Oh. Then maybe I missed all of the abortion centre bombings, non-kosher restaurant bombings, and murders of Saturday bus drivers, and God Hates Jewish f*gs signs in Kiryas Yoel, Williamsburg, Bnei Brak, Mea Shearim 1930s Eastern Europe, Gush Etzion, et al.

Touché.

Or maybe - just maybe - dogmatic adherence to biblical passages which are convenient to a held idea isn't a function of religious teaching but more a disposition to psychological problems. After all, if a guy hates "f*gs" why isn't he also loving his neighbour or sacrificing goats? Saying the acts and ideas of a religious crazy person (regardless of their professed motivation) as a result of a religious upbringing is the same logic that says all those school shootings in the US are because they weren't religious enough; they didn't follow Commandment #7!

I find your pretentious posts rather laughable.

I will extrapolate a little bit, and guess that you find all theists to be nuts - and therefore are an atheist?

Let me ask you what you think of this statement by Stephen Hawking:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." - The Grand Design

Personally, I get a kick out of educated people that swallow that comedy.

Is that an exact quote? As written in the book?

“ Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. ”

—Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, 2010[12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gra...ign_%28book%29

I should mention that Oxford professor of mathematics John Lennox has an appropriate response to Hawkings' statement:

"nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists"

I believe that the "Grand Design" was more interested in presenting some philosophical ideas combined with scientific findings, to argue that God does not exist. I don't believe they ever meant for this to be groundbreaking per se, or revolutionary, but were likely more interested in selling this book which claimed that "God could not exist", which is very compelling statement coming from Hawking, which makes it even more compelling to read, even if they understood the philosophical community would not accept their conclusions.

I mean, it did get many world renowned philosophers and theologians talking about it, so from a certain perspective, you could say it was a great success.

Ye, sounds like nonsense to me too. So he believes in laws that exist outside of the universe? I dunno, maybe , being a top physicist ,he knows something I dont, but it doesnt make sense to me.

Hawking tries to get around the first cause by claiming is that not everything requires a cause. He cites protons having been observed to seemingly arise without a visible cause as proof of his premise.

The awesome irony is that this premise strengthens the argument for existence of a Creator by eliminating the "well then what caused God?" argument, which was a good logical question to a ****ty logical assumption (that there needs to be a first cause)

The Torah maintains that God is, was, and will be. Presumably, God is outside the concept of time. He doesn't have a cause. He just is.*

*standard caveat about usage of "He" to describe an ethereal concept.

That is certainly one objection - that the universe coming to exist out of nothing, does not necessarily disprove God, as the two can be mutually exclusive.

This was not his only premise, so it may look strange out of context. He also asserts that God could not have caused the universe, since time began at the point of singularity, and that a cause can only exist in time. (His premise being that God cannot exist outside of time).

If we are going to be judgmental about nonsense, I think we should focus on denying rites to people with flat noses, talking snakes, prophets who summon magical bears and horns which are used to tear down city walls yet leave no archeological trace.

Yeah man, because we aren't constantly finding archaeological evidence to confirm Biblical places and events. Look at King David and Solomon in the Old Testament, for decades skeptics have latched onto that fairy tale.

Oh wait.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blo...ouse-of-david/

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blo...d-sea-scrolls/

Hawking claims that the beginning of the universe is also outside time, so all the same things would apply to it...

Ok. Haven't read the book, was just considering the argument as presented

My ancestors for years lived as Jewish within closed doors and meeting but to the outside world they were Christians. Our present day family still has some of those traditions even though conversion has actually taken place for the past couple generations once they moved out of Spain.

If you don't have time to read the book, this video deals with Hawking's argument. Not elaborate by any means, but you'll get his meaning.

That is fascinating. I always heard stories about that but never met anyone.

Cool.

How do you feel about it?

Incidentally, Sklansky, for all his apparent bitterness, may want to read this link.

Theists are nuts because they think that the objective evidence for their own particular religion should be enough to convince those with other beliefs that their particular religion is more likely to be true than all other beliefs combined. (They can't think otherwise since that would mean that members of other religions and atheists should be forgiven for their blasphemy)

But me thinking that doesn't imply that I think that the belief that their is no god at all, makes by far the most sense.

You are misreading me. My only point is that it is not admirable to refuse to pretend to renounce your religion to crazy people if it will save children's lives. I would have thought most clergyman agreed with that. But if they don't that changes nothing

You didn't read the link. It outlines the religious halachic treatment of Jews who were forced to convert at the tip of a spear (the Anusim - "ah-nu-SEEM"). It basically says "no worries, all good". With some provisos.

Good for you, if you don't have a flat nose you might go to heaven.

There's no 'maybe' about this, unless of course you can explain why he's wrong?

I'm not so sure. Even if what OrP said didn't apply, a proton and a universe creating intelligence are not really the same thing are they.

Most religions postulate an eternal god simply because it escapes so many of the logical problems with there being a god. It's a neat trick.

Who out of the theists posting on this thread would pretend to convert to save their lives or the lives of their family?

I can say without any doubts that I would pretend to believe any religion whose followers threatened to kill me for not believing.