UPDATE: Stephen Hawking: Religious Leaders Dismiss His Claims of “No God” in the book “The Grand Design”
The Archbishop of Canterbury has indeed rejected the verdict by Stephen Hawking, the retired Cambridge scientist, that the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to create the Universe.
Dr Rowan Williams said “Belief in God is not about plugging a gap in explaining how one thing relates to another within the Universe. It is the belief that there is an intelligent, living agent on whose activity everything ultimately depends for its existence. Physics on its own will not settle the question of why there is something rather than nothing.”
Counterarguments also came from Vincent Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi and Ibrahim Mogra, a leading Imam and Muslim Council of Britain committee chairman.
“Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation … The Bible simply isn’t interested in how the Universe came into being,” quoted Lord Sacks. In “A Brief History of Time”, Prof Hawking’s most recognized work, he did not dismiss the potentiality that God had a hand in the creation of the world.
He wrote in the 1988 book: “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 new book he dismissed Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.
In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn’t believe that a “personal” God existed. He told Genius of Britain: “The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.”
Stephen Hawking “The Grand Design” says Universe Not Created By God But Big Bang.
Stephen Hawking, arguably the most intelligent mind of our time, has come out with a controversial new book, “The Grand Design”, and there are extracts which have the religious communities buzzing, if not down-right angry.
The religious leaders are upset, because Hawking claims that the Universe is created by no-one, and there is no proof otherwise. Granted, the leaders acknowledge this, and the faith that is required to accept this is warranted, they claim.
Hawking says, “In The Grand Design we explain why, according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence, or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. We question the conventional concept of reality, posing instead a “model-dependent” theory of reality.”
"We discuss how the laws of our particular universe are extraordinarily finely tuned so as to allow for our existence, and show why quantum theory predicts the multiverse–the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature."
"And we assess M-Theory, an explanation of the laws governing the multiverse, and the only viable candidate for a complete “theory of everything.”
As we promise in our opening chapter, unlike the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life given in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer we provide in The Grand Design is not, simply, “42.”
"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.
In Stephen Hawking's latest book, The Grand Design, there is an extract of which is published in The Times, Hawking said: “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.”
"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.
One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics. [Stephen Hawking, Black Holes & Baby Universes]
The concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe?
He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988),
He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking’s most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.
He wrote in the 1988 book: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God. God not only plays dice. He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen ”
In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.
In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn’t believe that a “personal” God existed. He told Genius of Britain: “The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.”
Until his retirement last year Prof Hawking was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Newton.
The “The Grand Design” is due to go on sale next week., co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, and is published on September 9.
Stephen Hawking New Book: ‘The Grand Design’ To Hit Shelves In … Stephen Hawking’s first major new work in nearly a decade is due out in September. Bantam Dell said Monday that “The Grand …
The Grand Design By Stephen Hawking And Leonard Mlodinow – Science … Science News: the bi-weekly news magazine of the Society for Science & the Public.
Stephen Hawking book ‘The Grand Design’ out in September … Stephen Hawking hasn’t had a major new work in nearly a decade. This September he’ll release ‘The Grand Design.’
Stephen Hawking: God did not create the Universe | Mail Online The universe was not created by God, scientist Stephen Hawking has said in his … In The Grand Design, extracts of which were printed today, Prof Hawking …
Stephen Hawking in ‘The Grand Design’: God did not create the universe When it came to the creation of the Universe, God just wasn’t necessary. That’s the conclusion renowned scientist Stephen Hawking has made …
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In “The Grand Design” Stephen Hawking postulates that the M-theory may be the Holy Grail of physics…the Grand Unified Theory which Einstein had tried to formulate and later abandoned. It expands on quantum mechanics and string theory.
In my e-book on comparative mysticism is a quote by Albert Einstein: “…most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty – which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive form – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of all religion.”
Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is probably the best known scientific equation. I revised it to help better understand the relationship between divine Essence (spirit), matter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and consciousness (fx raised to its gratest power). Unlike the speed of light, which is a constant, there are no exact measurements for consciousness. In this hypothetical formula, basic consciousness may be of insects, to the second power of animals and to the third power the rational mind of humans. The fourth power is suprarational consciousness of mystics, when they intuit the divine essence in perceived matter. This was a convenient analogy, but there cannot be a divine formula.