christianity to hindu religion)
check out this video (part one of three) which explains the connection between astrology and religious ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD9f0XU_S78
I can understand how aspects of Zoroastrian beliefs might be connected with Manichaeism, Iranian beliefs, Judaism, Christianity etc. Those areas of the world where certain religious beliefs are common to more than one generalized group of people could have been transferred by people previously unknown to another after they made contact at various points in history.
But why would sun worship be common to Central American Aztecs and Egyptians alike?
Why would stone of ruins in Bolivia show strangely similar methods of building construction as those thought to be unique to the pyramids in Egypt?
Is there a connection between dualism of Eastern mysticism and that of the philosophy of science? Moral dualism? Philosophy of mind-body paradox? Modern quantum theory?
The cosmic dance of Shiva Shiva's cosmic dance at CERN
i'm no expert on the construction of pyramids...and i'm familiar with the ideas that aliens showed the egyptians how to build them but at the same time there are some pretty credible theories as to how the pyramids were constructed by humans at that time (the hidden ramp theory) so it looks more likely they simply used some excellent geometry and mathmatics and a ton of slaves to build them. Why are they so similar? i'm sure there are people with more credible theories than me, but my guess is they were both emulating one of the creators most impressive creations, mountains.
I see what capra says about taking the holistic approach and so on, and the idea that science and religion share some common impulses and are in a way similar in their search for explanations, and i too find a lot of buddhist teachings to be very enlightening and quite sensible. At the same time, i tend to separate the fact the knowledge and insight is useful from the idea of the actual spiritual being from which they are supposed to have come from. To me, most signs point to these things being created by people trying to figure out the concept of god rather than a god themselves. But to be honest i'm not very familiar with the relationship of hindu religion to modern physics.
I wonder if all the blocks are all of the same density, or, if the mixtures varied according to how the blocks were solidified.
Just an "interesting theory" while correlating a making of taffy, while organizing the blocks according to a cetrain vibrational organizations?
Cymatics and the Heart SongI was thinking about the metal staples used to cross connect the stones. Is the sun gate at Tiahuanaco really 14000 years old?
Interestingly enough, the age of the Sphynx has been hotly debated between Egyptologists and geologists. Was the Sphynx created in 2500 BC, or was it built in the 5th or 6th millenium BC? Egyptologists were not happy that their life study was even brought into question by outsiders.
Betrayal of Images" by Rene Magritte. 1929 painting on which is written "This is not a Pipe"
While one might have been entertained historically by a Sun Worship, what value could have been more thought of when considering the effects of, "casting shadows around the Giza Plateau?"
Plato- Book VII of The Republic-The Allegory of the Cave
Geometries has to have their start in how the lines of distinction are supported by, and how a line could have been held in contrast to "either/or" as a dualistic interpretation of how that line exists?
"Line of shadow/Line of light."
Were such thoughts historically from undeveloped human beings, or , were the concepts of that cultural thinking never really understood?
It's known that range of species of life on earth have been wiped out by cataclysmic events from time to time. How old is the oldest civilization on earth? Are there ancient civilizations which archaeologists have not discovered?
Velikovsky's talks were with Einstein are interesting.
It would be nice if we had some kind of finely tuned radio that actualy could broadcast the past?:)
Ummm...better than Carbon Dating?
Euclid's Window: the Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace (ISBN 0-684-86523-8)
Was very well done so I suspect given Leonard Mlodinow artisic flare in his writing, it should be interesting to see what the two of them come up with.
So, perhaps Stephen Hawking simply meant that science had formulated a complete theoretical model for the origin of the universe, and that that model (obviously) made no reference to god.
If that is the case, that would be quite interesting. Far more interesting than any final purge of the god of the gaps.
And here is a helpful page on metaphysics
Larry Krauss once said that, "I am an atheist, but..." He's very interesting to listen to and entertaining at the same time.
I guess in a sense we are all speculating as to the substance of the book Grand Design, as Pants of Dog said, it might be theoretical modeling that does not require God? You would be hard pressed not to see that part of science has christened other parts of the theoretical as religious in context anyway.
Theoretical abstraction mathematically is no different then seeking to understand the geometrical as a distillate of the substance of the reality and working from that perspective you had to understand that science progresses in this way.
Salvadori Dali may of help to send that geometric to a God like status in his painting of Jesus hanging on the cross. You had to know what the cross represented.
of Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions,
from Plato to String Theory and Beyond by Lawrence M. Krauss
Viking Press
See:Book Review: Hiding in the Mirror
Einstein's Cosmic Dance Party
Dual Black Holes Spinning in a Cosmic Dance – Complete with Disco Ball
Cosmic Polska and the mind-body paradox according to Giuseppe Del Re
Cosmic dance of life - Lou Bega YouTube
Classical dancing in Indian has its origins in the Vedas. Dancing is taken very seriously by some cultures. The cosmic dance is also metaphor used by physicist Fritjof Capra in his book, The Tao of Physics.