Stephen Hawking has said that physics, not God, was the reason for the Big Bang, a pronouncement that should shatter religious views among those who’ve never spent more than three minutes in theological thought. I mean, he might be smart at science, but this is dumb teenager level on theology.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” said Hawking. So I should I point out the obvious? If you have gravity, then it wasn’t nothing, dummy! I mean you can say physics causing something to come from nothing, but where did the laws of physics come from? Did they spontaneously arise? If so, what caused that? Were they around forever? Are you saying physics just is, like God?
The fact is, if the universe were pure nothing — no energy or matter or laws governing them — then science would be very much able to explain everything. You don’t need God or forces outside science for nothing. But as soon as you have something — anything — you get a whole bunch of uncomfortable questions about where did that come from. Existence isn’t rational. And that’s when you move from science to Science! to try to get the square peg into the logical round hole.
The greatest representative Science! can throw out to the people is an English (And thus, gay) guy in a wheelchair with a sickly robot voice. Sad.
Some people got nothin’ better to do than sit in a chair all day and think up stuff.
What do you call a paraplegic in a ditch?
Phil
What do you call a paraplegic in your mailbox?
Bill
What do you call a paraplegic in the pool?
Bob
What do you call a paraplegic on your front stoop?
Matt
What do you call a paraplegic in a pile of leaves?
Russell
What do you call two paraplegics by the window?
Curt ‘n Rod
What do you call a paraplegic with a Astrophysics degree?
Dr. Stephen J. Hawking
Yes, I am a right sick b*st*rd
I’m guessing Hawking was “blinded by Science”…
Now if we could only figure out who “she” is.
I find it interesting that he cites the “law” of gravity to prove his point. Sure, we have rules to explain the effects of gravity, but Science! is wholly incapable of explaining what causes the attraction of matter to all other matter. Science! also can’t accurately state what happens inside an atom (it uses a model to approximate), can’t decide if light is a particle or form of energy, can’t bring life to lifeless matter, hell, Science! can’t even predict the weather with greater than 50/50 accuracy. Maybe we should ask ¡Ciencia! to explain it.
The question is, what the hell difference does it make? Who cares? What is this going to change? Is this going to make Obama go away? Is this going to make Pelosi take a flying leap? Is this going to make the United States number 1 again in the industrial world?
[Huh? -Ed.]
Sorry. My point is, if physics was the reason for The Big Bang and not God, what difference does it make? If God was the reason for The Big bang, will it change anything? Maybe I shouldn’t have drank a six pack prior to commenting. My deepest apologies.
Cilla, I do hate to differ (actually I love it or why else would I be at IMAO), but the mighty hand of God weighs in quite heavily in the debate about abortion. If that fetus growing inside a woman is simply some semi-explainable matter stuff held together by some completely unexplainable other stuff, then someone might, I say might, argue that abortion is not morally wrong.
I believe that gravity spontaneously created itself from the primordial ooze. I read about it somewhere.
Hawking is just pissed that God made him talk like a cylon.
Yes Burmashave, God plays quite heavily in the debate about abortion, without a doubt. But, I thought the subject was the Big Bang. If we are going to discuss science and the fact that it is turning into modern day horror show with human life being grown in petri dishes and then having geriatric women in their 50’s and 60’s give life, then science in my book is irresponsible and the science community is guilty of not being accountable. Much like that Octomom in California who is a parasite of society. But, I am going totally off the subject, yes Burmashave, I agree with you…but my point was why worry about the Big Bang when we have absolutely no hand in the matter, at this point in time.
For the record, as I grow older I have grown more certain that God exists.
I suppose this means that Hawking now believes that it’s “tortoises, all the way down”.
Gravity is that mysterious force that comes from nothing, but efffects everything. The same could be said of the money for Obama’s spending spree. I’ve got it !! Obama’s cash and gravirty both have the same propertys and therefore come from the same source. The arse of the Magic Unicorn !!!11!!!!11 It’s Science !
There comes a point when to be honest Scieince! is going to have to say “I don’t know”. Otherwise we’ll be offered another discourse from Stephen Hawking’s Magic 8=Ball.
What do you call a paraplegic hanging on the wall?
Art.
What if both the Big Bang and Biblical theories of creation are wrong and the Universe was never created but has always existed? It seems that the very notion of a ‘first cause’ causes ‘causality’ to violate itself. (I can hear God applauding 😀 )
I am inebriated to a point where Jimmy’s theory actually makes sense to me. As a matter of fact, it isn’t a theory. It is “the answer.” Well, to me at any rate.
If something already has existed, and there isn’t any concrete evidence to dispute it, then why debate it?
Oh sure, he thinks he has the answer to everything. But he has not answered the two most important questions ever.
Why did the chicken cross the road
And which came first that chicken, the egg or joey biden’s brain.
I guess if I’d gone so many years without sex I’d be pretty mad at God too.
@Cilla: you do know that I was just funnin’. Winky smiley faces would not only be in bad taste here, but they would also be hugely redundant, not to mention the fact that they would be completely inadequate at capturing the wisenheimery that goes on.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” said Hawking.
If there’s nothing to start with, then what, exactly, is gravity pulling on? No material = no gravity, therefore gravity cannot be the cause of material. [/doctorwhovoice]
Hah, out-thought AND out-Britished! Now lemme at that “economy” all you hip kids are talking about.
Cilla and I are going out for a drink later. I don’t care what Stephen Hawking or God say.
In a paper just submitted to Physical Review Letters, a team led by John Webb and Julian King from the University of New South Wales in Australia presents evidence that the fine-structure constant may not actually be constant after all. Rather, it seems to vary from place to place within the universe. If their results hold up to scrutiny they will have profound implications—for they suggest that the universe stretches far beyond what telescopes can observe, and that the laws of physics vary within it. Instead of the whole universe being fine-tuned for life, then, humanity finds itself in a corner of space where, Goldilocks-like, the values of the fundamental constants happen to be just right for it.
They don’t know if the “Laws of Physics” are constant across the entire Universe and may vary. How can they be responsible for the Big Bang?
Maybe Hawkings is talking about a different universe.
Wild Bill: but would that theory account for the modern quantum field theory of philosophical relativism whose main law is the great invariant liberal axiom:
“What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is taxable.” ?
or the inverse conservative formulation:
“Get the hell off my lawn!” ?
As a scientist who is not a Science!tist, I approve this message.
I haven’t completely lost my sense of humor, really. This is some of the best posting for a good long while. My humble opinion is that I don’t know what laws God used to create the universe but if I was a bettin’ girl (and I’m not, Murphy lives at my house) I could imagine that some of the processes He used could be related to both the science and physics people ascribe to the Big Bang.
Whether or not Stephen Hawkings or Steven King for that matter believes in God has no impact on me. Both are finite, clay figurines with delusions of relevency. Why does anyone care what they believe? It’s what you believe that counts and it’s the only thing you’ll be responsible for, thank goodness. The rest is just interesting fodder for really outstanding blog posters.
Umm..This is pretty dumb. Cause it’s so obviously WRONG.
Gravity didn’t exist prior to or during the Big Bang. According to Physics’ own models, gravity is one of the fundamental forces that ‘froze’ out of Space -AFTER- the Big Bang cooled down enough.
@plentyobailouts
“Why did the chicken cross the road
And which came first that chicken, the egg or joey biden’s brain.”
The chicken crossed the road because that’s what chickens do. The chicken came first because God mad or “Big Banged” the chicken and said chicken laid the egg, after crossing a road of course.
joey bidens brain is a figment of my nieces imaginary friends imagination.
Silly, really. To imagine that with all the stars and planets in the universe, that a god infused the first ape-like humans on earth with a godly soul to partner up with him, when he already had the angels and a war with the devils, is really a monstrously preposterous story, not even satisfactory for cheap science fiction.
A reporter once asked Albert Einstein to explain his Theory of Relativity in simple words the average layman could understand.
Einstein replied that according to Newtons physics, if all matter and energy disappeared, time and space would still exist, but according to Relativity, if matter and energy didn’t exist, time and space wouldn’t exist either.
Does that help?
#28 – zheng ye,
You’ve got to get past the book of Genesis in order to understand the book of Genesis.
Might I recommend Lee Strobel’s ‘The Case for a Creator’?
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it was too far to go around.
Dr. Hawking has left his field of expertise. He may as well opine on the necessity of upgrading to adjustable camber bolts to properly wheel align 1993 Ford Explorers.
His opinion on God’s existence has that much weight .
Doesn’t make him less of an Astrophysicist, I guess.
I knew a great surgeon. Her opinions on politics were steeped in NPR ignorance.
Didn’t make her any less of a surgeon.
People, people! This is a SCIENCE article, written by a JOURNALIST. There’s NO WAY of telling what Hawking actually said from reading that.
Zzyzx had a very good comment on this topic, but unfortunately he submitted it on one of Frank’s other posts. Basically it was the idea that it’s awfully hard for the universe to make sense without a first cause that exists outside of time and is therefore not itself caused (i.e., an uncaused cause). (Anybody interested in further reading can look up Dr. William Lane Craig and the Kalaam cosmological argument.) I think I have to agree with the posters who said that Hawking has ventured outside his area of competence. The same thing happened to Dawkins. Unfortunately, it seems that accomplishments in science don’t guarantee sound thinking in matters not fully bound by that realm.
P.S. – Frank, I thought the last sentence of your post was very profound.
But how do we REALLY know that what comes out of Hawking’s pie-hole (so to speak) is really what he is thinking? Why, a 13 year old could probably hack into that thing that he talks with, and make him say any damn thing. Just sayin’.
What do you call a paraplegic water skiing?
Skip.
The first cause question is unanswerable by Science (or by Science!™ for that matter). Science has validity only in the physical universe, which did not, and could not, exist until its first instance. Even setting aside the concept of Matter (Creation, Big Bang, take your pick), Science cannot set aside the concept of Time. Science fundamentally deals in cause-and-effect. Take Time out of that relationship and you have – what? That moves the question to Faith. For that, Faith is much richer than Science. Purveyors of Reason tend to forget that.
@zheng ye – why preposterous? Who said that we were the only ones?
In any case, one assumes that you have hobbies like most people. Maybe you dabble. Maybe you devote tons of time to one particular thing, and the others are sidelines. Picture the various hobbies together amongst themselves – blogs, photography, cooking, vintage cars, poetry, gardening, etc – discussing whether or not YOU exist:
Photography says, “Yes, he exists, we spend a lot of time together.”
“Well, I NEVER see him,” Cooking huffs.
Blog might add, “Well, photos get posted to me a lot – I don’t know for sure if Zheng is real, or if Photography just happens, you know? But I know the pictures are there.”
“He takes pictures of me,” Gardening says. “I think Zheng is real, even if he doesn’t actually Garden.”
“Big deal,” Vintage Cars says. “There are pictures of me everywhere, and tons of people take them. What makes Zheng so special?”
Based only this discussion, any one of these hobbies may be correct about you – but the one in the best position to say is the one who spends the most time with you. And maybe you take up poetry and cooking once you retire, and then those hobbies see that you were real, all along… but it wouldn’t make the idea of you preposterous no matter what the other hobbies say.
What would happen if I pushed Hawkings’ head to lean the other way? Would he be like Curly of the 3 Stooges?
I always thought that René Descartes’ “cogito, ergo sum” argument was a pretty definite, logical scientist’s proof of the existence of God.
For the record, I did my undergrad college years in a Catholic seminary, dropped out after graduating and joined the Air Force to go kill people.
Anyway, I really hope that God exists, because I’ve been trying to behave myself all these years, with trust that He is going to get all the A-holes who make our lives miserable.
#40 – Corona,
Now that’s funny! 😉
So let me get this straight. The world’s most admired astrophysicist agrees with this mathmatical equation:
Absolutely nothing + chance = Absolutely everything
And they denounce Christians for relying on faith?
By golly Chris I did post this on the wrong thread. As punishment I have written on the black board fifty times…”I will not drink and post at the same time.” …..Something from Nothing argument is a philosophical argument that proves logically: The existence of any thing cannot have come from nothing or no thing nor could it have ever existed at all.
To partially grasp this understanding the philosopher must first realise that nothing or no thing equals the absence of any thing including the absence of absence itself (nothingness). One theory shows that the universe was created from the expansion of heat energy (Big Bang) but the Something from Nothing argument shows that the energy could not have ever existed at all nor could it have come into existence from nothing. But the alternative is Creationism, which says that a creator God created something from nothing, and must himself have come from nothing, or from something that came from nothing, unless this God was infinite.
Okay I hope this clears up all the confusion.
Omigosh. I knew it had to happen – Dr. Hawking’s voice synthesizer has become self-aware and is now issuing statements for him. What next – Obama’s teleprompter? Oh, wait, that already happened.
The Dunning-Kruger law is well represented here. People who have not progressed beyond page 10 of the astrophysics book are complaining that people who have reached page 1010 have got it wrong. The arrogance of ignorance is astounding.