Quote from: Hermione01 on September 06, 2010, 05:01:18 AM
Nathan, atheism is the disbelief in a God or higher being or creator, any of these terms.  It is not the lack of belief.

That definition is false.

A = without
Theism = god.

The dictionary may say atheism is the rejection of god but I don't think it will continue to do so for much longer as that is a very old view of what atheism is and i've only ever heard theists use that definition before.

Nathan love.

You're down to arguing sematics. This is very circular.

I appreciate the strength of your convictions. And I respect the depth of thought you've put into them.

I really think this argument, of the nature of what babies are aware of and the extent to which they are conditioned by information is intersting. But this seems to be the wrong forum for it. I'm sure a lot of others would like to participate.

I've started a thread in the spirituality forum. I did consider the philosophy forum, but the problem with philosophy is that, no matter how much you think you know or have read, someone else comes up with something you know nothing about. I recall, when I first read Hobbs, I had to spend as much time looking up words meanings as I did reading his texts.

I hope some and especially you, will participate. We could find some intersting perspectives.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,83522.new.html#new

Quote from: Nathan. on September 06, 2010, 05:11:19 AM
That definition is false.

A = without
Theism = god.

The dictionary may say atheism is the rejection of god but I don't think it will continue to do so for much longer as that is a very old view of what atheism is and i've only ever heard theists use that definition before.

Atheism is borne from the term theism, to reject that belief.   

Quote from: spacial on September 06, 2010, 05:21:22 AM
You're down to arguing sematics.

Well we can hardly debate something if people have no understanding of what they are debating.


Atheism may have come from the term theism but atheism has been around longer the the word to describe it.

As people seem to no understanding of what atheism means I feel the need to point you towards a forum called rationalskeptisism it's not an atheist only site, there was even a theist mod.

Anyway i'm signing off, this isn't the place. Feel free to start another discusion in the atheism part of this site if your not sick of it 

I understand Nathan and you are perfectly correct.

But the subject, with great respect, is physics.

Quote from: spacial on September 06, 2010, 07:12:50 AM
I understand Nathan and you are perfectly correct.

But the subject, with great respect, is physics.

Hmmm, actually it's more like sensationalism.  Hawkins, famous theoretical physicist throws spanner in the works....God may not exist. 

That is what's catching people's attention, not the baloney about gravity.    Suppose I got to buy his book now. Urgh.

But that's the problem. I don't think that is what Hawking was saying at all. one of his ex wives has said he is an athiest, so his use of the term was more figurative than literal.

We have some physicists as members here. But sadly, this thread has been rather over taken with the defination of a word.

While it was incredably interesting and insightful, it did kinda destroy what might have been in interesting and informative discussion. The last Hawking book I read was filled with a whole lot of stuff that only he coud understand.

Clever people tend to be like that. That's the real benefit of having people who are half way.

Everyone has their own beliefs.  To believe in something you have to have thoughts about it.  To have thoughts about it you have to have a mental process of some sort, ie: you need a brain.  Hawking has a brain, a tree, to the best of our knowledge, doesn't.

When I first read the article I immediately thought about origin.  Origin, to me, is the sticking point of every discussion about the existence of a god, as we define it.  Hawking says gravity is why he chose physics over God.  What is the origin of gravity?  How did it begin?

Back in my Catholic grade school the nuns taught "God was, is and always will be."  Therefore God has no origin.  My mini scientific mind imagined traveling back through time and finding God there.  Then I went further back and there was God.  Even back when there was nothing, there was God.  And on and on my mind travel went back until I tired of the exercise.

With Hawking's theory we have to assume the same thing for gravity.  No matter how far you go back in time, there is gravity.  Does gravity then become God?  If gravity is the creator of our universe and has no origin, doesn't that make gravity God-like?

When my time on this earth comes to a close, I will have the answer.  Or maybe the lights will simply go out.  Until then, this is simply a mental exercise.

The nature of gravity is really the nub here.

According to Einstien, even time, in its literal sense, is a function (or is it consequence?), of gravity.

If I understand Hawking correctly, though not having read his book, yet, he seems to be suggesting that gravity is the sole elemental force, creating electro-magnitism and the nuclear force. I may have this wrong of course. But the other two elemental forces are themselves, so essential to matter as we know it, it seems strange that Hawking picked gravity rather than all three.

From what I understand about the three elemental forces, gravity is the least understood. It has only one characteristic, that it attracts particles of mass to each other. Though how gravity affects that which has no mass is beyond me I'm afraid.

Then it's settled.  Gravity is God.  I'm going to rewrite the Bible and wherever the word 'God' is, I am going to replace it 'Gravity'.

And Gravity said, "Let there be light!"  And Gravity freed the light and let it go forth into the universe.

I think I'm on to something...

Gravity is God. Oh my gravity!

Wow, heavy man.

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

My copy of the book is expected (by Amazon, anyway) to arrive here 2moro. I really look forward to it.

If nothing else, this thread has me increasingly curious what the actual book is about.

But the thread also interests me as a Philosophy student (even though I graduated years ago). It seems perfectly reasonable for people to say things like, "For the purposes of this discussion, I mean X by the term atheism," as a means of moving a debate forward.

Probably my favorite existence of God debate to this day was between Fr. F. C. Copleston, S.J. and Bertrand Russell. They started by defining their positions, but also provisionally agreeing on statements of the meanings of terms such as god, enabling them to dive into a lively, respectful, and intelligent debate.

I've seen far worse than the tenor of this thread's discussion.

Good points Sidney.

I hope no-one minded my intervention in the semantics debate. There are so few places where you can read the views of people who know their stuff, when it comes to physics.

I was despirate to hear more.

There's four forces--electro-magnetic force, the strong force, the weak force...and gravity, which is the weakest of the four.  Interesting that it would be gravity then that was responsible for the universe.  A very good book I was reading recently called "Warped Passages" (really good stuff if you're into quantum mechanics) had a theory that went something along these lines...the bulk of the gravitational force is located in other dimensions (the book called them branes).  I think that was the gist of it; I could be wrong, it was very difficult to understand a lot of it.

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

This sentence was wildly out of context, and appears on page 180 of the book. He doesn't state that gravity itself is responsible for the universe.

The book is a defense of M-theory as the only candidate for a unified theory of everything.

Quote from: SydneyTinker on September 12, 2010, 07:30:36 PM
The book is a defense of M-theory as the only candidate for a unified theory of everything.

I'm not particularly convinced on M-theory either.  But it's better than the idea that gravity created the universe, which is a terrible idea.

QuoteI'm not particularly convinced on M-theory either.

The M-theory is many theories that fit mathematical models. Gravity is just one of the factors.