Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

[IndianaGreen]

Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

• Physics, not creator, made Big Bang, new book claims
• Professor had previously referred to 'mind of God'

Adam Gabbatt The Guardian, Thursday 2 September 2010

God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain's most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.

In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.

In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is "not necessary".

The Grand Design, an extract of which appears in the Times today, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have created out of chaos.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," he writes. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator

[Merlot]

1. Maybe god created the universe with a big bang?

[BadgerKid]

6. Which universe would that be?

Maybe our universe is one of an infinite family of universes, each with a different set of laws and fundamental constants. Regardless of that, why would a god make this universe? (Take that as rhetorical if you like.)

[Merlot]

10. I don't see much difference between god and universe

rhetorical right back atcha!

[girl gone mad]

21. and who created god?

[Merlot]

26. the universe?

guess I shudda put that sarcasm thingy on the original post. The whole idea of which came first...god or the universe is a chicken and egg argument.

[Zadoc]

35. Maybe you created god!

More likely.

[mzteris]

2. attention: water is wet. n/t

[wookie72]

44. Prepare to have your MIND BLOWN.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-create-dry-wat

[mzteris]

48. created by . . . SCIENTISTS.

Science - not "gawd".

[wookie72]

49. So what?

You kind of missed the point.

[hughee99]

3. Yes, but god created the laws of gravity, thus making it inevitable.

Sorry Mr. Hawking, but no matter how far back you go, "believers" can take it one step further back and credit "god". It's really tough to talk someone out of their beliefs even with science unless you can answer ALL the questions. Any question that doesn't have an answer already will be credited to "god".

[WillParkinson]

4. My favorite is when they say everything has to come from somewhere...

And you ask where did god come from.

God has always existed.

:headdesk:

[Flying Squirrel]

17. Well, now wait a minute.........

You have to admit, upon thinking about it, that this does somewhat make sense. It's just phrased incorrectly. It's not that "everything has to come from somewhere", but that "nothing can come from nothing". The two phrases are not exactly the same.

If you have absolutely nothing, then nothing can possibly come from it.

Therefore something has always existed.

Some choose to call that something which has always existed, "God". Others would prefer to call it something else, but they still would have quite the difficulty stating that there is not something which has always existed - even if that something is only the laws of physics, gravity, whatever.

The only real difference between the two belief systems is that some believe that this something which has always existed, is a creative intelligence who (insert myriad beliefs about this creative intelligence here), whereas others believe that this something which has always existed, is just something which has always existed and (presumably) has no ultimate purpose.

Either belief is perfectly plausible, although the beliefs ABOUT the beliefs are not necessarily so.

IMO (lol) :)

[Kind of Blue]

36. +Infinity. Welcome to DU! n/t

[SDuderstadt]

32. My response would then be...

if God required no creator, then why did the universe? Why would that be any harder to believe?

[Better Believe It]

7. And who/what created god and for what reason?

[hughee99]

19. touché n/t

[SDuderstadt]

20. Who or what created God? n/t

[Moostache]

45. That's just the "god of the gaps"...and he is getting mighty small for a "god"...

I have always said that I wish two things caused real physical pain in people - stupidity and hypocrisy. If that were the case, there would have been 100,000 people in utter agony in DC last weekend. Fundie morons do not matter...they are pawns of their right wing masters and they are getting older, whiter and closer to extinction...just like their belief system in a literalist "god". Soon (but just not soon enough) humanity will shake off the shackles of religion and may even begin to grow into a mature species as a result...MAYBE.

[TBF]

51. It's hard to disprove a negative ... nt

[mike_c]

5. Hawking joins the ranks of the sane....

Welcome, bro'!

[wookie72]

14. Whatever

I hate when atheists act like it's a fricking contest.

[TreasonousBastard]

22. these little victories are all they have.

[RandomThoughts]

8. Is he sure he even exists?

Seems Steven makes an assumption on his own existence.

[Fumesucker]

9. "I should have listened to the wheelchair guy."

-Homer Simpson in a Simpson's Halloween special where he is bopping randomly from one bizarre universe to another even more bizarre.

[wookie72]

12. Negatory on that

He's not "bopping randomly." He ends up in a 3D (and very expensive) universe and then creates a black hole which thrusts him into our universe.

[Fumesucker]

15. I may have some episodes confused..

I was thinking of the one where Homer was fixing the toaster and turned it into a time machine..

And then he misses the universe where it's raining donuts..

[wookie72]

29. Poor Homer

They were both Treehouse of Horror episodes.

Of course, Homer also thought Hawking was Larry Flynt.

[RainDog]

11. ...

[Canuckistanian]

18. That's trippy, man

They're like.. the same, only different. Wow.

Got any of those nachos left?

[RainDog]

50. will you settle for some head cheese?

[Canuckistanian]

52. That is so weird!

I've always thought that Michaelangelo's painting of God looked like a brain!

[Tutankhamun]

13. God was created by his dad. Jesus seems to have actually gone from being

"the son of God," to actually somehow now being God himself. I'm not sure how this happened, but increasingly I'm told "Jesus is God." Therefore God made God (Jesus) and is therefore his own dad.

Of course, this begs the question, "Who created God's Dad?" Maybe God's grandfather? Pappy God!

[stevedeshazer]

16. God's mom?

Did he have a navel?

[spin]

28. Was God married?

Did God Have a Wife?

Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, (Eerdmans, ISBN 0-8028-2852-3, 2005),<1> is a book by Syro-Palestinian archaeologist William G. Dever, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona. “Did God Have a Wife?” was intended as a popular work making available to the general public the evidence long known to archaeologists regarding ancient Israelite religion: namely that the Israelite God (Yahweh) had a consort, that her name was Asherah, and that she was part of the Canaanite pantheon.

The book has nine chapters, plus "afterword" and a list of sources. Chapters 1 to 3 define the topic and describe the different scholarly approaches to Israelite religion, biblical and non-biblical sources and texts, and the role of archaeology. Chapter 4 (“The Hebrew Bible: Religious Reality or Theological Ideal?”) examines cultic terminology and activities in the Hebrew Bible. The core of the book lies in chapters 5 (“Archaeological Evidence for Folk Religions in Ancient Israel”), 6 (“The Goddess Asherah and Her Cult”), and 7 (“Asherah, Women’s Cults, and ‘Official Yahwism’”). These chapters describe polytheistic religion in ancient Israel, which, Dever points out, was the reality in the religious lives of most people. The last two chapters (ch. 8: “From Polytheism to Monotheism”; ch. 9: “What Does the Goddess Do to Help”) sum up the book, concluding that biblical monotheism is an artificial phenomenon, the product of the elite, nationalist parties who wrote and edited the Hebrew Bible during the Babylonian exile as a response to the trauma of the conquest, and subsequently enforced it in their homeland during the early Persian period. Dever also notes that folk religion and the role of the goddess did not disappear under official monotheistic Yahwism, but instead went underground, to find a home in the magic and mysticism of later Judaism.<2>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_God_Have_a_Wife%3F

The book is an interesting read and is available at Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Did-God-Have-Wife-Archaeology/dp/0802863949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283397176&sr=8-1

[SkyDaddy7]

37. Then there was Grandpappy God & Great Grandpappy God...

It is all on Ancestry.com!!!!

[vduhr]

46. Maybe God is His own grandpa?

[bulloney]

53. Now, that sounds like something you'd hear at a family reunion in a red state.

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. God = Gravity = God

Omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, all reaching, and the cause and mother of all things. God = Gravity

[TreasonousBastard]

24. Yada yada... Even most God-fearing folks don't believe in any of those...

anthropomorphic Olympians religions tend to amuse us with, but the question is simply-- if there's a law of gravity, who wrote the law?

Ever since the Universal Constant showed itself being impossible to be a random phenomenon astrophysicists and cosmologists have been all over themselves trying to find a way to get out of the conclusion that there was an intelligence behind it all. Well, through some convoluted reasoning, they finally have, but it rings of truth little more than theories of universal intelligence setting things up. It's just a convenient way of eliminating a rational system of intelligent design (NOT the fundie one) from the discussion. Even religious scientists, and there are some, generally prefer not to bring their beliefs into the lab lest they become the objects of ridicule..

Truth is that while we may comfortably agree that Allah or Siva don't exist as portrayed, we just don't know much more than that.

[rhett o rick]

25. Well, I guess he wont be invited back to the Vatican. nm

[wookie72]

30. Not sure why. nt

[rhett o rick]

40. I think the Pope wants us to believe that God created the Universe. Remember

Galileo.

[wookie72]

41. The Galileo affair was a *lot* more complicated than that

I'm amazed at how many people think Galileo was "burned at the stake." (Galileo was never an atheist, BTW)

The Vatican scientists (believe it or not, there are many) would probably just say "the law of Gravity comes from God."
It sounds like Hawking is saying that it *could* have happened without God, not that it absolutely did.

[rhett o rick]

43. I understand completely that Galileo was a good Christian. He dared to

suggest ideas that were counter to those of the Church. He wasn't burned at the stake because he came from a good family and therefore was essentially under house arrest most of his life.

In one of Mr. Hawking's books he tells of the struggle the Church had with accepting that there might have been a big bang. But once they figured that if there was one, of course God did it.

I agree with your statement: "It sounds like Hawking is saying that it *could* have happened without God, not that it absolutely did." That sounds just like a scientist. It is the religious that tend to be absolute with their thinking.

[struggle4progress]

27. Science, by definition, does not involve supernaturalities: if one is going

to attempt to give a scientific account of things, one makes reference to physical laws and not to religious concepts :shrug:

[billh58]

31. Which God(s)?

The ancient child-eater God, Kronos? Or, maybe Ra the Sun God? Or the bevy of Demi-Gods and -Goddesses which have populated the various religions and cults throughout the history of Man? Or, the more recent One-God of Abraham and the Judeo-Christian-Islamic inventions he fostered? The One-God phenomenon, incidentally, conveniently includes many of the myths, rites, and fables of the multi-God "pagan" religions which preceded it.

While the Universe appears to be an observable, and tangible, product of physics and logical laws, religion and its various "Gods" are all inventions of Man which exist only in the realm of the imagination, and the paranormal.

When Mankind developed the ability to foresee that death is inevitable, our species invented the fantasy realm of Gods, religion, and an afterlife out of sheer vanity and in defiance of reality.

Are there parallel Universes, and a corresponding "Universal Consciousness? Deeper understanding of Quantum Mechanics and the concept of The Singularity may yet hold surprises for future generations of "Adam's Kids..."

[SDuderstadt]

33. God is love...

Love is blind
Stevie Wonder is blind,
therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

[SirRevolutionary]

34. I look at it this way...

From what I've seen, and as a programmer with a degree in computer science, and after many a beer, for someone who spends his entire day time and time again delving into, and rescuing himself from the realms of abstract thinking, here are some of my questions. (Note: I said computer science, not English, so forgive my typos)

Can Steven Hawking quantify love for me? Can he calculate love? Add to, subtract, multiply, or divide from love? Why do some of us experience agony when a child in another country is lost in a flood, or a predator drone attack? Does the most evil person on the planet not love someone other than himself/herself? More than himself/herself? Did Hitler love someone else? Does Bin Laden? Does W? Notice I left out Darth Vader?

My point is this. My assertion is that love is something any sane person agrees exists. Why is that? It may be twisted, or deviant, or juvenile, but it is most certainly something we all share, from the best of us to the worst of us. Someone who loves me much more than herself taught me that the opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference, or perceived indifference. My next thought was, who taught her such love? Was it someone who loved her much more than her own self? How far does that chain go back then? In a finite world, we need a starting point and an end point. Has Steven Hawking ever contemplated past the end point? Or before the beginning? Does he know how many fingers I'm holding up?

When I was a child, I didn't understand my own lineage. I'm 35 and I don't know my own lineage but I perceive it to be. Whatever the dawn of time was, my lineage goes back to that dawn if I think about it logically, it must. There are two blazing points of interest in my programmatic mind, numbers are infinite in either direction. Think about that deeply. Where is the beginning of numbers? What's the beginning number? If there's no beginning, who set them in motion? Equally strange is this question, who can quantify love for me? Some chemicals in my brain perhaps? Or something that goes far beyond numbers and eternity? What does love mean to you? What have you learned of love?

In my mind, God is an endless pool of spirit. Love and eternity. Each of us who can count at all (and I haven't met anyone who can't) has the freedom to contemplate numbers. Each of us has the ability to quantify love, but not for anyone other than ourselves. So purely out of logic, can you dispute and/or quantify love or numbers?

[SkyDaddy7]

38. Here we go again!

"In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe"

OH MY GAWD! Stephen Hawking never accepted the role of a supernatural being in anything! LOL!

[Enthusiast]

39. "Seemed"

You know, as in reading into things you want to see.

[SkyDaddy7]

42. So you do not think the article is...

implying Hawking has had a change heart about the role of a creator?

"In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is "not necessary".

[MissMillie]

47. "not necessary"

Hawking doesn't say whether or not a higher power exists.

But let me tell you, the Freepers are in a lather of his statements...