News Stephan Hawking Declares There is No God

Very well said MLU and one all should read and take to heart whether they have faith or not. Too bad you ruined it with the last sentence.

 

God doesn't care and neither should you...

 

I see where you're coming from. Apparently your upbringing was steeped in religiosity from the point of view of whatever particular religion you were. Having rejected the dogma it was a simple step to reject the whole concept or a Supreme Being based on faith.

On the other hand I have not ever been particularly religious. Oh, I was sent to Sunday School as a youngster and while I have believed in a God the stories of virgin birth and Mose parting the waters and all that seemed a bit far fetched. Religions are based on a singular point of view of "That's the Way it is and Always Shall Be, So Saith the Lord." I really don't see that any one religion is better than any other. I have heard Protestants say that Catholics aren't Christian and vice versa. So many different voices all shouting "My God is the Only True God and We Are the Chosen Ones."

But having rejected the minutiae of the dogmatic doesn't necessarily preclude a belief in a higher power. Its comforting to know that even though a scientist as brilliant as Hawking can declare that God doesn't exists a far more brilliant person like Einstein was a believer.

I don't think it says anywhere in the Bible where you go to hell for "covering your bases." Maybe its like the unwritten rule in baseball "Thou Shalt Not Steal Bases When Thy Team Has a Big Lead."
I wouldn't want God's pitcher to stick me in the ribs with a metaphorical fastball.

By the way even if you're right about Republicans not being Christians my ass is covered on that on too. At the time I first registered to vote the Louisiana elections were done with a Democratic primary that only registered Democrats could vote in and the Republican primary was the same. At that time the Republicans had no power at all in the state and the elections were pretty much decided with winner of the Democratic primary being the winner. To have my vote mean anything I registered as a Democrat. Even though I have basically voted mostly for Republics for years I never bothered to change my registration. I'll probably even vote for Edwin Edwards in the upcoming election

 

Apparently being religious has some tax advantages but I would suggest consulting with a very good tax attorney before trying this:

Invent A Church, Skip Taxes, Enrage IRS, Go To Jail

Pass Christian is a city in Mississippi. The name seems fitting for a tax case about a church the feds say is pure tax scam. A Pass Christian physician named Timothy Dale Jackson was found guilty of four counts of felony tax evasion and one of obstruction of due administration of the internal revenue laws.

Prosecutors say the 50-year-old orthopedic physician funneled his practice income through the “Church of Compassionate Service,” a church the feds call a scam. Dr. Jackson took a ‘vow of poverty,’ claiming that as a minister, he was tax exempt. Despite his vow of poverty, he had a successful practice. Still, he hadn’t filed tax returns or paid any taxes since 2003.

Compassionate Service Church members “donate” to the church, renouncing all worldly possessions and transferred title to a Church trust. Ministers signed over their paychecks to the Church. In return, the Church provided debit cards for living expenses. The Church even paid their mortgage.

In fact, 90 percent of Dr. Jackson’s income was returned to him, say the feds. On $1.8 million of income just between 2006 and 2009, the doc owed the IRS $650,000. When he is sentenced, Dr. Jackson could face five years and a $250,000 fine for each count of tax evasion, plus three years and a $250,000 fine for obstructing the IRS.

Depending on how religious you are or how much you hate taxes, this all may sound slick or stupid. The interaction of taxes and religion is strange. Take the so-called parsonage allowance, a tax break dating to the 1920s provided by Section 107 of the tax code. That was the era of my favorite fictitious minister, Elmer Gantry, a shallow, philandering hypocrite portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the movie.

The parsonage allowance says an ordained member of the clergy can live tax-free in a home owned by his or her religious organization. Alternatively, the clergy member can receive a tax-free annual payment to buy or rent a home. It makes being a minister or other member of the clergy sound pretty good, as does this list of top ten clergy tax deductions.

There’s money and principle at stake. Phil Driscoll, an ordained minister and Grammy Award-winning trumpet player, went to prison for tax evasion. Later, because of the parsonage allowance, the Tax Court ruled he didn’t owe federal income taxes on $408,638 provided to him by his ministry. The IRS appealed and the Eleventh Circuit reversed. Mr. Driscoll asked the Supreme Court to review it, but the Supreme Court refused to hear it.

The Church of Compassionate Service that got Dr. Jackson into such trouble also featured in U.S. v. HARTSHORN, where the IRS got an injunction to silence Head Minister Kevin Hartshorn. Mr. Hartshorn had 50 ministers under his wing, telling them not to pay the IRS. When the IRS had enough it went to court to enjoin the Head Minister from preaching his no-tax mantra.


After Mr. Hartshorn lost he appealed, but the appeals court ruled for the IRS so he failed to shake the injunction. Mr. Hartshorn’s claims about free speech didn’t help him either. Even if the church was legit, the court said, Hartshorn’s plan wasn’t. What’s more, Hartshorn’s knew his “you-don’t-have-to-pay-taxes” mantra was false. Even if he didn’t, he should have known. To the IRS, this kind of speech is a little like yelling fire in a crowded theater.

You can reach me at[email protected]. This discussion is not intended as legal advice, and cannot be relied upon for any purpose without the services of a qualified professional.

 

He was a little more open to the idea of a god than that as shown by the quote below. He certainly was not religious but left plenty of room for god in his universe.


Einstein had previously explored the belief that man could not understand the nature of God. In an interview published in 1930 in G. S. Viereck's book Glimpses of the Great, Einstein, in response to a question about whether or not he believed in God, explained:
Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things

 

There are plenty of brilliant people who were believers. Kelvin, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Faraday, Kepler, Copernicus.....and plenty of others. Einstein was driven to science as a way of defining his beliefs. ""I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." He also said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Arguing one over or against the other is a fool's errand.


I don't proselytize, witness, quote scripture, or try to convert anybody. I've quoted the Quran here many times but not the Bible. I don't go to church, I don't carry a Bible with me but I do read it from time to time as I do lots of books. I have my own personal proof that guides my faith and it certainly isn't based in fear. I tend to think of God's presence as that voice inside one's head that tells you that what you are doing is right or wrong. Choice. Free will.

I find it fascinating that atheists spend so much time and vitriol trying to convince others that God does not exist. For me, if something doesn't exist, I give it zero attention and I don't worry about how others pursue it.

 

That's what I always wondered. If somebody is an atheist why don't they just go about their business instead of forming athiest organizations. For some of them its almost as if atheism is their religion