Keith wrote:

...live body- soul, dead body-no soul.

**

Bacteria and viruses have souls?

I don't see why accepting the possibility that there was/is creator(s) of some sort equates to the religious argument that 'God did it, we don't need to know any more'. I'm not saying the Ultimate Answer is 'A creator did it'; I'm simply saying that we do not have sufficient data to infer that creation is impossible. This statement accomplishes something important: it dispels false certainty - that is, certainty in the absence of full knowledge - which is an affliction of both religious people and extreme atheists.

The reason for speculation on Creation is that there appear to be certain patterns in play. As I understand it, Hawking is arguing that it is possible for everything in the universe to have been created randomly. I accept that, it sounds like a plausible theory. Why I claim it to be sensationalism is that there is no way for Hawking to state with certainty "God did not create the universe" - it's clearly a sensationalist title. He should correctly state that "God need not have created the universe". Biblical God may be redundant indeed, but no-one can know whether creative forces of some type are at work in the universe.

In short we cannot be CERTAIN that the universe was not created, or formed according to a certain template. That is what Hawking appears to be saying, at least based on media reports.

...we do not have sufficient data to infer that creation is impossible.

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And we don't NEED to.  We act on proof, not lack of proof.

Kevin wrote:

Nobody has soul. 

**

Unless someone wants to suggest that sperm and eggs contain half-souls each, I can't even understand how the "theory" of souls gets past basic biology.  Where is the little bugger kept before conception? 

Occam's Razor -- which is the simpler version?

"I'm simply saying that we do not have sufficient data to infer that creation is impossible. "

The tricky thing about this is that any uncertainty is used dishonestly.

Now, the Biblical God, as presented in the Bible, provides us with enough testable truth claims that have later been proven false, that it can be said with great certainty that this version does not exist. Or I should say, these versions. (Of course, a shopping cart christian will simply remove these parts as "metaphorical" when challenged and then reintroduce them as implicitly literal afterwards.)

What we are left with at this point as "not disproven" is a purely deistic God whose sole function is to stand between "nothing" and "the Universe". We know nothing of any plans, commandments, miracles or rules that can reasonably be associated with that version of God.

Yet, having found some "gap" that a minimal, attribute-less God can be poured into, this "God of Nothing" is used as an anchor for the existence of the Biblical God.

Which has no justification.

The word "God" or "Creator" when applied to this discussion is sometimes understood to mean "Biblical God" or "Yahweh/Jesus". But when discussing the entity that improbably, but not impossibly might exist between "Nothing" and "the Universe", these words mean: "Deistic entity with no identifiable attributes beyond the ability to consciously create The Universe according to a set of pre-conceived parameters. "

It is only because Christians have laid such a monopolistic claim to these words so that there is such a strong connotation between the words "God" / "Creator" and "Yahweh/Jesus" that people forget that the words actually describe a large selection of known mythological creatures, and even a basic conceptual definition not linked to any being in particular.

So if we are to be brutally honest, the answer to the Christian claim that there is still room for "God" before Creation is simply: "Yes, there may have been a creator God after all, all we can say for certain is that it isn't your God."

So let's see them defend the existence of a God who isn't Yahweh/Jesus.

Take Adam and Eve for example. Jewish folklore speaks of Adam's first wife Lilith pretty matter of factly. Those tales predate the Bible by thoausands of years. Now when we get to the Bible she is missing, becasue they adopted a later version of the story. So if Adam and Eve is an actual event, souldn't we be going by the oldest known stories availiable? it's like saying Cinderella is a real event and then stating that bibbety boppity boo is part of the story.

I cannot understand why people who think this book is Gospel cannot see it was written by men, who got it wrong on top of that!

••

Echoing my response when believers occasionally ask what I will "do" when I die, and have to explain myself to God. "What will YOU do," I ask, "when you die and find yourself face to face with a very ticked off Zeus?"