Stephen Hawking has touched off a Big Bang, and his publishers couldn't be happier. But just like the original Big Bang, Hawking has created an explosion out of nothing.
In his latest book, the famed physicist says, "Because there are laws such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself out of nothing. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going."
Hawking's statement is no big deal. It's not original, it's not certain, and even if true it's no threat to authentic faith.
Hawking may have abandoned the dappled language of his previous utterances for the harsh light of atheism, but there's nothing new in what he says -- not even for himself. Way back in 1988, when he published his first popular book, A Brief History in Time, Hawking held much the same views. He just didn't happen to mention God at the time:
There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle parts. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero.
Hawking was far from the first scientist to declare that it is unnecessary to invoke a supernatural creator to explain the Universe. Way back in 1783 Pierre-Simon LaPlace improved on Newton's gravitation mechanics and eliminated the requirement of an occasional supernatural shove to keep the planets in orbit. Years later, when Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte asked LaPlace why he had not mentioned the Creator in his treatise, the scientist coolly replied, "I had no need of that hypothesis."
Since then, the history of science has been a steady march away from the supernatural. Darwin eliminated the need to invoke a designer to shape life's many variations. Plate tectonics supplanted an angry God as the rational explanation for earthquakes. Genetics rather than Genesis best explains variations in human skin color. And so on.
Those who feel the need to shore up their faith with mysteries in nature stand on an ever-shrinking archipelago of the unexplained. They cling to what is derisively known as God-of-the-Gaps theology. Their island chain is down to three main enigmas: the origin of life, the origin of consciousness, and the origin of the Universe.
Science has all but solved the first question. We may never know exactly how the first chemical replicator got going or how it encased itself in a cell, but the general territory is clearly taped. The spontaneous creation of amino acids, RNA, and lipids have all been demonstrated in the lab. With Nature's ability to perform billions of chemical experiments a day for billions of years, it's no real mystery at all but more of a search through a humongous haystack.
The origin of consciousness remains a knotty problem, but one that is clearly organic. You can alter consciousness with drugs, switch it off with anesthetics, and watch it tragically fade away in Alzheimer's patients. Moreover, every attribute of consciousness, even self-awareness, has been demonstrated to exist in other animals. It hardly cries out for a supernatural explanation.
The third problem is the one Hawking addresses. In line with most cosmological physicists today, Hawking believes that our Universe -- the huge, galaxy-studded bubble we inhabit -- is just one of countless such bubbles that form spontaneously and with random configuration. Since he calculates the sum of positive and negative energy in our Universe to be zero, there is no constraint on the void to produce an infinite number of such bubbles.
Imagine a deck of cards. If you shuffle at random, you could deal out cards all day and never see a royal flush. To see them come out in perfect series order, from low to high, one suit after the other might take more than a lifetime. Yet, if you dealt forever, you'd be guaranteed to see the perfect series order not just once but an infinite number of times. That's the Hawking argument for the world we live in. To call it the Hawking argument is to give him excess credit, however, for many other scientists have made the same assertion.
Is it true? Maybe. It is a reasonable extrapolation from incomplete evidence. However, there may be other explanations that have yet to be explored in a scientific manner. Two things are certain. The evidence clearly shows that the Universe we inhabit is not the handiwork of an omnipotent, perfect Creator. Whatever the true explanation, the traditional interpretation of Genesis makes no sense. There are just too many inefficiencies, extravagances, and plain bad "design" for that to hold. If you're not aware of just how bad an intentional designer would have to be to produce the world we live in, let Neil deGrasse Tyson enlighten you:
The other certainty is this: authentic faith does not depend on traditional creation stories. "Faith" is a vague term, but I suggest it has two essential characteristics: it is a belief that ultimately some good will come of it all, and while its components may be reshaped by evidence it is a belief that transcends the evidence. In short, people who feel that such and such scientific claim must be false or their whole religious belief system will collapse don't really have faith. They have a membership in a particular ideology.
Ideologies come and go. Faith is an enduring characteristic of most human beings. I have, in various essays, suggested ways that faith might be empirically true. I won't reiterate them here. Let me instead close with these thoughts:
* Every single word of what Hawking now says might be true, and yet something wonderful may yet happen.
* Beyond all doubt, God exists -- in the minds of his (or her) followers. Whether God is more than a belief is itself a question of belief, but that belief makes a difference in our world.
* The future is not wholly determined, and to the extent that we control our destiny, our fates depend not on pure reason nor on pure faith, but on just the right intertwining of the two.
Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claynaff
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My response was posted under the wrong thread. Please find its URL here. Thank you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/cjgnew/hawking-to-god-your-servi_1_b_705773_60597625.html
cjgnew... "The idea that a perfect God would allow his children to destroy one another for real is totally senseless."
But he does, if he exists. He watches and does nothing. And why would he want recognition, praise, worship. Those are evil virtues of vein creatures. Either he enjoys it, or he doesn't exist and some other sinister thing is going on.
PS: Let your kid play with cars. He'll grow to want cars. Let him play with guns. He'll want real ones. You're teaching him. Perhaps you're indoctrinating him too, stifling his freedom with your mental chains. Sad.
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I didn't disallow communication. Do you have a reasonable explanation?
Assuming God exists,
1) Knowledge is organization of energy.
2) Intelligence is energy acting upon organized energy, with outcome of set energy.
3) Power is Energy.
4) God's existence or creations require energy.
5) Einstein shows energy is neither creatable nor destructible.
Is it logical for energy to create un-creatable, indestructible energy?
Energy is shown to evolve it's attributes, but not create itself, nor destroy itself. Big Bang, Universe, time, space, DNA, intelligence, creator, creation? All expressions of energy. We are pure energy.
Hawkings is suggesting that energy in flux in multiple Universes is likely the cause of our Universe and it's expansion.
I suggest that energy is a prerequisite for Intelligent Creation, so a God could not be the first cause.”
Now I am getting ready to be assaulted by all the non believers on this site.
There's a bit of a sampling bias here: you wouldn't be writing these questions if earth and/or humanity was already destroyed by a cosmological event. See, for example, this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
On a related note, there are a number of near-earth asteroids orbiting the solar system, and there's good evidence that some very large ones have collided with the earth in the distant path. Objectively speaking, that such impacts are infrequent, even in geological time, means only that... they are infrequent.
Are you familiar with Ancient Babylonian Mythology?
Hate the belief
As academic research, Hawking has made a claim about the the absence of a God and the universe but has failed to justify his claim with specific evidence.
In referencing Physics, he cites the laws of gravity as proof for an absence of a God. His premise is problematic in that he does not prove how or why God is or is not related to gravity.
(continued)
He claims that math is the method of his proof but fails to demonstrate his proof through the utilization of mathematical deductive reasoning. Reiterating, Hawking fails to demonstrate a math proof to us that shows us that his hypothesis is true in all cases... and that is the very definition of a proof.
What he does do is truncate ( and take out of context) the ideas and work of others, such as Einstein and Aristotle, in a failed attempt to prove his own beliefs.
His research is therefore akin to qualitative and not quantitative. But even as qualitative research, he falls short in the absence of correctly cited case studies. Instead, he simply references disciplines outside of Physics and Mathematics, such as Philosophy and Sociology and goes on to denigrate these disciplines with wipe sweeping and unsupported claims: In claiming that Philosophy is intuitive and anthropomorphism (sociology) is belief based, he leaves only dangling comments that are unfettered to own his belief based argument.
Ultimately, his claim is not research, nor is it science...its just another faith.
He also said, "You can illicit a response from praying to God with three different outcomes:" 1. I change my views and now I know God. 2. It took several years but now I know God. 3. Nothing happens, I still do not believe in God.
This is not an atheistic point of view! None of these outcomes are possible if God does not exist. This is a satanic perspective where, because of pride, emphases is placed on oneself. On what “I will” rather than “God’s will”:
Isaiah 14: (13) For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: (14) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Which of us did you say was “ignoring the reality of the outcome?”
Its not the self existent concept , or the causelessness or even the ability for an entity (call it law if you wish) to create out of nothing infinitely that bothers your side or that you define as supernatural. its merely the concept of intelligence that rattles you to. its an illogical base to conclude supernatural on given all the other things your side is willing to swallow and defend even as Penrose states on the the basis of a theory (in the case of M-theory) that has no observational data at all. The scientific method matters little and that fact is now in the open.
It seems it is perfectly acceptable and scientific to propose that the universe is created out of nothing by a self existent causeless law that has infinite ability and creativity to span countless universes up to and only up to the point that such a law has no intelligence.
The mere interpretation of intelligence in a law renders the otherwise identical premise as being unscientific and supernatural. this stands as a priori to almost every atheist I have conversed with. When this is put together with Penrose's fair observation that M-theory (which Hawkings bases at least part of his premise on) has no observational data as of yet the rational becomes extremely clear
A large segment of alleged supporter of science have no qualms with any premise or even with a premises's lack of observational data. The sole criteria for claiming a thing supernatural and unscientific is how that premise stands in regard to intelligence.
By any rational construct such a priori is illogical and biased.. The dismissal of the restraints that the scientific method should place on conclusions now clearly indicate that the side that has been trumpeting the scientific method is more than willing to abandon it at will. The dialogue will and needs to change to one of honesty.
When the belief system that holds that an entity which is supernatural, or beyond our ability to detect or monitor, was required to set up and start the universe, you should not complain about other peoples arguments being A priori. Belief if you choose and don't worry about the scientists.
is the initial law that created out of nothing as hawkins posits causeless? If you think for a moment it has to be unless you want infinite regression. Is it self existent? necessarily follows. Is it incredibly creative? why yes with almost infinite universes.
Is the concept of God causeless? definitely, does it claim self existence? Yes. is it a concept creative? why yes a minimum of two universes.
subtract one position form the other and all they don't have in common is intelligence. Its merely on the basis of intelligence that you differentiate supernatural in the construct which is a distortion of the meaning of the word. Its a bias that is now laid bare.
You have built in prime movers in the form of law to create your conversion- you've merely trojan horsed them into your ex nihlo by law, its a word game is all. A psychological thin ploy. the primemover or initial cause is the self existent causeless law. Its illogical and unscientific particularly in this case with little to no observational data.
Um, that seems to be an unfair presentation of the situation. In fact, that seems to be YOUR description of the situation and as such this is a straw man. In particular, I don't think anyone has nor would say that law was "creative". To argue against the absurdity of a law of physics being creative without an intelligence behind it is pure straw man. Sorry, the law is not "creative".
Note that a natural law can give the appearance of creativity without a intelligence. Consider evolution via natural selection, from which a rich diversity of apparently creatively designed life arose. Well, there was no creativity behind it, just a dumb law of biology. The law behind the creation of the universe is similarly dumb and uncreative.
Religious people overlay their faith on the physical world and argue that the order and sense they've contrived to explain things is proof that there is a god who created the whole thing. I believe that's called begging the question, a logical fallacy in which a claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself.