Hawking: Religion will be defeated by science

[Ichingcarpenter]

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, due to air Monday evening, Hawking expounded upon the largest questions, those that transcend iPhones and androids: Can science and God live happily ever after?

According to ABC News, Hawking first tried to define God in a way that he, as a scientist, might feel comfortable: "What could define God (is thinking of God) as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," he said.
Indeed, he expressed disappointment at how humans have thought of deity.


"They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible," he said.

Perhaps there will be some who might conceive that stranger things have happened. Others will nod sagely, while still secretly hoping there is another life after this one. However, couldn't one imagine a point at which science and religion somehow meet, shake hands and positions and agree on a concord?

Hawking, who has already recommended that we should steer clear of aliens, suggested to Sawyer that this was somewhat less likely than North Korea winning the World Cup: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, (and) science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."




http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20006990-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

[RandomThoughts]

1. Science is not in competition with religion.

However some scientist that do not believe in religion think that way. And some relgious people think that way also.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. A real twitter from Creationists

[Ian David]

9. Hah! I already have @JoeClenkowski and @StarChasr blocked on Twitter. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. I thought about posting this in GD cause it made me laugh

Your'e welcome to it, sometimes we need a giggle.

[Chulanowa]

3. Science is not in competition with religion

For the same reason that Usain Bolt is not in competition with a man who has no legs.

However, religion keeps wanting to hamstring science, perhaps out of a jealous pique.

[qazplm]

15. in some ways they are

in some ways they aren't, but the "competition" usually comes from dogma.

Science generally asks how? or what? It less often asks why?

How did we come to be, not why did we come to be.

Science tries to answer the former, philosophy and religion try to answer the latter, but the latter can be affected by the former.

Knowing how we came to be has an impact on the process of finding out why we came to be.

I don't think it's fair to say science isn't in competition at all, particularly when our answers to how cause a logical conflict with religion's answers to why.

On edit, I'd suggest, religion often strays into dogmatic answers of how questions too. See e.g. the flood, Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve, the age of the universe, etc.

[LARED]

4. I'm of the opinion that religion and science

will someday come together is some form of metaphysical doctrine. I hold is unlikely that science can answer all the interesting questions via observation and reason.


One interesting read (not necessarily leading to my opinion) is http://www.amazon.com/God-New-Physics-Paul-Davies/dp/0671528068

[Q3JR4]

5. Well you could say that the seeds of religion's defeat

are even now blooming around us.

I would argue that "true" christians (based on historical accounts) take the bible literally and believe whatever their holy book or the guy who is supposed to speak for their holy book says they should. They don't negotiate away the literal meaning by conflating facts with allegory.

It is a fact that religion has softened a bit since the very beginning. Today, say many Christians, god works in more subtle ways, "The universe is as old as science says it is because who knows how long a day lasts for god?", "Evolution is happening just like science says it is but god is sitting behind the scenes prodding the process along," "This research here where they tried to study prayer and showed no effect doesn't mean anything because god doesn't work like that, he only intervenes when it's important and why none of these people made the cut is a question only god can answer."

Some guy sitting somewhere can no longer order his congregation to believe a certain way and expect to be taken on faith. At most only a handful of his flock will give him that authority, and even they will interpret the new rules through their own experiences and come away with something very much unlike what that man (possibly in a funny hat) had in mind.

I don't think religion will ever go away, but I am quite sure that it will continue to soften as our species continues to grow up. One day it will be there in the background for those who wish to still believe, but they won't push your nose into it by trying to make you believe whatever it is they believe, they won't moralize and philosophize, they won't gloat or look down on their fellow human-kind, they will accept everyone as they are without comment, they will keep to themselves their beliefs or share them only with willing participants, they will be happy and secure in the knowledge that no one has to believe whatever it is they believe, and they will give science it's due without reservation.

When that day comes religion, as it was practiced in the old days with fire and brimstone, will be long dead. It would have died at the hands of ordinary people who chose to listen when a man in a white lab coat who's spent his life on research says to them, "look what I've done here. Sorry it contradicts a little bit of what you've held dear for most of your life but you can see with your eyes how well it works."

Q3JR4.

[klatu]

6. The seed is already sown....

While Hawking aptly demonstrates his considerable intellectual vanity, there may be a notion of potential reality in his statement. But it will not be science that defeats religion, but a unified conception of the nature of truth of which scientific method itself uses to confirm its own claims to new insight and understanding. Direct cause and effect evidence, testability and the integrity of change. And that process has already started. But I doubt either science or religion will welcome this development on the God question. Check it out at http://www.energon.org.uk

[struggle4progress]

10. The practice of disputing the meaning of such written words is ancient

and one certainly finds non-literalists around the first century

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. `I am willing to bet that this statement by Hawking

will not go unnoticed by the religious community.

How soon until they throw him under the Bus into the black hole of ignorance?

[Nihil]

17. The sooner the better and it will serve them right ...

> How soon until they throw him under the Bus into the black hole of ignorance?

... for trying to drive buses over black holes ...
:silly:

[BanzaiBonnie]

8. I am also disappointed that most humans cannot seem to get past that

Whatever our Source, it's woven throughout everything. It is everything. And I agree with Hawking that God is the embodiment of the laws of nature.

We are each our own personal god. That's as personal as it gets.

[ananda]

11. Religion cannot be defeated by anything.

We're hardwired for it.

Science can be a religion for some.
Also, science and religion can merge. To some
extent, they already have.

[RagAss]

13. Which religion is hardwired into whom?

[trotsky]

14. I think it's more that our brains are hardwired to look for pattern & purpose.

That's our evolutionary super-power. Religion is an old little meme that satisfies a lot of brains when they contemplate mysteries beyond what we needed for survival.

[ismnotwasm]

16. I was just thinking about this

And Steven Hawkings comments. Why certain religious people want to think that their Deity is some sort of blind magician, who kind of mutters something and then stays out of the whole thing, I don't know. How do you wave a magic wand, (so to speak)create something like the Krebs cycle or the human immune response, or hell, even photosynthesis for instance, without a intrinsic understanding of it?

Science may or may not 'defeat' religion, but (barring keeping people poor and ignorant or angry and ignorant--both distinct possibilities)I think ultimately these religious views that place God in a Small Box will defeat themselves. I'm not religious in any way, but the religious people I know who feel a kind of--universal connection a sense of wonder, of being part of everything-- I guess, seem so much happier and spiritual and productive than some idiot who denies science because he's got a pinched and frightened little soul, so he creates a version of a pinched and frightened little Deity. In his own image indeed.