Stephen Hawking, the world famous cosmologist and physicist, declared in an interview published in the May 15 edition of England's Guardian that "there is no heaven." Whether he is correct or not is not something anyone can know for sure. We can believe as we choose, but we cannot "know" as a matter of fact, either way.
Having made that claim, I am probably picking a fight with both some of those who believe in heaven and some of those who do not. The believers may object to my distinction between knowledge and belief. he non-believers may object to my assertion that they cannot know if in fact they are correct. Sorry, but that's just that way it is.
To be sure, there is no scientific, fact-based, evidence for the existence of heaven. The inability to know that something exists however is not evidence that it does not exist. It's simply reason, for those who limit their understanding of the world to purely rational and scientific ways of knowing, to explain why they do not believe in the existence of heaven.
While nobody should belittle or demean such purist rationalism, like all purists, those who assume that any one way of knowing the world, or of understanding life, tend to miss out on many things. The pure rationalists may find it hard to fall in love, dream big dreams, create/appreciate non-representational art, and, quite ironically, do certain kinds of scientific and philosophical research that demands imagining that what we currently know or even can currently conceive of knowing, should define the limits of what we can do or attempt to do. It's their loss, but hardly makes them foolish.
On the other hand, those who believe in heaven would do well to admit that theirs is in fact a belief, a knowledge that comes from sources other than the rational and scientific worlds. However much they believe in heaven, that belief is not testable like gravity or even trust-able like evolution, which although not provable, is a reliable theory that is both falsifiable (it hasn't been) and offers the best possible scientific account for the world as we know it.
Ironically, the discomfort with admitting this, as is often the case with believers, evidenced by their claims that there "really is" such evidence, is that their obsession with "proving" the existence of heaven simply suggests that they believe more in scientific rationality than they do in their own professed faith. Rather than admitting, with the kind of humility faith ought to create, that there are many ways to know the world, such arguments meet the arrogance of pure rationalism with the foolishness of pure faith.
In no way however, does the absence of scientific evidence for the existence of heaven mean that heaven is for idiots, as Hawking suggested in further comments to his interviewer. Having asserted that there is no heaven, the professor went on to "explain" that heaven is "a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark." That kind of denigration of other people and their beliefs is not only unnecessary, it is precisely the kind of obnoxious behavior that too many religious folk dole out to non-believers.
In denying the existence of heaven, Hawking definitely commits a sin -- that of speaking badly about others. Hawking's sin, in Jewish tradition, is called lashon ha'rah, and interestingly it is not limited to speaking falsely. Rather then being defined by the factuality of the utterance (there are other categories of transgression to cover that), lashon ha'ra is defined by the callousness, mean-spiritedness or insensitivity of the utterance, even if it is true. There is no question that Hawking crossed that line and for that he should be held accountable.
Personally, I am agnostic about the whole "heaven thing," or perhaps cautiously believing, would be a better way to describe what I believe. It just seems narrow-minded to me to declare that the years we spend here are all that there is. It also seems arrogant to assume that a relatively new and still unconfirmed belief, the idea that this is all that there is, is definitely correct. But that's me.
Whatever one thinks about the existence of heaven though, it seems that once again the real issue is not what may or may not occur in the next life, but how we treat each other and speak to each other in this one.
Follow Brad Hirschfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradhirschfield
Chris Stedman: Stephen Hawking's Other Insight
Bishop Pierre Whalon: Many Mansions in Whose House?
John Shore: No Heaven For You!
Christopher Cocca: Heaven, Hell and Stephen Hawking
RESPONSE TO BRAD HIRSCHFIELD:
Brad Hirschfield`s article has been widely read and elicited a large number of comments along with responses on comments and deserves praise. It is a bit surprising however that Brad Hirschfield has himself stayed away from participating in the debate started by him. I am sure many of the readers including `Yours truly` would be curious to know how would BH sum it up as some sort of `Record notes of discussions.`
In particular we will be curious to know his answers to the following questions:
Does he still consider SH as callous, mean spirited and Insensitive for denying heaven?
Is there a precise definition of heaven which enables us to determine if it exists or not?
Does he still believe that a pure rationalist cannot fall in love or dream big dreams?
How is the `heaven thing` correlated with the assumption that the years we spend here are all that there is?
It is my request that Brad give his opinions without being disrespectful or insensitive to anyone ,least of all to Stephen Hawking who is undoubtedly among the few greatest minds currently alive not just as a Scientist, but also for his understanding of the philosophy of Science which I consider as a prerequisite to the understanding of the philosophy of religion.
PART 1:
RESPONSE TO GALANOS 1:
My dear friend Galanos 1,
Your devotion to God and your belief that God created the human beings by design – which is in conformity with the Anthropic Principle I talked about earlier – and not by chance, deserve appreciation, and as I said earlier, if your devotions, your beliefs, and the principles which you follow, are sometimes giving you spiritual awareness, then it’s good for you and I remain your friend and well wisher. However your frequent use of the words such as `Demons`, `Sinners`, `Horrible people`, `Unbelievers`, `Deranged`, `Disillusioned` etc as well as your allocating some of these adjectives to Scientists and astronomers, may not go down well with many of your fellow beings, not to mention the scientists, … and perhaps not even with God. But I do not blame you for this. I take the law of causation seriously enough, and I am pretty sure there must have been some interactions of the world on you which sometimes caused you to use these words. I am somewhat confident you may not be using these words – or similar ones – again. With all your good qualities, if this `Negativity` is deleted, the quality of your spiritual awareness is bound to improve still further.
I thank you for becoming my fan and I am herewith becoming yours.
Responses to Brad Hirschfield and Stephen Hawking will follow shortly.
(To be continued )
You also have to understand I disagree with your whole theory. If you believe in the natural evolution theory, likewise some interaction in your past must have directed you to believe humans have no soul, I am positive it is other unbelievers like you that taught you to feel this way, I really do feel sorry for you. I blame unbelievers like you and all the educated people that claim such fraudulent and forged theory's . You unbelievers believe in something that can never be considered part of human existence. You are ungrateful creatures and mislead innocent minds in to corruption and disobedience. You condemn yourself's within the Word of God. You condemn your existence.
You say that I am an unbeliever and that I believe humans have no soul, that’s not ok with me. I would like to know which word or sentence written by me has led you to come to that conclusion. I am as staunch a believer as anyone who can be considered as a record holder in this respect. I firmly believe that God is a mind, an omnipresent mind, in everybody`s mind, and if we go deep in our minds we will realize that there are no unbelievers in this world regardless of what they say.Its just that we cannot give a physical function to God. He is not `An item` that makes us one by one as in a factory – provides a select few of us with souls - and then kills us whenever he wants, whether at childbirth itself or after allowing us to complete a century. Its only when we give a physical function to the creator, are we confronted with the Question :Who created the creator?
You say that I condemn my own existence, this is not ok with me, and it’s a bit harsh and disrespectful to me. I am always in a friendly disposition with all I interact with and it matters a great deal to me to know what they think of me.
It looks as if Stephen Hawking is not going to read Parts 1 to 9.
But I am revealing Part 10 anyway:
We must extend the tenure of civilization by about one second and complete at least 7 seconds - on the scale referred earlier - particularly if we wish to colonize the galaxy before getting extinct.
We need time to develop fusion power and other technologies to construct large space vehicles that can travel at least as fast as one thousandth the speed of light? Even at that speed it will take 10000 years to cover about 10 light years distance from one planetary system to another. After halting at these destinations for about 10000 years we may then move forward on the next interstellar journeys. The space vehicles have to be large enough to have their own biosphere and containing a social unit of several thousands of people.
These objectives are not impossible to achieve, but even a highly optimistic assessment would require a few thousands of years, it certainly looks improbable in a few hundred years which is the time left at our disposal. In order to survive the next three centuries considered the danger zone, we need to create probabilities for full convergence of Science and religion, and all religions into one religion, and for ensuring that the equation ` E = m*c*c ` is used only for the development of human life and not for its destruction.
THE WICKED CONTINUED DECEPTION AND FRAUD BY DEMONS AND THE DISOLUSION BY ASTRONEMERS, AND SCIENTISTS, THAT TIME TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE GRACE OF GOD.
Unbelievers, most scientists and most astronomers alike, are disillusioned because, although not all of them, most deny the Existence of “God”, and continue to corrupt man, and their own Earthly Existence, with the only belief this natural evolution happened by some chance.
They fail to understand that God Created “TIME”, and created Man in Eternity, and faster than any speed, or the speed of Light, and or faster than any speed Man can fathom.
Not one being, living on Earth can exceed that which is already been Created by the Grace of God upon Man.
If we do not shift to another location before we get extinct from the planet Earth, we will be extinct forever.
If we do not survive long enough to develope capabilities to shift to another location, we will not be able to do so.
If we do not survive the next three hundred years, considered the danger zone, we will not be able to survive long enough to develope capabilities to shift to another location.
If we do not create probabilities to survive the danger zone, we will not survive through the danger zone.
If we simply believe that God will come to our rescue, and do not act to create such probabilities for survival through the danger zone, we will collapse - via the equation referred in part 10 - while in a state of `wishful thinking`.
If `deranged` is the adjective intended to be used, then its the appropriate one for being too optimist in considering 300 years as the danger zone, perhaps this figure might be 200, or as Martin rees believes :``This is our final century``.
…..And further with an unblemished understanding that a typical human being anywhere in the world wants to live in peace and the average moral standard is the same for all countries and does not differ from country to country as it is not a measure of `temperature` or `humidity`. The average quotient `Qx` pertaining to the desire to `Live and let live` is also generally the same provided the corresponding quotient`Qy` of the leaders of nations is higher or at least equal to `Qx`. That this `Qy` in some cases happens to be well below the required levels is the root cause of all conflicts. But the number of such leaders with a low `Qy`, who have considerable influence and who are required to be convinced to change their way of thinking, and comprehensively change their approach, and that of their followers, towards facilitating a conflict free world, while following the principles and philosophies so outlined, may not be a large number and is perhaps just a single digit number.
The beautiful minds of the world must time their effort and ride the horse called `INTELLIGENCE` well enough to overtake `EGO` in quick time.
( To be continued in part 8)
The collapse of civilization must be prevented at all costs. Of what use Quantum Physics and Relativity if no one is going to be left alive? It is said that the Anthropic Principle is designed in such a way that it leads to the arrival of theoretical physicists to understand the universe, in which case: of what use Galaxies, Stars, and Supernovas if the stalls get empty? it is also said (John Wheeler) that this universe of ours is a Self Excited Circuit (Refer his `Delayed choice experiment`) whereby intelligent observers, in the here and now could be responsible for what happened in the past, in which case : who will collapse all the wave functions when we are gone? Perhaps some other beings from other planets may do it, and the Anthropic Principle may not after all be Earth centric. And as the cosmologist Edward Harrison said : Our human civilization may be among the top hundred technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way but we may not reach the top ten as the probability is high that we may self destruct before that. There is in fact another law called the law of probability on which the anthropic principle has no control whatsoever.
( To be continued in part 9 )
The two laws/principles may however be complementary to each other in the creation phenomena, but the Quantum level God can only throw the dice .. he cannot predict the outcome. In order to illustrate all this, consider the scale of time as one in five trillion. If on this scale the universe has a life expectation of about a hundred thousand years (corresponding to five hundred thousand trillion years – a conservative estimate, actually it may be far more than this), then the current age of the universe is only about twentyfour hours (corresponding to 13.7 billion years), and the human beings arrived in this world only about six seconds back (corresponding to one hundred thousand years), and if they are going to live just a couple of hundred years more, it works out to just 0.012 seconds on that scale… …. …. A chilling thought … … It’s obvious then that the Anthropic Principle may not after all be Earth centric.
6.012 seconds ( out of 100000 years) is too small for comfort, Let us endeavour to extend this somewhat.
It is with all this in mind that I am hoping that Stephen Hawking reads this.
... ... .... ...
(Part 10 after a break of time)
Your theories are nothing more that a grain of sand in an endless seashore that God Created. You continue to base you're knowledge after the fact, the fact being after human Birth, if you understood that you did not exist prior to your'e Birth, and that God Saved you from oblivion by Gracing you with Salvation, you would Pray and thank God for the remainder of your life.
Part 1 of 10
If Stephen Hawking reads this he could play a role in preventingThe human civilization from self destruction.
I am in total agreement with Stephen Hawking. I have read (and still reading) his books along with those of Roger Penrose with spellbinding interest, and I have yet to read a single sentence written by them which did not make sense. While it is possible we may not arrive at the ultimate truth till Planck time ( 10^- 43 sec) before the next big bang, the present understanding of reality vis a vis Quantum Physics and Cosmology is sufficiently advanced to refrain from talking about heaven or hell, or about miracles, or about a classical level, rewarding and punishing God, provided we take the laws of causation seriously. Throughout history it has been seen that Religion has been playing a catching up game with Science and getting itself updated at regular intervals by incorporating the scientific truths acquired from time to time.
(to be continued in part 2)
At the current level of knowledge the expectation of a classical level God made up of atoms and molecules and having mass, leads us to a state of mind where we have no choice but to ask the question, are we in good hands? Can such a classical level God be considered omnipotent or omnipresence?. How can this be possible?, He would have to occupy a certain limited region of time and space, however large it may be, and be subject to interactions and forces caused by the world outside this region, on which he can have no control whatsoever unless he breaks the laws of Physics created by him. If he sits in judgment in a limited region of space, in say, the Andromeda galaxy and keeps a comprehensive record of the deeds of all beings on the planet Earth or any other planet in any other part of the Universe and then rewards and punishes accordingly, he will have to violate Einstein`s special theory of relativity and Newton`s laws of motion (at the classical level) and many other laws all created by him in a continuous way.
( To be continued in part 3 )
On the other hand, as per the current status of available scientific knowledge, It will do no harm to anyone`s religion to believe that God is a mind that is omnipresent. The mind that can effectively come out of time and space, and travel instantaneously to far off coordinates of time and space. This might even explain the phenomena of quantum entanglement. Perhaps it travels at no more than speed of light, but measures the distance between two points – however far apart- as nil, thus following Einstein`s Special relativity, and also explaining its omnipresence.
Perhaps it carries the quantum particles as retarded waves going into the future and coming back – after due entanglement and shaking of hands, not to mention the collapsing of wave functions – into the past as advanced waves, both actions according to the Wheeler Feynman emitter - absorber theory, and each journey at speed of light, but positive and negative, thus taking no time at all, and explaining the `collapse of the wave` function ( Refer Cramer`s `Transactional interpretation of Quantum mechanics`). All that is of course quite far reaching to comprehend, but there is no doubt, when the final truth is known it might be even more mind boggling to comprehend, perhaps a bit less mindboggling than the statement : `God created this universe`.
(To be continued in part 4)
There is no disputing that God exists, wheather a famous scientist believes it or not.
If you spend too much time alone things make sense to you that do not really make sense.
It isn't an argument at all. It's just a lot of stuff the writer believes. One cannot have an argument about religion because the very concept of religion is irrational. Religion poisons any debate in that you cannot debate "beliefs," only facts.
As for Rabbi Brad calling Dr. Hawking a sinner, well, don't get too bent out of shape about that. To an atheist, it's about like my 5-year old daughter calling her sister a 'stinky pooh-pooh face' when she gets frustrated. It's a cut-to-the-bone remark to my 5-year old...not so much to everyone else.