Religion
In reply to the discussion: Questions about simultaneous believers in evolution and punishment/reward-based afterlife [View all]edhopper
(37,387 posts)Doesn't that contradict what you are interpreting him as saying?
Actually I think he is explaining why physicists use a mathematical model to understand the Universe, rather than a picture. And that we do not have anywhere near a complete understanding.
But if you want to believe that somehow the Ptolemian model of the solar system actually existed at some point. Rather than the notion that it fit within man's working understanding at the time, fine. You can join the Hollow Earth folks as well as the Velikovskians and Von Danikens and have a "anything can be real" party.
Do you think if you asked Hawkins; "So 1000 years ago, the Earth stood still while the sun circled it?" He would answer that it did?
Would he also agree that until recently the Earth was only 6000 years old and animals did not evolve? I doubt it.