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Leela
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When someone starts talking about “they” I brace myself for bigotry.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
What do you mean by bigotry? Is that word supposed to have some kind of objective truth value that we ought recognise?
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utah_rose
Guest
I was referring by “They” to many of the secular or atheistic scientists. I did not mean it to be a term of bigotry. Lighten up please.
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Holly3278
Guest
Stephen Hawking is clearly wrong. God created the Universe and that is a fact, not a myth or even a theory.
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Leela
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…and what you were saying about “them” is really what “they” all believe??? Some specific examples would better make your point whatever it is. I’m not convinced that any amorphous “they” believes what you say “they” believe. Most of the time spent on this forum seems to me to be beating up on straw men and patting one another on the back for not believing what “they” believe.
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Leela
Guest
That may be true (though I’m not so sure), but it is not relevant to science since it can’t help us to predict and to control. Hawking is making the point that a variable called “God” will never show up in any of his physics equations. It will never be scientific to appeal to such a concept in any scientific explanation since science is about coming up with a description that explains reality in terms of natural causes and effects. What Hawking doesn’t seem to recognize s that there is much more to life than doing science.
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4Horsemen
Guest
I think that both Sttephen Hawking and Fr. Robert Spitzer would be in agreement that a transcendence called God is beyond the realm of the empiracal methods of science. Hawking just doesn’t have the background in philosophy to deal with things metaphysical. However, Fr. Spitzer explains in his book that recent discoveries provide “implications of transcendence in astrophysics, philsophy of mathematics and metaphysics.”
He says that if there were an ultimate beginning, “then at one point, the universe was nothing, and then, it came into being.” He goes on to explain that there has to be a somethiing that is not part of the universe, a transcending cause.
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utah_rose
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Here are some specific examples: Carl Sagan, Physicist Victor Stenger, Dr. Darrel Ray, and Daniel Dennot. You will also find many secular athiestic scientists teaching in universities(you can just ask some students that are attending them). Add that to the surely non-God believing scientists who are performing experiments on embryo cells.
Hope this will help define “they” to you.
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coolduude
Guest
Just a question.
Why can’t gravity be eternal? Why can’t gravity be existence itself?
Why can’t gravity be eternal? Why can’t gravity be existence itself?
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4Horsemen
Guest
Here’s a good article that may provide an answer to the essence of the law of gravity:
winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/john-lennox-explains-whats-wrong-with-stephen-hawkings-theory/
"The law of gravity is just a mathematical equation that describes nature. Gravity is part of the natural world – it is a force of attraction between material objects. How can this force exist causally prior to the creation of all matter at t=0? It cannot. Self-creation is a self-refuting contradiction. For a thing to create itself, it would have to exist before it existed.
Maybe that passes for intelligent thought in the world of atheistic speculations, but not in the world of experimental science, which provides strong evidence for a Creation out of nothing, and a Design plan for the universe. Maybe this is just like Dawkins avoiding a debate with William Lane Craig – it’s not about seeking truth, it’s about book sales. It’s not like Hawking is going to subject his speculations to a public debate.
You can learn more about the argument for God’s existence from the creation of the universe in the Big Bang."
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coolduude
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Thanks for the link. I read through it but my question is still there. Why can’t gravity be the eternal force that explains its own existence? I’m still confused on this matter
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coolduude
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Bump
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Leela
Guest
I wonder if Hawking is physically capable of rolling his eyes.
If the question were really as simple as this, do you really think that Stephen Hawking just couldn’t get it because he doesn’t have a sufficient background in philosophy?
Can’t we agree that Hawking is not a complete moron?
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4Horsemen
Guest
He still manages to “write” books (through his associates I presume) and collect the revenue.
From what I’ve been reading on a few threads (in the little bit of spare time I have), it seems that Dr. Hawking is well-versed in his area of science but not in that aspect of philosophy known as metaphysics. In other words, he can’t see beyond the empirical thinking, or, at least he just wants to generate publicity to sell more books. I have a hunch that being an educated person, he’d have to have taken some philosophy courses. Yes, I agree that Hawking is not a “complete moron.” Despite his bodily breakdown, his mind is still astute, unless it’s Mlowdinow who is doing his thinking for him.
Dr. Hawking postulates the multiverse theory but with each universe having a different set of laws (and constants). This could well be, but then there would have to be a unifying set of laws to avoid a “cosmic slot machine.” Unfortunately, Stephen Hawking doesn’t admit the POSSIBILITY of a super Intelligence or Creator.
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Touchstone
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You know, I’ve read the whole book now (it’s annoyingly short!), and Hawking does allow the possibility of a creator God, and acknowledges that such a possibility cannot possibly be ruled out.
He does admit what you say he doesn’t admit. His view is that such an idea as a creator god, while impossible to dismiss, just isn’t necessary or indicated by the physics knowledge we have currently, when the subject is the creation of our universe. Even if the universe came to be as the result of impersonal physical dynamics, that does not entail that any enclosing context (a multiverse, if such obtains, for example) isn’t the work of a creator god.
-TS
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4Horsemen
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It’s always best to read the book before being critical of its supposed ideas. I watched the second half of “Larry King Live” (as well as reading others’ opinions) and didn’t get the impression that Dr. Hawking left any room for an outside intelligence. Although science and philosophy must remain separate studies to advance in their domains, I think there is that moment of truth that is revealed when scientists look beyond their various disciplines and catch a glimpse of the Divine.
Thanks for your take on the book.
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coolduude
Guest
BumpThanks for the link. I read through it but my question is still there. Why can’t gravity be the eternal force that explains its own existence? I’m still confused on this matter
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JDaniel
Guest
Gravity, though not hardly understood at all, is said to be related to space/time curvature. However, there was no space, or time, or curvature until after the beginning, either due to the big bang or some “collision of light and energy.” (per Vindictive) So, gravity would have to have been an exigency that created itself. But, how could it do that, if it didn’t already exist? It could not bring itself into existence without pre-existing itself, which is impossible.Thanks for the link. I read through it but my question is still there. Why can’t gravity be the eternal force that explains its own existence? I’m still confused on this matter
Also, the big bang occurred only a finite time ago.
Plus, nothingness dis-includes gravity. Nothingness really mean nothingness, not partial somethingness.
God bless,
jd
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JDaniel
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Touchstone
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Controversy sells books, of course. Saying “God is not needed to create universes” suggests the atheist’s theists, or works toward it. That Hawking allows that no such conjecture can disprove God (because nothing can) in his book is both secondary for book promotion, as well as a kind of given in all of these discussions. God is never disproven, just relegated to smaller and smaller and more esoteric and abstract parts of the picture. Marginalized.Then, what is all the a-do about?
God bless,
jd
That God cannot be disproved, though is a bit of a technical point; one of the historic anchors for God’s existence has been as what fills the gap in our knowledge of how the world came to be. He is the “God of the gap” for the origin of the universe, and this has been a very important gap for God to reside in, traditionally. Like the question of where the various species of animals came from, plausible (and even compelling) alternatives to the God-of-the-gaps reflex have made theistic intuitions less credible. Now, per Hawking, we have a theoretical model that looks to produce universes naturally, impersonally. God can still be invoked in the gap above that – who created the ‘multiverse’, then? – but nevertheless, the rhetorical and philosophical force of traditional appeals to God as creator of the universe get diminished.
And that offends many theistic sensibilities.
-TS
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