Catholic Exchange

goral: I slipped up!

Should have read "..not capable of not being or AMing" and not as I wrote "not existing." 

This is ridiculous nonesense.  "To be" is a verb meaning "to exist." The first person singular form is "am;" the second person singular form of the verb "to be" is "is;" the past tense is "was" as in: "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

Existence is precisely the very quaility that God the Holy Trinity in infinite overflow of Love itself, shares with all creation. His existence is uncontingent and necessary; while all Creation is contingent and dependent. What deliniates God from Creation is not existence, but contingency and dependence.

To say that God is Being Itself means nothing other than to say that God is Self-Existent. (It does not of course mean that we can fit that concept into our finite minds.)

Maimonides argued for the existence of God as First Cause on the basis of contingency and I dare say that he was more of Jewish thinker than Lwall whose highly tendentious reading of the OT ignores a number of passages in which incipient cosmological reasoning is presented.

Jews did not always eschew the pronunciation of the Tetragrammatan. It appeared originally more that 6000 times in the OT. Fear of The Name ever being used in vain caused the Jews to begin to substitute Adonay (Lord) for every instance of it, other than phrases such a hallelujah (the jah at the end being a shorted form of Yahweh (J=Y) represented in Hebrew by YHWH because vowels weren't written).  You can see this in your own copy of the OT wherever the word LORD is in all caps it is substituting for YHWH in Hebrew. This somewhat superstitious fear of pronouncing God's name – which none of the OT prophets shared and which arose late (post-exilic) in Jewish history — had the providential effect of making the Christian declaration that Jesus is Lord even more mysterious and wonderful. Jesus is Yahweh.

The Incarnation is NOT an instance of man pulling down God,

Obviously not, Iwall, but that wasn't what you objected to; read your own words more carefully:

He has become a "thing among other things" who can be pulled down, so to speak, by man!

Or as Paul put it, "…taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Philippinas 2 7-8).  And note what precedes that: "though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped."

"equality with God" makes no sense to me if you equate God with the Ground of Being.  Does it make sense to you? 

You are so cock sure of it. Go ahead. Give us all your airtight proof or else please stifle this boring refrain of yours.

Not only did I not claim to have a proof, everything I and Mark Shea have writtem should make it clear that neither us is claiming to have one. 

I am not "against proofs of God', I jus haven't seen any and that's because there can notbe any!

Until God provides it at the Last Judgment. 

But what I said was that you are against any argument that falls short of a proof, not that you are against proofs.  I on the other hand am content with arguments that make the faith reasonable enough so that any atheist could see its reasonabless even while agreeing to disagree. There is always a leap of faith involved, but you seem to want to make the leap as prodigious as possible, thereby playing into the hands of atheists who accuse believers of "blind faith".

By the way, I have read more than one book by Tillich, starting with  The Shaking of the Foundations. I consider him to be greatly overrated, hardly to compare with a true philosopher like William James or Hans Jonas.

 An aside… watch the personal attacks on me and ad hominem arguments. If I see it again, I will ask mshea and mkochan to  remove it and deny you future access on this site. I have tolerated more than enough of that from you!  I have warned you fairly in advance. 

lwall,

Consider it seen. Go ahead and make the request.

Someone as tolerant as you shouldn't have to put up with someone like me.

mamreilly : You are forewarned.

Excellent post Goral.  What seems to me to be absurd in this argument is the insistence that the philosophy of St.Thomas has created more athiests.  Are there statistics on this or is this another personal experience?  Maybe this is the case with some high-minded intellectuals who reject the intellect's ability to know truth and distrust sense knowledge.  Few Catholics would lose sleep over those.  Practically speaking, the closest I ever came to being an athiest is when as a young boy I came home from school and arrogantly told my family how random evolution was responsible for life, not God.  I only wish then somebody would have introduced me to St. Thomas.  It couldn't have done any worse.

Twice, I know. 

Are you familiar with the Nicene Creed? 

Mamreilly, I was re-reading the comments so that I could find the reference to Fides et Ratio prior to me posting a paragraph from it. You were one. Randallino, if you have time, do the same and you'll find it to be a good example of random evolution. I actually found it to be more ammusing than disgusting, mkochan. I also found my comments to be the most strident, and yet lwall's ire was turned toward mamreilly. You will get an indulgence for taking the fall.

Thank you for your comments on Tillich, mkochan. I got the same impression from everything I read by him. One passage I still remember very well, and it is very much in line with the redefining of the Resurrection of which you wrote. It said that "modern ontology" has solved the mind-body problem by showing that body and mind are two aspects of the same thing and that when the body dies, so does the mind. Contrast this amateurish comment with the true philosophy displayed by William James in Human Immortality and by Hans Jonas in The Phenomenon of Life.  Even the Chandogya Upanishad showed more understanding of the mind-body problem than Tillich did.

mkochan: Response to your post @ 9:16

I determine the value of proposed arguments from design and other attempted proofs of God just as any intelligent non-biased person – by whether or not they succeed as arguments or as proofs.

It is not only atheists who reject these arguments and proofs. It is mostly by Christians. Thiu, pace your insinuations against me,there does not have to be a residing prejudice in order to see that the proofs fail as deductive arguments.

The ontological arguments are easily judged on their deductive soundness. I find the Cartesian and Anselmian proofs quite sound, but as the classic objections goe both proofs succeed in positing a necessary God concept but not in establishing God in fact. That would  hingeson whether one accepts the Kantian criticism that existenece is not a predicate.

As to the cosmological argunments, the conclusion "God exists" does not follow deductively from the premisies at all. There is non non-circular arrival at the conclusion from the premises.

 So perhaps the 5 ways is a quasi inductive argument then? The compelling force of the 5 ways claimed by "millions" as you say  I would suggests follows from their (erroneous) belief in its inductive force. But 5 ways does not succeed as an inductive argument either.

It and other proofs and arguments, however, do well analyze the conundrum of reason [ reasons antinomies] as to space, time, origins, teleology, et. which analysis may – in the properly disposed person- serve as an occassion for one's leap into the qualitative sphere of "faith", letting go, and being grasped. That bothers you?

Basically, all proofs – ontological and cosmological including the recent genre of Design –  are actually just explanations of creation, origins, form, etc - claiming that their source is God, how cosmos workings are by Him, how it all fits together, etc.  But explanations are not proofs. However, they may make their object more or less intelligible but this graetly depending on the listener's underlying cognitive biases. 

As such, proofs and rational arguments are expressive of a deep intuitive faith transposed into words that wish to prove but actually only explain a faith perspective. Proofs are basically confessions. And that's fine and beautiful.

They capture a correct analysis of the human's existential estrangement and longing. They quicken the human experinece of fragmentatiion. Thus they serve to quicken the existential question as to the longed for and possible resolution of existenetial estrangement. Below. 

 But they do not prove anything nor provide the answer to the question implicit in existence.  If ever deployed "against all those evil atheists and humanists" out there, proofs and arguments should be presented not as knock down arguments such that only a fool or willful sinner could reject. But as a well composed, deep analysis of the existential situation of estranged man - how thoughts, sentiments, and longing for God might be aroused in studying them with seriousness.

I must pointout that the precondition for one's being moved by God and his salvation, as well as by Scripture presupposes a certain readiness of the spirit. This applies to us Catholics as well as a non-believers. This readiness comes about in the depths of estrenged existence. It may not ever become self-consciously explicit, may remain largely on the  unconscious, unreflective level but effective nonetheless.

The intuitive depth and limits of existential resaon, of one's realizing the unrelenting nature and weight of one's guilt, despiar, anxiety, and failure; or the everpresent, overbearing yet unheeded interior longings– these [ call them the "ambiguities of existence"] ready the spirit and bring it around to ask for that which might resolve the ambiguities of existence.

If such a spirit asks with unconditional seriousness and asks out of the depths of his estranged existenece - see the above descriptors – for that which might cure them; asks with ultimate concern for  that being which might bear unambiguous existence, then he/she now stands within the spitulaly salutary state of  "ultimate concern".

Such a spirit is readied for the answer, which answer can only be the Christ. For her spirit has now asked in its existential depths, where alone she might offer God her denuded self. She has asked the question of existential estarngement in a state of unconditional, ultimate concern.

However, one can not hear the answer as "answer" unless he/she has asked the questsion! It is an existential asking permeating all dimensions of the spirit which alone can hear the answer as "answer".

My analysis has many and important implications for catechesis, eductaion of childen and adults, evangelization, engagement with non-believers, and comes to bear upon our current discussion:

The point:  Denigrating non- believers for not being convinced by arguments from design or from the light of natural reason misses the point altogether. Many listeners have not asked the question of God with ultimate existential seriousness at all! So to offer an "answer" especially as a [ illicit ] proof is like shoving food down someone's throat who is not hungry!

For the proofs are not proofs! At best, and here is their potential value in the right hands, they may quicken and assist a spirit to progress on the way to asking the existential question with unconditional seriousness and perhaps to arrive at true existential ultimate concern. As said above, the poofs do effectively analyze the epistemic conundrua and ambiguous meanings of existential finitude. They have their utility.

But you can't logically argue sioeone into ultimate concern, that required precondition of spirit where alone he/she can hear the answer. There first must have been the qusetion.

Proofs may aid the asking but can not supply the answer.

For it is God alone, His actual presence in grace and in His Christ who could ever supply the answer. Man can not.

"Successful proof" is oxymoronic.

Successful arousal of ultimate concern is possible and spiritually salutary and necessary.

We must stop forcing answers down people's throats who have not even yet even asked the question.

I know how rationocentric and phalligocenetric – suffused with powerful convicting and compelling force - you and others wish these arguments to be.

But they are not.  

We must find our way another way.

protect : Thanks for the much anticipated sarcasm. I 've grown accustomred to its face here.

It is not my original analysis. It is borrowed.

Do you find fault and deficiencies with it?

Maybe you should read it carefully, if not already,and shall we say, break to the mold and habit of ejacualtory and ad hominen responses that I am learning – fianally! – chacacterize most of those on this website.

I would expected you of all posters to have discussed  this analysis without  emotionalism and hyperbole.

mkochan: I do not claim this anaysis is the only paradigm of catechesis for all children, especially not for the young ones.  I remind you however of the increasing sense of detachment and loss of meaning among our teens and young adults expressed in so many destructive ways especially in an increasing suicide rate.

No, of couse, one does not have to sink down to the exaggerated depths of despair – once again we have a trademark  "kochan caricature" of lwall - to desparate depths of depression and despair; doubt and anxiety. 

These are, however, ubiquitous and irremediable features albeit in varying degress definatory of the human beingsd who walk this earth.

Milk is milk only unto those who hunger and thirst. Spirtual solace and giving of its milk is not genuine unless answering a need, mkocahn, otherwise it is just a force feeding.

To drape upon a person, by virtue of mere birthright, a "Catholic religious identity"  is tanatmount to giving answers to unasked questions unless at some point in that persons life a journey into existential estrangement happens. In that case, Christ becomes answer and importantly, He becomes my answer.

Otherwise, we keep just keep churning out thousands upon thosands of banal, arcosed, and inconscious "faithful" who gradulally drift away or, what is more and more the case, a perennial mass exodus of young adults from the Church without return.

Denial to an individual soul his/her right to religious freedom by not granting a sufficient space for personal journey is ultimately to deny that person the passion and inwardness required for authentic faith.

And by "faith" I intend more than reciting the Creed and affirming the teachings of the Church. It includes these, but it is much more than these.

The. "This is answer! " feature that I refer to is exemplified by many converts to the faith. Marcus Grodi on EWTN gives us many examples of jpeoples journeying into the faith. The journey traverses various paths and concerns. But to a person, there is finally a profound sense of Answer to a deeply felt existential question(s).

Perhaps in reflecting upon your own conversion from JW, you might better grasp this deep sense of "home" and " answer" I refer to and by which you were are blessed. This home sense and answer sense is important, and I should think you and Mark know exactly what I mean. 

We need continued conversion of the baptized in the Church as the in CCC notes. Souls of genuine existential and genuine faith.

Such conversion involves a catechesis which is pastoral and often involves addressing the existential analysis I have proffered. In addition the conversion needs to be content oriented that is a very,very basic study of the tenets of our faith, such as, by group study of the CCC.

Tomorrow I will post the promised anti-substance quotes, but past that I am done with this thread.

I think the notion that people are committing suicide because they are made too secure, too early, in the faith and don't have enough exposure to the thinking of Hume, Kant and Tillich has just about exhausted my imagination.

Group study of the CCC is just about the only thing that you have proffered that makes any sense, Lwall – as long as you aren't leading it.

See ya' 'round, Goral.

"As far as I know, the only evidence for the multiverse is the same as the evidence for a supernatural designer of our universe"

there is some secondary evidence from quantum physics for the multi-universe theory.  It was abondoned in the 70's but has regained popularity largely due to the athiestitic , highly intellegent , and severely unwise stephen hawkins.

Honestly though the thoery , while entertaining on some level is almost inconcievalble, much harder to  believe in then an immmortal God , IMNHO.

The theory tries to accont for the fact that quatum particles 'seem' to make 'decisions' and startes that EVERTIME a quatom particle 'decides' something a new universe is spawed to actualize that possiblility.

Note that means that every time a so much as a photon of light is emmited a new universe instantanously appears to account for the fact it might not of.

So is there some evedence for it, I suppose that is depends on what you call evidence. 

What seems truely disengenous to me about lwall is the instance that what is observable and used to point out one hypothesis seems to be systemenatically ignored when it can equally or more properly be used

to support another.  he seems to require an completely different criteria of evidence in support for the hypothesis of intelegent design vice the ypothesis of an infinate number of universes existing. 

In my mind at least the evidence is inconclusive either way and there is a mildly stronger argument in favor of the design hypothesis.

lwall's repeated reminders that this is not proof should be obvious from the definition of the word hypothesis. 

A hypothesis is an UNPROVED model that is suggested by the given data which a scientist uses to predict other useful properties of the system modled and is either rejected or revised when it is confronted with definative data. 

lwall,

Apologies for my sarcasm, but I was trying to get you to see you what you come across like to the rest of the forum.

Your posts are absolutley dripping with verbiage that sends the message that anyone with a modicum of brains would see the points you are making and surely anyone who has ever read a book can see that the other view is twaddle. And so forth.

It makes posting on threads with you very, very tiring indeed.

But I do try to read what you post and I have learned some things.

Again, sorry if my pointing this out offends.

God bless.

But really, why would the Church remove the Imprimatur? I mean it isn't as though heresy really harms souls, now, is it?

Christ Among Us was given to me as my first book to explain the Catholic faith.  Given to me by a priest who also couldn't really see why I would even bother considering conversion from the Lutheran Church. The book was terrible and I felt like I had asked the priest for bread and been given a stone. I almost gave up on the idea of converting.  I was reading some of the saints but coming to the sad conclusion that whatever Church they had been in, it just didn't exist anymore. I expressed this sadness to a dear friend, an elderly Anglican pastor, who told me not to give up on the Catholic faith.  He went to a Catholic priest friend of his and obtained the Catechism for me. Therein I read the truth.

protect: Comments appreciated.

Yes, I am wordy and tiresome. I am not being sarcastic. I agree with you.

I aspire to reform. ( I've been saying that for 30 years I must admit! )

mkocahn: I can read {between} the lines.

I will never post on this site again. 

Good night.

fishman, your understanding of the "many worlds" theory of quantum mechanics coincides with mine, but what you call evidence I would only call a description–a spelling out of details that do not explain why one would think the theory is true.  It takes more than having a coherent, detailed and (seemingly) consistent theory to claim that there is evidence for it.

there is some secondary evidence from quantum physics for the multi-universe theory.  It was abondoned in the 70's but has regained popularity largely due to the athiestitic , highly intellegent , and severely unwise stephen hawkins.

I read his book, A Brief History of Time, a few years ago and I can't recall anything there that would support this "many worlds" theory where new universes, identical to ours except in one miniscule detail, spring into existence just so that all possible outcomes of some indeterminate event should be realized.  On the contrary, Hawking seemed to have everything, including time itself, all wrapped up in a neat little package that included our universe in all its present and past and future states–but nothing else.  Have you seen anything by him where he actually supported the "many worlds" theory?

Hawking himself admitted to being "severely unwise" in having theorized, at one point, that time itself would run backwards if the universe were to start to contract again.  In other words, we would all be experiencing the universe as if it were were watching a videotape being rewound!  So there you have another nice coherent theory with an inexhaustible supply of details, yet incredible to anyone with a common sense understanding of time and space, and without a scintilla of evidence for it!

Aristotle made his own analysis of what would happen to philosophy if the concept of substance was abandoned. The words of Enlightenment philoso­phers demonstrate that the loss of the concept of substance has diminished the scope of phi­losophy, narrowed the human horizon and disordered modern moral discourse. (For more on that last point see After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntryre.)

Substance was conceived of as that which made each form of being what it was, so that the form was an expression of an underlying identity. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle sees the discussion of substance as the very nature (or substance) of philosophy: "But inasmuch as it was described as dealing with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense object of knowledge, the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom." The discussion of substance goes to the very heart of our ability to know:

There is a difficulty connected with these, the hardest of all and the most necessary to examine [:] If, on the one hand, there is nothing apart from individual things, and the individuals are infinite in number, how then is it possible to get knowledge of the infinite individuals? For all things that we come to know, we come to know in so far as they have some unity and identity, and in so far as some attribute belongs to them universally.

What would happen if this concept was repudiated?

Sensation is knowledge.

If there is nothing apart from individuals, there will be no object of thought, but all things will be objects of sense, and there will not be knowledge of anything, unless we say that sensation is knowledge.

Nothing will be eternal.

Further, nothing will be eternal or unmovable; for all perceptible things perish and are in movement.

Neither can there be a process of coming to be.

But if there is nothing eternal, neither can there be a process of coming to be; for there must be something that comes to be, i.e. from which something comes to be, and the ultimate term in this series cannot have come to be. . .

No longer would it be the function of the philosopher to investigate all things.

It is evident, then, that it belongs to one science to be able to give an account of these concepts as well as of substance . . . , and that it is the function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things.

According to Aristotle, genuine philosophy is comprehensive; it is the one science which can investigate everything. The loss of the concept of substance begins to narrow the field of philosophical inquiry. This narrowing is very dramatic, especially considering that the initial thrust of the Enlightenment was the bold assertion that those things which were previously the domain of religion were going to be laid open to the probe of reason:

Descartes:

Those long chains of reasoning, simple and easy as they are, of which geometricians make use in order to arrive at the most difficult demonstrations, had caused me to imagine that all those things which fall under the cognizance of man might very likely be mutually related in the same fashion; and that, provided only that we abstain from receiving anything as true which is not so, and always retain the order which is necessary in order to deduce the one conclusion from the other, there can be nothing so remote that we cannot reach to it, nor so recondite that we cannot discover it…And for this purpose it was requisite that I should borrow all that is best in Geometrical Analysis and Algebra, and correct the errors of the one by the other… For, in conclusion, the Method which teaches us to follow the true order and enumerate exactly every term in the matter under investigation contains everything which gives certainty to the rules of Arithmetic…But what pleased me most in this Method was that I was certain by its means of exercising my reason in all things, if not perfectly, at least as well as was in my power. And besides this, I felt in making use of it that my mind gradually accustomed itself to conceive of its objects more accurately and distinctly; and not having restricted this Method to any particular matter, I promised myself to apply it as usefully to the difficulties of other sciences as I had done to those of Algebra…But having noticed that the knowledge of these difficulties must be dependent on principles derived from Philosophy in which I yet found nothing to be certain, I thought that it was requisite above all to try to establish certainty in it…I thought, too, that I should first of all employ much time in preparing myself for the work by eradicating from my mind all the wrong opinions which I had up to this time accepted, and accumulating a variety of experiences fitted later on to afford matter for my reasonings, and by ever exercising myself in the Method which I had prescribed, in order more and more to fortify myself in the power of using it (Discourse on the Method by Rene Descartes 1637).

Descartes' optimism is like a bold explosion of human inquiry. Euphoric with its mathematical "certainty", nothing lies beyond its grasp. But this explosion is followed by a rapid contraction, not back to the point from which Descartes departed but beyond. What is so paradoxical about the ruminations of the philosophers at this time is the way they continue to assert the mastery of human reason even as they radically limit philosophical discourse. If reason is the judge and guide of everything the ultimate mastery of the human mind over all it surveys would seem accomplished but not so, for all that this mind surveys is itself.

Not until Hume does this contraction, with its attendant implications, begin to be recognized. It belongs to him to explicate the paradox of the unlimited mentality that is actually confined within narrow boundaries. To Aristotle, who believed that "it is the function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things" whatever may come after this, it would no longer be what he would recognize as philosophy.

Hume:

The only method of freeing learning, at once, from these abstruse questions, is to inquire seriously into the nature of human understanding, and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacity, that it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse subjects . . . But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find, upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow limits.

According to Aristotle this would lead to infinite regress.

[T]here are certain properties peculiar to being as such, and it is about these that the philosopher has to investigate the truth. . . . . Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.

Hume:

But to hasten to a conclusion of this argument, which is already drawn out to too great a length: We have sought in vain for an idea of power or necessary connexion in all the sources from which we could suppose it to be derived. It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating the operations of mind on body — where we observe the motion of the latter to follow upon the volition of the former, but are not able to observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely, without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life.

Historian Jeffery B. Russell, describes the modern end of the infinite regress: "For deconstructionists, meaning recedes infinitely owing to the inherent inability of language (the signifier) to reach or even to point toward the signified. This collapse of meaning, this endless devolution of nonmeaning into nonmeaning, is Dante's hell, the endless circling downward and inward into darkness and helplessness."

Or as Aristotle warned, such a man will not be capable of reasoning, either with himself or with another.

We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do so. For such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a vegetable. Now negative demonstration I distinguish from demonstration proper, because in a demonstration one might be thought to be begging the question, but if another person is responsible for the assumption we shall have negative proof, not demonstration. The starting-point for all such arguments is not the demand that our opponent shall say that something either is or is not (for this one might perhaps take to be a begging of the question), but that he shall say something which is significant both for himself and for another; for this is necessary, if he really is to say anything. For, if he means nothing, such a man will not be capable of reasoning, either with himself or with another. But if any one grants this, demonstration will be possible; for we shall already have something definite. The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens to reason. And again he who admits this has admitted that something is true apart from demonstration (so that not everything will be 'so and not so').

Descartes:

But afterwards many experiences little by little destroyed all the faith which I had rested in my senses…and so in an infinitude of other cases I found error in judgments founded on the external senses. And not only in those founded on the external senses, but even in those founded on the internal as well; for is there anything more intimate or more internal than pain? And yet I have learned from some persons whose arms or legs have been cut off, that they sometimes seemed to feel pain in the part which had been amputated, which made me think that I could not be quite certain that it was a certain member which pained me, even although I felt pain in it. And to those grounds of doubt I have lately added two others, which are very general; the first is that I never have believed myself to feel anything in waking moments which I cannot also sometimes believe myself to feel when I sleep, and as I do not think that these things which I seem to feel in sleep, proceed from objects outside of me, I do not see any reason why I should have this belief regarding objects which I seem to perceive while awake. The other was that being still ignorant, or rather supposing myself to be ignorant, of the author of my being, I saw nothing to prevent me from having been so constituted by nature that I might be deceived even in matters which seemed to me to be most certain. And as to the grounds on which I was formerly persuaded of the truth of sensible objects, I had not much trouble in replying to them. For since nature seemed to cause me to lean towards many things from which reason repelled me, I did not believe that I should trust much to the teachings of nature. And although the ideas which I receive by the senses do not depend on my will, I did not think that one should for that reason conclude that they proceeded from things different from myself, since possibly some faculty might be discovered in me — though hitherto unknown to me — which produced them.

I think Aristotle was prescient and foretold exactly the state of modern philosophy.  This is why our latest two popes have been calling philosphers back to aspire to know truth, to know substantial realities. I apologize for not sourcing every quote. I am transferring from a footnoted document and am struggling with formatting and time issues, so I have just pulled out a few bits, but I think they are enough for the demonstration.  Every quote can be sourced by entering some phrase from it into an internet search engine.

I don't really care that hawking isn't interested in believing in God , but likewise I'd have a right to be offended if he tried to claim the belief in God is unscientific, which is what he does.  It is at least as scientific as the theory he proprots to be true.

I fully agree with you, fishman.  Hawking's tidy little universe finesses away the need to explain the Big Bang, but only by making some remarkable statements about time and space becoming indistinguishable as we approach the beginning of the universe!  But what Hawking may not realize is that he has no explanation of why this one solitary self-contained universe should be so incredibly congenial to the development of intelligent life. 

As I have said earlier, the only really credible alternatives are the multiverse theory of which Mark Shea speaks in Angels, Part 1 (and which I've tried to elucidate further, when I spoke of most universes being "utter garbage" if the theory is to fly) and belief in a supernatural Designer.  As I've said, Hawking himself has finished off, at least in his theory, the multiverse theory which is based on the idea of black holes spawning new universes. 

And maybe Hawking does realize that only those two alternatives are credible, and maybe he actually embraces the former. 

But he ought to realize that it is just as "unscientific" as belief in God.  For science deals with phenomena that are observable, however indirectly, and the "garbage universes" are by their very nature not observable.

No problem.  Whatever you think best.