I read his book "The Grand Design". He says there is no God to create this universe - according to his M-theory. Anyway, I think he has nothing to deny Spiritual World. As he said, M-theory postulated the big bang is possible to create 10^500 types of universe, he believes there are multi-universes. The so-called spiritual world could be one of the multi-universes, of different dimensions. Therefore, gods and ghosts could be one type of living existence living in different dimensions. After all, Stephen Hawking can not provide any evidence to deny spirituality.
Who say No evidence? Evidence can be an experience. There are people obsessed with some kind of unexplained thing- call it "evil spirit" and behaved abnormally. And, a sincere scientist will not simply deny things he has no ground to disprove.
What do you mean non-physical? S.K said there are 11 dimensions. "Things" may exist in dimensions beyond our space(X,Y,Z)-time, which are not observable or measurable by our 3D instrument.
A subjective experience is not evidence. If it has an effect on the physical universe, it is physical, regardless of the number of dimensions involved. If something in any dimension has no effect on the 3 large spatial dimensions and/or the 1 time dimension, it is non-physical. However, anything in any of the 11 dimensions has an effect on the three large ones.
Your assumptions about evidence for god's existence aside, there is also no evidence for a godless universe, simply because the notion of identifying causal aspects of the universe with the senses is more ludicrous than jumping over your knees (how do you propose to see what contextualizes the phenomena of seeing?) IOW at the very best the "no god" camp is purely speculation.
"there is nothing beyond the senses because an investigation of the senses would have revealed it" classic circular argument!
Actually he said no God is _required_ to create the universe, which is quite different. Nor does he try. Spirituality has nothing to do with the formation of the Universe - or, directly, with God.
Absolutely. “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence,” as the saying goes. Of course, given that you were born a blank slate, you have begun to form your beliefs upon insufficient evidence, necessarily so, from the beginning on. Not that this detracts you in any way, now ... And besides, "sufficient" is such a malleable concept!
I don't think you should criticise Hawking until you fully understand what 'different dimensions' actually implies.
“All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion” “If we find the answer [the unified theory], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for we would know the mind of God."” “God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.” “I put a lot of effort into writing A Briefer History at a time when I was critically ill with pneumonia because I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion.” Stephen Hawking quotes
I was only addressing the OP I gave quotes only showing that he does think that there could be a god, not anything to do about his own personel beliefs as to what he believes in.
No you didn't, you copied and pasted some out of context lines of text. The guy does NOT believe in God, period. People used to pull the same shit with Einstein over the 'God does not play dice' quote. Wise up and stop quoting out of context.
While I agree with you that he does not personally believe in god he seems to be saying otherwise in some of his quotes in that there could be a god because , like Einstien, he uses the word god in some of his statements in defining the universe.
He probably doesn't as I have stated above but eludes in some of his statements that there could be a god. I might be wrong in reading what his quotes are saying however.
As Sir Martin Rees said, 'every time Steven uses the word God in his book, he sells another thousand copies."
