Hawking: God did not create the universe
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 on 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.
Bureau Report
Views: 3138
so he's saying the world came out of nothing? .. ok, let's say that his chair came out of nothing and no man made his chair, would anyone believe it? .. of course not.. the almighty creator is the one who created you and the universes.. and he is all knowing all seeing. Every cell of your body needs your God every second. and now you're saying there's no one created it? what the hell?
you obviously do not understand at all what he's trying to say.
nope. He said that the big bang was a result of the forces of physics acting inside the immensely small and infinitely dense particle that was all matter before the big bang. Could you at least do some research before commenting against an article? and I'm pretty sure god didn't make his chair.
What a stupid argument, so if another planet arbiting another star exists, that proves there is no God… there are hundreds of billions stars, the probability of such a thing is plausible and that dont proves nothing but God creates whatever he wants… and Isaac Newton's view still accurate… our universe could not have created personal beings ( loving, rational, conscious, moral, and motivated by one goal) without our environment being so [personal], because it does not match, and it would be as if nature gave birth to a fish when it does not contain water.
What if the 'laws of physics' were and aspect of God? What if they were what St. John's Gospel calls the "Word"? Is not the "Word" a metaphor for energy and creative impulse? Are not the laws of physics 'something' which makes the ex nihilo theory invalid?
What a brilliant man. It's too bad there's only a select few that find this man's reasoning amazing! How is that so!?!? Stop living in a box people!!! Stop worrying about God!!!! I wish the concept was never introduced to humans. We might have been able to fast-forward our evolution a few thousand years if we didn't spend a thousand of them killing ourselves in his name. Because that's all we do with the faith we believe in. Try to pass it off to others. And if they don't accept it, we kill them for it. The sad nature of humans. We're not meant to create interstellar travel yet. We're too stupid to know what to do with it. That is unless we destroy ourselves first. And why? Because, We. Love. GOD!!!
Ok there are a few things here that should be obvious. however seemingly they aren't.
Muslim is right just because there is more than one, even more than a billion other worlds out there that orbit other suns, doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. That's irrational logic. In fact nothing that the scientific community today comes up with is countermanding the claims of those who believe in a Creator God. if anything it's just explaining how the universe looks.
So the universe is red shifting, what does that mean? it means that the universe is expanding. So what does that mean? it means that the universe exploded out from a single point. Uh… no it doesn't. Red shifting means that the universe is expanding, it DOESN'T prove the Big Bang.
Seeing as this argument is always thrown against God, that being "If God created the Universe, then where did God come from?" Well i can answer that, God exists outside of the Universe, outside of the Universe there is no time, we know this because of the way time and mass react to speed. So where there is no mass, (mass as defined to the Laws of physics of this universe) then there is no time. Which means that God is eternal, and that which has no end, does not require a beginning.
So lets spin that around, ok, Big Bang, where did that come from? Sub quantum particles. Where did they comes from? Uh…
Something cannot come from nothing. That is fact. Quantum mechanics suggest that there are events that can cause random effects in sub quantum particles to become energy and mass. It appears to be something from nothing, but there was something there in the first place, that for the most part is undetectable.
So where did this one superdense particle come from that through random quantum fluctuation, become the Universe?
Now as for Anon who posted on SEP 9, 2010 at 2:45:00PM, you are also talking some nonsense there. Actually I think it's you who have been living in a box. Lets equate your statements with that of someone who believes in God and the 6 day creation.
You call Steven Hawking an Amazing Man, they call Jesus an Amazing Man, (on top of that he's the Son of God)
You wish the concept of God had never been introduced to mankind, they wish Abiogenesis had never been introduced to man kind.
You say that all religion does is cause people to kill for what they believe in, I could counter that argument with the sheer number of charities and community works projects that the christian community have a hand in, but I'll stick to your ignorant view, and say that science is all about Eugenics, destroying the environment and building weapons for those who believe in religions to fight better.
On top of that people who believe in god try to pass off their beliefs to others, which is nothing like what scientists do, when they contort the truth to make it sound like the existence of God is impossible.
Destroying our selves will only come about if technology raises weapons to such a level, that would be in the realms of science I believe. I do agree with one thing though, you are too stupid to go into space!
Andy,
Yes, there are charities. Yes they help. But I'm looking at a much larger picture. Hawking is an amazing man, and I can call him amazing because I can actually read "his" actual writings. I didn't come to the conclusion that he's amazing because some guy wrote what he said in a cave in a much different language that was later translated by thousands of people and later edited many times to make it so I believed he was amazing.
What you know about God and Jesus has been taught to your from a book that was written by people who "knew" Jesus two thousand years ago… You really think it hasn't changed since then? You call me ignorant? I assume you're a Christian because you brought up Christianity and not any of the other religions that exist on our planet. So a question to you would be, who do you think is right? Do you believe Christianity is right because your Bible tells you so? Is that enough proof for you to come to the conclusion that God created everything? Or is it just easier for you to accept it and move on with your life until you die?
Yes, I agree, science could potentially kill us all in the future. Or it could save us, it depends on who's doing what and for what cause.
But religion has and always will be the one of main reasons we have war. Not the only reason, but one of them. "My faith is right, yours is wrong, lets kill each other since we don't know how to sit down and realize that maybe everything we're reading in our really old book might be irrelevant and could potentially be false. But we can't question our book, because it's 'forbidden' so lets just die for what we believe in because when we die, God will be happy that we 'sacrificed' ourselves in his name."
The beauty of science is that it's allowed to be wrong. The problem with religion is that it must always be right. Until that changes, we will never progress forward.
Do you think your smart enough to go to space because you believe God created the universe? Really? What would you tell an alien who lives billions of light years away? "Hi alien, by the way, did you know God created the Universe? Yes, we humans have figured it all out! We have a book written by monks! It explains everything! Oh and also we were created in his image, so you're pretty much imperfect and were a trial run before he really knew what he was doing…" Come on man.
And for my last point. If God is soooo perfect, why did it take him so long to finally create a human being? And why 6 days? And why did he rest on the 7th? He's God!!!! Why does he rest??? Did he need a drink? Or wait… I forgot, God is 'outside' of the universe, he doesn't have water…. interesting… You see what I'm doing here? Questioning…. That is what science is all about. But I bet inside you're burning up with rage right now because you're so mad at my ignorant views that God is maybe a figment of the human imagination, just like santa and the tooth fairy.
BTW, he explained how the Universe was created in the article above. Read before posting. And just because he wrote it, doesn't mean I believe it! It just means were questioning what we don't know, and unfortunately what you don't know as well.
Andy- Hawking is an amazing man, and I can call him amazing, because I can actually read "his" actual writings. I didn't come to the conclusion that he's amazing because some guy wrote what he said in a cave in a much different language that was later translated by thousands of people and later edited many times to make it so I believed he was amazing.
What you know about God and Jesus has been taught to your from a book that was written by people who "knew" Jesus two thousand years ago… You really think it hasn't changed since then? You call me ignorant?
Yes, I agree, science could potentially kill us all in the future. Or it could save us, it depends on who's doing what and for what cause.
But religion has and always will be the one of main reasons we have war. Not the only reason, but one of them. "My faith is right, yours is wrong, lets kill each other since we don't know how to sit down and realize that maybe everything we're reading in our really old book might be irrelevant and could potentially be false. But we can't question our book, because it's 'forbidden' so lets just die for what we believe in because when we die, God will be happy that we 'sacrificed' ourselves in his name."
The beauty of science is that it's allowed to be wrong. The problem with religion is that it must always be right. Until that changes, we will never progress forward.
Do you think your smart enough to go to space because you believe God created the universe? Really? What would you tell an alien who lives billions of light years away? "Hi alien, by the way, did you know God created the Universe? Yes, we humans have figured it all out! We have a book written by monks! It explains everything! Oh and also we were created in his image, so you're pretty much imperfect and were a trial run before he really knew what he was doing…" Come on man.
And for my last point. If God is soooo perfect, why did it take him so long to finally create a human being? And why 6 days? And why did he rest on the 7th? He's God!!!! Why does he rest??? Did he need a drink? Or wait… I forgot, God is 'outside' of the universe, he doesn't have water…. interesting… You see what I'm doing here? Questioning…. That is what science is all about. But I bet inside you're burning up with rage right now because you're so mad at my ignorant views that God is maybe a figment of the human imagination, just like santa and the tooth fairy.
BTW, he explained how the Universe was created in the article above. Read before posting. And just because he wrote it, doesn't mean I believe it! It just means were questioning what we don't know, and unfortunately what you don't know as well.
Hawking is an amazing man, and I can call him amazing because I can actually read "his" actual writings. I didn't come to the conclusion that he's amazing because some guy wrote what he said in a cave in a much different language that was later translated by thousands of people and later edited many times to make it so I believed he was amazing.
Yes, I agree, science could potentially kill us all in the future. Or it could save us, it depends on who's doing what and for what cause.
But religion has and always will be the one of main reasons we have war. Not the only reason, but one of them. "My faith is right, yours is wrong, lets kill each other since we don't know how to sit down and realize that maybe everything we're reading in our really old book might be irrelevant and could potentially be false. But we can't question our book, because it's 'forbidden' so lets just die for what we believe in because when we die, God will be happy that we 'sacrificed' ourselves in his name."
The beauty of science is that it's allowed to be wrong. The problem with religion is that it must always be right. Until that changes, we will never progress forward.
Do you think your smart enough to go to space because you believe God created the universe? Really? What would you tell an alien who lives billions of light years away? "Hi alien, by the way, did you know God created the Universe? Yes, we humans have figured it all out! We have a book written by monks! It explains everything! Oh and also we were created in his image, so you're pretty much imperfect and were a trial run before he really knew what he was doing…" Come on man.
And for my last point. If God is soooo perfect, why did it take him so long to finally create a human being? And why 6 days? And why did he rest on the 7th? He's God!!!! Why does he rest??? Did he need a drink? Or wait… I forgot, God is 'outside' of the universe, he doesn't have water…. interesting… You see what I'm doing here? Questioning…. That is what science is all about. But I bet inside you're burning up with rage right now because you're so mad at my ignorant views that God is maybe a figment of the human imagination, just like santa and the tooth fairy.
The Old Testament doesn't really need to be called into question here but seeing as we're looking at the Bible as a whole, we may as well. The Old Testament has been verified through the Dead Sea scrolls. Even today the text is still accurate, despite all the "edits" that people keep claiming. Also to be chosen to make a copy of the Old Testament was considered a holy honor and only the most devout Jew would receive such an honor, they believed they were working with the true, Holy Word of God. We can trust the accuracy of these documents to be the same as when they were first ever put onto paper. in the words of R. Laird Harris: "We can now be sure that copyists worked with great care and accuracy on the Old Testament, even back to 225 B.C. . . . indeed, it would be rash skepticism that would now deny that we have our Old Testament in a form very close to that used by Ezra when he taught the word of the Lord to those who had returned from the Babylonian captivity."
Now the New Testament. There are over 4000 different Greek documents, that contain complete or partial New Testament writings from the time they were first written, these texts have been dated to previous 180AD, though most are between 180AD and 220AD. The Oldest known fragment that we have is from 130AD. These pieces as well as over 8,000 copies that have been translated shortly after this time, all match up, and match up with today's Bible, despite all the "edits".
Extra biblical documents that exist from as far back as before 100AD, making it less than 70 years after the death of Christ, show the use of thousands of quotes from the Bible, proving that even if a completed Bible as we know it today was not in circulation, the independent books were, and the texts we have today, are accurate to those documents.
Sir Frederic G. Kenyon once said of the New Testament: "The interval, then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."
Also B. Westcott and F. Hort commented in their book "The New Testament in Original Greek": "If comparative trivialities such as changes of order, the insertion or omission of the article with proper names, and the like are set aside, the works in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly mount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament."
What they are saying is, the minor changes that occur when when translation is done, and the addition or omission of inaccuracies such as names and places, does not change the message that it conveys.
I would like to continue this but it's 2:30AM here (I'm in Australia) and I need to get some rest. If this information hasn't sated your trolling instincts, then please continue. Regardless of what your response is, I may or may not continue this, I haven't decided if it's worth it.
First of all, I apologize for the numerous posts above. I was trying to edit based on character count since this page was giving me errors, looks like it posted anyway.
Second of all. You missed my point completely. Dead Sea scrolls, scholars proving facts, wonderful. But, my point was that I find this man amazing because I can read "his" exact words. They were written by him, not someone quoting him. He exists in "time" in the "universe" and I can actually learn from "him." If Jesus or God (in some religions, they are one) actually "wrote" the book. Word for word, then I would reconsider. If God snapped his fingers, and there was a Bible, then I would at least consider some of the writings to be fact. But man has a way of changing facts and ideas, and given the length of time the book has been around, it's hard for me to believe anything it says. Curse me, damn me, call me names, insult me, but that is my opinion. The Devil hasn't made me think this way, I am not possessed, I am simply a human being accepting the fact that I know nothing of my existence except the fact that my parents got together, had a good time, and now here I am. Anything else beyond that is what people have tried to teach and explain to me. And ultimately, it's our human right to choose whatever we want to believe. I just simply refuse to spend my entire life worrying about what's going to happen to me when I die. Seems like a waste of life to me.
Good day to you and I hope you find it possible to question some of the things around you. Just because you question your beliefs, does not mean you should believe in it any less. It should only allow you to live a life with a more open-mind about the world around you. I have my own theories on the creation of the universe, yet I live a happy life knowing I know nothing about it, and neither do you or anybody else on this planet. We are a very small spec in a very large space. And whether our Earth destroys itself, Jesus comes to save it, or Hell breaks loose and demons roam the planet. The Sun will still shine, the Solar System will still spin, the Galaxy will still move, and the Universe will still expand. None of its mechanics depend on what will happen on Earth.
Yeah sorry about that, I discovered the same issues after I had finished posting mine too.
Like I had said in the last paragraph, i was thinking of continuing this further, but I was addressing the singular point that what was written back then when Jesus was alive, or shortly after his death, is the same as what we have now, no edits have been made to the Christian Bible.
I have no intentions of forcing you to believe anything, I like a scientist must place my position forward, and if it strikes a chord with you, then it's up to you to peruse it. To address your second statement in the above post though, this is like saying that you won't read a Biography unless it's an Autobiography. It's poor tactics to talk about inspiration of the spirit and infallibility due to the fact that if God were all powerful, he wouldn't allow anything in His book that He didn't want there, but as someone who believes in God before the Bible, I by extension trust the words of the Bible. This doesn't mean that I don't question the teachings, and a number of times I have thought that I didn't like some of the teachings, despite accepting them as the Word of God. However despite whether I like the teachings or agree with them, the answers I find often bring me closer to God, and if at first it seems that it's pushing me away, eventually the teachings will come full circle and draw me in again. Often the teachings will work like a test or challenge. I like any other human, am still human, I have had doubts, I've swayed from time to time, and I wasn't brought up a Christian, which makes it hard for me as I was brought up believing something that I now consider wrong. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have done things that are against what I believe, but that's being human. Not possessed or a devil worshiper. There are three powers at work, Good, Evil and Man. Man tends to do enough evil on his own without the intervention of the Devil.
Crusades, Jihad, they all claim to be doing Gods work, but just because a War is fought in Gods name, doesn't mean it's God's fault, that it's what God wants, or that it's got anything to do with the religion in the first place. The crusades are a good example. Catholic higher ups, decided they wanted to sack Jerusalem, they convinced Catholic kings and knights to stand against Saladin, but the majority of their fighters were criminals taken from the prisons and dungeons, promised a place in heaven if they fought, by Catholic priests. There is no where in the Bible, that any of these teaching or promises can be made by a man, are stated. It's more akin to older pagan practices. On top of that, it's just plain wrong and deceitful. It was man's doing, maybe there was a little Devil whispering in their ears at the time, but it was men that made the decision.
Finally, it's not my place to condemn you or curse you, and it's not in my nature to insult you. If you were insulted by my comments I'm sorry, I did not mean anything I said to be taken that way. I bid you a good day and a prosperous life, and hope that you find whatever truth you are looking for. I believe more than anything, if someone is genuinely searching for truth then they will find it. I believe that truth is God and Christ, I may be right I may be wrong. I'd like to hope I'm right for my own sake, because spending my life worrying about what happens eternally seems far more of a concern than resigning to the belief that what I do here is temporary and will amount to nothing more than me becoming worm food. If I'm a Christian and I am wrong at least I've lived a good life. If I'm an atheist and I'm wrong, then… well, having a good time for 75 years on earth seems all insignificant compared to eternity of torment doesn't it?
so Andy Frogman,
You are assuming that atheists cannot live a good life. How patronising! Also, if you are a Christian and you are wrong, you fail to address the fact that you will have lived your whole life by false instruction and that you may get an eternity to regret it.
Also, I wasn't aware that God sends people to heaven based on the balance of the their entire life's beliefs!
"why our universe has laws of physics?"
In the "End" Every knee shall bow before God. The "Believers and the "Unbelievers" as well. Someone who has lived a life in Mr Hawkins condition it would be easy to be resentful and dismiss the Almighty.But compare the length of our lifetime to the length of eternity. Our subatomic existance whether good or bad is nothing compared to what is to come. For we are ethernal beings the choices that we make determines if we are seated in "smoking" or "non-smoking" If I may ask Mr Hawkin's this riddle. "What is LIFE?" "Where does LIFE come from?" and "Where does life return?" Even Einstein knew- hehehe KNOWS Energy only transfers from one state to another. And YES God did make his wheelchair because he made the people that built it as well as all the materials it is composed of as well as the forces that bind it together. Our time here is growing shorter day by day everyone reading this can feel it! That the time for mankind's overall dismisal of God is growing shorter by the second since we are living under"God's Grace." Everyone has been given a chance to know him. After living a life in a wheel chair NOTHING could be worse that spending eternity in a far Hellish condition. Which is the "Eternal Separation from God" Not by God's choice by by our own choice. Whether to Believe in Yaweh God the Father and in Jesus Christ. Jesus as God's Son sent to save us from ourselves thru the most ultimate act of Love mankind has ever known!
you ^ are fucking retarded.
Brainwashing is a horrible thing, and this man, Randal is so single minded it's sickening.
How do we know "God" isn't gravity, the tie that binds all things together, that dark matter we say is there but can not see?
That’s his opinion. My opinion: God created mankind to think freely and invent things to make life better. Instead, we invent things to make life better for a few and leave the rest insignificant. Also, to make stupid comments about how God doesn’t exist, and God didn’t create the universe.
Brainwashing is a horrible thing, and this man, Randal is so single minded it's sickening.