Hawking

[Typist]

Thanks John, I'll check it out, appreciate it.

[Richard Baron]

If I am correct, or if I think that?

Like I said, if you are correct, it will be because you won the Philosophical Lottery.

Sorry Typist, I mis-read your initial comment. I read it as "if the proposition that you believe is true", whereas I think you meant "if you have come to believe a proposition that is true".

[Rortabend]

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/12757 ... surge.html

I rest my case.

[bytesplicer]

If a full understanding of reality is forever beyond our grasp, we can look forward to an eternity of the joy of discovery.

What a bore it would be if reality turns out to be so small in scope and complexity that it can be fully comprehended by the human mind.

Haha, you know what, I've never actually thought of it that way. Such a thought is strangely reassuring

Exploring the space between our own ears seems a far more practical exploration project.

Indeed, and in doing so, may reveal answers to the other questions (eventually).

John, thanks for the reference, I'll check that out too. On the question of gravity, I don't think of it as something that has to be created as a law. I think of it as a 'property' of the universe, or a phenomenon as you put it. My confusion about Hawking's statement is that he seems to be suggesting this property 'pre-dated' the universe and was somehow responsible for the spontaneous creation of the universe. For me this means that gravity isn't a property of our universe, rather that our universe is a property of gravity. In short, if gravity was 'around' before the big bang, then the big bang isn't 'the beginning' of the universe. I've actually got no real problem with this if it's true, but for now it seems to contradict all that has gone before, as well as seeming to be just another branch in an infinite regression.

Had another thought, perhaps Hawking's statement is a ruse, perhaps he's fighting religion using religion, i.e. seeing how well his opposition handle absolute creation arguments.

Haha, just saw your post as I previewed mine Rortabend. Gosh darn, by making this thread I've becoming an unwitting agent of Hawking and his PR machine! Sorry to drag you all in!

[Richard Baron]

Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi for most of the orthodox Jews in Britain, has responded to Stephen Hawking. He is quoted as saying "The Bible simply isn’t interested in how the Universe came into being". So what is the opening of Genesis all about, then?

(I have the Sacks quote from the Daily Telegraph website, but it seems that the ultimate source is the Times.)

UPDATE:

Whoops, I should not have relied on a second-hand newspaper account. What Jonathan Sacks actually said (The Times, 3 September 2010, page 27) is immune to the criticism I made above. His words were: "The Bible is relatively uninterested in how the Universe came into being. It devotes a mere 34 verses to the subject".

However, he also said, in the same article: "The mutual hostility between religion and science is one of the curses of our age, and is damaging to religion and science in equal measure". I cannot see how the last part of that claim can be even remotely plausible. The hostility may be damaging to religion, but science does not suffer in the least.

[bytesplicer]

Thanks to Richard, our roving reporter

His quotes are quite telling in themselves. Are we to ascertain that the importance of anything from the point of view of the bible is determined by the number of verses devoted to it. Could be interesting to compile a list of topics and their verse count, I imagine someone, somewhere is already on this! Maybe homosexuality and adultery aren't that interesting wrt the bible after all.

I agree, science has marched on despite this hostility. And, as far as I know, this hostility was pretty much all one way until Dawkins started to pipe up. But science has been stunted, how many scientists were killed or neutered during the formative periods, how different could things have been. How many ideas were discarded or modified to fit with church doctrine. All seems like a school bully persecuting someone for years then complaining about mutual hostility when they finally get a well deserved bloody nose.

I don't dislike religion, but I'm not that keen on hypocrisy.

Edit: Show on last night where Jonathan Sacks debated religion with three atheists. Not many convincing arguments on either side, but a lot of common ground was found, and I have to say Sacks came across very well, reasonable and astute.