Stephen Hawking has died...
- Thread starter The Midnight
- Start date
I'm not 100% sure either but I did a quick google search verification and google says he didn't.
I think it is somewhat insulting to suggest he's in a better place when the belief is that without faith you don't go to the better place.
Obviously if people want to bend things around, as they generally do, then he and every other person who finds out there is actually a heaven and a hell after they die would ... wait for it... pick heaven. So essentially, if that's the way it is, the Devil is pretty lonely.
I'm pretty sure I left the thread alone where people were talking about the recently deceased President of the LDS church. I wouldn't go into that thread telling people there's no such thing as heaven. I would respect the deceased and those mourning him.
If Hawkings didn't believe in an afterlife, didn't believe in a supernatural creator, he wouldn't go to heaven. At least that's the story they tell the kiddies to convince them they need to have faith, because it's better to believe and be wrong than to not believe and be wrong. If it doesn't matter either way then why have faith in the first place? Why not wait for the proof and make a decision then, based on facts?
The reason is because faith is the cornerstone of Christianity. And by faith I mean believing in something that is unknowable and unprovable. The concept of faith is so incredibly offensive to me as the cheapest snake oil, used car salesman BS there could ever be (You've got to believe in the magic in order for it to work, when it doesn't work it's because you didn't believe in it enough). So to then suggest faith is completely unnecessary when it makes the thought of someone dying more pleasant blows my top.
Religious belief constantly wants to have it both ways. When you challenge a religious person specifically about their stated in writing beliefs they fall back on they just know there is "something" out there. Then when you want to allow two men to get married they all the sudden have this book they are quoting from, telling you passage and verse why that will destroy the world.
I'm ready to let this go. Religious debates aren't really my thing since I've already had a few hundred of them and am fully aware of the futility.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
I don't know what he believed at the time of his death. I don't decide who gets to go to Heaven or Hell.
Based on what I believe the Bible says, then if he didn't believe in Jesus as his savior, then yes, I would believe he's in Hell.
I'm not ashamed of what I believe in. I'm also not going to mock what somebody else believes in by calling it "mythology". You're looking for a reaction here. And that's your right to do that. I just feel sorry that you think you have to. I'm sorry for the people that have hurt you. I earnestly try not to do that to people who don't share my belief. So I apologize for those who have hurt you. I hope you find what you're looking for, truly.
I'm 100% sure you believe other religions are just mythologies. It's nice of you not to say it doe.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
Call it what you like, but I wouldn't say that. I tend to view that as offensive, and antagonistic. Nobody who wants to have a real discussion calls it that, only somebody who wants to inflame.
When I'm in that situation, I either don't bring it up, or I just say exactly what I don't agree with. Shockingly, nobody has ever gotten mad at me! I've had some really great discussions with people this way, and made a lot of friends doing it.
So no, I would never call somebody else's faith a mythology. Serves zero purpose.
JTT, no one has hurt me. I'm not what I call an "angry at God atheist." It's funny how you go there, though. It's similar to the way LDS people assume that when people leave the church it's because being LDS was just too hard for them. Man, get up on that high horse...
I find religion ridiculous and offensive and force for bad. I refer to religious concepts in terms that reflects the ridiculousness as I see them. That's why I call God the invisible sky daddy, because essentially that's what God is. Also the supernatural creator being. I want to express my views as my views look to me, to help those who might engage me in a discussion better understand where I'm coming from.
I've had enough religious debates to know that they are generally a waste of time.
I find religion ridiculous and offensive and force for bad. I refer to religious concepts in terms that reflects the ridiculousness as I see them. That's why I call God the invisible sky daddy, because essentially that's what God is. Also the supernatural creator being. I want to express my views as my views look to me, to help those who might engage me in a discussion better understand where I'm coming from.
I've had enough religious debates to know that they are generally a waste of time.
It's funny seeing people get worked up over it.
But ya, if you express a belief in public, you should expect those who disagree to express theirs. There is nothing that disrespectful in calling Christianity a mythology. There are Christians who believe that.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
I agree that in general, nothing disrespectful.
It seemed to me in that instance, Gameface meant it to be disrespectful. Maybe I read him wrong.
The thing is, he really believes it's just mythology. Billions of people believe the same. You're asking him NOT to express a mundane and common opinion, and instead to play along with what you believe. That's absurd. Same applies to the stuff he said about God being a sky daddy and what not.
Being disrespectful would be going out of his way to insult your belief. For example, if you said something about Jesus, and he responds by cussing Jesus, that'd be disrespectful. Just imo.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
I have no problem with calling it a mythology.
It just seemed like after using faith, then going to mythology, plus the rest of his "tone", that he was using it to be disrespectful. If I read that wrong, then I apologize. I just thought that it seemed like that's what his intent was.
MVP
Well-Known Member
So you better lie?
so if I don't believe in heaven but you do, there's a good chance I might end up in your heaven
just sayin'
just sayin'
Miggs
Well-Known Member
Is this ****ing true?
Hawking is the only person, to date, to have played himself on Star Trek(excluding historical people who have appeared via stock footage), appearing as his own holographic counterpart in the Star Trek: The Next Generationsixth season episode "Descent" in 1993. While filming the episode, Hawking was taken on a tour of the engineering set; indicating the warp core, he said, "I'm working on that."
I have a lot of fun messing with you, hope it's not too annoying.
Joseph Smith, imo, was a man of his time and place. A lot of people had religious beliefs, some held very strongly. A lot of his teachings were controversial, original, novel, modern, etc etc not exactly according to traditions. Among his teachings was a new vision of the afterlife. No more cauldrons of molten, burning sulfur where the sinner could cook and screech in pain for eternity. "Hell" was more of a condition of the mind. Regrets held at fever pitch, more or less. Grief over lost, gone forever opportunities for some.
What you're doing here is sketching a sort of straw man argument that makes you feel good you can just knock it down.
I don't actually claim to know exactly either the past, present, or future. I know I am dealing with beliefs that lack the force of proof. In fact, I think God must not want to use the power of force, presently, in persuasion. I think He's more interested in seeing what we choose to do or be.
I don't doubt His existence at all, but I don't think I know Him very well and don't think I exactly have any mission to tell others what I think, and especially to use force to obtain compliance.
I believe "progressive" notions following more or less the philosophies or theories of political scientists or any kind of managerial or professional caste are not as good a system as freedom, as leaving people to make their own way. All of our attempts at management seem to turn into some kind of established political system of so-called facts that can only be sustained by the use of force.
Steven Hawking was no doubt a socialist and a progressive much like many of our JFC political folks. I don't think he is in any kind of burning torment, but among friends and relatives who have gone on before, people who love and care for him.
I have no doubt that in his place and condition he will be able to have more active effect on the physical universe than he could have done in his disabled mortal body, on principles other than what we know anything about. I think he is perhaps euphoric about having moved on to a better place.
addictionary
Well-Known Member
Belief and knowledge are two separate concepts for a reason.
Of all the contributors in JFC, I would expect you to be the one most intelligent about the implications of my statements, when I am speaking of different ways of "knowing" and different standards of "belief". Being a fairly consistent and logical believer in objective apparitions professing ultimate validity as "facts" or "science", you nevertheless will not waver about machines or AI devices, man-made as they are, being a superior form of "life". And that without regard to the fact that we don't know how to program "conscience', or "love", the ultimate apex of human capacities.
But have your fun. @Red and I and maybe @OneLove are willing to play with reports of near-death experience reports and that despite their possibly anoxic delusional character as some would insist they must be. Dreams have been controversial for thousands of years, and are not suitable for purely objective evaluation.
So "Science" as it was once put forward as a method for developing human knowledge, attempted to bar bias and predispositions to "see" things that are not, but has become the slave in our time of political agendas, and those who would raise observations or objective evidence contrary to "Established Science" are panned as loons, or outsiders at least.
I have had too much "knowing" stuff on premonition, or maybe good sense.
I merely realize there's a whole world of things beyond proof, and I question the value of proof when employed to secure human conformity or compliance.
Stephen Hawking is a stellar example of human intelligence and capacity to achieve things unimaginable to most of us. Of all the people I am aware of, he is above and beyond inspirational. I would make an example of him for one thing he may not have imagined, but it is imagination that I am cheering for, not "fact", so it doesn't matter whatever he thought about politics or religion in my point.
I can imagine a God who would embrace him whether or not he believed or knew anything about him, because I imagine a God who is in fact his Father.
All the organized religions and all of the developed systems of theology be damned. Whatever God is, that is what He is. I speak boldly of the possible, of what any God I would respect would be.