Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?

reply to post by Parallex

Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?

Hawking is no more apt to perfection than anyone else.

Logic... the ability to reason is a good thing because it allows us to think about things that would otherwise elude us. But his conclusions are no better than yours or mine, especially when it comes to weighing the question of the divine.

If anything, they may be even less reliable.

If it can't be counted, measured and quantified, then it doesn't play a part in his equation. So, if God does exists, there is a factor that will be missed and an answer that is incomplete.

It's funny in a way because disbelief in God requires as much a leap of faith as believing.

Hawking just leaped.

EDIT: typos







[edit on 5-9-2010 by redoubt]

reply to post by redoubt


Nor is anyone in a position to theorise a God.

Occam's razor, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume God is omnipotent, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume there is a being who has created it all, and to assume that something needs a creator.

When people say God they really just mean reality, the laws of gravity, or the theory of relativity, the magical mathematics apparent in our universe.

If God DOES EXIST, it will be nothing like the man made description of him, it would be something much more grander, much more intelligent, who's to say "GOD" has feelings or expectations.

Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[edit on 5/9/10 by awake_and_aware]

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
Occam's razor, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume God is omnipotent, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume there is a being who has created it all, and to assume that something needs a creator.

I'm not sure that's strictly true.

Surely, Occam's razor can only be used if there are competing hypotheses that try to explain the same idea ?

In this instance there are no genuine hypotheses that can adequately explain existence using empirical data, there are only really some extremely theoretical ideas such as ''design'' and ''chance''.

Everything you cite there; such as an omnipotent God, the universe being created, are all human made concepts that have polar opposite human made definitions, that are just as much ''unnecessary assumptions''.

An idea that the universe doesn't need to be created, is just as much an assumption as the idea that it does, based on the evidence that we have ( ie. none ).

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


That's what i'm saying though, we DON'T KNOW.

So to say God exists or even say he (or it) is like what is depicted in any of the religions is merely a guess, a guess without empirical evidence. I can assume that these Gods have been made up.

We don't know if the universe was created within a sea of other universes, so even suggesting there is a God is an unnessary assumption until we have evidence.

[edit on 5/9/10 by awake_and_aware]

reply to post by awake_and_aware

Occam's razor, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume God is omnipotent, it's an unnessasary assumption to assume there is a being who has created it all, and to assume that something needs a creator.

when you spend years looking for God and eventually find yourself face to face with a beingness that is infinite intelligence that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent that's when the B.S. that is occam's razor gets entirely tossed out the window.

Thankfully we have individuals throughout antiquity all the way up to the modern day that have accounts of such meetings with the Source of all things.

reply to post by dominicus


What is the difference between those who say they have spoke to the infinite, omnipotent intelligence and source of all things which is God....and someone who says that he spoke to a magical man leopard called Robinson? Both have no evidence for their existence so we can only rely on the persons word...Unless of course you would believe both of these accounts...although im relatively sure you would call one of these people insane.

[edit on 5-9-2010 by Solomons]

Well, you cant have 'nothing' because 'nothing' means just that, which includes no potential for anything to ever happen. Which leaves us with 'something' that stretches back 'always'

Now, whether that something was concious or if conciousness evolved from it is another question, but you can be sure that us, as concious beings, want ourselves and conciousness to survive and exist so its reasonable to assume that, if at anytime in the future we can go back in time, that we will and we will ensure that the universe evolves to be the most suitable place to nurture conciousness (which it appears to be).

Coincidental maybe that 'existence' and 'conciousness' can be seen as very similar states of being.

Also (if the big bang theory is true, and i'm not sure it is) we have the possibility that, in an ever increasingly short length of time as we go 'backwards, we get an increasing density of energy doing increasingly more energetic stuff. So that state of (approaching) infinite energy and no time gives the possibility that the whole of everything became concious and choose to expand into a universe that could allow matter (or existence itself) to, well, er...exist for the longest possible time.

So it's 'as if' the universe came from and is some sort of concious entity that just wants to exist (a bit like us really)

reply to post by awake_and_aware

Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Actually, that is completely false. There is nothing that exists that is extraordinary and nothing that is ordinary that requires an extraordinary amount of evidence to be proven true.

That old saying? It's hogwash from both a scientific and logical standpoint and holds no water in any debate.

reply to post by redoubt


Not really "false" at all.

Extraordinary claim: i can fly without vehicular aid.

Extraordinary evidence: Me, flying without vehicular aid.

Extraordinary claim: God is omnipotent, intervenes in human affairs and the bible is the true word of the God; the creator of the universe.

Extraordinary evidence: yet to be provided.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by redoubt

 

Not really "false" at all.

Extraordinary claim: i can fly without vehicular aid.

Extraordinary evidence: Me, flying without vehicular aid.

Extraordinary claim: God is omnipotent, intervenes in human affairs and the bible is the true word of the God; the creator of the universe.

Extraordinary evidence: yet to be provided.

Think about that... even as an example.

If you can fly without vehicular aid, then simply do so. If you can, then what more does the world require?

As for the rest... there is no such thing as magic or anything so miraculous that it can't be explained with the proper understanding of the mechanics. God may be real and I do think He is... but not as anything more than perhaps the greatest scientist in the universe.

Nothing unreal can exist. nothing that exists is extraordinary. Nothing that is ordinary requires anything extraordinary in the way of proof.

You want to convince the world you can fly? Strip nekked and float your butt off a cliff in front of James Randi. You will be believed and be richer too.

Nothing extraordinary about that until the party that follows.

EDIT: typo

[edit on 5-9-2010 by redoubt]

reply to post by redoubt


Sorry i'll restate my claim.

Extraordinary claim: I can fly but only when no person is looking

Extraordinary evidence: I can't prove it to you.

Extraordinary claim: Did you know that this super special cosmic dictator created the universe? Here's the rules on how to live your life, they are the truth.

Extraordinary evidence: I can't prove it to you.

What i'm saying is "GOD" is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. It cannot be proved, therefore any claim made about it has been thought of without any evidence or reasoning to believe that.

In the words of Tim Minchin:-

And if anyone can show me one example in the entire history of the world of a single Spiritual or religious person who has been able to show either empirically or logically the existence of a higher power with any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for there moral choices or that there is any reason - other than fear - to believe in any version of an afterlife....I’ll give you my piano, one of my legs, and my wife

reply to post by awake_and_aware

Extraordinary claim: I can fly but only when no person is looking

Extraordinary evidence: I can't prove it to you.

Extraordinary claim: Did you know that this super special cosmic dictator created the universe? Here's the rules on how to live your life, they are the truth.

Extraordinary evidence: I can't prove it to you. What i'm saying is "GOD" is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. It cannot be proved, therefore any claim made about it has been thought of without any evidence or reasoning to believe that.

Actually, your flying example is completely different than the God assertion.

There is nothing extraordinary about claiming to fly when no one is looking. In fact, it is so unextraordinary that I'd wager that no one really cares enough to ask for your proof...ordinary or otherwise.

If you can fly when no one is looking, more power to you. Have a blast. But, if you learn to do it for an audience, send me a text.

Like that.

As for God... this is all about knowledge. If humanity had the deep know-how to manipulate energy and matter, God might not seem so extraordinary. UFOs become old school once you decipher the mechanics. Raising someone from the dead would be equally mundane if we knew how to redirect the thought/energy and reanimate a body. But we don't so therefore, even as it is nothing special in the grand order of things, it is magic... and extraordinary to us.

Hey, I (really) have a dog that knows how to say 'i want water'... he's an 8-year-old poodle.

Do you believe me? Is that an extraordinary claim? If so, what besides my dog clearly enunciating that phrase do you need? A writ from the Almighty?

Again and finally, nothing exists that is unreal and nothing real is any more ordinary than anything else that is real. Proof is as simple as understanding.

Extraordinary is an excuse for a lack of comprehension. We are held in awe by those things we cannot immediately wrap our brains around. We suspend disbelief by way of faith or disbelieve and demand more than proof.

We really are pretty silly sometimes.

c ya

[edit on 5-9-2010 by redoubt]

oh, c'mon people,

scientists theorize how the life came into existence, but when they have to prove it with laboratory experiments...

THEY FAIL

no scientist ever created life from basic elements in laboratory

and yet they act like they know who/what/whatever created life/universe in the first place


sorry to say that, but that's very arrogant behaviour



[edit on 5-9-2010 by donhuangenaro]

Originally posted by donhuangenaro

no scientist ever created life from basic elements in laboratory

No, but give then a billion planets and a billion years, they will.

Why do you assume scientist to be so much better than nature?

reply to post by Solomons

What is the difference between those who say they have spoke to the infinite, omnipotent intelligence and source of all things which is God....and someone who says that he spoke to a magical man leopard called Robinson? Both have no evidence for their existence so we can only rely on the persons word...Unless of course you would believe both of these accounts...although im relatively sure you would call one of these people insane.

The difference is that we don't have thousands of accounts of people meeting this robinson character.

What we do have is thousands if not hundreds of thousands of accounts of people having experienced this omnipresent intelligent beingness. They say it takes a change of perspective, meditation, and a whole vast array of techniques to get to that meeting ...

So thats the cool part ....we have had people who took on being Spiritual Scientists and checked for themselves whether such a Being exists and found that to be true.

On the other side we have those who haven't checked themselves arguing that there isn't such a beingness.

There is just way too many individuals across cultures, generations, and continents that have taken the plunge and found this being to be true and yet this is the first time I'm hearing about this Robinson Leopard Man.

Originally posted by donhuangenaro
oh, c'mon people,

scientists theorize how the life came into existence, but when they have to prove it with laboratory experiments...

THEY FAIL

no scientist ever created life from basic elements in laboratory

and yet they act like they know who/what/whatever created life/universe in the first place


sorry to say that, but that's very arrogant behaviour

[edit on 5-9-2010 by donhuangenaro]

Totally agree with you here.

The Hawkins and the Dawkins always have a problem with the word God. The reason is that this word means different things to different people. This violates their notion that something is either black or white; there cannot be a grey area for these people. So they would rather dispense with the word God and remove it entirely from the dictionary.

I have intelligence and so does every human being. If there is no God it is only because we are , collectively, God. It is the old concept of eastern religions - the divine spark in all of us.

Now, man can maniputale the elements. The elements (physics) obey a universal law. We only have to tweak that law a little bit in order to achieve a magical feat. Poor physics can only obey the law; man can manipulate it. Thanks to the predictability of physics common man has empowered himself - from the early days of making fire to the modern day of Information technology.

Poor physics always obliges and always reacts in the same way. If you did the same laboratory experiment a million times , you would get the same results. That's physics for you. But if you change the variables and components you get a different result. Not that physics is capable of this, it is more a case that physics has to follow the blueprint and produce the only result the system will allow. And who created the system ?

Science has a lot to answer for and is responsible for the extremely slow pace of our development. Had we learned to use all our faculties, instead of using only the left side of the brain and boxing everything, we would probably be taking our spouse and kids around the galaxy every sunday by now. Science kills the god aspect in us. Luckily Quantum Mechanics is now emerging and may save us from the mad/blind and bad scientists.

Originally posted by 19872012the UK is essentially mostly atheist

This isn't actually correct ( at least if all the polls complied on this subject are accurate ).

All the major polls over the last ten years indicate that the majority of Britons are non-religious, but not atheist.

That is to say, that under 50% of Britons profess to follow a religion, but belief in God or higher power consistently scores between 50%-70% in all the polls conducted in the UK, while the percentage of people that identify themselves as atheist falls between 15-20%.


[edit on 5-9-2010 by Sherlock Holmes]

Originally posted by Essan

Originally posted by donhuangenaro

no scientist ever created life from basic elements in laboratory

No, but give then a billion planets and a billion years, they will.

Why do you assume scientist to be so much better than nature?

I don't, and that was my point... the nature is creating life from scratch every nanosecond and scientists are making theories how it is done every nanosecond (without any laboratory proof, they didn't make even a one-cell-creature, like amoeba alive from scratch)

so, who has godlike powers here... the nature which creates life this moment, or the scientist who theorize and theorize and theorize?

nature created scientists (and consequently everything else) in the first place, so who is smarter, who has the godlike powers I ask you?

the answer is logical and easy for open minded

are you open minded?

Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
I tend to steer clear of these ''God exists/God doesn't exist'' 20-page borefests, but...

As far as I can see what Professor Hawking says is just as illogical as those that say that ''God must have created the universe, there's no other option that makes sense !''.

What Professor Hawking is doing, is voicing his personal opinion, and not a scientific one.

The truth is that none of us know how or what is required for the universe's existence, and I personally believe that the actual explanation will be unfathomable for the current human brain.

It's probably impossible for humans to make sense of the universe and existence, so why bother speculating one's own personal, ignorant opinion ?

You are so spot on. We humans are so arrogant that we think that all our hi tech toys such as iphones suddenly bestow us with a massive enlightenement and we know the origins of the universe, matter, the meaning of life, etc.

Well, we have merely scratched the surface and our intelligence compared to other species out there is probably similar to comparing an ants intelligence to ours (actually ants are pretty smart! Sorry ants!).

We hardly know anything at all, yet we are so arrogant and cock-sure that we are capable of destroying ourselves and our planet through our sheer stupidity. Therefore for Hawking or anyone else to proclaim about God or the origins of physics is absurd to an incredible level of stupidity.

For one thing, Hawking did NOT dismiss the option of God creating the universe, her merely stated that He didn't necessarily have to be involved.

And I kind of agree with him. I watched a science show once about bubble chambers.

There are instances when a particle is blasted in a bubble chamber, that the mass of the resulting particles is MORE than the mass of the original particle. This phenomenon lasts so briefly that it took scientists ages to figure it out. "Extra" particles that contribute to the mass increase very quickly fizzle out back into where-ever they came from. These are obviously on a very small scale so they don't last very long.

Which means you CAN get something from nothing, even if for a very brief amount of time.

So if we bring this up to a Cosmic scale, logically if the physics holds, it is possible that our 'universe' did pop out of 'nothing' and is lasting a proportionate amount of time considering the size.

This hypothesis of mine relieves the cognitive dissonance I experience when trying to rationalize a being bigger than a universe existing BEFORE the universe, creating the universe..

The God hypothesis has to answer the question 'who created God' before we can get anywhere with these arguments successfully.

[edit on 2010/9/5 by juniperberry]