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Hawking Picks Physics Over God For Big Bang
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that in his new book, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity. 'Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,' Hawking writes. 'It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.' Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. Writing in his bestseller A Brief History Of Time in 1988, Hawking wrote: 'If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.'"
Or whom created the law of gravity. Still room for the all mighty.
I wonder if the audio book or the text-to-speech version is better.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
True enough, but the atheist folks think it's OK to warp science to fit into their primitive belief systems.
Just look at the Atheist nonsense going on in US schools. This is 2010?!!!!1111oneoneonewonwonwon
Speaking of Creation myths, let me tell you how it happened. Billions upon billions of years ago, there was this amazing amount of stuff crammed into a tiny space, due to gravity. But then, a huge explosion occurred, sending matter all over the vast empty space that was sitting there. Then all the dust and crap gathered (due to gravity) into various chunks and started to form galaxies, solar systems, etc.
In our particular area of scattered stuff, a sphere was created at a particular distance from a local star, and revolved around it. It was pretty hot back then, but eventually it cooled and then various chemicals that were present formed a sort of soup which then formed a reaction which spawned some single-celled organisms. These organisms then were sorted out by which could survive in various environments and which could not, sometimes by chance events. Mutations that occurred were at times beneficial and led to multi celled organisms, while still leaving huge amounts of single celled organisms around, of course. Atmosphere and H20 were all over, as well as jutting rocks, and some organisms ended up forming all sorts of plant life, and animals. Dinosaurs were some of these animals, and they were there without any human interaction for quite some time, until a major world event, possibly an asteroid strike, mostly wiped them out. In this gap, various mammals that may have been around in rudimentary form or may have been fish ("we still have gills, you know" - actual quote) but then mutated again and again, or perhaps evolved by some other means of adaptation, to become skulking bipeds, whose population grew due to abnormally high intelligence and opposable thumbs. At some point, these self-aware creatures started to wonder about their origins, and some very clever person or persons decided to tell everyone that they were created by God. Due to lack of science education funding, many people were deceived, and the myth became self-propagating, with various parties adding details over the generations, while others added new material to explain current events in the context of their belief system, whether by design or delusion as a result of mental instability/hallucinogens.
Luckily, within the last few hundred years, noble scientists have begun to unravel the real mysteries behind the origin of our little planet and the creatures dwelling upon it. Persecuted horribly for their attempts to reveal the truth, this band of hardy companions were able to build upon an ever expanding base of knowledge to give people a better picture of what really happened in history. Other scientists of course donated helpful knowledge in other areas such as medicine, botany, and engineering. But none of these professions could have done their jobs without the firm understanding of the origins of the universe and the principles of evolution. Because of this, we have now reached the point where it is not an option to let people have faith in a Creator known to them as God. They must be taught at an early age that the teachings they received from parents and possibly community regarding creation are in fact myths. They must be made to understand how the various physical and chemical properties of the universe precipitated life on this planet. If they don't, not only will they not be able to further scientific knowledge and pursuits when they mature, but they will also start various wars of religion and take a pro-life stance, which will discourage young men and women from enjoying a free-wheeling lifestyle based on lots of sex and no children, which only get in the way and create overpopulation and poverty and take up room that could be used by other woodland creatures.
Oh, and profits should also be regulated by a central committee, but that's a different issue.
It's so much clearer now. Now wait for it, some self-described scientist will try to correct various "errors" in my timeline or presentation, because if I had just described it with more accuracy, it would be more convincing, and then I or anyone sane could believe in it.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
I assume, of course, that the peer review process that most scientific papers undergo nowadays is also without flaws?
Actually, the book I refer to is an old one, and predates cryptography, digital data, and even the human manipulation of electricty. It's an old book that has been handed down for thousands of years, accepted as true by an entire race of people, and has not only been challenged, but defended to the death by many.
Not much of a test, but how many scientists have defended their research to their deaths? I know the answer to this is greater than one, and he was insipired, in part, by the book I refer to.
I know, you refuse the writings of long-lost authors, and the veracity of their words based on just the one book. Compare the sources of Biblical manuscripts with those of Homer or even Gallileo. But I'm wasting my time to go further. We want modern proofs. Happenings that we don't understand we either subscribe to miracles or we dismiss as untrue.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
One might say that there's readily observable proof all around you but for the filters placed before your eyes that limit your perspective. One of the obvious proofs many cite are the irreducible complexities of biological systems. Certain of these have complexities that can be likened to putting silicon, germanium, and a few other exotic raw ingredients in a can. Shake it, put it outside to get zapped by lightning then expect a Intel Core i7 processor to drop out when you upend it. It's hard for many people to take on faith that reproductive and energy harvest/utilization systems functioned sufficiently well the first time out of the gate for there to even be subsequent population generations to evolve in the first place. In any other field of science the probabilistic math describing the chance of such a thing happening would be deemed "impossible." We're talking about probabilities on the order of magnitude such as the chance of having every atom in your body so perfectly aligned in relation to a wall that you could walk right through it unopposed.
Empirical proof? As in proof by experiment; not exactly possible. That is true for either theistic or evolution explanations. However, the overwhelming evidence demonstrating that present science's "answer" is bankrupt requires an unprecedented amount un-scientific denial. The lame attempts of explaining away numerous 1 in 10^60 chances of something happening with 10^10 years worth of rolling the dice imply either outright deceit or mental health issues.
If you don't want to slap the "God" badge on first-cause, or subsequent outcome fine. But until the scientific community starts acting more "scientific" when it comes to this subject no one will get anywhere with regards to solving the mystery. Scientists need to stop communicating Darwinian evolution in all it's flavors as fact, and stop believing it theory when at best it's a hypothesis whose evidence to the contrary puts it in the ridiculously implausible category.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I'm surprised at what people will and will not believe is possible. People believe in extra terrestrial life, black holes, string theory, the big bang, an infinite universe, worm holes, the existence of other dimensions, that evolution sprang up out of nothing in spite of entropy...
But they won't believe that life exists in other dimensions... intelligent life... and that maybe there's an all-powerful inter-dimensional being who's responsible for creating everything in this dimension.
"But we have proof!" I think your religion requires more faith than mine.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Most christians, even in the USA, aren't nearly as nutty and rabidly religious as you imply. You just hear more from the crazy ones because crazy people tend to be loud.
Imagine a hypothetical world without science. One day I walk up to you and say that the universe started as an infinitely dense point that suddenly started expanding faster than light. And eventually it turned into stars, which look like tiny little dots to you, but are actually giant balls of gas billions and billions of miles away, and these balls of gas are turning huge amounts of matter into energy, and have been doing so for billions of years. Oh and everything around you is made up of tiny bits that are way too small to see and most of those tiny bits were created in stars that exploded billions of years ago. Oh and just wait until I start describing black holes, quantum mechanics, string theory, and how many dimensions there might actually be!
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I'm surprised at what people will and will not believe is possible. People believe in extra terrestrial life, black holes, string theory, the big bang, an infinite universe, worm holes, the existence of other dimensions, that evolution sprang up out of nothing in spite of entropy...
But they won't believe that life exists in other dimensions... intelligent life... and that maybe there's an all-powerful inter-dimensional being who's responsible for creating everything in this dimension.
I am often surprised by this as well. How one can reconcile "aliens probably exist" with "a super-powerful alien we call God could not possibly exist" is beyond me.