12-29-2005, 07:31 AM
wakim,Dec 28 2005, 08:44 PM Wrote:Why would this be? I would think that if one posits a being capable of creating the phenomenal world itself it would be contradictory to posit that the same being wouldn't also be capable of interfering with it.
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That is the standard Deist position, agree or not. Positing *any* such being is completely arbitary, so in a sense, it doesn't much matter what that being does. But the basic idea behind Einstein's and Hawking's position is that God does not interfere, not that he cannot interfere. If he exists (Einstein says yes, Hawking says maybe-but-we-can't-check) then he does not show himself except by the elegance of the universe itself.
I'm pretty much with Hawking on this one. There may be a deity. I have no way of conclusively denying it. But, we have no evidence for one, and there are boundaries we cannot look past wherein we cannot say what happens. We will never know for sure, but we haven't come upon him yet.
-Jester