Stephen Hawkins Says Idea of Afterlife a "fairy tale"

So you're saying it ought not belong? On what basis do you make this moral judgment?

You're argument is self defeating, because it implies it is morally wrong to have moral opinions which is contradictory. You see, any time you make the argument that you ought not do something, you are making a moral argument. So you can say you disagree with the red color lovers morality, and argue your moral idea of freedom is morally superior, but cannot support your argument by denying the existence of morality. for in doing so, you affirm it's existence. You're contradicting yourself. I would actually oppose the red color compulsion on moral grounds, not on amoral grounds.

All of us think in moral terms (ought and ought not).

 

If you actually looked at the many examples of children that gave countless details of a past life that cannot reasonably or instantly be explained away, for example, with the true spirit of scientific inquiry ("This is interesting. Why is this so?) instead of with an eagerness to instantly dismiss something that obviously upsets your belief system apple cart ("No evidence. No need to look.") then you would do yourself a real service.
You suit yourself. But don't pretend you have all the answers. Neither does Stephen Hawking.

Here again we see your "driving" thirst for knowledge and open mind. I am merely suggesting that research like Stevenson's raises many questions and interesting points. You have a real zeal to ignore what does make you comfortable in your beliefs, however.
For that, you have my sincere sympathy.

We aren't discussing testing how many chimpanzees will choose to eat a peppermint flavored banana, for instance. This area we seek to at least inquire into is necessarily cut off from human inquiry by the cessation of life (presumably) so not surprisingly, progress in this inquiry is tortuously slow (especially given attitudes like yours). Nevertheless, a truly open minded thinker sees evidence, like examples of reincarnation, that hopefully would at least pry open a shut brain (like yours) at least a little.

A life beyond physical death is a life beyond physical death.

I have no interest in wading through a mountain of verbiage to extract a few pertinent sentences (presumably).
That Hawking chooses to dismiss transcendent life as a "fairy tail" indicates a real cultural bias that doesn't bode well for even handed consideration of possibilities.

As I've already mentioned, I would consider the case of a boy in Beirut (for one ready example) who remembered living the life of a mechanic who was run over and killed
(including knowing the names of many relatives, location of this accident, and many details of an event that happened years before he was born) as something that would trigger further investigation. Inquiring minds would hopefully want to know definitely how it is this boy knows so much about something he should rightly have no knowledge of.

If you are claiming no one has explained how this phenomena is possible to your satisfaction so we don't need to consider it anymore, then we should stop all scientific inquiry, I suppose. But we don't simply stop when we run into an obstacle (unless our prejudices demand it). We try to explain what it is we see, hopefully.

I readily admit I would like to believe that life is transcendent. This alone does not mean it is not so. There is other evidence that suggests it is so.

So was does this suggest? Because we haven't figured everything out there is nothing to know or learn?
Does Stevenson's locked cabinet definitely rule out all his other work? We cannot conclude that though you have certainly made that leap. Considering you don't know everything, and considering all the things you cannot account for, you certainly seem very certain that you do know everything.

Scientific method and inquiry has been used by scientists like Ian Stevenson to definitely establish whether life ends permanently at the moment of death (or not). For many people, if not you, the issue remains unresolved. You look at things like reincarnation study and conclude this means the afterlife is a fairy tale. I conclude just the opposite and think the issue is still a work in progress. Who is more open minded?

 

I'm going to have to ask that you forgive my ignorance on the matter but how does knowing how everything started advance us a race? I can see creating better tools and computers to figure out about all the different things in space, but that's about it.

 

Hawking is not the smartest man in the world...depends on if you're talking theoretical physics or cosmology or casino card-counting?

No one is correct or wrong. I personally question 'why' 300 religions, why conflicting beliefs, why opposing beliefs, why wacky beliefs? If there are essentially 300 different assumptions about deities or afterlife's or whatever religious, to me this comes across a little diluted. And most importantly, why does a few religions believe they are the top-dogs and feel a need to force their beliefs into government and others?

Hawking is not creating a religion?? Hawking is giving his opinion and in his field of study...he continues studying! He doesn't simply assume a whole bunch of crap then ask everyone who agrees with his beliefs to deny same-sex marriages! Can you see the differences?

 

Nicely stated...

Religions and all their permutations are nothing but a form of social or cult evolution.

Take a dozen new-born babies and deposit them on a deserted island (we're assuming they will function just fine) then go back and check on them in 200-300 years...what religious beliefs do you suspect they will adopt?

Now repeat this exercise on 300 deserted islands, let 2000 years pass, and what religious beliefs might we find?

 

Yet it IS the place of Theologians and Philosophers.Are you so lacking
culture to deny that.You sound very much like someone in
Hitler's 3rd Reich.
It is Virtually EVERYONE's and ANYONES's place to have an opinion
and comment on arguably THE most important Life question within
mankind.Liberals have yer type mentality.They Know best.
Everyone just shut up and do as they say.
That's basically been the style and substance of virtually everthing
Obama and Pelosi/Reid DO Politically.
Just shut up and let them call the shots.

 

I think what you may be describing is something that was once referred to as purgatory. I questioned this to a priest long before 2006 and he informally told me that it was like you said in the early days of the church, but for some time the church has been moving away from that idea, and that those who were good of heart and deserved to enter into Heaven were most likely in Heaven, or something along those lines, but it was a long time ago.

 

Improved tools and the computer are a big deal by themselves.

Another example might be that we are pretty sure the Sun will eventually burn out and will destroy the Solar system...this means the END to all advancement and the human race...when the time comes probably a good thing to know...

 

No. Purgatory was a completely different theological conclusion. It was derived from the apocryphal book 2 Maccabees 12:46.

This line was troublesome to Catholic theologians who understood both salvation in Heaven and d@mnation in Hell to irreversible. What use would it be to "pray for the dead that they may be loosed of their sins" if they were already in heaven or Hell?

So they posited a different place where the dead who were not bad enough for Hell but not yet worthy of salvation to perform penance and be "loosed" of the sins holding them back.

Hence... a fourth place (besides Heaven, Hell and Limbo): Purgatory.

 

Yeah, we don't really have any power over what the sun doesn't or doesn't do so I'm not gonna worry about that. If it happens it happens. And I agree that the computers and tools are very important but I still fail to see the importance of knowing how it all started. Sure it's pretty neat to be able to answer those questions but it's just not really important to me.

I think it's probably fair to tell you that I struggle with ADD and other learning disabilities so that does play a role in my uninterest in the matter. I don't knock anyone else for looking into those things, it's just me personally, I try to focus on the things that I'm responsible for and the things that I can effect.

 

I have spent no small amount of time looking at some the reincarnation "evidence." The most important real observation that should be made is this:

The plural of "anecdote" is "not data."

There is not a single example of one of these "cases" that is rigorously controlled enough to rule out bias or fraud. In every case, the information "extracted" from the child was not merely available to other people, but it was available to people close enough to the child to recognize it.

Like every other "paranormal" study I am aware, reincarnation is subject to the "control correlated shrinkage" effect. In other words, the tighter the controls to prevent bias or fraud, the smaller the effect.

That may have been true 30 years ago when Stevenson's "research" was current and untested. It is no longer either current or untested. Three decades of subsequent research have been unable to generate any confidence in his original ideas.

"Tortuously slow? " Is that the new euphemism for "nonexistent?" In simple point of fact there has been no "progress in this inquiry" at all. Every single significant attempt to detect evidence for an afterlife (and there have been many) has run afoul of the most elementary scientific protocols.

Again... when sufficient controls are in place to rule out bias or fraud, the evidence disappears.

A wonderful tale. What reason do we have to believe it? This particular example is one in which the supposedly inexplicable information wasn't even uncovered in the presence of Stevenson himself, but gleaned by him later "from multiple witnesses."

This is a problem repeated regularly with such examples. On inspection they prove to be entirely anecdotal, and entirely unblemished by protocols or controls that would allow confidence in their integrity.

Not even close. I am claiming here that no one has effectively demonstrated that there is anything here requiring explanation at all.

No.

It merely serves as a teaching moment of the difference between a well designed experiment and his earlier badly designed non-experiments.

Being open minded is about inputs - not outputs - of your mind. Being open to other opinions, thoughts, experiences and philosophies can only help your thinking, but thinking itself is the process of rationalizing those inputs into (hopefully) productive conclusions.

Our difference is not which is the more open minded, but which is the one best able to draw productive conclusions.

 

I believe you would find something very similar to what we have in the world today. A nearly universal belief in God and morality. Theism is the only real logical common sense position to hold. Atheists must scrap logic and hold their faith in the absence of God blindly. They are of the most religious on earth.

 

Of course religion 'is a man made group', just like fairy tales.

 

Hawking wasn't just talking about religion and we all know that much. He is a flipping moron for such a smart guy!

 

It's not that he's a moron, he's just getting into areas beyond his expertise. Hawking is a scientists, and bound to scientific presuppositions. Like most scientist he likely doesn't realize that science depends on presuppositions which must be accepted a priori. Science is limited to predictable repeating processes. Hawking will try to fit reality into that model at all costs. This precludes a willful God that acts in non-uniform manners (in fact it precludes free will altogether). It's not that science can prove this presupposition, it's just that it cannot operate apart form it. Thus a God that intervenes in his creation must be dismissed prior to looking at the evidence. IOW it must be accepted on blind faith. It's a very unfortunate philosophical trap that many scientists fall into.

Hope that was clear as mud.

 

Well we are all free to make contentions like this. The problem is proving them. This is the typical response to cases of past life recognition that critics have trouble countering.

There are hundreds of well documented case of reincarnation phenomena world wide. Facile attempts to dismiss them make little difference. I don't how you coach or influence a two year old into suddenly
coming up with unknowable details of another life he or she might have lived in some other era.

So, for you, scientific research is like a timed race, and if you don't provide concrete answers to complex issues within a certain time frame, you lose?
That's an interesting take. I'd never thought of things in that way before.

Perhaps you could document such a case positively, where a child who claimed to have lived as a tenth century monk, or something, was coached into this claim by (I don't know)...a well meaning parent? At least then your contention would be more than just a claim of yours or a suspicion.

I suppose the detailed information supplied by a little boy would explain this somewhat. What do you think?

Citation please.
And if true, does this invalidate the case, or the hundreds of other such cases? Does the testimony of witnesses automatically invalidate something?

So you accuse respected scientist and researcher, Dr. Ian Stevenson, of fraud. Well I'm sure you can prove such a claim...right?

Yet you seem to unhesitatingly reject any suggestion that a transcendent life might (that's might) be reflected by any number of paranormal phenomena.

If not reincarnation then perhaps a near death experience, or, in the case of people who have actually been declared dead without recordable brain waves or function, the experiences of people who actually were "dead".
To shut off your entire brain to a panoply of possibilities seems like the furthest thing from open mindedness I can think of.

Well we certainly disagree over what is a "productive conclusion". The fact is I'm willing to consider the possibility that we gain consciousness in our brief life span and then, we simply cease to be, like a broken radio, even though I don't believe this is the case.
But it seems to me, that you've never even considered that our consciousness (the very essence of the individual) might be able to transcend these bags of skin that carry us around for a few years. I don't think you've ever given it a thought.

 

Come on dude. "The Bible says"?

Be real, it's a fairy tale book for ancient minds. Not a book of facts for humans today. Gimme a break on this garbage! Going to "heaven" indeed. How gullible do you have to be?

 

I'm guessing you're making comments without having read through the thread.

 

I was going off the original post for the number of religions and I was not claiming that a certain number were wrong. I was introducing the fact that even though Hawking claimed the afterlife is a myth, and people and facts back his side, that doesn't make him right and these "300" (or should i put "x" number) religions are wrong, as the original post infers.

Interesting. So we're both really monotheists I just believe in one more god than you =)

Again, the original post infers that since Hawking has stated this, all religions are wrong. If you read my reasoning above you'll see that I was not pinning one against the other. In fact I was not using the Begging the Question fallacy (for those who took phil 101 in college) of the bandwagon effect at all. I was merely pointing out the ridiculousness of just because this one man states something cannot compromise all other believes when they are as widely varied as you say. When so widely varied they can't all be based off of the same logic or reasoning, so to discredit all of them is nearly impossible.

And a belief that an intelligent being did not play some part in our creation (whether it be minuscule or large) is simply ignorant. Many geniuses have stated throughout our history sufficient reasoning as to God's existence.

That was my fault to set aside them then. They shall now be a pertinent part of my discussion. Many theists, philosophers, and scientists of their day were not taken by authority alone. I urge you to read up on Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and their reasoning as to why God exists.

I am glad to be neither silent nor distracting from the main point.

My perception of insult comes from the challenge to religions around world in the last lines of the original post. I did not say that Science was somehow insulting Religion, rather that the poster of the thread was.

Hence the need for Religion, as well as Science, to change and evolve throughout time. Our understanding of the universe cannot be a simple objective statement through facts and figures as that is not all that makes up this universe. Having a stagnant, unchanging belief would be detrimental to all in the world.

My reference to Hawking creating his own religion was a simple challenge, and if looked at from a perspective can be seen easily: Hawking teaches the world what he observes and thinks is right, and people take those teachings to heart, believe in them, and argue them, just like we are doing now. This is how Christianity started.

I don't argue the fact that Hawking is a brilliant scientist. His challenges comes to those who have a different perception of how the world is observed, as with any belief. Most of these people, myself included, have reasons for what we believe. I have yet to read Hawking's book, and I hopefully will soon, but in the article it is never said that he has proved there is no afterlife, just what he has regarded. The article further avoids words like "evidence" and "prove" and uses instead "asserts" and "observations."

 

I believe I stated "arguably" the smartest man. Kinda covered my ass with that semantic =P

There are "x" number of different religions simply because people are intuitive, creative, even imaginative. They see a new way of looking at things, a new perspective to a constant observation throughout life, and they find evidence to back up that perspective (yes, sometimes the evidence is shaky, at best). They teach this new view to others around them and those that believe join them and follow them. This following is not always physical, especially in today's technological age, but can be done through news sites, blogs, and forums, such as this. In this sense, Hawking could create a Religion; he would just need to organize his followers. Just because Religions get their evidence from somewhere other than the Scientific community does not mean they "make up a bunch of crap." Most beliefs, at least in the "top-dogs," are grounded in logical and rational observations.

 

There is no problem proving this contention. It is an objective and demonstrable characteristic of every example provided by Stevenson in his research.

Given that there are billions of people, "hundreds of well documented case(s)" is not very impressive. I can fund "hundreds of documented cases" for any wacky proposition I wanted to make from alien abduction to levitation to chupacabra attacks to crying icons.

And you don't seem to get it... if you are able to identify " details of another life," then they are certainly both knowable and coachable.

Close.

Scientific research is like any other human endeavor. And if you' don't make concrete progress finding answers to the issues you are exploring within a reasonable time frame, you are a loser. There is only so much time to do research. Competent researchers know when to cut their losses. But alas, not all researchers are competent.

I'm shocked.

There is no shortage of actual demonstrated frauds in reincarnation research, Bridey Murphy being one of the more famous. But if you're looking for coaching by "well meaning" parents, we need look no further back than about six years.

Reincarnation all over again

I think that if most scientists were that credulous,we would still be making fire by rubbing sticks together.

Stevenson, Ian. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, (second revised and enlarged edition), University of Virginia Press, ISBN 9780813908724, 1974.

It pretty much renders the "evidence" useless, yes. I'll repeat what I said earlier; The plural of "anecdote" is "not data."

I would not be the first... but no. I only accuse him of being a poor scientist.

That's the difference between inputs and outputs. Being open to an idea does not require credulous acceptance of the idea as true.

I'm 54 years old. There are a lot of things I no longer hesitate about rejecting. That is one of the advantages of experience. You learn enough to draw conclusions.

What about them? What about them do you think requires a mystical or paranormal explanation when prosaic materialistic explanations already are adequate?

There is a lot of bullsh*t in the world. Filtering some or most of it out is not the same as having a closed mind. It is a first step towards leading a competent life.

Good for you.

And of course, you are wrong. Again.

 

Even if they are adamant in the foxholes, they won't be in hell! LOL!

Except for those that don't believe in the true God.

 

That would first require there to be a Hell.

That would also first require there to be a Hell.