Stephen Hawking has convinced himself that there is enough energy in the quantum flux to spawn the Universe.
If that’s true then perhaps it happened more than once. In fact maybe universes are being spawned everywhere every instant. Many
If the spontaneous generation or the first cell was improbable then an infinite number of parallel universes would make it a certainty. We’re just lucky to live in a universe where we happened along. ;)
Choose your God. The quantum flux or the Creator who loved you enough to die for you.
You are the one drawing conclusions on the subject of whether or not a certain limited idea of G-d fits neatly with certain limited observations. Hawking’s, mine, or yours. These things are unimportant - ask Job, Moses, or Abraham, if you don’t wish to ask Jesus.
G-d is infinite, and we are finite. This means that by definition we cannot understand G-d. We can worship Him, and accept his Word, (and accept the notion that he had a special Son, for instance, etc.) but we cannot fully understand G-d, or His Creation.
We can, however, keep reaching.
Do you think it is sinful to do so? Is astrophysics also “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” What about nuclear physics? What about... Physics?
I don’t think Hawking’s brand of scientific inquiry is wrong at all. He may have beliefs that are different from my own (or he may not), but he has spent his life as a pioneer, guiding us through certain deepening mysteries of the known and unknown Universe.
That is a higher and “holier” calling, to me, than, for instance, feeding wafers to folks once a week whilst promising them eternal deliverance if only they’ll fondle a graven image, or sitting in a confessional listening to dirty stories, or for that matter re-inventing your notion of G-d on a daily basis in accordance with shifting interpretations of the “Testaments” and the whims of whatever Post-Reformation Spiritual Assembly strikes your fancy. Now that’s just me. You can and should feel differently, in accordance with your personal convictions regarding the Almighty.
But can it possibly bother us that He may or may not have created more than one Universe, or a quadrillion at once, when we cannot even fathom the most fundamental aspects of the forces (i.e. gravity) which govern our own tiny blessed, accursed, floating sphere?
To me it all just adds to the wonder of creation, and the glory of G-d.
We DO agree that it’s a sphere, now...
Right?
...And who made the “Quantum Flux?”
LOL.
Reminds me of a story from Albert Einstein’s career. At some point he was explaining certain facets of General Relativity to a non-scientist crowd, when some old lady who had had enough of what she perceived to be nonsense blurted out from the aisles:
“That’s all fine and dandy, Dr. Einstein, but you can’t prove it. Well I say the whole Universe rests on the back of a giant turtle!”
Einstein paused and responded:
“What is the turtle standing on?”
The audience turned to hear her response:
“Very clever, Dr. Einstein... But it’s turtles all the way down!”