Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - No God Created the Universe: Stephen Hawking

Baraka_Guru · 09-02-2010, 06:23 PM

In his previous works, Stephen Hawking hinted at understanding God through uncovering the secrets of the universe. With his upcoming book, however, he has changed his position. God has no place in his theory of creation.

His upcoming book The Grand Design should certainly lead to many debates, criticism, and opposition from the Intelligent Design crowd.

Quote:

God did not create the universe, says Hawking

By Michael Holden

LONDON | Thu Sep 2, 2010 6:45pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts Thursday.

"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, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

Since 1974, the scientist has worked on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics -- Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large-scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers subatomic particles.

His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.

He wrote in A Brief History ... "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God."

In his latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.

Hawking, who is only able to speak through a computer-generated voice synthesizer, has a neuro muscular dystrophy that has progressed over the years and left him almost completely paralyzed.

He began suffering the disease in his early 20s but went on to establish himself as one of the world's leading scientific authorities, and has also made guest appearances in "Star Trek" and the cartoons "Futurama" and "The Simpsons."

Last year he announced he was stepping down as Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a position once held by Newton and one he had held since 1979.

"The Grand Design" is due to go on sale next week.

God did not create the universe, says Hawking | Reuters

What do you think? Can you wrap your mind around something being created from nothing?
Do you think the bulk of Hawking's work will mark science's final rejection of God?
Do you think science and religion will continue to coexist?
Do you think they should?
Do you think they can, adequately?

As one who was raised non-religious, these questions are a bit difficult for me to consider. I have thought for a long time that faith and science could coexist. Take the Dalai Lama's position on science, for example. But Buddhist philosophy is more existential and empirical than religious faiths such as Christianity.

How is one to resolve this question of creation?