Humanists?  What have humans collectively demonstrated that makes then worthy of reverence seen humanism?  What I see from humans collectively who aren't tied into an ancient tradition that fosters temperance, love, compassion, and humility, is the pursuit of evermore in a market-driven economy that thinks that a game like Naughty Bear is a great idea, and fanboy wars which produce bile hatred matching the worst of religions fanfare.

At least on the metaphysical side, you will get an occassional saint popping up that inspires by doing insane things that are remarkably compassionate, that the masses will stop to admire and attempt to do occassionally.

The concept of God and metaphysical things show up naturally because people see complexity in life and think it may be engineered and the brain has a hungering for metaphysics.  Neurotheology looks into this, as it is involved with the science of the interplay between the brain and religious/spiritual things.

So, if the universe created itself, that makes you a pantheist.

He's saying that all Gods, just like the Tooth Fairy, are made up by people.  Seems pretty clear to me.  He's pointing out that today we see Apollo, for example, as just as made up as the Tooth Fairy.  Looking at history, it's just as likely that in a few thousand years today's religious figures may be regarded exactly the same way.

If you're an atheist, the Tooth Fairy and Gods are the same thing in principle, just created for different reasons.

New term to me, but i will have to look into that. I am of the mind that god is basically everything and anything and even everyone. Interesting stuff. I still feel that hawkings paper does not have much to do with religion though, it is more focused on creation.

So all scientific breakthroughs happen at the top? I met your requirement from earlier so you change them?

Scientific breakthroughs are validated at the top, and are performed by people within the scientific community (it's a scientist who makes the breakthrough).

Religous scientist make breakthroughs, christian followers follow said breakthoughs, religion did not self correct? I don't get maybe you can explain better.

They religion has nothing to do with their scientific breakthroughs. Plus their discoveries are validated by the scientific community (the only one capable of such validations), not the church. Also these scientists aren't religious authorities. Check out Thomas Khun's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

You do also know that there are many different churches and christian beliefs which is just one out of many religions and not all chritians follow the beliefs of all other christians? The catholic church is one a few world wide churches. Many are actually just one building, one group of people in a city they are jnot interlinked like the catholics are. They dont even always agree with each other.

What's the point of this paragraph?

You are throwing the idea out that for it to be self correcting that all religous people must believe it, religion is not that way. The majority of religous people have no problem with science and infuse it in their beliefs thus self correcting religon. Science to me is not "oputside" of religion like you are making it to be. To me you are trying to say religion is not self correcting because they are not all sheep following the same thing, i am trying to say religion is self correcting. I just havent found the words to convine you of that. I am working on it.

I havent read the whole thread, but i think it was just pure marketing trying to sell more copies of his books.

The whole Religion vs. Science is a never-ending debate, i am more into the cience side, but i respect the other side as long as they are still valid even by the science itself. Many things "generally accepted" by the scientific community such as the black holes, are still theory-based knownage and nothing can tell us we are wrong and later discover something like: "The black holes are actually a dark-matter star that cover the whole galaxies into dark energy/matter and the behavor of those dark-stars are actually the same as the black holes, it is just that the normal matter dont disappear, but is converted to dark matter"

There is no need to push the things far away without any proof of something new to say.

I havent read the whole thread, but i think it was just pure marketing trying to sell more copies of his books.

The whole Religion vs. Science is a never-ending debate, i am more into the cience side, but i respect the other side as long as they are still valid even by the science itself. Many things "generally accepted" by the scientific community such as the black holes, are still theory-based knownage and nothing can tell us we are wrong and later discover something like: "The black holes are actually a dark-matter star that cover the whole galaxies into dark energy/matter and the behavor of those dark-stars are actually the same as the black holes, it is just that the normal matter dont disappear, but is converted to dark matter"

There is no need to push the things far away without any proof of something new to say.

I havent read the whole thread, but i think it was just pure marketing trying to sell more copies of his books.

The whole Religion vs. Science is a never-ending debate, i am more into the cience side, but i respect the other side as long as they are still valid even by the science itself. Many things "generally accepted" by the scientific community such as the black holes, are still theory-based knownage and nothing can tell us we are wrong and later discover something like: "The black holes are actually a dark-matter star that cover the whole galaxies into dark energy/matter and the behavor of those dark-stars are actually the same as the black holes, it is just that the normal matter dont disappear, but is converted to dark matter"

There is no need to push the things far away without any proof of something new to say.