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Pope Advised Hawking Not to Study Origin of Universe
BlueCup submits a link to an Associated Press article running in the Northwest Florida Daily News which begins "Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that the late Pope John Paul II once told scientists they should not study the beginning of the universe because it was the work of God. The British author, who wrote the best-seller 'A Brief History of Time,' said that the pope made the comments at a cosmology conference at the Vatican."
According to the article, "The scientist then joked during a lecture in Hong Kong, 'I was glad he didn't realize I had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began. I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo.'"
He wrote that anecdote himself in "A Brief History of Time". So, this *really* is old news.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
It is about creationism, just not young Earth creationism.
The Catholic Church has accepted Evolution and the Big Bang, but they still need some kind of mystery involved in creation so that their God has a role to play. The don't want scientists producing results which might imply the Universe did not need some outside force to get it started.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
> Hawking is an American.
Um, no. He's British. Born, raised and lives there. See here
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
Not trying to pick a fight here but your last statement is one reason the world today (and before) is a mess. Religion explains *nothing*. Religion is about belief without any substance whatsoever. You can not learn anything about the world from religion (you can learn alot about people however), certainly not *why*.
"Galileo got in trouble for saying that the earth moves... in a book that irreverently satirized the current pope."
/. So Galileo proceeds to publish a book in which he thoroughly flames the Pope, and puts the Pope's words, in some cases distorted or taken out of context, in the mouth of a character whose name is just one letter away from "Stupid"... and is pronounced almost the same as "Stupid." In effect it's the kinda flamebait post that goes on and on about how the opponent is just too stupid to understand, only in print.
Read again the part after the "..." and there you have the real problem.
AFAIK, Galileo had had a pretty civilized talk with the Pope, and while the Pope wasn't convinced by Galileo's argumentation, he let Galileo go.
Before you blame the Pope of being too fanatical to accept science, remember that it wasn't just faith, but they did have their own explanations (derived from Aristotles) about how the world works. It may have been wrong in retrospect, but as far as any wise man at the time was concerned, they already had a science of sorts. Something that comes and turns the whole cosmic model on its head, damn better be convincing, and at any rate the Pope wasn't convinced. And remember that the Pope had been willing to hear Galileo's arguments, which doesn't strike me as too closed-minded.
Unfortunately, Galileo seems to have had the same kind of personality one can see often on
Now also bear in mind that the Pope at the time was debatably the biggest political figure. A king above kings, if you will. They weren't big on democracy and freedom of speech back then...
And Galileo goes and flames him in public and calls him stupid...
I don't know, seems to me like science-vs-religion had _nothing_ to do with what happened from there. You get in a public pissing contest with the dictator of the realm, you get roughed up in return. It's that simple.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not enquire into the beginning itelf because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."
He was also "demanded" that science not contradict Christianity.
I think I know where you got that semi quote(more than a little mangled):
159 Faith and science : "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." (Dei Filius 4: DS 3017) "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are." (GS 36 ' 1)
From the Catechism, the official teaching guide of the RCC. As far as the Church is concerned, the only caveat to scientific study is that it respects moral law, which boils down to the fact that in biological sciences, you can't treat human beings in ways that are offensive to their innate dignity(Tuskegee study, Axis death camp studies, etc). The idea is that that faith and science can never be in opposition because they have one author, not that science has to be altered to fit religious belief.
Chardin was condemned not for his scientific writings, but because of his religion. He was most certainly, judging from his own writings, not Catholic anymore. His desire was to eliminate most if not all of Christian belief, and replace it with his own. It had nothing at all to do with science. He wanted to create a new religion and call it Catholic, and the RCC understandably said no. He was free at any time to leave and publish his beliefs in any way he wished. But the RCC is also free not to teach his religion in its schools.
Evolution was never condemned by the RCC, so I fail to see how that is "backhanded and deceptive."
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
That's because the Big Bang theory WAS developed by a religious person, namely Georges Lemaître.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtr
A Roman Catholic priest!
From that link
I do agree though, that this is the best explanation of God. Something we can never possibly understand.
God is timeless. ~ The Universe had NO time before the Bang.
Where is God? God is everywhere. ~ The Universe is everywhere.
etc...
= The Universe IS God
Mind you, the theory DOES threaten the beliefs of the Fundamentalists. Of course, suggesting that the world has a history beyond 6500 years ago does as well.
Precisely - Reading the whole of John Paul 2's own comments and even a few of the other things he wrote to scientists shows that he was well aware of what Hawking and others were claiming and why it wasn't science. Hawking is one of a number of Cosmologists that have started from the assumption that many fundamental variables must be randomly selected, and from that assumption, an untestable (and therefore non-scientific) prediction commonly follows, mascarading as science. Hawking's made it, Sagan's made it (although he at least qualified (in Cosmos) that it was speculative), Guth's made it, and half the people pushing String theory or various Brane theories have made it, while the other half have been tweaking their theories to avoid explicitly making it. /.'ers might want to read "The Infinte Book", by John D. Barrow, FRS and professor of Math at Cambridge. He has some great arguements about just what must inevitably exist if the universe (or multiverse if you prefer) is truely infinite in either time or space, and these show just how most of the Cosmology speculation is rooted in niave models of infinity similar to an uneducated layman's, and not real math. Without real math behind it, it ain't science.
This is the prediction that an infinite number of 'parellel' universes must exist. Note that the scientists, unlike SF authors, are careful to say these are likely to be forever unobservable. I'd argue that the prediction that the fundamental constants nust be random is itself unscientific, but why bother, when there is such a common tenedency in the scientists that start from that premise to jump to the consequent and proclaim infinite parellels.
Now I don't personally believe in the whole heirarchial structure of angelic beings postulated by some parts of the Roman Catholc church, with Powers, Seraphim, and Thrones, etc. - but even a claim involving a detailed listing of what every single one of fiftyfive billion angels did every moment of creation would be simpler than a theory that predicts an infinite number of unobservable phenomina, by Occam's Razor. A theory that blames the universe on a conspiracy between Olive (Santa's other reindeer), and Sagan's Invisible Garage Dwelling Dragon is still more scientific than one that makes an infinite number of untestable predictions. It at least has the virtue of testability.
For more on this,
Who is John Cabal?
Err... you do know that the "thou shalt not kill" is actually a mistranslation? The Hebrew verb stem used (in both versions of the commandments), is the infrequent R.TZ.KH, not the (common) verb for killing, H.R.G. Actually, while murder is a better translation, the concept of manslaughter may be closer to the meaning, as evidenced in the stem's usage in Numbers 35:12, where it is used for an unjustifiable, but not premeditated or even intentional, homicide.
Of course, the reason for the currency of "Thou shalt not kill" is its presence in the King James Version, which, while a fine piece of literature and a religious text in its own right, is one of the worst translations of the Bible. If you locate a reprint of the 1611 Edition KJO. Apparently, the divine inspriation and correction dissipated when it came time to write the preface.
(OT, but the correction has to be made)
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