Let's raise a glass to Stephen Hawking, everyone!

[SolidGoldBrass]

I have admired him for ages anyway but he's just gone even further up in my estimation for not being afraid to point out once and for all the absurdity of belief in gods.

And may it settle all the silly imaginary-friend followers whose last ditch argument is 'Clever people than you rotten rationalists believe in my imaginary friend, so ner!'. Oh go on, just try to argue that you're smarter then Stephen Hawking...

but ivykaty44, you are not a kill joy. You don't mind the fact that other people do believe, you don't think that they are stupid to be believe in 'imaginary friends' etc. You just think differently to them.

Perhaps we can separate out the concepts of religion and faith? Religion being a social construct used largely to control large populations, not least women, and faith being something intangible that cannot be tested nor refuted and therefore exists in a different sphere to science? I feel in some of these posts there is an assumption of a Christian God being the only God [that can't exist because Hawking says so].

Science can have a lot to say about some of the 'evidence' religion uses and can hypothesise about various biblical happenings.

To declare my own interests, I am a scientist and though raised a Methodist I would not now consider myself religious. I value everything science has to say about how the world/universe works, but the poster who said it's a non-debate is right when we consider science and faith.

that's right. Voltaire was an Enlightenment rationalist, who was against organised religions, but he still believed in a supreme being, just not in the way taught by organised religions. Personally, there are loads of things in the Bible that I don't believe, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe in God.

you know what?

I don't give a shit. I still absolutely and wholly believe in God and Jesus and everything that entails....

people die for believing in some parts of this world. I'm just proud that for now, Britain is a place where, if I want to, I can attend church and pray and do things freely.

Mock me all you like. It won't stop me believing.

Its not about being smart or not its about having faith and faith is nothing to do with smart or not.

Each to their own, I do not believe in Allah I think it is a stupid, misogynist religion, but I respect the rights of others to believe it if they want.

There is no way there is a spaceship behind the moon and aliens are here but if Scientology followers want to think there is carry on

I would not watch someone I love die for the want of a pint of blood because I thought it was Gods will, but some people do.

Takes all sorts I guess, I may not be as smart as Stephen Hawkings but I'm a better tap dancer

I'm sure God is absolutely gutted...

I would be delighted to go along with the "let people believe whatever they want to believe" brigade - BUT.

The Christian faith impinges on my life in ways I find unacceptable. For example.

My children cannot go to a State school without being expected to practice Christianity.

The Christian lobby has a significant influence on the political life of this country - particularly when it comes to scientific and social policy.

If Christias just got on with being Christians that would be fine. But they don't. They want to have a say in how I life my life too. And I don't see why they should.

What influence does 'the Christian lobby' have on scientific policy in this country?

I don't think 'the Christian lobby' can be having that much effect on your children either - after 11 years of compulsory education, what proportion of state school children end up practising Christianity? Not many.

Stem cell research, for one.

Errr, Stephen Hawkings proposition is a hypothesis, not fact. He has not proved that God does not exist. So why the puerile gloating of the OP?

How do you know that God does not exist in the same way that some believe that he does exist?

The first Law of Thermodynamics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed but it can be converted. Einsteins Law of relativity supports this in that he showed the relationship between enery and mass in one of the most beautiful equations ever derived, E=MC2.

The actual translation in the bible of the creation is that the world was reorganised, not created. So the elements have always exisited. Man's tiny brain cannot comprehend this because to us everything has a beginning and an end so therefore must be created. The Bible and the laws of physics actually say the opposite. Energy has always been and can be converted to exist in another form.

Physicists for many years have been trying for years to come up with an unifying theory to unify the forces of physics into one underlying force and hence theories like the string theory abound. However, they are just that, theory and physicists constantly disagree about the various postulates, especially as they have yet to find a way of unfiying the gravitational force with the other three fundamental forces.

The OP celebration is nonsensical, premature and scientifically ignorant.

No, the bible actually says that god created the universe. It doesn't say anything about reorganised.

Or is this one of those situations where parts of the bible are absolute truth whilst other parts are metaphorical, and only really clever religious bods can tell the difference?

Earthworm, the Aramamic word that was translated into English as created actually means reorganise.

Stephen Hawking has not proved anything, i might not be big on God but it's pretty much impossible to disprove the existence of one at least at the moment who knows what the future may hold.

On Newsnight last night, Hawking said that he has not proved that God does not exist but he thought that M theory would make God irrelevant. He then conceded that to prove M theory one had to make a number of assumptions and even then, it might still be impossible to prove emperically.

So his proclamation is just theory with no emperical proof. So how the media transcribe this to mean that it was proof that God does not exist is beyond me other than like many people, they are scientifically illiterate.

The people who believe in Hawkings do so based on their faith that science has all the answers. I am a scientist and I do not believe that science can answer the mystery of the universe. I do believe in a higher power that is beyond our concept and that for me is God. So my faith is no less than those who put their faith in only in science to answer all the mysteries of the universe.

Oh FFS, what's it to you? People don't believe in God because they've sat down and made a list of reasons why and why not. Some people feel something. I never have done - despite a religious upbringing - but if somebody tells me they feel they can communicate with God, who am I to whip out a calculator and a roll-call of famous scientists and tell them computer says no? The fact that some form of religion is found in almost all human cultures tells us that it's natural for many to feel a spiritual element to life. You're trying to make out like it's a war between religious fundamentalists on the one hand, and hard science on the other. It's not like that. Most people don't fall into extremes. Polarising the issue could be harmful to the rational cause, actually - somebody who is quite religious but hadn't really given much thought or study to religion or science might see the barrage of battle-talk and feel they have to pick a side and that science isn't for them as its proponents are seemingly utterly contemptuous of their beliefs.

It is one thing to believe in secularism - that's completely reasonable. It's quite another to get worked up about what individuals believe, which is what your OP is about. Why be so rude? Life's too short.

good post, TessOfTheBurbs. You have rationally hit the nail on the head and possibly knocked some sense into some people.

Militant atheists are quite funny.They spend huge amounts of time and energy on something that they dont believe in(smile)

I loved the way he managed (with little effort) to make Prof Brain Cox look very, very, very thick in the Guardian today.

LOL, Brian

My estimation of him went sharply down after reading a quote from Peter Stringfellow that he has been a visitor to his establishment.