Hawking Picks Physics Over God

[Julie Marie]

Stephen Hawking Picks Physics Over God for Big Bang
Published September 02, 2010
SkyNews

Physics was the reason for the Big Bang, not God, according to scientist Stephen Hawking.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," the professor said in his new book, in a challenge to traditional religious beliefs.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going," he wrote in his book "The Grand Design," extracts of which are printed in London newspaper The Times.

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow and published next week, 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.

[Sarah Louise]

Big whoop, what else would you expect him to say?

[Vicky]

Hawking VS (Newton + God) seems like two evenly matched teams in the play offs to me.   Seems like God has been on a losing streak recently, what with a bunch of the fans he's picked up.

[rejennyrated]

I hate to say it but even as someone who holds a degree in physics myself I think there is circular logic involved here. The question any religious person worth their salt has to ask is,"well who organised the laws of physics so that they had to be that way?" and immediately we are back to case unproven. Oddly it is exactly the same sort blindness to the circularity of their own flawed logic which afflicts those who believe in creationism too.

I personally believe neither of these extreme positions is correct, but I know that position is only belief and cannot be proved. For someone of Hawking's stature to claim otherwise is curious. Godel's theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems tells you why such debate is ultimately futile.

[Cindy]

Thank you Jenny,

I've had a really hard day at work having to use the ever declining little grey cells and then you throw Godel at me.

Time for a drink. Now do I want a drink because I'm thirsty? Or gravity requires alcohol to seek entropy in a liver? Or God wants me to? Or Hawking's can't so he wants me to? Or it's Friday night?

Hmm how to prove it? I think I'll have a drink and think about it

Cindy

[Muffin]

I made a (deliberately) simplified table to express my opinion.


I haven't read the book, so unless he actually has some hard evidence then I'll stick with my table.

[spacial]

At the risk of sounding a little conspiritorial here, I sometimes wonder just how much of what we are told Hawking has said, is true.

By my reading, his latest pronoincement is that, whereas previously, he claimed that the complexities of the origin were such that it needed to mind of God, now he thinks it can all be explained by gravity.

That is a rather different proposition from saying there is no God.

[Cindy]

At the risk of sounding a little conspiritorial here, I sometimes wonder just how much of what we are told Hawking has said, is true.

By my reading, his latest pronoincement is that, whereas previously, he claimed that the complexities of the origin were such that it needed to mind of God, now he thinks it can all be explained by gravity.

That is a rather different proposition from saying there is no God.

I will only raise this as wild fantasy.

Hawkins is not capable to respond to questions quickly. His publishers are aware of this.

Hawkins takes on God when neither can respond. Well God can if God wishes; hasn't so far, as far as I have seen the reviews.

Me thinks I smell advertising.

A book about the beginning of the Universe, we will of course  all buy it  One denying god.; instant sale to the christian taliban.

And as Jenny pointed out you cannot prove god or absence of god, as you cannot really prove "anything" in Godal's logic. If one and one equals two, are the two ones comprised of the same matter? In which case one and one may not equal two,

Going to bed
Brain Strain.
Cindy

[Nathan.]

At the risk of sounding a little conspiritorial here, I sometimes wonder just how much of what we are told Hawking has said, is true.

By my reading, his latest pronoincement is that, whereas previously, he claimed that the complexities of the origin were such that it needed to mind of God, now he thinks it can all be explained by gravity.

That is a rather different proposition from saying there is no God.

He was using god like einstien did as a metaphor.

I made a (deliberately) simplified table to express my opinion.


I haven't read the book, so unless he actually has some hard evidence then I'll stick with my table.

You lack an understanding of atheism.

Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s) it is not the belief that there are no gods.

Most atheists are agnostic atheists, they lack a belief in god but wont say that there is no god just that they don't believe in a god. I believe that gnostic atheists are just as silly as the theists.

[Muffin]

That is a rather different proposition from saying there is no God.

I think he may of selected his words carefully as I think he meant there is no link between the "big bang" (or whatever he calls it I can't be bothered scrolling up.. you know what I mean) and god. I don't think he was denying the existence of a god etc. But I could be mistaken.

When I saw that three part doco on the universe he did earlier this year I thought "wait this is so radically ridiculous, I thought he was meant to be a genius?". It was also dumbed down but I can understand that much, but still I'll take him with a grain of salt.

[Muffin]

You lack an understanding of atheism.

Perhaps.. but no more than my lack of understanding of theism.. anyone can twist stuff to try and justify themselves. I mean I've met atheists that stress both your ideas of what it is... but yeah if there is a word that is more suitable for those that are offended by my own personal opinion then I'd be more than willing to amend my table [refer to avatar].

[Nathan.]

I will say that there is no god, never was, never will be.
god isn't dead, god never existed.

I am a militant atheist.

I identify as agnostic atheist but i'm only agnostic towards god as much as I am to leprechauns. Saying there isn't a god to me sounds too much like theists even though the burden of proof is on them.

[Steph]

Hawking VS (Newton + God) seems like two evenly matched teams in the play offs to me.   Seems like God has been on a losing streak recently, what with a bunch of the fans he's picked up.

Na not really, Steve plays for himself whereas god sends in pinch hitters who pick their own way to play the game.

Steph

[Steph]

I will say that there is no god, never was, never will be.
god isn't dead, god never existed.

I am a militant atheist.

Kind of agree.  Seems like god was created to explain away things that couldn't be explained, back in the day.  It's all hearsay.

Steph

[Julie Marie]

I hate to admit it, but Hawking is a tad bit more knowledgeable than I when it comes to the world of physics.  Yes, he once accepted the role of God in the creation of the universe.  Then he put another 22 years of study into the equation and came up with this.  I think one is entitled to change his/her mind "after further review". 

I've read some of his stuff.  I've seen it explained in documentaries.  And with this tidbit of information I've tried to glean some level of understanding about how this all works.  I can't say I've fully conceptualized all of his theories yet.  What I will say is Hawking works with concepts, theories and facts and arrives at a reasonable conclusion.  There is no fear of God or fear of eternal damnation influencing those conclusions.  There is no place for that in the equation.

The belief in God is filled with fear, faith and indoctrination, not to mention substantial social pressure.  People who go around claiming they know the word of God or the mind of the lord have little room in proclaiming theories like Hawking's are nonsense.  At least he works with real facts.

As for me, once someone shows me what's on the other side of the end of universe or explains why God can have no beginning but the universe can't, then I'm in.  Until then the reasonable response to things like this is something like, "Well, I guess that's possible".  No one, at this point in time, can prove they are absolutely right so it's unreasonable to make that claim.

[FairyGirl]

so god = gravity this week. Got it.

*makes mental note then gets on with her life in which gravity plays a much more substantial role than god in any case*

[Arch]

Atheism is the lack of belief in god(s) it is not the belief that there are no gods.

Not true. It can be either, and perhaps other things as well. (I suppose some people might even describe themselves with both definitions at once.)

I've always felt that if I went with the definition you're using, I might as well just shoot myself in the head, become a theist, and be done with it (in that order). That definition's premise seems to be that there ARE gods, but I simply choose not to believe in them. I reject that definition because it doesn't accurately describe me; I don't think that gods exist, period. In this case, semantics is everything. I should also note that many times, theists have tried to use that definition to convert me. I don't know why they bother. They do what works for them, and I do what works for me. I have never tried to convert them to my way of thinking.

Personally, I don't think I'm capable of believing in a deity. I don't think I'm hardwired for it. Perhaps I'm a sport. (Or perhaps I would have been very pious in an overwhelmingly pious society. One never knows.)

So far, I haven't seen any compelling evidence that gods, as they are traditionally defined, exist. I've seen plenty of evidence that the universe operates quite nicely by itself. But I suppose it depends on how you define key terms like "god," "universe," and "itself."

[Ayaname]

I'm not at all religious, but without some context those statements are just begging the question. Unless you digress to the metaphysical there can be no evidence for or against the supernatural. Physics has a bias towards the natural because it subsists by it. If the supernatural is prior to nature then natural laws can't observe it, much like lower vs higher dimensions. I blame scientifically motivated atheism on the image of a humanoid god working within terrestrial laws which is a text book straw man. I agree that science comes to the more logical conclusion vs religion, but it's moot if the premise they both assume happens to be false. And since the current image of god is nothing more than a blind guess at this point there is a fairly good chance that it is false.

[Ayaname]

I hate to say it but even as someone who holds a degree in physics myself I think there is circular logic involved here. The question any religious person worth their salt has to ask is,"well who organised the laws of physics so that they had to be that way?" and immediately we are back to case unproven. Oddly it is exactly the same sort blindness to the circularity of their own flawed logic which afflicts those who believe in creationism too.

I personally believe neither of these extreme positions is correct, but I know that position is only belief and cannot be proved. For someone of Hawking's stature to claim otherwise is curious. Godel's theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems tells you why such debate is ultimately futile.

kudos on quoting Godel 

[spacial]

Speaking as a self proclaimed Christian not to mention the wrong forum, is a belief in a god necessary? (From a Christian perspective).

edit

It was worded badly and doens't make the point I wanted.