Leonard Mlodinow - The Rise of Scientific Atheism

There have always been people who did not believe in God, but science today has made it more acceptable to be an atheist.

[ARIZJOE]

Besides being a great scientist, a brilliant popular writer, and a notable TV writer, Leonard just seems like a decent man. Hence, I subscribe to most of what he says.

[canadiansaremorons]

"we see everything following the laws"

Hint: a system that has "laws" sounds like a designed computer program. disclaimer: I'm not a theist, I'm playing devils advocate here scratching my head wondering how a bunch of laws can just pop into existence.

When is the last time you saw a computer program with laws, procedures, constants, just pop into existence from a corrupted hard drive. It's possible, just unlikely. And likewise, if there was a designer of these "laws", that designer would have to have been designed himself, by another system of laws, hence, we don't get anywhere in this recursive joke.

If the multiverse spawned new universes that all had different laws, this doesn't even explain it because the multiverse itself is governed by laws and where did those laws come from? Once again, disclaimer: I'm not a theist, I am simply asking valid scientific questions, that people like Lee Smolin have worked on (evolution of physics and universes) and they have FAILED greatly to come to solve the problem. It's something like infinite recursion, or Godel's Incompleteness theorem.

[peterhaitch]

I opt for the 3rd choice because I cannot prove either

[IronCharioteer]

Seems like Mlodinow could benefit from a discussion with Laurence Krauss or the literature of Bertrand Russell. The question atheism answers is whether or not it is reasonable to believe a god exists. Given that there is as much evidence for the existence of a god as there is for the existence of Harry Potter we say that is is unreasonable to believe such a being exists, just like Harry Potter.

[zatoichiable]

The earth dont need humans to satisfy humans folly.

[tombapilot]

Science might not disprove the most traitless of gods, though it certainly does disprove the copious particular described gods that contradict physical laws and historical events which are discerned through science.  But let's not forget that observational science and hypothesis-based science are not the only tools at our disposal for deriving conclusions.  We also have inductive and deductive logic.

Let's take the diest god, for example.  Deism holds that a god created what exists today, but has no other influence other than that creative event a finite time into the past.  Deism places god in a gap that science cannot necessarily tread.  But can logic close that gap?  I believe it can.

Here's the problem.  Such a god would have had to exist at some point in order to create.  After all, you aren't going to do anything if you don't even exist.  This means that existence would have to already be in place.  After all, nothing exists if existence isn't even in place.  Meaning that a constituent of existence (deist god) could not be the cause of an existence in which it already resides.  And you can't say that that deist god created itself, because after all only something that exists can be causal.  And if you already exist, you cannot then be caused to exist because you already do exist.  And finally, if something within existence is not the cause of existence, then there is nothing left in existence that could be proposed as its cause.  There certainly isn't anything outside existence to take on this roll.  So we are left with a scenario where there has always been something rather than nothing, unbeknownst to us the nature of that existence beyond 13.8 bya.  And so there is no moment when that existence wasn't already in place when it would possibly require a creator to form.  Ultimately we must conclude that the prerequisite for existence is existence itself; god cannot be that prerequisite.

[ConservativeAnthem]

The "Barrier" proving a need for God is the Fine Tuned Universe, the existence of which caused the Multiverse hypothesis.

[mackdmara]

I listen to a number of people on subjects like this. I want to start of by telling you I am Christian & not a literal creationist. Still, as a Jewish man, he should know what the Torah is saying in these old passages.

First, as a Christian, I have Christ. He literally said He was the fulfillment of the Law. So, I can look to Christ & those that knew him (in the flesh), to know what of the Old Testament Law is still applicable today. As a Christian I am not, cherry picking or ignoring, those old passages, but rather I can clearly say they are for the Theocracy of Israel. Many of them are not God's ethical standards, but rather are an adjudication of those ethics. Thus, the punishment may not apply & things allowed (like divorce) may in fact be concessions, not ethical laws. As a Jewish person, he has nothing else & the Law should be binding to him. Unless he chooses to accept Christ as The Christ.

Even with that, Old Testament Law still holds some odd ideals by our standards. Let's look at what he choose. Killing of homosexuals & killing of disobedient children. Does God want you to kill homosexuals? Christ clearly would not accept that, but what about the Mosaic Law?

It is still a sin to practice homosexuality, & back then to stone a person you need three people who believe a person was practicing it & a judge that clearly could know that person was. The punishment is severe, but it takes you basically showing the world, with intent, for anyone to know it. Many other cultures of the time around them would have allowed for that & much more. It requires moving, but Abram had no problem doing that. Those wanting to sin had options.

How about disobedient children? First off, in that society if you had to care for it, they called you the owner. To be culturally sensitive, know this is a reciprocal bond. You Must care for them & anything bad that they do or that happens to them (not from another person or their animals) is your responsibility. Thusly, this law is an ultimate punishment, not to be regularly carried out. Still, if you are responsible for someone who wants to do you damage, what can you do? You can punish them, exile them, or kill them. The first would be the natural choice. The second is very harsh, as they will end up a bum, slave, or dead in a slow painful way. The idea of killing them seems harsh now, but that is due to our society & the safety nets with in it. That is Not the world these people lived in. God knew that & judged as fair a judgement as could be at that time. Not his perfect ethical stance, but one that the people could bear.

If you decide to judge this kind of thing, inform your opinion. Look up what the world was like then, what the tribes around them were practicing, & then what these people Really believed. Once you have the context, your view goes from judgement to understanding. There was reasons for the law, but there is no reason to believe all of it is God's principle ethical stance.

I do still admit, as a Jewish person today, it may be harder to dismiss it. I have Christ to back up my beliefs & the history, they have a greater burden. I hope he keeps the faith, either way.

[dr_IkjyotSinghKohli]

"Everything that happens follows the laws of nature" . . . But, they never bother to ask themselves where the "laws of nature" come from?

[stanpak]

Belief in Aliens is not entirely "without evidence". It is quite justified bet. We have billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each of them and most of stars tend to have planets. It is quite reasonable bet to assume that life existed or exists somewhere there on these remote planets even if technically we cannot collect much evidence of that.

[ronjohnson]

thank the lord that no one else died in WWII.... It must be a horrible reality to know that your clan was singled out and killed. And, that the Germans, Russians, British, French, Italians, Americans, Japanese, Chinese, etc. made it thru the entire war without one fatality.