Posted on 05/27/2016 8:56:34 PM PDT by amessenger4god
Stephen Hawking, smarter and wiser than many of his colleagues, admits the obvious - that the probability of our universe supporting life is infinitesimally small. His anything-but-God workaround is simply to propose a near infinite number of universes to solve the problem - if the probability of biological life coming into existence in our universe via purely natural mechanisms is next to nil (which it is) than throw a few septillion parallel universes into the mix and eventually one or two might generate life. Out of those literally countless universes we just happen to be lucky enough to have been born into the right universe. He also Of course there is a much simpler explanation: God. There is no simpler explanation than a self-existent and all-powerful God. Occam's Razor in action.
Hawking also proposes in The Grand Design that laws such as the laws of gravity are evidence that something can come from nothing, yet he is disingenuous to his readers at best, because his "nothing" is definitely not what most of us think of when we think of "nothing". His "nothing" is the spontaneous generation of different universes within an all-encompassing multiverse.
Suppose for a moment that Hawking's "multiverse" hypothesis is correct. Popular superstring theories posit at least 11 total dimensions. Choose 11 dimensions or 26 dimensions, the number doesn't matter for this exercise. What your are proposing is a finite number of dimensions. You are also proposing, much to the layman's surprise, that there is a single all-encompassing dimension (the 11th dimension in M-Theory). Oddly enough, two or three of the necessary attributes of this "all-encompassing dimension" are that it is: 1. eternal and outside time, 2. omnipresent within and around the lesser dimensions, and 3. self-existent. The theory also infers that the highest dimension has: 1. an infinite, unlimited source of power and energy to create lesser universes (what the religious would call omnipotence), and 2. an infinite, unlimited source of knowledge and information potential to explain the information contained in each universe (what the theologian might call omniscience).
In effect, what Hawking and a number of other theoretical physicists have done is simply abstract God's personality by referring to Him as the "multiverse". Its attributes are not really any different from God's. What Hawking has also done is revealed his hand - even the "great" philosopher and theoretical physicist, the world-renowned Stephen Hawking, cannot escape the fact that a self-existent something must exist that is infinite, eternal, transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Hawking is no different than Plato, recognizing the logical and absolute necessity of believing in the unmoved mover lest you inevitably believe in the only two alternatives, both illogical: 1. existence stemming from true nothingness, or 2. an eternal procession without origin (such as Mormonism teaches in regards to an infinite string of gods begetting gods or Oscillating Universe Theory proposes). Hawking does believe in God, but like the Greeks that Paul preached to in Athens, simply doesn't call Him by His name:
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. - Acts 17:23
I have read, and re-read Stephen Hawking’s book “A Brief History of Time”, and sincerely wanted to take that book and beat my Relativistic Physics PhD’s bloody with it. Hawkings said things more suscintly, more understandably in 1 chapter than these Professors said in the entire semester.
Where college professors appear to be more interested in impressing students with how smart they are, Stephen was interested in conveying and teaching IDEAS. If you have even a passing interest in physics and the world around us, the laws that govern it and how things work - I implore you to borrow a copy and read it. It’s surprisingly well written, and explains things slowly, simply and you will gain an understanding of what Einstein was trying to tell physicists back in the 1940’s and why Physics was turned on it’s head. And as you re-read it, like the Bible, you will understand more and more.
I am in awe of the intellect of this man.
The more you learn of the complexities of creation the more ludicrous it becomes to think it all spontaneously came into being from nothingness and the only other explanation becomes an Intelligent deliberate Creator. Science doesn’t disprove God, it reveals Him.
#4 ~ “Crazy baby, but what would the Mod Squad think?”
What are WE supposed to think of your moronic and totally irrelevant post?
When I was in a Graduate level Christian philosophy course in the early 2000’s the professor would take a a few of the postulates or hypothesis from Stephen Hawking’s book and we would examine them. He would point out why virtually all of his reasoning would get a person a failing grade at the graduate or doctoral level. He was guilty of all kinds of logical fallacies and special pleading and unfounded presuppositions that might have been the norm in the mid twentieth century but are a big no no the last 30 years.
The book is more fanciful scientific speculation than real science or philosophy.
Science - Man’s attempt to figure out how God works.
Hawking is an incredible genius and being a physicist myself I am inspired by him and am discovering the greater potential of my intellect. It is through power of faith that our talents and gifts grow. Hawking is a living example of this.
Will do on your recommendation .... thanks.
Over many years, I have been distressed to find almost universal derision of God as fact or even as idea in most, if not all, science forums. This seems especially true in those dealing with cosmology. There is a quite pervasive nastiness and dismissiveness about religion, and its adherents derided as “cranks”. Scientism seems to be the thing these days.
“He was guilty of all kinds of logical fallacies.” I accept your statement. Maybe you can name two fallacies that were broken by Hawking? I detect two fallacies in your text: poisoning the well (”the norm in the mid twentieth century”) and red herring (”this book is more fanciful...”).
Stephen Hawking is brilliant. Went he uses the desk of Newton and is very humble about it.
Do you recall if there was a conflict with Goedel’s Theorem involved?
I use Stephen Hawking’s Theory of Everything (2002; title) in my research and his analysis is amazing. “An expanding universe does not preclude a creator...” (p. 15). The expanding universe was proven by Edwin Hubble at Mt. Wilson in Los Angeles in 1939 and shows how God exists, since an expansion is from a collapse which cannot expand itself. Something outside the system triggered the expansion: quantum physics and Genesis are now united. Thank you Hubble, Hawking.
We will never know as much as we don’t know.
Oh yeah, all this is no coincidence.
Good post. Enjoyed reading.
Hawking is an idiot-savant who imagines epicycle upon epicycle to explain what is simply obvious to those with a fully functioning conscience.
Professor Marco Bersanelli U of Milan Italy. He believes that the universe opening up, “like a flower”, after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago was evidence of God.
I’m not critical of Hawkings book but was struck by the simplicity of it. Almost to the point of a “so what?” If that IS the accurate description of the relativistic universe then it was less than profound. I recall very clearly his simple view of the universe either from any point within it or if it were possible to observe the “whole” from outside it and from that standpoint one would simply be observing the workings of a great clock from a point outside the mechanism. It ended up being just a very physical view of things without much going on in any metaphysical sense. Maybe that is how the universe should realistically be viewed but I was surprised.
I’m sure you know that lots of physicists and science writers don’t understand Einstein or relativity and therefore can’t explain it clearly. I think they are reading much more into it than is there.
Certainly there is a tendency by theoretical physicists to jump off into the metaphysical without recognizing they are in the realm of religion and philosophy. It seemed to me Hawking stayed very much in the simple world of the physical.
If I’ve even said anything meaningful.
“I am in awe of the intellect of this man” EXCEPT when he stated in the first chapter of his book, The Grand Design” that “Philosophy is Dead”. LOL-—probably the dumbest thing ever stated, since pre-Socrates. Reminds me of Dawkins stating that “aliens seeded the earth.”
The fact is Modern Science was only created by the Christian Worldview and the understanding of Design in Nature. Philosophy/Theology is what made “science” even possible, asking the profound questions and thinking the profound thoughts.
If there is no Design in Nature—there can be no mathematics or “science”. If there is Design, there must be a “Designer” (God). It is simple Logic which created the Renaissance and the Age of Reason (Common Sense). Funny how Tesla had an Orthodox priest for a father and the Wright Bros. had a “Bishop” paster for a “father” and Newton wrote more on Theology than on “science”.
Science is incapable of Truth (with a capital “T”—as is all faith/religion.) Scientism has become the largest, most irrational “faith” being forced onto our children, and the scientists are the High Priests (and they are NOT infallible). Only the Christian Worldview is the most rational and logical because of the Design in the Universe.
Hawking is brilliant, but only in his small, tiny area of expertise (and it is NOT Philosophy or Theology or Child Development.) When he goes outside his expertise, he comes off really dumb, as most people do. But he seems to think he knows everything, the opposite of what Socrates called “Wise”.
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