Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
But can he prove it? Of course not. With theories like the Multiverse and parallel universes who's to say that there is no heaven? What if heaven is another planet, perhaps the planet that our "creators" come from? None of it can ever be proven unless motherships start appearing over major cities and they tell us the truth about our origins.

and even then we wouldnt believe them and call conspiracy))

Stephen Hawking is telling you there is no heaven, but there are multiple universes. What if heaven is a name given to one of the other universes?

No one, not even Stephen Hawking, has all the answers.

Science says you cannot create nor destroy energy, just convert it into different forms. What happens then, upon death, to the electrical energy in our bodies, that which gives us life? I don't know but my opinion is that it doesn't get destroyed.

99% of you will never figure out the mathematical proofs for all the things science tells you to be true. Yet, you put your faith in the scientists. What, then, is the difference if someone puts their faith in religion? You are all just believing what someone else tells you.

Science was 'invented' to counteract religion. It is the polar opposite.

Most people blindly follow either science or religion.

My first reaction is.... So what? Why does his opinion matter any more than any other atheist or Christian or whatever on this subject?

This is not news worthy, no more than if a random homeless man gave you his opinion.

When he develops a theory based on complex physics and math to back it up, get back to me. Until then, this is no more important or meaningful than him announcing he prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla.

reply to post by spacedonk


Precedent is set.

When have renown scientists come forward to deny religious fairy tales?

Alright people, let us not grab torches and pitchforks and run down his house like we would have done a hundred years ago.

Originally posted by space cadet
I do not understand that to simply state that there is a scientific reason for our being here, makes it impossible for a creator to have begun the events that led to our being here. There is no proof that a creator didn't begin this universe, and for as long as humans have been around they have believed that some entity 'controls' what has and will take place, without being taught so. There are those who, like myself, have experienced seeing a spirit, if those spirits are in one of the 11 dimensions, then they do exsist, only most cannot see them. How do we know they do not exist? Because science says so? But science also says there must be 11 dimensions and we are limited to only what we can see.

I just don't see any way to disprove that a creator didn't begin life and universe as we know it. We don't know. I am feeling at this point that Stephen Hawking is just closed to the idea of it.

I am not a person with strong religious convictions, I don't attend church or anything like that, but, I do believe in a creator, an entity that plays a part in our being here, and our future. I believe that the miracle of life is no more of a miracle than the miracle of life after death.

There is no proof that there is a creator either. If we believe in "X" because there is no proof that there is no "X" then basically absolutely everything wacky and impossible to disprove must exist!. For example : The second plant on the third closest star system harbours pink elephants with two trunks. Now, using your logic, unless you can disprove that that is not the case then it must be the case!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

People can and have seen all sorts of things due to vivid imaginations and a desperate need to believe! Now we all know that certain psychotic people claim to have seen "things" to justify their mad killing spree. If we assume that everything somebody claims to see is true then we also have to accept that those psychotics are not psychotic but really are doing the work of whatever spirit they are communicating with. You cannot cherry pick which spirit is genuine or not that is utter arrogance : my spirit is true his (the psychotics) is not. Really prove it! What we can do is state that unless we can measure something it is nothing more than a theory. A theory becomes more believable if it can be used to predict a measurable outcome. Hence why Einsteins theories are now facts. Peoples spirits cannot be used to predict a goddam thing and never have. Well except for earthquakes..........in an earthquake zone

The 11 dimensions is only a theory. However it is a theory that holds the most promise due to what it predicts should happen in certain circumstances. Please don't confuse a theory with a fact.

reply to post by Zamini


I respect him a great deal, but he hasnt said anything new or groundbreaking. If i only had a dollar for every time i heard someone say the same thing. He is a very educated man but.... Give me a real substantial theory and not an opinion.

LOL @ people trying to question his intelligence.

Stephen Hawking is smarter than anybody in your family will ever become.

reply to post by Jrocbaby


I wasn't telling my view on life, I was just CLEARLY stating, he doesn't know just like I don't.

Edit: I don't believe in any of that either but that does not mean that I am right. How does he know there is no God or is no heaven? Please tell me how, he doesn't. Not one of us on this earth know the truth of how we got here, noone. Ofcourse people can say, can say that but the fact is, we don't really know.

Maybe God did put us here, who knows or maybe it was just by chance or just maybe we were put here by an extremely advanced race. Who knows. Like I said, he is one of the worlds greatest minds, I never denied that and never will but like I said, he doesn't know everything and saying that he does would be ignorent.

Originally posted by Spencer1989
My first reaction is.... So what? Why does his opinion matter any more than any other atheist or Christian or whatever on this subject?

This is not news worthy, no more than if a random homeless man gave you his opinion.

When he develops a theory based on complex physics and math to back it up, get back to me. Until then, this is no more important or meaningful than him announcing he prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla.

edit on 16-5-2011 by Spencer1989 because: (no reason given)

Well.
He's smarter than the average person, has a deep background in science, and I'd trust him any day and his logical rants than an idiot religious person.


Religion is racist anyway lol.

Originally posted by arbitrarygeneraiist
He is an intelligent man who is entitled to his opinion. But someone cannot physically prove if heaven exists or not, so it isn't really Mr. Hawking's place to say whether or not it does with such certainty. Because, simply put, he does not know.

It makes me wonder if a life subjected to so much objectivity and science has molded his outlook on things of a spiritual nature in a biased way that is negative.

Heaven and Hell are unlikely.

Hell was created just to scare people into being religious.

reply to post by DuceizBack


I don't believe in that either but how do you know this? Is there any real proof that hell or heaven doesn't exist? Just like is there any proof that it does exist. Not one bit on either side of the argument, it's all down to a matter of belief.

"Heaven and Hell" as the religions teach it, is highly unlikly, first of all because it includes punishment and revard, on which one can already see that it is a invention of humans. But still, Hawkins knows s*it! He is guessing. He is forced to guess, like we all are forced to guess because none of us realy knows. Maybe you die and wake up again as Donald Duck in Disney Land. Can you proof that this will not be the case?`No, you cant, Hawkins is guessing, like all of us are just guessing, and his guess is as good as ours !

I don't know why everyone is saying that he doesn't know anything or that maybe aliens created life and so on.


All he did, as far as I can tell, is say that heaven is a fairy tale.... and that is a fact....there is nothing to measure...much like God "itself".... there is no evidence of a heaven or a God.... so therefore we focus on what there is and try to unravel the mysteries.

Even the whole "Spirituality" thing.... it doesn't have to mean God or spiritual in the religious sense.


Alternate universes, parallel universes.... OOBE's and all manner of things don't have to relate to a religion or be religious in nature at all.
There is so much that we don't know about the mind and so much we don't know about our own world and how it all works.

There is so much we can't see & hear.... WE are limited.... doesn't mean our world is, our understanding and comprehension are the only limitations we have really.


Even people who've seen spirits, bright lights... felt "something".... whatever.... NONE of this has to relate to any "God" or anything religious.

It could be anything.... people just use GOD so they don't have to think about things, it's easy.
I saw something.... someone spoke to me..... I felt a beautiful, deep feeling of love flow through my body.... IT WAS GOD!!!

No.... it really wasn't.


There is a thin line, it seems, between people who use GOD as a metaphor for the unexplained and things they can't understand... and people who see God as an actual entity who knows us all and has a plan and watches us and created every living organism... and blah blah.

The metaphor is fine I guess if not a little confusing.... the literal God is where the problem lies.


People just don't want to admit that there are things we just cannot know and are beyond our current knowledge, so they say that God did it.... that it's God's work.... that God spoke to them.... that God did this, that and the other.

It's actually a very ignorant and cowardly thing to do.

You can't see air but you know its there. You can't see God so why can't he/she/it??? exist?

Ok the above is a silly argument but what I'm trying to get at is Science does not prove or disprove a heck of a lot of things. Its naive to think we know everything when our science barely proves anything anyway. We as a race have barely scratched the surface of what is around us.
I remember watching a program which was a debate (as far as I can remember) between different cultural and religious people about the existence of god. There was a man of science who refused to believe in a God because he thought that science disproves it all and that science was the answer to everything. He essentially suggested we know everything about everything which is just silly.

In some respects I think I do believe in a God and an Afterlife. Perhaps it's simply because I'm scared of what happens after one dies or maybe the belief has been inside me all along. But hey, we are living in a real life 'science fiction' so why can't an afterlife exist? Afterall we are all flying through space on a huge ball of rock around a massive fireball lol. It all just sounds like some silly science fiction. Frankly I'm open to any idea about what our existence really is or what happens after we die. I think the most enjoyable theory I have heard is that we are just a simulation, like an advanced version of the Sims! Brilliant!

Hawkins knows a lot, but he has not returned from the Dead yet, to ttruely tell us what happend. And still, all the knowledge of Hawkins, as great as it seems to us today, will one day lie on the dust heap of the history of scientific hypothesis. If we truely want to keep to the truth, we must be humble as Socrates was humble and admit, the only thing we realy know is, that we know nothing...-

Originally posted by David291
reply to post by Jrocbaby

 

I wasn't telling my view on life, I was just CLEARLY stating, he doesn't know just like I don't.

Edit: I don't believe in any of that either but that does not mean that I am right. How does he know there is no God or is no heaven? Please tell me how, he doesn't. Not one of us on this earth know the truth of how we got here, noone. Ofcourse people can say, can say that but the fact is, we don't really know.

Maybe God did put us here, who knows or maybe it was just by chance or just maybe we were put here by an extremely advanced race. Who knows. Like I said, he is one of the worlds greatest minds, I never denied that and never will but like I said, he doesn't know everything and saying that he does would be ignorent.

edit on 16/5/11 by David291 because: (no reason given)

Your argument is what everybody knows. What is ignorant about it is that ANYBODY can go onto ANY WEBSITE and spit their beliefs 24/7 and you don't care, But when one of the smartest humanity has to offer makes his guess at things [which by the way is my exact belief before he said it] why does it bother you? Yes we all know that nobody is right, but why are YOU so bothered by him making his guess? Is he supposed to just not mention what he believes? Whats wrong?

Originally posted by CarlitosAmsel
Hawkins knows a lot, but he has not returned from the Dead yet, to ttruely tell us what happend. And still, all the knowledge of Hawkins, as great as it seems to us today, will one day lie on the dust heap of the history of scientific hypothesis.

I would opt to be in that dust heap of science anyday than the dust heap of ignorant faith, which is quite larger by the way.

reply to post by Jrocbaby


I'm not bothered with his guess, did I say I was? I don't think I ever mentioned anything that made me look like I had a problem with it. I am actually leaning towards his side of the argument believe it or not, all I was stating is that we don't know and he doesn't know. He is welcome to is opinion just like anyone else is, I never questioned that or said anything against that.

I am truly sorry if I offended you at all but it is you that is getting touchy on this subject, not I.

Peace,
David.

Again: If we truely want to stick to the truth of it all, we must be humble as Socrates has been humble and admit to us and the world, that the only thing we actually know is, that we know nothing !!! Hawkins may have a great name in this present, but I miss in him the wisdom to admit, what we know is less then smoke and mirrors...-

Originally posted by David291
reply to post by DuceizBack

 

I don't believe in that either but how do you know this? Is there any real proof that hell or heaven doesn't exist? Just like is there any proof that it does exist. Not one bit on either side of the argument, it's all down to a matter of belief.

I'm an atheist which means I don't believe in it, which means If I don't believe in something I shouldn't have to prove it doesn't exist.

The burdon of proof relies on the person who believes in it, not the person who denies it.


If there was a god why would he let the inhabitants of the religion be so damned racist?
Christians, and Muslims thought it was cool to kill black people for thousands of years and i'm supposed to believe there's a god.

If there is a god does he prefer white over black?

Even without that , the belief doesn't make sense, and even emotionally I could never follow anything that has killed so many people for being the wrong color.