Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

mr_3ntropy writes "Speaking to a sold out crowd at the Berkeley Physics Oppenheimer Lecture, Hawking said yesterday that he now believes the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing. He said more work is needed to prove this but we have time because 'Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.' There is also a Webcast available (Realplayer or Real Alternative required)."

Comments

Sounds like...

[ArcherB]

Sounds like his speech was Much Ado About Nothing

Pfft - yeah right.

[charlesbakerharris]

If that were true, how did the earth end up sitting on the back of a giant turtle? And where did all the other turtles that *they're* sitting on come from?

Hawking is such a hack.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's turtles all the way down my friend!

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

The turtle isn't sitting on anything else. It's swimming through space. And don't forget the four elephants on its back whose backs the world is sitting on.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[rubycodez]

slight correction, after all these years and years of eternity, no doubt the turtle is swimming through elephant poop

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[kalirion]

"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics. An alternative, favoured by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis."

- Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[rayde]

for those of you out there who are missing the funny..

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[swschrad]

the interesting thing about theories is that they all attempt to explain something. why there are bumfights between bible thumpers and scientists three times a day over these things has always mystified me.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[MindStalker]

Because when it gets down to the highly theoretical stuff like this that no one will ever truly be able to prove, its not much different than religion. And religions being what they are.. like to fight amongst themselves.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[quasius]

To be fair, a lot of the fighting comes from stuff like this:

"If one believed that the universe had a beginning, the obvious question was, what happened before the beginning," Hawking said. "What was God doing before He made the world? Was He preparing hell for people who asked such questions?"

Now, rediculous stuff comes from the other side as well; but when incredibly smart and esteemed scientists like Hawking make such statements that show an animosity toward and lack of understanding of religion, it might antagonize people. If only people on both sides would stop the cheap shots and name calling...

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[meringuoid]

"What was God doing before He made the world? Was He preparing hell for people who asked such questions?" Now, rediculous stuff comes from the other side as well; but when incredibly smart and esteemed scientists like Hawking make such statements that show an animosity toward and lack of understanding of religion, it might antagonize people.

Lack of understanding? He was quoting St. Augustine.

It's a quote he uses a lot. Read a lot of Hawking's speeches and you'll see that he rehashes old material endlessly; it's a hell of a job for him to actually go through the labour of typing out anything new, what with his condition, so he copies and pastes wherever possible from previous works and speeches. Whole paragraphs tend to get copied from Brief History to this day.

The full quote from the book was:

"As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 8]"

Thus Augustine's idea of time is in full agreement with Hawking's: that time is a function of the universe, so 'before creation' is a meaningless phrase.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[cowscows]

Along similar lines to this, for anyone who thinks that the idea of some eternal life beyond this one sounds boring or silly, as it's generally used to relate to God and religion, Eternity does not mean infinite time, it's more like an existing outside of time. It's pretty hard to say for any of us to say what that experience might be like, but in the sense often used in religious discussions, it's not helpful to imagine eternity as a really really long time.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[east coast]

And religions being what they are.. like to fight amongst themselves.

Considering that the atheist crowd likes to throw their hat in the ring too, my guess is that people like to fight in general. Religion is big just because there is so much on the line, not unlike politics.

Debate and struggle is human nature. Without some new lands to conquest over humanity will likely die out. Boredom will be the cause.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[SpinyNorman]

I have to strongly disagree. The difference between science and religion is that science is based on falsifiable theories. If a theory makes predictions that don't fit experiment/facts, then it is rejected. Religion is instead based on faith, not proof, and faith that is usually maintained even in the face of direct disproof!(e.g. young earth fundamentalists).

As a well known example of a highly theoretical theory in this general area, there's the Big Bang theory which correctly predicted the cosmic background radiation (as later measured by the COBE satellite).

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[CRCulver]

And how I wish some of the anti-religion slashdot types would take some time to actually understand some theology and philosophy, and the history of both. Augustine set the stage for many disciples- in the 4th century no less.

The East disagrees. Augustine really set the stage for the Great Schism with his views on the atonement and his proto-scholasticism, while the Orthodox Church--and arguably the undivided Church East and West before Augustine--have always preferred semi-Pelagianism and apophatic theology. Still, Augustine is venerated as a saint by the East as well, but because of his fine apologetics and moral example, not because of his problematic theology.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[meringuoid]

Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion and an orthodox Christian, is one of a number of theist philosophers who hold that God is everlasting, that is, existing yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as opposed to timeless, that is, existing outside of time and being knowing for sure the future deeds of agents with free will.

That seems... tricky. If God exists in time like the rest of us, and cannot for instance accurately see the future, then we have a God subject to physics, subject to general relativity and the lightspeed limit. A God who sits within the universe in an inertial reference frame and who is just one more observer within the relativistic framework.

I'm far more comfortable with the idea of God as an entity wholly outside spacetime, subject to totally different laws if indeed subject to any at all, and free to inspect and perhaps to amend the whole four (or more) dimensional extent of the Universe at will. Put him in time and either you elevate time beyond the Universe of relativistic spacetime into God's domain, or you confine God within the Universe with the rest of us.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[richie2000]

Bah. You can't even prove to me that I exist. Philosophical empiricists, help me out here. Hell no, you're on your own.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[Red Flayer]

He thinks, therefore he am.

And what the hell is a philosophical empiricist? How would one test a philosophical theory?

Philosopher: I think, therefore I am.
Empiricist clocks philosopher upside the head and knocks him out cold
Empiricist: Nope. Still there.

Since empirical and philosophical are mutually exclusive, one would think that if an philosophical empiricist existed, we would enter some kind of twilight zone where military intelligence would make sense...

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will lay down money that there is not a single believer in the FSM who would not recant their belief if the were commanded to do so or die.

A believer's willingness to die for their beliefs bears no particular relationship to the correctness (or incorrectness) of those beliefs.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[TobascoKid]

Giving thought to the above question necessarily requires one to engage in religion.

Not much thought though:

Believer: I assert <entity> exists.

Atheist: Your evidence is?

Believer: I have none

Atheist: Then I don't believe you

That's about all the thought needed. That's not engaging in religion, it's engaging in critical thought.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[jstomel]

Hmmm...well, not to be pedantic, but doesn't athiest just mean "not a theist"? Conceded that one does not have to believe in a god to have a religion (though both buddhists and hindus believe in gods), it seems to me that there exist forms of thought that are both not theistic and not religious. Atheism certainly can be a religion (and religions can be atheistic), but they don't have to be.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[hazem]

To quote Don Hirschberg, "Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

Then Asimov had some nice ideas:

        * I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

        * If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.

        * There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Why is it, I wonder, that people who believe in God, and particularly Christians, insist that anyone who does not is still religious? Are they so insecure in their beliefs that they must force some kind of belief system onto other people - even if only in their own minds? Why is it they insist that asking, "where is the proof?" formulates a religious belief?

Pfft

[voice_of_all_reason]

That's not how it really happened... But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatarr said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it.

Re:Pfft

[sarathmenon]

Ah, so you are the guy who sends me all that literature spam.

Sounds like...

[Arclight17]

It sounds to me like someone just discovered the Burger Joint at the Beginning of the Universe.

Many thanks to Douglas Adams.

I hope it's true...

[DoofusOfDeath]

It would add some credibility when I tell my girlfriend that the porn in my browser history came ex nihilo.

Re:I hope it's true...

[chanrobi]

... my girlfriend ... Your credibility just went to zero :)

Re:I hope it's true...

[kalirion]

Your credibility just went to zero :)

Please, his girlfriend obviously spontaneously appeared out of nothing.

God to Hawking:

[guruevi]

In this house we obey the law of thermodynamics.

Re:God to Hawking:

[Stone Rhino]

Anthropic Principle. It doesn't matter how many untold near-infinities of other permutations existed, because this happens to be the one where we survived. This could have been the first random set of physical laws to come up or the quintillionth, and it'd make no perceptible difference to us.

Re:God to Hawking:

[Rei]

Apparently you're not familiar with the Anthropic Principle. Basically, you experience this universe because this is a universe suitable for life. In any universe not suitable for life, you would not be around to observe it. Therefore, no matter what universe you were born in, if you observe your universe, you will find that it is one that is nicely balanced for the creation of life.

A criticism I've heard levied against this principle goes along these lines:

Picture that you're abducted by a madman. He straps you to a chair covered with explosives. He tells you that it's hooked up to a random number generator, and that when he presses the button, if that unless the random number generator picks an option that has a near-zero chance of occurring, the chair will explode and kill you. He backs away and pushes the button. Nothing happens. You insist that it must be broken, since the odds of it not exploding were supposedly near zero. He tells you that a victim can only make that observation, since if it exploded, they wouldn't be around to observe otherwise. That makes sense, yet the fact that it didn't explode still demands explanation.

In short, the Anthropic Principle only makes sense when there are a large number of test cases. If the above madman could prove that he had conducted this experiment a near infinite number of times, then the result would indeed be plausible. In our case, a perfectly plausible possibility exists: that this isn't the only universe that ever came into existence. We only experience this one because it happened to work.

I read a book by a budding novelist recently that, while painfully slow at times, covered some rather interesting subject matter. At one point, a group of people discovered that their universe was run on a sort of multiverse computer, and gain access to the source code for this universe. And it's an utter mess. It looks like garbage -- almost random instructions, many which seem to do nothing or undo what previous instructions do. The reason for this is eventually discovered: when the universe was last rebooted by the curators to incorporate the latest changes, there was a "backup system" in case the code that they wrote broke (which it did). The universe's code would be set to a block of all zeros and allowed to run for a certain length of time. A piece of multiverse code would monitor the universe, and if it didn't detect any signs of life emerging, it would stop the run, increment the code block by 1, and then start over. If all possibilities were exhausted, it would expand the code block, then continue on. Eventually, the Anthropic Principle essentially guaranteed that a universe suitable for life would come into existence.

What Is Eternity?

[Eradicator2k3]

What is eternity? You're on the checkout line at a supermarket. There are seven people in front of you. They are all old. They all have two carts and coupons for every item. They are all paying by check. None of them have ID. It's the checkout girl's first day on the job. She doesn't speak any English. Take away fifteen minutes from that, and you begin to get an idea of what eternity is.

Thank you, Emo Philips.

Re:What Is Eternity?

[tempestdata]

To which you could add, "and you have to pee real bad"

Worthless link

[JesseL]

The linked article at The Daily Californian barely touches on any of the stuff mentioned in the /. summary. Do we have to listen to the webcast to get any of the good stuff?

Re:Worthless link

[lbmouse]

"Do we have to listen to the webcast to get any of the good stuff?"

Why don't you listen to it and let us know.

Out of Nothing Nothing Comes

[geoffrobinson]

Nothing is the only thing that can flow from nothing. Because it is no-thing. It is what rocks dream about.

If there was nothing there in the beginning, there would be nothing now.

Re:Out of Nothing Nothing Comes

[lawpoop]

There is nothing now. It is everywhere, it is nowhere. It permeates the whole universe. The thing is, nothing is *nothing*. It doesn't look like anything, it doesn't have any gravitational pull, it doesn't radiate, it doesn't reflect light, it doesn't affect the universe in any way. It doesn't interfere with us *at all*. It has no effects or consequences whatsoever. It has no physical existence, no thing can come from it, therefore it cannot produce anything. It's just nothing -- timeless, spaceless, pure nothingness. The universe and nothing are not opposites; they do not cancel each other out or annihilate each other. They have no effect on each other. There is no difference between nothing 'being' here or not 'being' here. It's exactly the same.

It's confusing to say that the universe 'came from' nothing. The universe wasn't produced by nothing. Currently, the universe exists, and also there is nothing. At some point in the past, the past didn't exist. When the universe didn't exist, there was only nothing.

Re:Out of Nothing Nothing Comes

[7Prime]

If there is absolutely nothing, then that means you're certain of both how much energy is present (zero), and the rate of change of energy (also zero). That violates the uncertainty principle. So absolute nothing is unstable, because if you're totally certain there's nothing there then you have absolutely no idea of how rapidly that state of affairs is changing.

Well put. The end result is that the "beginning of something" is a paradox unto itself. It is theoretically impossible to argue that there was no beginning to the universe, yet since no change can come of nothing, it is impossible to argue that our universe began from nothing. Our very presense, itself, defies all logic.

It would have been much simpler to interpret, had nothing ever existed. However, there would be noone to interpret it, anyway, so what's the point?

Arggg, my head is spinning!

Re:Out of Nothing Nothing Comes

[i_should_be_working]

To add to what meriguoid said above about the uncertainty principle:
Stuff comes out of nothingness all the time. Literally all the time. A particle and it's anti-particle will pop out of nothing for no apparent reason. Physical law allows this through the uncertainty principle. That stuff usually exists for an extremely short amount of time and then ceases to exist again. But some stuff that comes from nothing can be made to stay.
 
Before recent evidence showed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, it was assumed by many that the net energy of the whole universe was zero. Positive energy in the form of matter, negative energy in the form of gravitational potential to balance it out.

Re:Out of Nothing Nothing Comes

[i_should_be_working]

Wasn't talking about normal pair-production, but rather zero-point energy of the vacuum and it's production of virtual particles, which are seen through the Casimir force. Whether or not this is a wild theory depends on how conservative you are when it comes to theoretical physics, I guess.

what the....

[Lxy]

The article points to his overall speech to be filled with satire. It's hard to say what he was trying to get at, and is he serious? "The universe was built from nothing, but we can't prove it because that would take too long".

Is he joking or is he serious? I have a bolder conclusion:

"The universe was built from SOMETHING. Since time is seemingly infinite in both directions, I'll never be able to prove it, but I know I'm right".

Re:what the....

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Is he joking or is he serious? Good question. It's quite difficult to tell when Hawking is being sarcastic. Maybe he should start using <sarcasm> tags during speeches like this.

Re:what the....

[wurp]

I didn't RTFM, but I'm sure he was seriously suggesting that the universe came from nothing. There has been semi-serious argument for some time that the universe is a 'vacuum bubble'.

Per quantum mechanics, things can appear from nothing as long as they vanish within a maximum time dictated by the total energy content (including mass) of the thing. (E*T = h, where E is the energy and T is the time the thing hangs around, and h is Planck's constant).

There has been argument that the negative gravitational energy of a thing exactly counters the mass energy of the thing, so the total energy content of the universe is 0. If so, the entire universe could appear from nothing and vanish at any time.

I have no idea if this is exactly what he's arguing, but I've heard it argued seriously before.

IANAP BIHABSIP
I am not a physicist but I have a BS in physics.

so

[mastershake_phd]

universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing.
 
So how long till it pops out of existence?

Re:so

[Kaenneth]

universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing.
So how long till it pops out of existence?
In about 2 secon

Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[MikeRT]

He used the analogy that they were like bubbles in the water. Ok, where did the water come from?

This sounds a lot like... *drumroll* blind faith to me.

This is the same sort of blind faith that most atheists pompously deride the religious for. In fact, based on this summary, it would be called something to the effect of a "load of religious bullshit" if it came from a preacher. Oooh, theoretical physicist says it, so we'll hear him out!

Please, you're acting like a bunch of laymen waiting for the latest ruling or revelation from the priest.

*Sigh* Go ahead, mod me down because I actually pointed out the obvious.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[Guuge]

So it's a bunch of bullshit. Who cares? In a theocracy, Stephen Hawking would be hauled off to jail for suggesting such blasphemy. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that he can openly speculate about origins? Hawking isn't telling you how to live your life, or what to think, or who to vote for, or what to teach your kids, or which supreme court justices deserve to die. He's just sharing his little vision.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[chrisbro]

Important difference: He said more work is needed to prove this...

Though it boggles my mind to think of the research he could be proposing...science with facts to back it up is automatically more trustworthy then religion with no testable hypotheses.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[Remus Shepherd]

He's making an analogy. A rigorous explanation is beyond the generalized audience he had there. Even those with proper background to understand it would probably have been bored -- they came there to see a scientist celebrity, and Hawkings did not disappoint.

For your enlightenment, the 'water' in question is a series of multidimensional branes, according to one cosmological theory. The universe may have been created when two branes collided, creating turbulence that manifested as a big bang in our dimensional space. These collisions go on all the time, but like the 'bubbles in boiling water' analogy not all the turbulence creates new universes.

Your next question is 'where did the branes come from'? Branes are mathematical concepts. If someone tells you 1+1=2, you can't really ask where '1' came from. If there is a multiverse it has to have some sort of brane structure, in much the same way as if humans exist they have to have skin.

So the universe was 'created by nothing' in a pretty accurate sense, as a mathematical concept is as close to 'nothing' as anyone is likely to conceive. But in the end, Hawkings' words were chosen for showmanship, not precision.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[Ambitwistor]

Actually, I think he was describing Linde's eternal inflation, not braneworld scenarios.

Re:Where is the water these bubbles came from?

[fatphil]

It's a bleedin' analogy, it's not a law of physics. Sheesh.

preemptive question

[Lord Ender]

Which is more likely?

1. The universe popped into existence from nothing, or
   
2. A complex, intelligent, powerful creature (presumably with a beard) popped into existence from nothing, then one day decided to create the universe from nothing.
   

If you chose #2, it's turtles all the way down... ... ...

Re:preemptive question

[Rude Turnip]

Some cultures would also go for the argument that the universe and a complex, intelligent, powerful creature are one and the same, rather than being separate. No need to limit ourselves to Western philosophies.

Re:preemptive question

[Guy Harris]

I know #2 has some evidence

Cite some.

Re:preemptive question

[Guuge]

I think the idea is that #2 subsumes #1, and goes further. Therefore, the probability of #1 is at least as high as the probability of #2. In my opinion, it's pretty silly to take "created from nothing" at face value, as it is not even close to a scientific description.

But for laughs, let's hear the evidence for #2, especially the part about the beard.

Re:preemptive question

[burndive]

Which is more likely?

1. The universe popped into existence from nothing, or
2. A complex, intelligent, powerful creature (presumably with a beard) popped into existence from nothing, then one day decided to create the universe from nothing.

If you chose #2, it's turtles all the way down... ... ...

I don't know of anyone who believes in a God who "popped into existence." That would imply that he exists in some sort of time continuum. I agree that your definition of #2 dictates turtles all the way down: congratulations on constructing a false dichotomy.

As a theist (specifically, as a Christian) here is my take on God as regards this discussion:

God is. He exists: this is the ultimate fact. The universe is not God, nor is God contained in the universe. It is perfectly consistent with the idea of God to say that the universe (time, space, matter/energy) popped into existence from nothing, in fact, this is what we have been saying for thousands of years. To assume that this is contrary to the idea of God is to misunderstand God: to confine him to the box that he has created.

Hawking is doing his best to describe what current evidence indicates about the nature of the universe: he is a scientist, and his goal is to discover *how* events happened: he is not so concerned with *why*, except as they constitute a cause-effect relationship, but then they again become an explanation of *how*. Science can never tell us the purpose of the universe: it is (rightly) not even interested in the topic.

Re:preemptive question

[JeanPaulBob]

What on earth? Sorry, Lord Ender, but you not only don't quite understand what theists claim, you don't even accurately list the other possibilities. You left out the other two major possibilities, and your #2 isn't claimed by anyone I've ever read.

1. The universe popped into existence from nothing, or
2. A complex, intelligent, powerful creature (presumably with a beard) popped into existence from nothing, then one day decided to create the universe from nothing, or
3. The universe has always existed, or
4. God has always existed, and created the universe from nothing.

Now, maybe you left out 3 because you're assuming the Big Bang. If so, that's fair enough.

But the claim of every major theistic group I know is #4, not #2. You seem to be aping Dawkins' arguments, with a similar ignorance of the actual set of alternatives. No one claims that the order/complexity/whatever of God just popped into existence. People (Hawking, Dawkins, apparently you) do claim that the order of the physical universe & natural law just popped into existence. If you're going to compare your views to other people's, and if you care about honesty and intellectual integrity, please accurately represent them.

And if you think the distinction I'm making between 2 and 4 is irrelevant or meaningless, keep this in mind: The Big Bang was resisted because people wanted to have a universe that always existed. They could accept an eternal universe; they did not want to have to explain a universe that started to exist. (Of course, we can also suppose an eternal chain of Big Bangs, universes spawning other universes, etc., so the Big Bang doesn't actually settle this question of eternality.) So, those philosophical naturalists thought 3 was more reasonable than 1 for precisely the reason that theists claim 4 is more reasonable than 2.

Re:preemptive question

[spun]

Even so, using Occam's razor, the set containing option 1 and 3 is more likely than the set containing option 2 and 4, because the latter set is actually a more complex extension of the first, and given two possibilities with no other way to judge, the least complex option is more likely.

Re:preemptive question

[Guy Harris]

If you haven't experienced these _yourself_, you have valid NO FRAME of REFERENCE.

If you have experienced these yourself, how do you know that a near-death experience or out-of-body experience wasn't a neurobiologically-based phenomenon, and that what you saw as a past life wasn't an construct of your imagination?

Does not the objective truth depend on the subjective experience?

What guarantees that objective truth comes from subjective experience?

(Note: if you want to be a solipsist about this, fine, but you'll have to live with some others not taking you seriously.)

Re:preemptive question

[UnknownSoldier]

> If you have experienced these yourself, how do you know that a near-death experience or out-of-body experience wasn't a neurobiologically-based phenomenon, and that what you saw as a past life wasn't an construct of your imagination?

If you never woke up how would you know you were dreaming? The goal of life is "wake up" -- as conscious as we think we are, we're really asleep.

In the somnambulistic state you are NOT conscious so its a little hard for it to be imagination. :-)

Also, there are many reasons why I _know_ it is MORE then just a biological effect.

- I didn't believe in OBEs/NDEs either, until I had my first one. After experiencing the infinite joy/love of the soul -- it is ineffable experience and impossible to describe -- I was motivated to learn more... and was fortunate enough to experience many more 'pieces to the puzzle.'

- When I first met my wife, we were both regressed to by two different people. How does your wife "remember" the _exact_ same details of a common past life even though you have never talked about it before?? For me, this was 'my smoking gun.' The odds of coming up with exact same "mundane" details is next to impossible.

- I've talked with a stranger who has the ability to channel. The entity started to give personal details that even I was shocked at. This was my first experience of communication with a non-physical entity.

- I've met a man, Dannion, who was dead for 28 minutes, at a private group meeting. (His favorite story was how some doctor was giving him a hard time about "the NDE is just a figment of your imagination" and belittling him with "_I'm_ a M.D. What are you credentials?", to which he replied "D.O.A.") He has the gift/ability to read what people are thinking. People would start to describe their problem they were having in this life; he would politely cut them off, explain their problem in detail, have them break down in tears at the awe and amazement of being able to do so, and then explain a solution. This happened for a few people.

- After hearing meta-physical music in another OBE, music on this realm is so 2-dimensional and "flat."

- With these tools you can learn information that is not possible as a human (i.e. see someone do something even though you weren't there physically or conscious of it, and then have them confirm later that is what happened. People who have surgery are commonly able to report what happened even though they were supposed to be "unconscious.")

- You can communicate with intelligent meta-physical beings; the knowledge they give you is proof enough, that the experience "is real." I found out my wife has the ability to channel, and the first time it happened, I 'demanded proof' that was I communicating with someone other then my wife. Tell me something about myself that I have never shared with my wife. You don't need too many answers to go "OK. We're not in Kansas anymore -- we're off the f-n map here!"

- I believe Monroe called this meta-physical communication "Non-Verbal Communication." You can communicate with your consciousness, and your higher self in a more direct manner. When they tell you how things will play out in your near future, and they come to pass, you start to pay attention.

There other examples, but the main point is that EVERYONE has the ability to prove these things for themselves. The great Truths that Science remains so clueless about is:

- Time is just a dimension of the mind.
- You are a spiritual being in a physical body having a human experience.

As Robert Monroe so eloquently stated, "The question isn't so much 'Are you more then your physical body?'; The real interesting question is 'How _much_ more are you then your physical body?'"

The funny thing is OBE's have been documented for ages. Even the Bible mentions one in 2 Cor 12:2. But its always the arm-charm skeptics claiming knowledge over a subject they have NO experience in, making the most noise. It's great

Not in TFA

[bill_mcgonigle]

I guess you have to watch the webcast because TFA doesn't say that. If anybody wants to summarize here that would be great.

IIRC from A Brief History of Time, Hawking theorized that time, a dimension, didn't exist 'before the universe' because it doesn't make sense to ask about time any more than the other three dimensions of spacetime before TFU existed. He had some maths explanation about how the time dimension approached 0 and curved back on itself (somebody more fresh elaborate...), and I think he got the Pope to concede time after time-0 to nature.

Maybe he's proposing a new theory here, reflected in the webcast?

Re:all I have to say is wtf

[Seumas]

No kidding. This is the first time in nine years that I've read a Slashdot submission and literally thought that shit just blew my mind.

The problem is that whether you are a physicist or philosopher or theologist or anything else, it is equally as valid and confusing to the human mind to conceive of the requirement of something prior to the universe as well as nothing. The concept is so abstract and impossible that neither seems right nor wrong.

Now, I'm not a physicist. I'm not even particularly smart, for that matter. However, from what I have heard, Hawking is somewhat less than seriously regarded among scientists as he is among layman. To us, he's the poster boy for absolute genius. Among scientists, I don't think he even made the list of top twenty scientists of the 20th century. And I seem to recall that his announcement over the whole bet he had on the theory of black holes was snickered at in all corners.

Don't get me wrong. I am a big Hawking fan. I think the guy is stunningly brilliant and has done amazing things despite his progressively debilitating affliction. I just take any claims or discoveries announced by him with a glacial grain of salt.

Celebrity view

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could ask Paris Hilton, too.
Among celebrity experts she is most definitely the biggest authority on the science of creating something from nothing.

In the beginning....

[PPH]

...there was nothing. Then, God said, "Let there be light".

And there was still nothing, but at least you could see it.

Re:In the beginning....

[oGMo]

Did you ever notice that the Creation story in Genesis gets the order wrong? God creates light and dark, day and night, and then waits until the next day to create the sun, moon, and stars. Oops.

Eh only if you're looking at it from a literalist's perspective. Which is silly. Think of it as a story for those who aren't astrophysicists; it's not a textbook, but it's not meant to be. From this perspective, it's actually suprisingly what you'd expect: we get basic physics (space, time, light) in the first eon of the universe ("day-night" sequence). Plus, I believe that physicists currently theorize that there was quite a bit of light (and radiation) and quite a lack of stars and planetary bodies for quite awhile after "the beginning".

I think the story would actually be more suspect if God first created the sun, moon, stars, and earth. Compare this to other mythologies where that is what happened.

Eternity

[Lev13than]

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

Sure, it may feel like an eternity, but that's what it takes to get a decent table at Milliways.

Re:Eternity

[Anne_Nonymous]

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

I think we've all sat through a few lectures like that.

Re:Eternity

[bjelkeman]

"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline." - Marvin

Sounds like eternety can be quite long even at the beginning.

Re:Eternity

[FernandoBR]

Ok, but human stupidity beats them both any day of the week.

The paradox of Faith

[Original Replica]

" I'll never be able to prove it, but I know I'm right".

There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda

It would seem you have backed yourself into a corner here.

Not sure why that's antagonistic

[benhocking]

To be fair, this cuts both ways (liberal and conservative). I frequently see comments that people assume are antagonistic and feel that the antagonism is in the ears of the, um, belistener.

As someone with a fairly good training in physics, I read this statement to be a commentary on Hawking's annoyance with the question of what came before "time" began. Many religious people have attempted to reconcile the Big Bang with Judeo-Christian beliefs by having God be responsible for the Big Bang. I think that such an allusion should not be taken as necessarily antagonistic.

Re:Not sure why that's antagonistic

[thousandinone]

"I frequently see comments that people assume are antagonistic and feel that the antagonism is in the ears of the, um, belistener." This could be argued, but at the same time, in many things, perception may as well be reality. If you make a statement that unintentionally offends someone, the end result is that they are offended, and in most cases will lash back. So it boils down to a question of political correctness vs. free speech, really. Care needs to be taken with ones words in some situations, but on the other hand: Why should one be required to censor oneself to prevent angering someone who is out looking for a fight to begin with? Lose-lose...

Re:Not sure why that's antagonistic

[potat0man]

If you think liberal and conservative is synonymous with non-religious and religious then I suspect you have a very superficial understanding of what it means when someone identifies themself as any of the four.

Many "real" scientists are religious

[benhocking]

I can't remember the exact numbers, and it is less than the general population, but a rather significant percentage of scientists believe in God. I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[norton_I]

The last number I saw, which I don't have an authoritative reference for, said 20-25% of physicists believe in God, compared to ~90% of the general population. The percentage is higher when you consider all scientists, but still, science is not a very religious occupation.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[DogDude]

The only even remotely rational way that an intelligent person can believe in any kind of "god" is to understand science, and see some of the freaky stuff that we can't understand (ie: "if all matter is made up of sub-atomic particles, and those particles appear to move randomly, then is there such a thing as free will?"). I could see how a particle physicist or astrophysicist with a good understanding of science could say, "Shit, I guess maybe there could be something else out there pushing around these particles or making these black holes, etc.").

That's extremely different than a mouth breather with an IQ of 90 saying, "God is real because my daddy says so" or even "regular" people saying "God is real because it says so in this book".

And, when I say scientist, I meant Scientist. When I say Scientist, I don't necessarily mean everybody who works in a lab. I'm referring to the kind of person that things rationally, and scientifically about all kinds of things, whether they happen to actually study science or not. There are plenty of people who may work in science, but still believe in gods and demons and devils and fairies etc, etc. But a truly Scientific person could never, and would never believe something is true based solely on heresay.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[rucs_hack]

it depends what you mean by religious.

Many scientists believe in some form of god, but don't believe in the traditional sense, in religions themselves.

Catholicism and the many other flavours of Christianity have always been intolerant of scientific advance, even when many of the people behind those advances were themselves ordained priests or at least in service of the church.
In the middle ages the catholic church took a backward step from more moderate views and fell back on an Aristotelian descriptions for the universe, not because it was right (many knew it wasn't), but because it could be used as a cudgel to halt the advance the new sciences trying to explain the universe, and the somewhat horrific understanding that the void (vacuum), or nothingness, was a real thing, zero existed. They did not like that one bit.

Obviously that failed to halt the advance of science, but it wasn't a fast loss. It left us with the foundations of the absurd Christian extremism of today where perfectly intelligent people will deny even the simplest truths that the main catholic church has itself now accepted.

Islam doesn't get off too lightly either. From them we have the ancient Greek writings and understanding, which they expanded upon, bringing us acceptance of the concept of zero, and enriching our scientific vocabulary with new concepts.

They expanded a great deal of the understanding they saved from the fall of the ancient world, spread it far and wide, then inexplicably turned their back on science, turning into a religion that frowned on anything that might change the balance of power. Most certainly there were powerful individuals behind that change, and Islam has suffered for centuries as a result, because they, unlike Catholics, were unable to work around the problem, Islamic science is a widespread and accepted movement is effectively dead, and has been for a long time. This saddens me greatly..

I certainly see nothing in my understanding of 'religion' that tempts me to follow their precepts, although as a scientist I continue to believe in god.

Just don't go asking me for his phone number..

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[AKAImBatman]

It seems to me that accepting anything on blind faith is pretty much the antithesis of science.

1. Religion deals with matters that science cannot prove or disprove. Thus being a scientist and being religious are not in conflict with one another.

2. "Blind faith" is a term that gets (incorrectly) thrown around a lot*. Many people become religious because of some form of evidence presented to them. Evidence that usually speaks to someone on a personal level. Thus those who believe in a religion, believe that they are following something. Whether they are misinterpreting the events around them is a matter for another forum.

* From a Biblical perspective, the Bible states that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) A dissection of the meaning can be found here.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[AKAImBatman]

The issue is that they believe something which is not indicated by empirical testing. So again, it seems to me that claiming to be a scientist when you believe something unprovable is, if not hypocritical, at least inconsistent.

As long as one recognizes that their religious beliefs are not supportable by empirical evidence (which is a no-brainer) and do not attempt to force those beliefs into their scientific work, there is no conflict.

You seem to think that the scientific process should consume those who use it. I couldn't disagree with you more. It is just a tool, not a religion in of itself. A tool, I might add, that was developed by the very "hypocrites" you decry.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[wrook]

To a good scientist, it shouldn't matter what they believe in. You could believe in the FSM. Doesn't matter. Science is about what works, not "truth". I observe something. Is it repeatable? Can I construct a model that predicts other things? Is it the simplest model that predicts the things I want to use?

That's science. Is light a wave or a particle? Yes. It depends on how I want to use it. Maybe light *is* a wave and a particle at the same time (in a way that I can't visualize). But basically, it doesn't matter what light *really* is. What matters is can I use my model to predict things that I can observe?

Truth is in the realm of religion. Since I can't prove that anything other than I exist (and I can't even understand the nature of my own existance), everything else is just faith. Maybe you believe there are *actually* particles called electrons circling particles in a nucleus. But that's just faith -- a religion. I personally believe that it's probably something a lot different than that. But the electron thing is a handy way for my human brain to visualize it in a useful way. It doesn't matter what it *actually* is (from a science perspective). I doubt we even have the capacity to understand what the Universe *actually* is.

If you allow your religious beliefs (even your religious beliefs in science) to get in the way of usefully predicting phenomena, you have left the realm of science. Even the best scientist does this occasionally. It's human nature. But a good scientist should be aware of this and continually strive to discover what's useful over what they believe to be true.

Re:Many "real" scientists are religious

[fatphil]

In particular (in the UK at least) it's lowest (barely >10%, IIRC) for those who work with human bodies - the doctors, surgeons, and physiologists. I was not surprised when I saw this statistic, as they probably understand better than anyone that we humans ain't anything special, we're just meat. Physicists were in close 2nd place, at easily <15%, IIRC. Figures will vary depending on how agnostics are classified. Personally I view "I do not know if there is a god, and believe *there is no way to find out*" (emphasis mine) is an atheistic belief. If the questions/options are worded the 'right' way, and all atheists and agnostics are bundled together, then you can get figures as low as 5% being believers, even in the US, which would typically turn up higher proportions of religious belief that most western European countries.

I know a research scientist (astrophysicist) at NASA Ames who can prove that the world is only 6000 years old.

Something from nothing

[WryCoder]

Although TFA doesn't actually discuss the hypothesis that "universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing" (I suppose you'd have to go to the webcast for that), Hawking's use of the phase "that he now believes" implies that this is something new, and that he's in the process of developing it.

In fact, the idea is decades old, and has been popularized in several widely read books.

I recollect Gamov's book, "My World Line", wherein he recounts a time he and Einstein were crossing the street in traffic while discussing how an energetic universe could have arisen. Gamov pointed out that since gravitational energy was negative and the energy of matter was positive, they could balance and a universe could form without a net input of energy. The idea struck Einstein so forcefully that he froze in the middle of the street while he considered it.

Timothy Ferris said it best

[nsayer]

Some years ago there was a documentary series called "The Creation of the Universe," with Timothy Ferris. They talked about this theory that the universe could have sprung into existence from out of nowhere. He said of the idea, "It sounds incredibly unlikely, but then it only ever had to happen once."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Not really

[jazman_777]

Real scientists...

Right, Maxwell, Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Faraday, etc. I'm sure you wouldn't descend from your lofty perch to talk to such as these.

Re:Why Do We Care?

[ArcherB]

But that is what makes Hawking who he is. For a guy in a wheelchair who can not talk on his own, this guy has mastered the art of communication. You got to admit, the guy is charming. A Brief History of Time was by no means a physics textbook, but a dumbed down version of "Discovery Channel science". It was pure entertainment meant to make the reader feel smart.

Still, that doesn't mean to knock Hawking at all. What he has done is become the spokesperson for scientists. He has sparked a public interest in science that no one else has been able to do since Einstein.

From nothing?

[KenshoDude]

I could not determine from reading the article that Hawkings suggested the universe came from nothing. Unless there is something more obvious in the webcast, I suspect this is just a bad interpretation of what he was trying to communicate

To the philosophical issue of "nothing", I will say this. There is no such thing as nothing! Much has been said about nothing, but insofar as nothing is intended to mean "no thing", then what the hell are we even talking about? Seriously, as soon as you have given a point of reference to something that is suppposedly "nothing", then it can no longer be an instance of "nothing". Evaluate the following statement: "nothing doesn't exist." You should realize that if nothing DID exist, it would no longer be "nothing", but instead be some existent THING.

The idea of nothing is just a psychological device that humans use to blanket their psyches from the anxiety produced by the unknown and the not understood. The term "nothing" is akin to cosmological terms like "black holes", "dark matter", and "dark energy". I suggest that the real reason these things are "black" and "dark" is because the light of human awareness has yet to illuminate what is actually going on there.

So terms like "nothing" really only mean... "We intuit that something is going on, but as of yet we cannot fathom what that might be." Instead of saying "we simply don't understand what is going on at this time" we give things an almost occult identity: "it must be dark matter!". This is why, ultimately, I classify science in the same category as religion. When we cannot understand something, we posit a "mysterious force" that we "believe" must be there in order to explain the world that is around us.

The reason why the "hard problems" of science continue to be "hard problems" is because you cannot solve a problem with the same limited mind that created it. We keep asking "where did the universe come from?" because we still believe that time and existence are linear. We believe that things have a "set beginning" and a "set end". We believe all things are effects of some previous cause. We believe these things so much in the same manner that people used to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe. And just like then, when someone points out that maybe that is NOT the way things actually work, they get branded a lunatic.

Not at all.

[Kadin2048]

Because when it gets down to the highly theoretical stuff like this that no one will ever truly be able to prove, its not much different than religion.

You would be right, if and only if Hawking was talking about things that couldn't ever be proven one way or another. At that point, he wouldn't be doing any sort of physics anymore, he'd be somewhere off in that grey area where it borders philosophy and religion. (I call this area "Wankersville", but that's just me.)

However, there's a difference between something that cannot ever be proved, full stop, and something that can't be proved or disproved right now, due to the limitations of our understanding and our equipment.

There was a time, as recently as a hundred years ago, when debates about whether light was a particle or a wave would have seemed like wanking. However, they were not -- because we now have an (well, at least a partial) answer to that question, it's just that the theoreticians exceeded the reach of the experimentalists for a few centuries. Debates such as those, which get answered eventually by experimental evidence, are wholly different from debates which can never be settled (and, IMO, are a pointless waste of time that humanity should just move the hell along from).

It's pretty clear that Hawking realizes that what he's postulating can't be proven or disproven right now, but he's not putting it out there as an article of faith, either; he's saying that at some point in the future, between now and the heat death of the Universe, we'll probably be able to test it experimentally. That's a lot different than religion.

Re:Not at all.

[beckerist]

You would be right, if and only if Hawking was talking about things that couldn't ever be proven one way or another. At that point, he wouldn't be doing any sort of physics anymore, he'd be somewhere off in that grey area where it borders philosophy and religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Re:Not at all.

[kalirion]

You would be right, if and only if Hawking was talking about things that couldn't ever be proven one way or another.

That's right. All we need is the technology that would allow us to go back in time to just before the Universe was created, and observe what happens.

What? You say there was no "time" before the Universe, so no "before"? That could cause problems....

Re:Not at all.

[Machtyn]

However, there's a difference between something that cannot ever be proved, full stop, and something that can't be proved or disproved right now, due to the limitations of our understanding and our equipment. With your statement you completely misunderstand many religions. In most religions that believe in an after-life; and, even better, those that believe a supreme being will come (again), religious beliefs will be proven at some point in the future. The interesting thing is, I have received my hard evidence without the need to see the All-Mighty. I can tell you exactly how to reproduce such evidences. Unfortunately, faith is the first action and many people refuse the faith or reject the evidence and can, generally, no longer receive further evidence; or, when they do, they reject that evidence with the first.

Re:Not at all.

[jotok]

Please, use the correct language.

This guy "Science" does not attempt to prove anything. However, observations can be used to support theories against being disproved.

The issue here is that we cannot yet conceive of a way to test these ideas...so there are no empirically valid observations (as is the case with religion), nor does the history of science in any way guarantee that we'll ever see them. I have faith that we will, and it is that optimistic hope that keeps me interested in science.

Disputing that science requires any kind of faith at all only shows that a person is unfamiliar with what the word means, and with the history and philosophy of science itself.

Re:Not really

[hobo sapiens]

Not sure about the rest, but Newton and Kepler were most certainly not athiests.

Not to go too far down the rabbit hole

[benhocking]

But, you do have to make some axioms before you can make any theorems. At some level, we all have things we believe in. Whether or not those faiths are "blind" is a matter of argument. Feel free to disagree, but I most likely won't respond as I've got a shockingly large number of replies to respond to for what I thought was a fairly benign statement. Additionally, I've had this argument enough to have a pretty good idea where it's going... ;)

REAL AUDIO?

[BillGod]

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it? It would almost be like if you were there!

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[shipbrick]

use Dr. Sbaitso

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[TheoMurpse]

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it?

In related news, Stephen Hawking has written a letter to his relative discussing the future of the universe: "Dear Aunt, Kill Delete Select All".

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[ArcherB]

Actually, I heard Hawking as the voice for the National Weather Service in our area. He reads the weather report while the radar is looping on Time Warner Cable channel 43.

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[Hal_Porter]

One of my Dad's physicist friends said of him something like "he only popularises other peoples work, he's done almost nothing profound, the only reason he's so famous is because he looks and sounds like Davros".

Physicists are not very nice people. Funny though.

You sure about that?

[jdbartlett]

Sounds pretty monumental to me:

"Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created"

One line proof

[Lord Bitman]

"Causality is an aspect of the universe" therefore: "The universe itself (or whatever caused it, ad infiniwhatever) requires no cause"
gee, that was tough. And only figured out several thousand years ago...

Interestingly: even if causality exists within our universe, it does not exist in any universe which does not exist. Draw your own conclusion, so long as it's the same as mine. ;)

hasn't been said yet

[Eccles]

the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing

This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.--Douglas Adams

Ve believe in nossing!

[Rob T Firefly]

Ve are nihilists, Lebowski!

Re:Try again.

[smallfries]

No it doesn't. Reread his comment and try again. He says that we will "probably" be able to prove it. So it's not in the pile of things that definitely can't be proven, or in the pile that definitely can be proven. It's in the third pile - todo. The comparison was with religion which is squarely in the first pile.

Re:What I mean by religious

[rucs_hack]

religion, to my understanding, means literally to gather together. Therefore it implies involvement in an organised religion.

I toyed with organised religion in my youth, but encountered too many people who wished me to accept their world view 'on faith' and be happy as a result and, most importantly, to stop asking awkward questions. This didn't suit me one bit.

I wasn't a scientist then, and didn't become one till this dislike of organised religion was well in place, and yet I encounter people now who take my dislike of religion to be because I am a scientist. This I take as being a result of their acceptance of the 'don't ask questions' method of learning.

A Notable Exception

[Khomar]

Most of the ones that are religious don't deal with the stuff that gets close to religious questions. For instance, those who deal with biology and evolution and such tend to be far less religious, than, say, those who do metalurgy or whatnot.

There is a very notable exception which also makes me wonder if the entire assertion is based on a false premise. Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project, is a professing Christian and involved in a field that most would not expect a Christian to be involved in yet alone leading. I highly recommend reading the linked article if you want to see how a Christian views the scientific world. I wonder, sometimes, if the reason why we don't "see" a lot of Christian scientists these days is due to the prejudice of the current scientific establishment.

Re:Try again.

[808140]

It's important to note that when a scientist says "This will be provable someday", what he means is, "It will be testable someday" which in turn means "It will be falsifiable someday." This means, in particular, that he is allowing for the distinct possibility that it will be disproved. Therein lies the difference.

The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us"). Scientists change their opinions. For example, before the wave-particle duality of light was understood, it was widely believed that light was a wave -- and because waves travel through a medium (like ripples in a pond, for example) it was widely believed that light also traveled through a medium -- a medium scientists called the "luminiferous aether". Its existance was widely believed in. And yet, experiments showed that this "aether" did not exist. What did scientists do? They changed their minds.

Religious people never change their minds. Or rather, those that do are called heretics, and up until recently were frequently burned at the stake.

Hawking is Not Like a Priest

[Guuge]

You don't seem to have understood my post, so I'll try to explain what I mean a little more carefully.

You claim hypocrisy on the part of atheists for not accepting religious beliefs but accepting Hawking's unsupported word. But Hawking coming up with some wild-sounding speculation is not the same as a religious figure preaching centuries-old articles of faith.

First, consider a hypothetical Church of Science (or whatever) where Hawking is a priest. How could Hawking come up with his far-out models of universal origins without deviating from the accepted doctrine of his church? I claim that he couldn't, and that he would become a heretic. Hawking is taking a position against the establishment, whereas the normal role of priests is to be in support of the establishment. When atheists criticize the church, they often refer to its authoritarian nature which, in the extreme, is manifested by theocracy. It just wouldn't make sense to weigh the same criticism against Hawking, who would be the first victim of such a system.

Second, compare Hawking's message to those that are most despised by atheists. He's just telling a crowd of people (his fans) about some of his latest thoughts. He's not trying to "preach" in any sense of the word. He has no political or social agenda. He's not even asking that anyone accept his words on faith alone. It's not as if people are going to insist that textbooks be rewritten as a result of this. There's really nothing to get upset about. Contrast that with the agenda-driven religious right.

I hope I've clarified my position. I didn't claim that the US is a theocracy. In fact, I intended to claim the opposite. I also didn't claim that religion has a monopoly on oppression and cruelty, just as (I presume) you're not claiming that Hawking supports religious intolerance.

Re:This is old news.

[Dunbal]

Hawking is just a little late jumping on the bandwagon

      I doubt very much that Dr. Hawking is jumping ANYWHERE, you insensitive clod! :P

Re:That Answer Annoys Me

[Control Group]

You're making an assumption: that the rules which obtain in the observed universe also obtain in the absence of that universe. If we make a different - equally valid - assumption that physical law is a feature of the universe, then there's no reason to think that causality itself, much less conservation of energy, apply "before" the universe existed. In that case, there's no reason to think that it's any less likely for stuff to spontaneously appear than it is for it to not.

Basically, you can't think of the pre-universe (whatever that means) as even a void, since space itself doesn't (necessarily) exist without the universe there to define it. We need a different word for true nothingness: a state of existence such that there are no dimensions (including time), so there is no space, and there is no necessary correlation to the physical laws we observe from within the universe.

This, of course, is all very, very metaphysical - since we're intentionally talking about a place/time/state/what-have-you such that all the knowledge we have about things is no longer applicable, we are unable to make any provable claims about it. Such as, for example, that something sprang from nothing. In the rules that obtain absent a universe, perhaps something springs from nothing all the time.

Or, perhaps, there really was an infinite void in the spatial sense, filled with quantum foam. If that's the case, then perhaps the entire universe sprang into being when there was a local event of virtual particles suddenly outnumbering virtual antiparticles - a probability perhaps thousands of orders of mangitude worse than that of all the snowflakes in a blizzard being identical in structure, but postulating an infinite space demands that everything with a non-zero percent chance of happening happen an infinite number of times.

Of course, that would lead one to conclude that there are an infinite number of other universes out there, separated (on average) by gulfs of void the magnitude of which is proportional to the probability of the event happening in the first place...and we're about to run into Olber's paradox if we take this far enough.

But basically, your choices are very simple:

There was nothing, then there suddenly was something.
There has never been nothing, something has existed for an infinite stretch of time.

Really, I don't find the former any more (or less) hard to accept than the latter. Either is an unsatisfactory answer: on the one hand, you've got spontaneous creation. On the other, you've got "it just is." Spontaneous creation doesn't sit well with those of us who live in the causal, conservative, time-directed universe. "It just is" denies that it's worth thinking about, which doesn't sit well with those of us who like to think.

*shrug*

Life's a bitch, you know?

Re:Not really

[Hedgethorn]

Well, you mention Pascal, who made (in my estimation) one of the most idiotic statements on religion, ever. From the Wikipedia entry you linked to:

"Before entering the criticisms of the Wager, one fair and important thing to note is that Pascal hoped that if the wager doesn't convince unbelievers to become Christians, then it would at least show them, especially the "happy agnostics", the meaning, value, and probable necessity of considering the question of the existence of God."

The Wager is often taken out of context as a reason to believe that God exists. In the context of the rest of his Pensees, it is more charitable to think that Pascal saw it as a reason to consider whether God exists. In that light, the Wager isn't nearly so ridiculous: if one of my beliefs really could mean the difference between infinite loss and infinite gain, maybe I should indeed give very careful thought to the matter of that belief!

Re:What Is Eternity? (relative)

[gosand]

The extremely attractive girl in line behind you strikes up a conversation with you. You notice that she is buying a 12 pack of really good micro-brew, has some motorcycle and tattoo magazines, and Computer Shopper. She tells you that she is in for a long night, because her computer has been acting up, and she really needs to make updates to her website where she is a tattoo/motorcycle model. She was planning on sitting at home all alone with some good beer and a computer shopper to try to find a new computer. Just as she asks if you could help her out, the checkout girl says "SIR!" and you realize it is your turn to check out. Where did the time go?

That is the theory of relativity in action. :)

Hawking's conversation with George Costanza

[mcwop]

HAWKING: Well, they want me to come up with an idea. On the creation of the Universe, I don't have any ideas.

GEORGE: Come on, how hard is that? Look at all the junk science these days. You want an idea? Here's an idea. A higher being, of incomprehensible power created it.

Hawking: Scientists don't like the idea of higher beings.

GEORGE: But it is a being of incomprehensible power.

HAWKING: That is not for everybody.

GEORGE: I know, but it's incomprehensible

HAWKING: That would make me look like such a schmuck.

GEORGE: All right, forget that idea, it's not for you....Okay, okay, I got it. How about the Universe is created from nothing? Every scientist tries to make it about something, how about making this about nothing?

HAWKING: Yeah and...?

GEORGE: And people say hey it's about nothing, they look at their meaningless lives, and sort of just agree.

I was talking to my daughter

[theendlessnow]

I went shopping with my daughter. She said, "Nothing is on sale."

We went home. Now I wish we had bought some while it was on sale.

I guess the Hindus were right then

[athloi]

About the universe waking up from nothingness, and creating itself. This means we could have skipped 2,000 years of religious wars, standardized on Hinduism, made it Open Source and still had the New Age movement with its interesting drugs.

Re:Jumping the Shark

[Dunbal]

At what point do we stop looking at Hawking as some demigod genius, and realize that he has gone absolutely crackers?

      At the point where he decides to push everyone out of the spaceship and fly to Jupiter...

Bell's Theorem

[benhocking]

I expect that the only "random" things in nature are the ones we don't understand, and much of what appears to be random anyways isn't - even discounting chaotic systems. Wolfram's "New kind of science" metions simple finite automata that generate output that passes all tests of randomess.

You should read up on Bell's theorem - assuming you haven't already. IIRC, Wolfram's book completely ignores it. I'm disappointed that 't Hooft didn't address it, as he is surely aware that would be the first complaint against any deterministic theory. Note: Bell's theorem doesn't completely rule out deterministic theories, but it does impose some rather harsh constraints on their existence. Anyone who posits a deterministic theory without addressing Bell's theorem is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Re:Try again.

[MaXimillion]

Religious people never change their minds. Or rather, those that do are called heretics, and up until recently were frequently burned at the stake.

How very american statement...

What you're referring to is known as Fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Chris tianity). While it is quite profilic opposition to scientific views in the USA, it is by no means the only way of thought for religious people.

Religion and Science aren't opposites, and don't nullify each other.

Re:Try again.

[Skeezix]

The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us").

No, the religious nut-cases do that. They are the ones you always hear about in the media. You don't hear about the millions of reasonable, open-minded religious people who are capable of realizing that the Bible doesn't actually say how old the earth is and Genesis 1 was meant to be poetic rather than a scientific account of how God created the universe.

Sounds like he's starting to believe

[paranode]

May he be touched by His noodly appendage. Ramen.

Much Ado...

[Draconnery]

Actually, it reads like TFSummary was much ado about something wrong. I went to a lot of trouble and such and RTFA'ed, but I don't see anything from the summary in the article.

I see a mention of "inflation," and a poke at the God Team, but I don't see any mention of "nothing." (If somebody has a transcript, I might be bothered to look for the promised proclamation, but I certainly couldn't find it in the article.) Mr. Hawking has apparently just pretended to have an understanding of the un-understandable problem that sits at the beginning of anyone's understanding of everything: something exists, where nothing used to.

Sure, the idea of an abrupt Creation, or "Design," of the universe lets us joke about what God was doing before he got around to Creation, but the metaphor of water (or, let's suppose, some kind of cosmic stew) boiling into steam/universes leaves us with the same problem that we had in the first place: where in the [space larger than a universe] did the water/stew come from?

As I read it, the exact same problem has been reached again - and Religion and Science both require a leap of perfect faith over the gap that is The Beginning of It All.

Re:Much Ado...

[Progman3K]

What if time, like space, was curved?

Curved so much that even if you went in a "straight" line in it, you eventually wound up where you started, would you need a first-cause then?

You wouldn't, because the initial concept of a beginning (or an end for that matter) is flawed.

Human intellects just can't "see" it that way because (I guess) our sensory organs are made in such a way that we perceive time in only one direction.

Outcast by friends and family

[kayakun]

Also, keep in mind that a lot of them don't like to rock the boat of their personal lives. Saying you don't believe in god is a good way to distance yourself from your family and or spouse -- so many either lie, or, more likely, just avoid thinking down that path a lot because it has no positive benefit.

I strongly agree with your statement. Many of my classmates don't like to speak with me, or even "look down" on me for my un-Christian views. In addition, I've had multiple girls refuse to date me simply because I'm not Christian. Although one could argue that the girls are using that as an excuse to just not date me, I'm talking about the cases when I've become very close to the girl, and the next logical step would be to date.

Whatever the case may be, I certainly have heard people at least claim that they don't want to spend time/go out/talk with me because I'm not Christian. People think it's wrong to discriminate based on race, but when discrimination occurs based on religion (on a small scale, I'm not talking about the holocaust), it's suddenly justified because that's part of the religious doctrine?

I used to be Christian, and at my church, we were told as kids to only have close friends with people within the church. Having friends with anyone else would supposedly cause us to turn away from the "truth" and fall into temptation.

Re:Outcast by friends and family

[LinuxIsRetarded]

I strongly agree with your statement. Many of my classmates don't like to speak with me, or even "look down" on me for my un-Christian views. In addition, I've had multiple girls refuse to date me simply because I'm not Christian. Although one could argue that the girls are using that as an excuse to just not date me, I'm talking about the cases when I've become very close to the girl, and the next logical step would be to date. Whatever the case may be, I certainly have heard people at least claim that they don't want to spend time/go out/talk with me because I'm not Christian. People think it's wrong to discriminate based on race, but when discrimination occurs based on religion (on a small scale, I'm not talking about the holocaust), it's suddenly justified because that's part of the religious doctrine?

Funny- I've had the opposite experience. I became a Christian several years into my software engineering career. As a result of my acceptance of Christ, I lost several friends. Since then, my opinions on non-spiritual matters have been rejected by certain individuals merely due to my belief in Christ. My intelligence has been called into question simply due to my religion. Heck, some moron even claimed that I suffered a stroke! Yet somehow this is justified because it's part of atheistic doctrine. I can guarantee you that many women won't date me because I'm Christian because (a) I won't sleep with them outside of marriage, (b) I choose to donate large sums of money to charity rather than shower women with extravagance, (c) I believe aborting a fetus is murder, ... and the list goes on. Now do I cry "prejudice"? Of course not. Why date someone who adamantly opposes what you stand for? I stand for Christ; non-Christians stand for something else.

Re:1930's is "ages ago"?

[Lord Bitman]

A few people beat him to it

Re:Why Do We Care?

[ArcherB]

Call me an asshole, but it's what I think.
I will do no such thing! That's you opinion and you are entitled to it.

I'm certainly no astrophysicist so I am in no position to evaluate Hawking's theories one way or the other. All I can do is say that I found his book to be well written and entertaining. I don't really care if his theories are bullshit or not because they have opened my mind to ideas that I would have never came up with on my own. I like Hawking because he makes me think. It's the same reason I like the Twilight Zone. Other than making me think, both Stephen Hawking's and Rod Sterling's theories about the Universe have the same effect on my life.

Re:Try again.

[BlackEmperor]

Or so you may think.

Re:Try again.

[electrosoccertux]

The Bible contains all sorts of statements that we now know to be false, in the sense that they contradict all available evidence. The religious respond by going into elaborate contortions to maintain their beliefs (see, for example, "God put the dinosaur fossils there to test us").

No, the religious nut-cases do that. They are the ones you always hear about in the media. You don't hear about the millions of reasonable, open-minded religious people who are capable of realizing that the Bible doesn't actually say how old the earth is and Genesis 1 was meant to be poetic rather than a scientific account of how God created the universe.

On top of that, and I should mention I am not a...biblical/religious/whatever Christian expert, all of the "statments known to be false" that I've heard referenced here on Slashdot and in other discussions about similar topics, have all been verses taken anywhere from slightly to grossly out of context from what any unbiased reader simply reading along would come to understand as the meaning. In all the cases, though, however small the contextual misunderstanding, it's been one large enough that anyone who knew much about the bible would be able to point out the misunderstanding and debunk the argument.

From what I've seen so far, there are dangerously few people who actually bring a solid argument to the table that takes more than 10 seconds to deal with. Most of them are just something they heard their friend say, who got it from some webpage that was so grossly biased it was laughable to say the least. There's one I can think of right now that is something like "1000 & 1 fallacies in the bible" that I saw someone on /. link. I took a few minutes or so to glance through a random assortment of 20-ish of these so called fallacious statements in the bible and none of them were anywhere close in interpretation. I'm not saying any sort of divine knowledge is required to understand the verses' meanings, but if you're not going to even quote the surrounding sentences, let alone more than a half sentence, you can't expect to come away with more than a half truth.

This reminds me of a joke I heard about a man who didn't care about context. He prayed to the Lord, "Father, please give me a message", dropped his bible on the floor, and placed his finger on a random verse on the page. It read "Judas went and hanged himself". He dropped his bible again, placing his finger on some point in the page. This verse said "Go and do the same." He was sweating by now, afraid of what was next. So one last time he read a random verse from a random page and it said "What you do, do quickly." Point is, you can come away with some pretty crazy ideas about the bible if you don't take more than five seconds to figure out the context.

That's not what he meant...

[7Prime]

Many are assuming that Hawking is proposing that the universe came into existance from complete nothingness. This isn't what he was saying at all:

From the article:

According to Hawking, the origin of the universe can be depicted as bubbles in a steam in boiling water. Small bubbles that appear and then collapse represent mini universes that expand only to disintegrate.

All this is is a simple analogy to represent the way in which the universe came into existance, it says nothing about what caused it to do so. In fact, even in his analogy, the bubbles are caused by extreme heat through a medium in a transitional state. This most definitely is "something".

In a discussion with one of the more thoughtful news anchors at my work, I was caught making the following statement, "everything must have an origin", but in actuality, we have no proof of that. Traditionally, when we talk of creation, we are really refering to a transformation of something into something else. We've never actually seen creation, in the purist sense of the word, so we have no way of proving that anything ever was created.

I have come to believe that there never has been nothing. Some form of SOMETHING (be it matter, energy, time, or what-have-you, since we're talking multi-dimensional proporties outside of our existing concept of reality) has always existed. Time could very well simply be a property unique to our universe, so "eternity" may have no real meaning whatsoever. But in any case, something has always existed in some form or another. It is impossible to come to any conclusion otherwise. Even if you take into account that physics, reality, space, and time, as we know it, may very-well only exist inside our universe, there must be some form of physical properties, be they very different, outside our universe, and changes in those properties were the cause of our universe.

Simply because one is busy concentrating on the creation of a bubble in boiling water doesn't mean that you can completely disregard the existance of the boiling water, or the energy coming off the stove, as part of what went into creating the bubble.

Re:Try again.

[Sunburnt]

Technically he's right. There is only one thing that can absolutely be proven. Cogito ergo sum. I exist. You might not though...

Not true: mathematical theorems are true (capable of absolute proof) within their own axioms, and mathematics requires a priori axioms. As Wittgenstein might say, this means they convey no information, but simply recapitulate their axioms in increasingly complex forms.

The same condition does not apply to experience, thus leaving room for the skepticism that puzzled the mathematically-inclined Descartes. Yet the "cogito" has a notorious problem, along the same vein as Wittgenstein's analysis of mathematical truth: "I exist" is necessarily true in grammar, because of the assumptions made by "I." It conveys no information in language, and is a phenomenological report, no more provably true or false as a condition of existence than numerous competing phenomenological or grammatical analyses that posit the non-existence of a "I" (Buddhism is a ready example.)

The cogito sure does "make sense," though, and this is because experience suggests it.

Re:Try again.

[TheGreatHegemon]

No, the religious nut-cases do that. They are the ones you always hear about in the media. You don't hear about the millions of reasonable, open-minded religious people who are capable of realizing that the Bible doesn't actually say how old the earth is and Genesis 1 was meant to be poetic rather than a scientific account of how God created the universe. I have karma to burn, so here we go. The difference isn't poetic. It's just plain wrong. Creation as described in the bible, taken literally or poetically, still cannot measure up to any common scientific theories on the matter.

Re:Try again.

[TheRaven64]

I think you have the wrong piles. Science puts things into three piles:

1. Things we know are wrong (i.e. can disprove). These are called either lies or obsolete models, depending on the context.
2. Things that we don't yet know are wrong (i.e. those which can have experiments tested to falsify them, but so far no experiment has given contradictory results). These are called theories.
3. Things that we can never know are wrong. These are called religion.

None of these are 'right' and none can be provable. Gradually things move from set 2 to set 1, until set 2 asymptotically approaches an accurate model of the universe.

Re:Try again.

[SashaM]

Not true: mathematical theorems are true (capable of absolute proof) within their own axioms

Descartes would ask - how do you know the rules of logic are correct (obviously, I mean in the physical, not logical sense)? What if all humans share the delusion that logic is correct? Theorems are merely the selective application of the rules of logic on a set of sentences.

With the "cogito", however, I can't find a way to argue, because by arguing, I would be proving my own existance.

Re:You can't get something for nothing

[Creepy Crawler]

Universe halted.

Hit F1 to continue.

1h05m16s

[anwaya]

At this point in the RealAudio stream, Hawking says:

I now think I can show how the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science.

HTH

Re:Try again.

[Sunburnt]

Descartes would ask - how do you know the rules of logic are correct (obviously, I mean in the physical, not logical sense)?

A lot of people have tried to answer that, and the best answer seems to be that you can't. Language is a convention that attempts to engage the world; it doesn't describe it in any way that is obliges reality to conform, because the "rules" of language are contained within that language's use. Logic is an axiomatic way of approaching language, and its truths only have certainty within the system's axioms. It endures because it generally seems to work better than competing systems, as far as helping us accomplish empirical goals.

With the "cogito", however, I can't find a way to argue, because by arguing, I would be proving my own existance.

Not exactly: you would only be proving (in the sense of certainty) the existence of existence. It's the kind of subtle bastard of a distinction that kept 19th century philosophers awake into the morning. The point of more recent philosophical thought is that you can't doubt the experience of existence, but there's always a way to attack its certainty in language, because language does not conform to experience in a way that gives its propositions inherent certainty outside of the appropriate rules of grammar.

If you're interested in these philosophical issues, I would recommend Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. People slate it as difficult, but it seems to me that many of these people are looking too hard for an epistomological system (a theory of knowledge) in the book, although none is either asserted or contained therein. Indeed, the author generally avoids technical language, yet managed to become perhaps the most influential 20th-century philosopher.

Re:Try again.

[JonathanBoyd]

Please explain to me how you manage to deal with the omnipotent-benevolent problem

God defeated evil on the cross and Jesus will return.

10 words, not even 10 seconds.

Re:It's much worse than that...

[Tony Hoyle]

One is Joseph's line, and one is Mary's line.

FFS you could have worked that one out in 10 seconds.

Re:all I have to say is wtf

[Kjella]

Also, the universe is bounded by nothing, therefore, infinite in every direction.

This is way simpler in 2D, so for a moment assume you can't grasp elevation, only a flat earth. Now, you can walk in a straight line around the earth never hitting a bound and yet you can go infinitely far - you'll just be walking in circles because there's a dimension you're missing. The same can happen in 3D space - you set out in one direction, but even if you travel in a straight line, space curves.

Is one Mary's and the other Joseph's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Luke's list (Luke 3:23-38) from David to Jesus has 43 names: David, Nathan, Mattathah, Menan, Melea, Eliakim, Jonan, Joseph, Judah, Simeon, Levi, Matthat, Jorim, Eliezer, Jose, Er, Elmodam, Cosam , Addi, Melchi, Neri, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Rhesa, Joannas, Judah, Joseph, Semei, Mattathiah, Maath, Naggai, Esli, Nahum, Amos, Mattathiah, Joseph, Janna, Melchi, Levi, Matthat, Heli, Joseph and Jesus.

Matthew's list (Matthew 1:2-16) from David to Jesus has only 28 names: David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah , Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph and Jesus.

Moreover, only 6 ancestors appear in both of these lists: David, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Eliakim, Joseph, Jesus.

Luke's list has 43 generations from David to Joseph (or Mary, as Christians claim), but Matthew's list has only 28 generations from David to Joseph. That would mean that if Luke's list is indeed Mary's genealogy, then Mary would be 15 generations younger than Joseph. 15 generations is a lot of time even if the average age at which all of Mary's ancestors gave birth to the next generation was just 10 years, in which case Mary would be 150 years younger than Joseph! That is clearly not the case.

Let us assume that Matthew's list got shorter because of loss in translation, and other errors. If that is true, let not the evangelists admit that Bible is true (i.e. inerrant) in the literal sense. Hence it has to interpreted, in which case, they should not hold it as evidence against scientific evidence.

The most holy book, has 15 errors in such a short passage. Many of those errors could be claimed to be because of human intervention. Then what does that say about the amount of strain we should have when living exactly by its preaching?

Does it make sense that The Holy Word of God given by God so that ordinary men may live by its above-human-logic morality, is infused with silly logical errors so that we may be confused by it? This is not strictly a valid argument in Christianity because God the Potter can choose to make the pot anyway he wishes.

Using common sense to figure out what is literal and figurative in the bible as many evangelists do today, requires arbitrary line drawing. Don't you see how this works? The universe is earth-centric... wait, science disproved that, so that must have been a metaphor. The earth (and universe) are only 6000 years old... wait science disproved that, I guess that must have been a metaphor too. I've got an idea... why not look at this like you would any other source of information: fairly. If the claims made in the bible show themselves to be wrong, then stop making excuses for it and treat it like it is: an unreliable source of information.

The only reason people started believing that the bible should be interpreted symbolically is because all of its claims turned out to be ludicrous... not because the bible states or implies that it should be interpreted this way.This is a dishonest and bias way to analyze data. If I came up with an explanation for something which was later disproved, you wouldn't automatically assume that my data was just figurative would you? So why do people do this with the bible? If you look at anything in a figurative sense, you can make any crazy statement a truth.

God is just the line in the sand which separates the known from the unknown. As science continues to answer these unknowns, the line keeps getting drawn further and further back until God becomes obsolete. The only important question left will be, "are you willing to let go?"

http://edwinjose.blogspot.com/2007/03/is-bible-wor d-of-god-part-2.html

Ok, I'll bite.

[master_p]

there are dangerously few people who actually bring a solid argument to the table that takes more than 10 seconds to deal with.

Ok, here it goes:

1. The complexity argument ("some things are too complex to have been randomly created, therefore a creator of the universe exists") is invalid, because if it was valid, the creator of the universe would have to be more complex than the universe, and therefore there should have been a creator for the creator, which leads to infinite recursion of creators, something totally illogical. Therefore the complexity argument is invalid.
2. God created everything, and therefore created evil.
3. God knows the future, and therefore there is no free will.
4. God is a perfect being, and perfect beings do not have needs. Therefore God would not have created anything: he/she/it would not have the urge to create anything.
5. What is the purpose of heaven from God's perspective? there is no purpose actually, for God: it only serves to relieve us humans from the idea of death.
6. Afterlife is eternal, according to scriptures. So living a life of, say, 90 years, is too small a criterion for choosing eternal heaven or eternal hell.
7. Noah could not have taken a pair of every species on Earth on board his ship, because otherwise the ship would have to be enormous. He would also need enormous resources to feed them.
8. If God existed, why he would divide His people into totally opposing religions that are in conflict for most of the time? the existence of many religions prove God does not exist.
9. What makes the Christian God better than the Muslim God? why does it have to be your religion that is the correct one?
10. According to scriptures, on judgement day, we will be judged for our deeds in front of God. Is it going to be a fair judgement, given that some people were killed when they were babies and therefore did not have a chance to commit a sin? Another proof that the Bible is a simple man-made story.
11. Why all the higher form entities (angels, demons, whatever) pick on humans all day long? don't they have anything else to do? why is man the center of all things, even the center of the battle of the heavens? just one more proof that the Bible is not the word of God, but the word of man.

I can go on, but please take 10 seconds to reply to these questions/problems with your religion and then we can talk.

Re:It's simple

[honestmonkey]

Actually, I think that particles being created from nothing is observed in the lab. It's what allows black holes to radiate and decay. Virtual Particles (vacuum fluctuations) are created in matter/antimatter pairs that come into being and then annihilate each other after a short time. The Wikipedia article about this is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle.

The entire universe might be a vacuum fluctuation. That is, there might have originally been nothing. With all that potential, the universe pops into existence. With nothing, there is no time. The universe pops up, the clock starts. The universe either collapses into a big crunch, or if it expands long enough, everything evaporates, eventually leaving nothing. The bang/crunch cycle might exist for a while until there is at some point an evaporation. With nothing left, pop, another universe.

Thus, the "existence" can be "forever" without the "universe" lasting forever.