Hawking Vs. Wittgenstein on God

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"Hawking Said, 'Let There Be No God!,' and There was Light!

That headline flashed to all corners of the media universe . . . ."

"In his new book, [The Grand Design, Stephen] Hawking, the celebrated author of A Brief History of Time (1988), declares on the first page that 'philosophy is dead' because it 'has not kept up' with science, which alone can explain the universe. 'It is not necessary to invoke God,' the authors [Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow] write, 'to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.' [Is the role for that claim in Hawking's job description?]

Weighing The Soul

No self-respecting professor of philosophy wants to discuss the soul in class. It reeks of old-time theology, or, worse, New Age quantum treacle. The soul has been a dead end in philosophy ever since the positivists unmasked its empty referential center. Scientific philosophy has shown us that there's no there there.

But make no mistake, our students are very interested in the soul. More