So Stephen Hawking doesn't believe in Heaven. This is apparently a big deal.
It's not that he is wrong, he is most likely right, though that the nature of faith is belief in defiance of any evidence so that doesn't matter, the important question is why anyone cares.
I've only ever seen it be a big deal to theist. I have honestly only ever heard it briefly mentioned by atheists when he first wrote the book. Of course other may have different experiences. Appeals to authority regarding an unknown are useless, people who use them are not very good at debate.
Everyone in the public has heard of Stephen Hawking, he is quite famous, but for what?
I can't find a single thing where he has been correct - it's not like we have experimental evidence for his idea on how black holes emit radiation, we just don't have a better answer, which sounds a lot like religion.
Or we have observation and mathematical equations. Just the stuff we have been using to figure out everything else in the universe. Oh and Hawking has done this
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942)[1] is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,[2] a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,[3] and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.[4]
Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009.[5][6] He is now Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.[7] He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.[8][9]
Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).[10]
Most recently, he basically gave up and endorsed M-theory, which is a delightfully anthropomorphic hypothesis about fundamental physics but has a number of competitors so it tries to consume them all in a questionable framework. Hawking is not solving any mysteries any time soon and The Grand Design basically seemed to be phoned in, theoretically.
Somehow by Hawking now endorsing a new point of view than he once held this makes him less credible? I can think of one competitor and that Quantum Loop Gravity, other than Google yielded nothing. Now maybe I didn't search properly but I think "M-theory competitors", "String theory competitors" and "M-theory contradictions" is not bad.
So fucking what if he does not solve any mysteries for the rest of his life. That says nothing of the work he has already done and his overall contributions to science and science education. Religion contributes nothing to the understanding of anything. This guy is trying really to degrade then dismiss Hawking.
When he wrote A Brief History of Time, which is a terrific book, he made a metaphor about a theory of everything, writing "It would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God."
Physicists have to stop using the word god to describe the universe. I hate this so much, any physicist will confirm that they are referring to the majesty of the universe. Hawking would confirm, so would Einstein (if he were alive) and Michio Kaku, Lawrence Krauss, Neil Tyson etc...
Also Hawking wrote this
Last lines. Hawking later wrote: "In the proof stage I nearly cut the last sentence in the book... Had I done so, the sales might have been halved.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_HawkingDid atheists suddenly give up on atheism because he wrote that? Not at all, so why any of them are rushing to list Hawking as some sort of sage endorsement when he says there is no Heaven is beyond me. If Hawking came out and endorsed Mitt Romney for U.S. president in 2012, would it change any votes?
No atheists did not because not believing in god does not hinge on his opinion. If the sentence was making a logical argument for the existence of a creator, then yes maybe some would become theists. Some atheists might be listing Hawking as a "sage" endorsement because it is in a very small way convincing. Many people will say "hey if so and so's opinion is this then maybe I should look into it.". Religious people do this all the time and most of the time when it comes to science are stretching the truth.
Stephen Hawking is to physics what Stephen Jay Gould was to biology - here is John Maynard Smith, Emeritus Professor at Sussex, on Gould, by way of reviewing Daniel Dennett’s 1995 book, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea:
"Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists."
I know nothing of Gould's work; but if I gather anything at all from the quote from Dennett. Hawking is not comparable in that his ideas are not confused and he is generally admired by the scientific community. Again this guy writing this article is trying really hard to make Hawking look bad.
So it goes with Hawking; to many, he doesn't have to be right, he just has to be on the same side. A paleontologist can't be the preeminent authority on evolutionary biology any more than a well-versed theoretical physicist can be an authority on theology.
A quick google search yields that Stephen J Gould IS an evolutionary biologist. Hawking is a physicist they study reality, as Hawking sees it a god is not part of that reality.
Alex Berezow at RealClearScience says Hawking is arguably as well-known as Einstein and laments that Hawking might be better known in the future for insulting religious people with quotes about fairy tales than his excellent early insights in physics. I don't agree, Einstein's later career was dismal and he was also cited by the religious and atheists for saying various things for and against religion, but he is best known now for his early work. Let's hope the same happens with Hawking.
The same will happen, no question.
One previous Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge said "the Supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere" while another, who received a Nobel prize in physics, delved into the supernatural and numerology and was still a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences along with being a famous scientist. If some questions were too big for Newton and Dirac to be considered authorities, it is unlikely Hawking can be considered one any time soon.[/quote]
Newton did not know much of anything about the universe as we know it now. Newton is a poor example. As for Paul Dirac he once said this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_DiracI cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.[39]
I think I basically said that about 70 posts ago. I was just more blunt and potentiall inflammatory about it. 
And it was just as wrong as the guy who wrote the article.
The way I see it is lay-persons who are atheists think something like this:
"well, the world's most famous (and thereby, in their minds, best) scientist believes there is no god, and so he must be right, because he is a scientist and scientists make these kind of assessments based on fact"
That isn't my view; I concur with alot of what has been said in the thread re: its an opinion. But the lay-person, or disengaged person, makes judgements based on what they are fed.
On the other hand the average lay person who are theist use scientists in this manner.
"Newton and other scientist from hundreds and sometimes over a thousand years ago, believed in god so that automatically cancels any opinion of modern day scientists who clearly know leagues more than past scientists."
Topic: Hawking Says "There is no God. Heaven is a fairy tale." (Read 21734 times)
