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Stephen Hawking in ‘The Grand Design’: God did not create the universe

Michael Sheridan
Posted: September 2, 2010.
Published: September 2nd 2010.

Print: NYDailyNews.com

When it came to the creation of the Universe, God just wasn’t necessary.

That’s the conclusion renowned scientist Stephen Hawking has made in his latest tome, “The Grand Design,” set to hit book sellers next week.

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going,” Hawking writes, according to an excerpt featured in London’s The Times.

The Big Bang was a natural event which would have happened without the help or involvement of God, he argues.

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Comments (18)

Spontaneous creation now that is an oxymoron par excellence. Natural event? There is no such thing as a natural event without an underlying cause or meaning. All appearances have meanings contrary to what the religious and materialists state as reality. A so-called natural event is an effect and a materialist paradigm will always confuse an effect with a cause.

The intellectual genius of a Paul Davies or a Steven Hawkins is centered on the effect or the appearance and not on the underlying cause of the perfection of the effect. Mathematical formulas stretched across blackboards that work out to perfection have an underlying reality. Their focus and attention is treating this mathematical perfection as the cause and not the effect is like a fish attempting to discover if something like water exists.

These materialistic “fishes” have been told that indeed something of great value to their existence exists called water by the fish that are called great mystics but the fish cannot find this water however hard they look. They finally ridicule these mystics and accuse them of hallucinations and state this thing called water is nonexistent.

The underlying perfection of mathematics due to the intelligence of “ infinite” is hidden from the view of the intellect. It matters not if the seeker is religious or a scientist that underlying reality of appearance is unknowable to the intellect. The very statement the universe is created from nothingness as a natural event does not pass the simplest of logic tests but logic can be overwhelmed by a materialistic or religious paradigm.

The materialist states: but these people have great scientific minds therefore we must conclude they are correct when they state something like a natural event comes from nothing. That is religion when we follow the person. I.e. appearances, respect, worship, etc. The religious “privileged” of the world owe their control over the masses because of that very mentality. Likewise the intellectual “privileged” of the world owe their control over the materialists because of this mentality and the effect is scientism. Two sides of the same coin and neither the religious or the materialists have any idea of what I am writing.

In fact the follow up comments here will be personal attacks and name calling both based in doubt and not certainty. I.e. the materialistic fishes just doing their thing. grin)))))

posted on September 3, 2010
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come again?

posted on September 3, 2010
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Post #1 (“Researcher”) doesn’t appear to understand the scientific method. He also makes abundant use of straw-man arguments, which is to be expected because he sees the light and we’re all not only ignorant but also incapable of ever reaching his level of enlightenment. And he predicted he’d cause a reaction, how visionary!

Anyway.

This is only really a surprise to the general public. We can’t simply apply magic willy-nilly to answer questions about the universe. Duh.

posted on September 3, 2010
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Oh, researcher.  Are there any other sites you troll w this “I’m the only one who REALLY understands” stuff?

posted on September 3, 2010
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We humans are an interesting species.

First up we have those that believe in a personal God. A God made in the image of man. A God that is a jealous God, a God that has chosen people and nations, a God that even has its chosen people kill entire tribes and cities to make a place for its chosen people to locate, a God that is not only jealous but a wrathful God, a judgmental God, a God that does not take responsibility for its creation and when they screw up “he” demands atonement so this God that is “good all the time” sacrifices an only son on a torture device known as a cross that you must believe is God itself; if you have any chance of getting to heaven. A God that will send about 2/3 of its creation to hell for eternity, not a few years, or decades, or even centuries, but for eternity. Oh! a God that wants to be worshiped and lets the devil (a former angel that got power hungry like men tend to get) hang around and commit all its evil deeds and does not have to suffer the karma of its evil. As a Hindu monk told me God gives the devil a free pass with the karma thing.

posted on September 3, 2010
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Then we have the other side of the coin. This is known as the materialist or spontaneous creation side. Creation occurred as a spontaneous kaboom, lighting hit a mud puddle then some random variation, some mutated messed up genes were created. And we have an earth capable of providing a haven for living forms, even intelligence forms. Life has no purpose or meaning just a random occurrence in a cold dark uncaring universe that even supports mathematical calculations that are perfect in every detail. These random mutations keep occurring until we have these living breathing humans that even kill one another for their resources. Love and intelligence are just survival skills. Even faith is a survival skill and if we look long enough and have enough faith in our intellectual scientific abilities we will find a gene named faith. Matter breeds consciousness now we cannot find the center of that matter that creates consciousness but we will with enough time, but in the meantime this is not theory this must be treated as fact: Without the evidence of course. Who cares about such a sticky thing as evidence? There is no such thing as a paranormal event; those are just hallucinations and/or all are just liars. These materialist folks think their intellect is due to these random mutations but they love to project their intellect as superior to all other intellects. Better mutations I guess. From their point of view, them and them alone, have this thing called reasoning abilities.

Indeed this infinite whatever that does not exist for some but gives personal favors to others if his, not hers but his, rules are obeyed; this whatever holy being or nothingness has an interesting sense of humor. Take your pick which side of the coin looks best to you.

posted on September 3, 2010
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Good thing the postmodernists don’t actually put meaning in the jumble of words they spew.

posted on September 4, 2010
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In between downloading Mr Deity I thought I’d pop by and see the goo.

So Researchers back!

I don’t know what he expects. Yep, I think he’s absolutely right. Couldn’t be more so. He’s just fantastic, i’m in awe at how deftly he disposes of mankinds greatest minds and their feeble investigations of nature.

Just give me his philosophy on a plate - i’ll lap it up. Philosophy that tears down the foundations of others, but never questions its own assertions. Never asks whether it applies equally to itself as it would if valid to others. The nuclear bomb of philosophy. Yum Yum.

And give me more mystics, no not those peoples, or those, those ones over there. They’re my kind of mystics. Or wow, not even them, just mystical truth man….

More drugs please.

posted on September 6, 2010
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I’m new to posting in these forums.  Normally I would abstain, but I couldn’t help but notice the comments from “Researcher”.  Who could?

This question is for any regulars here familiar with his other posts.  I’m just curious: what is this person a researcher of?

Just curious…

posted on September 7, 2010
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10. MajorityofOne

Well, this is sad. I skipped right over “researcher” because I don’t read his/her drivel any more, but unfortunately the rest of the comments are about him/her!

Anyway, this is great news! A lot of religious types (intellectual religious types if that is not an oxymoron) have pulled Stephen Hawking’s sentence “thus we can know the mind of god” at the end of one of his books and used it as evidence that the"greatest mind alive today” is a believer. This should shut them up! Love it!! I know it won’t change their minds, but it will stop them from misquoting this lovely man.

posted on September 7, 2010
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Majority - loved your 1st paragraph.  Made me smile.

posted on September 7, 2010
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MajorityofOne,

    Very true. Oops.

  Anyway, i agree with your comment. SH has been grabbed by the talons of the quote miners. Its good to see him free’d.

posted on September 7, 2010
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It all comes down to this:
Either Life (God) existed before matter, or Matter existed before Life.
If religionists want to say the former, they had better come up with a new definition of Life!

posted on September 11, 2010
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S. G. Applebee

I like what your saying, but I imagine that they’d say they’ve been answering that for millennia and it is ‘God’.

Isn’t it strange that they will allow their God to have existed forever, but not any version of spacetime!

Given the einsteinian concept of spacetime, plus the way space and time might be interchangable as dimensions, plus the thermodynamic aspects of time, plus the perspective of time looking out compared to looking into universes in multi-universal theories I suspect their view of time is a little small.

Roll on more physics…. I like answering questions with answers, and not show-stoppers (no matter how many tongue twisters they are caged in).

posted on September 13, 2010
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15. Rick in toronto

Researcher Has Not Read The Book.

posted on September 17, 2010
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I just finished and enjoyed Hawking’s new book.  It’s no physics text, but that was the point.

My hope is this book can popularize the idea that science has at least a plausible alternative to supernatural answers to profound questions.

I personally prefer the holographic theories; a two dimensional universe of information with gravity and time as emergent properties.

However, the biggest challenge for any scientific perspective is the lack of an emotionally satisfying answer.

posted on September 19, 2010
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“Two sides of the same coin and neither the religious or the materialists have any idea of what I am writing.” - researcher

..true. i would even extend this claim, that even you don’t have “any idea of what [you are] writing”. the crux of what i think is your “argument” is that design is unknowable, and that unknowability is just cause for not discounting the arguments of so-called mystics. but, this is an unwarranted assertion at best and a tautology at worst.

my two-cents: religion as it has been historically encrypted paints a better picture of the evolution of politics, not the universe. i haven’t yet read the book, but i like hawking’s recourse to “occam’s razor” - if we inhabit a material world and we can locate material causes for various phenomena, the invocation of supernatural intermediaries is both unnecessary and highly distorting.

posted on September 21, 2010
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18. I_just_have_to_ask

Can somebody at least clarify which god or creation story is in play in this thread? It’s like everyone has mashed them all into one, but there are many. If we hope of meaningful dialectic, shouldn’t we be more explicit about the god perspective? The science perspective is, I presume, covered by Hawking. Can we at least start there?

posted on September 21, 2010
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