Stephen Hawking: God Didn't Create Universe

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Hawking confirms what I have believed for years, namely that it isn't necessary to invoke some imaginary deity to explain the existence of the universe.

God did not create the universe, world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book that aims to banish a divine creator from physics.

Hawking says in his book "The Grand Design" that, given the existence of gravity, "the universe can and will create itself from nothing," according to an excerpt published Thursday in The Times of London.

"Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," he writes in the excerpt.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going," he writes.

http://us.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/index.html?hpt=C2

[Dementia_Madness]

I read that article it is a good one, it is a good thing Stephen is only human, if he was God I might consider his opinion of God valid. Even the brightest and most intelligent among us are prone to mistakes, and can be wrong, in fact most of us are wrong many times in our lives....unless we are God I would not consider we would be right 100% of the time. I hope this gives you some comfort...I can understand why it would. As for bothering me or affecting my faith in any way I have already seen the flaws of the arguments made....let us remember the "grand design" first must indeed have a designer or otherwise it is a grand accident...or a grand nothing.

In the end Hawkins agrees that in the beginning there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and nothing magically exploded for no reason and created everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs, though he does touch the reasons of with a LAW of gravity.. and string theory...is the magic that caused it all... but a law cannot create it can only explain something that exists...the fact that gravity exists, means that it is derived from somewhere, or something itself, we continue to enter into this infinite regress, that moving the goal posts cannot fix….something is eternal….something is beyond the laws of gravity (for gravity must succumb to some other force that dictates it's limits)…something is beyond existence because existence has a beginning, and will indeed end….there is no such thing as nothing, and the law of gravity does not explain, nor discount the existing of the infinite, and an infinity must exist, even for string theory to work, it doesn't matter if you have one universe or a multitude of them, it doesn't change the ultimate equation…if we roll one dice or a hundred each dice have the same chances of landing on 1-6 as the others, it does not increase the odds of any of them landing on any other numbers.

Hawkins is a brilliant man, but he must remember just as he says we do not have to “invoke” a God to create everything, which I agree no matter how many gods we create in our minds it doesn't change anything, it is the uncreated uninvoked God who created us and invoked us that controls it all…no created deity nor IDOL can do this, not the idol of the atheists nor the idol of the deists….but just as we do not need create a god to explain things, neither do we need to deny him to explain things, in fact the fact that there is a law of gravity, means there is some law giver, and the fact of a grand design does indeed lead us to conclude that ultimately there is and must be an even grander designer.

Like you say, Hawkins simply confirms something you already believed, your pre-conceived notion based on your ignorance or misunderstanding of God, based on the limits of the god you have created in YOUR mind, is confirmed by another human being who is basing his opinion on his preconceived notions and ignorance or misunderstanding of GOD, based on the limits of the god he has created in his mind…big deal. In the end what matters is on that day when you stand  before God, the real God, the uninvoked uncreated one…the one who made you,  who and what Will be your defense Christ or yourself…or maybe you can point to Hawkins, but I prefer Jesus….that’s my justification and my ONLY need. You can have yourself and Hawkins.

Thank you and have a lovely weekend.

Ps thank you once again for your participation.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

In the end Hawkins agrees that in the beginning there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and nothing magically exploded for no reason and created everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs, though he does touch the reasons of with a LAW of gravity..

Hawkins says nothing of the kind. Your distortion of his views are comical.

You can have yourself and Hawkins.

I'll gladly take a genius like Hawkins over ignorance any day. You can have your myths and superstitions.

You have a nice day too.

[Dementia_Madness]

Ignorance goes both ways, thank you for your reply, In the end ones perception of their reality colors the limits of their understandings.....

Imagining the Tenth Dimension part 1 of 2

Imagining the Tenth Dimension part 2 of 2

We can find comfort in the imagined concept that our reality is wrapped up nice and neat in whatever explanations we choose to embrace, we must all assume some ignorance as to the universe around us, for unless we are God we cannot and will not ever know everything, so whether or not you agree that you accept ignorance in your choices it is there, you have accepted it and live by it, so it's not so much what we do not know that we need to measure, in that both you and I are equally lacking, however, what we DO know can be very different, in effect my understanding of nature, science, string theory, math, and reality coupled with my understanding of God, Christ, the human condition, our need for a savior...can far exceed yours, or yours can exceed mine, I would however consider this, you are limited in your opinion of others, especially me, buy your preconceived notion of what YOU think I understand, it is apparent from how you imagine God that you have a very narrow and limited understanding based on your preconceived notions of him...and me, you do not know what I know, nor can you understand that which I have an understanding of, in effect you are limited, I have a dimension, you do not have, an element you cannot grasp, and that means that probably even know you do not understand this...to you it would seem funny, or insane...but unless HIS spirit dwells within, there is much you cannot perceive, and will never understand, the same is true of Hawkins, brilliant though he is, not even he can grasp it. Yet, even the smallest of child gifted with the spirit can have understanding, God does not only speak to the brilliant, He MUST also make sense to the least, so his understanding can be reached by the brightest or the dimmest of bulbs, as long as the spirit dwells within. If that spirit is not there, then it is pearls before swine, even the greatest of understandings fails you….but alas it is always by choice, you choose to believe what you will…just like you said, you confirmed your preconceived opinion by someone else’s preconceived opinion.
If your defense is ignorance, either mine or yours, it will avail you none.

In his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time", physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that when physicists find the theory he and his colleagues are looking for - a so-called "theory of everything" - then they will have seen into "the mind of God". 2000 years before Hawkins was even born, God spoke of HIM and YOU directly…

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.c  2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.  4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,  5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.  8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.  9 However, as it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”a—
 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.b  14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.  15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
 16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?”c
But we have the mind of Christ.


In truth you understand not, because you have not the spirit of understanding within you, nor do you Love the God who made you, who died for you, and me, even while we were and are yet sinners…. This is love, this is understanding. As you judge others, and assume an ignorance in them that you are blind to within yourself, so shall your judgment be, and is…. Your judgment of me and my Lord matter not, for it is judgment out of your own ignorance, but those that judge with understanding those who judge with the discernment of the spirit can and do judge with an understanding that surpasses the ignorance of man and his preconceived self justifying notions.

[Dementia_Madness]

http://www.economist.com/node/16990802

IN 1988, Stephen Hawking, a British cosmologist, ended his best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time”, on a cliff hanger. If we find a physical theory that explains everything, he wrote—suggesting that this happy day was not too far off—“then we would know the mind of God.” But the professor didn’t mean it literally. God played no part in the book, which was renowned for being bought by everyone and understood by few. Twenty-two years later, Professor Hawking tells a similar story, joined this time by Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist and writer at the California Institute of Technology.

In their “The Grand Design”, the authors discuss “M-theory”, a composite of various versions of cosmological “string” theory that was developed in the mid-1990s, and announce that, if it is confirmed by observation, “we will have found the grand design.” Yet this is another tease. Despite much talk of the universe appearing to be “fine-tuned” for human existence, the authors do not in fact think that it was in any sense designed. And once more we are told that we are on the brink of understanding everything.

The authors may be in this enviable state of enlightenment, but most readers will not have a clue what they are on about. Some physics fans will enjoy “The Grand Design” nonetheless. The problem is not that the book is technically rigorous—like “A Brief History of Time”, it has no formulae—but because whenever the going threatens to get tough, the authors retreat into hand-waving, and move briskly on to the next awe-inspiring notion. Anyone who can follow their closing paragraphs on the relation between negative gravitational energy and the creation of the universe probably knows it all already. This is physics by sound-bite.

The authors rather fancy themselves as philosophers, though they would presumably balk at the description, since they confidently assert on their first page that “philosophy is dead.” It is, allegedly, now the exclusive right of scientists to answer the three fundamental why-questions with which the authors purport to deal in their book. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? And why this particular set of laws and not some other?

It is hard to evaluate their case against recent philosophy, because the only subsequent mention of it, after the announcement of its death, is, rather oddly, an approving reference to a philosopher’s analysis of the concept of a law of nature, which, they say, “is a more subtle question than one may at first think.” There are actually rather a lot of questions that are more subtle than the authors think. It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.

 

The main novelty in “The Grand Design” is the authors’ application of a way of interpreting quantum mechanics, derived from the ideas of the late Richard Feynman, to the universe as a whole. According to this way of thinking, “the universe does not have just a single existence or history, but rather every possible version of the universe exists simultaneously.” The authors also assert that the world’s past did not unfold of its own accord, but that “we create history by our observation, rather than history creating us.” They say that these surprising ideas have passed every experimental test to which they have been put, but that is misleading in a way that is unfortunately typical of the authors. It is the bare bones of quantum mechanics that have proved to be consistent with what is presently known of the subatomic world. The authors’ interpretations and extrapolations of it have not been subjected to any decisive tests, and it is not clear that they ever could be.

Once upon a time it was the province of philosophy to propose ambitious and outlandish theories in advance of any concrete evidence for them. Perhaps science, as Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow practice it in their airier moments, has indeed changed places with philosophy, though probably not quite in the way that they think.

Once upon a time, scientists, many themselves who most likely had a flawed and incomplete view of reality based on their preconceived notions, added billions of years to history in order to add all the time they thought they needed for improbably impossible things to occur enough times for the probably possible to occur…..however as time went by and probability refuted their beliefs at every turn they decided to add not just billions of years but billions of existences happening at the same time in order to up the ante on their  numbers to give themselves even more time, in their minds, for the improbably impossible to become probably possible. However this too does not solve the problem it only moves the goal post, for each “alternate” universe still is subject to the same probability within itself and has no bearing or substance in the probability of the others…in other words even if you roll a billion dice each dice has the same odds at landing on 1-6 every time you roll.

[roustabout]

Hawking confirms what I have believed for years, namely that it isn't necessary to invoke some imaginary deity to explain the existence of the universe.

Isn't this an example of begging the question.
You want to believe this, therefore it is true? This is a faith statement. The gospel according to hawking. If you respect a man for his intellect, then you should recognize when he has abandoned it.

Let's think about this. The existence of gravity. OK, where does gravity exist? Gravity can't simply exist in and of itself. It isn't a thing. It is a concept that we use to explain forces at play in an existing universe. Gravity doesn't, nor has it ever been demonstrated to produce matter. Specifically from nothing. Let's look at the most basic scientific definition of gravity.
The natural force of attraction exerted by a celestial body, such as Earth, upon objects at or near its surface, tending to draw them toward the center of the body.

"Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," he writes in the excerpt.

Hawking is a brilliant man and scientist. The problem is that this in no way is a scientific statement. It is a philosophical one. And Hawking has demonstrated many times to be a terrible philosopher.

Whatever the force is that was able to eternally exist, and spontaneously create everything from nothing, we should worship it.

[Dementia_Madness]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110106/ts_nm/us_pope_bigbang

"The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe," Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star.

"Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God," he said in a sermon to some 10,000 people in St Peter's Basilica on the feast day.

While the pope has spoken before about evolution, he has rarely delved back in time to discuss specific concepts such as the Big Bang, which scientists believe led to the formation of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago.

Researchers at CERN, the nuclear research center in Geneva, have been smashing protons together at near the speed of light to simulate conditions that they believe brought into existence the primordial universe from which stars, planets and life on earth -- and perhaps elsewhere -- eventually emerged.

Some atheists say science can prove that God does not exist, but Benedict said that some scientific theories were "mind limiting" because "they only arrive at a certain point ... and do not manage to explain the ultimate sense of reality ..."

He said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans, while not in conflict with faith, left many questions unanswered.

"In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth," he said.

[GRAY]

If I looked like Hawking I'd keep my friggin mouth shut.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

If I looked like Hawking I'd keep my friggin mouth shut.

Wow. What a "Christian" thing to say.  I'm sure Jesus would be so proud to know that such blatant hypocrites like you claim to be his follower. I think even roust and DM would agree with me that your post goes beyond tasteless.

And of course, as usual, you can't address a single issue Hawking raises. Just a very unchristian, ad hominem attack on a brilliant man.

[roustabout]

Wow. What a "Christian" thing to say.   I'm sure Jesus would be so proud to know that such blatant hypocrites like you claim to be his follower. I think even roust and DM would agree with me that your post goes beyond tasteless.

And of course, as usual, you can't address a single issue Hawking raises. Just a very unchristian, ad hominem attack on a brilliant man

Gray's comment was stupid.
I addressed what Hawking said. Why did you ignore my comments?

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Gray's comment was stupid.
I addressed what Hawking said. Why did you ignore my comments?

Roust,

I wasn't ignoring you. I have spent very little time on this forum for quite a while. I just happened to cruise by today and saw Gray's comment. I thought it was sickening.

I will be traveling with my girlfriend the next three days. I'm not sure if I will have access to the internet. I will respond when I get back.

Peace.

[roustabout]

If nothing else, I think Hawking stirs the questions that are at the heart of every man.
Where did we come from?
Whey are we here?
And, What happens when we die?

The scientific method is great, but it is inadequate to answer all questions. That is why we have logic, reason, and philosophy. That is why great scientific minds make attempts at philosophy when addressing things such as origins. Hawking is a great mind, but certainly not the only one. And many great minds have shown where the logic breaks down in his philosophy. In fact it only requires the most basic understanding of logic and how to spot logical fallacies. Hawking, like most atheists can't even account for why we have uniformity of nature, the laws of science, logic and reason to begin with.

What is so often left out when discussing origins and beginnings is transcendence. Hawking is implying that gravity transcends space, time and matter. Considering that gravity is the result of space, time and matter, you can see why so many are scratching their heads. The other issue is that Hawking is obviously trying to explain away the need of an external, intelligent, transcendent force behind the beginning of the universe. This is very similar to something Einstein did when he developed his theory of relativity. He was very frustrated that his own theory pointed to a beginning, and thus a beginner.

The problem is that gravity is a product of our universe. Where do the natural laws with which we conduct the scientific method originate? They are a product of and contained within the universe. That is what makes them natural laws. That is what defines the natural. So, anything that worked outside of the laws of nature is what? Supernatural. But why do the laws of nature even work. Why do we assume that how gravity acts today will be consistent in the future, or was consistent in the past? Yet we do. The Christian actually knows why these natural laws exist and why they hold together. The atheist has no reason other than to say, 'well that's the way it is.'