[The_Reader_David]

Leaving aside the question of whether parts of a marvelously designed system can or cannot behave rather as the Darwinists propose living organism in their environment do, leading to wonders of the sort we observe, I would point out that your understanding of Big Bang cosmology is sorely wanting.

The most refined version of Big Bang cosmology, Hawkings' 'Null Initial Condition' cosmology, is a mathematical model of a universe created ex nihilo: there isn't even a 'before' before the beginning. Just as there shouldn't be, since time itself is a creation, along with space. The 'explosion' isn't an explosion, but an expansion of space from no volume to the universe we see.

I always find it amusing when atheists, who cannot conceive of causation in the philosophical sense as being anything other than physical causation, proclaim that the Null Initial Condition cosmology 'removes the need for a first cause'. They are then left with no answer to Hawkings' own question, "What is it breaths fire into the equations to make there be something for them to describe?"

Theists, of course, have a simple and satisfying answer to that question.

[Ichneumon]

I always find it amusing when atheists, who cannot conceive of causation in the philosophical sense as being anything other than physical causation,

I always find it amusing when people misunderstand atheists this badly.

proclaim that the Null Initial Condition cosmology 'removes the need for a first cause'. They are then left with no answer to Hawkings' own question, "What is it breaths fire into the equations to make there be something for them to describe?"

I don't see that this "leaves them with no answer". Quite the contrary. And as even Hawking himself speculates in the very next sentence after the passage you quote above: "Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?" Hawking himself realizes that such a scenario is a possible answer to his question, because an acausal condition allows many "creation" scenarios which may not be possible under *our* Universe's laws of causality.

Theists, of course, have a simple and satisfying answer to that question.

"There is always an easy solution to every human problem —-neat, plausible, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

That answer may be "simple", but it's hardly "satsifying", nor is it really an "answer". It simply kicks the problem down the road. It replaces the question about "What is it breaths fire into the equations" with "What is it breaths fire into the alleged creator of the equations". Same question, once removed, and again no real answer. At the same time, it adds yet another layer to be explained. Hardly an improvement.

Again, Hawking himself realizes this -- in the very same paragraph as the quote you included, he asks:

"Or does it [the universe] need a creator, and if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?"
-- Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", p. 190

Hawking raises the clear problem with a "creator answer" -- it just creates another question -- who created the creator? Or if you cede that the creator wouldn't *need* a creator after all, you've just admitted that things can exist without a "creator" after all, and if so, why not the Universe itself? The admission undermines the original premise which was used to argue a "need" for a creator in the first place.