God didn't create universe, says Hawking

[Treffie]

Nothing really enlightening, but I though I'd post it anyway

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The universe was not created by God, scientist Stephen Hawking has said in his new book.

Professor Hawking believes the laws of physics were behind the Big Bang instead, in a challenge to traditional religious beliefs.

In The Grand Design, extracts of which were printed in The Times today, Prof Hawking concludes: "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.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow and published on September 9, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have created out of chaos.

He cites the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun.

"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 as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings."

Prof Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe, writing in A Brief History Of Time in 1988: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God

Source (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/god-didnt-create-universe-says-hawking-2068289.html)

[Eldritch]

I once started a thread in which I argued that puppies are cute. This books seems like the astrophysical equivalent of that. ;)

But let's wait to see what the book actually says. :)

[curiousman]

Universe did not create Hawking, says God

[Radojica]

Universe did not create Hawking, says God

This reminds me:

"God do not exist"- Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead"- God


:swl

[Liffrea]

sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have created out of chaos.

I think the clockwork universe has died a death anyway, quantum physics and complexity did that. Determinism is a pillar of classical physics, computability is not.

Personally I prefer the multiverse theory it would seem to answer the question reasonably well, though it is probably bunk as much of outer limits cosmology potentially is, some bunk is more reasonable, though.

[Murphy]

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," Hawking writes.

Where did gravity come from?

[Psychonaut]

It all depends upon how God is defined. If the universe is God, then its autogenesis and God's creating it cease to be at odds.

[Ibericus]

Where did gravity come from?
Where did God come from ?

[Megrez]

Where did gravity come from?
Perhaps from the same place where god came from?

[Debaser11]

First cause arguments are stupid.

[Psychonaut]

First cause arguments are stupid.

Why do you think so?

[Nodens]

In the end, the only possibilities are infinite regress or Cosmic Black Box.

[Psychonaut]

In the end, the only possibilities are infinite regress or Cosmic Black Box.

Or we could take ex nihilo nihil fit and the First Law of Thermodynamics seriously and just go with a universe with no beginning nor end. :shrug:

[Nodens]

Or we could take ex nihilo nihil fit and the First Law of Thermodynamics seriously and just go with a universe with no beginning nor end. :shrug:

More or less what I meant by 'Cosmic Black Box'. The fundamental forces simply are, or if there is a further level it is unobservable and therefore effectively unknowable.