He said that 'hip hop' was the new style... and he was right.
Posted on 06/15/2006 8:24:55 AM PDT by Boxen
HONG KONG (AP) - Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that the late Pope John Paul II once told scientists they should not study the beginning of the universe because it was the work of God.
The British author _ who wrote the best-seller "A Brief History of Time" _ said that the pope made the comments at a cosmology conference at the Vatican.
Hawking, who didn't say when the meeting was held, quoted the pope as saying, "It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not enquire into the beginning itelf because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."
The scientist then joked during a lecture in Hong Kong, "I was glad he didn't realize I had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began. I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo."
The church condemned Galileo in the 17th century for supporting Nicholas Copernicus' discovery that Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
But in 1992, Pope John Paul II issued a declaration saying that the church's denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
Hawking is one of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation. He has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe. He proposes that space and time have no beginning and no end.
His hourlong lecture to a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was highly theoretical and technical. During the question-and-answer session, Hawking was asked where constants like gravity come from and whether gravity can distort light.
But there were several light, humorous moments.
Hawking _ who must communicate with an electronic speech synthesizer _ said he once considered using a machine that gave him a French accent but he couldn't use it because his wife would divorce him.
The astrophysicist is wheelchair-bound and uses an electronic voice because he has the neurological disorder called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
Hawking was asked why his computerized voice has an American accent.
"The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986," he said. "I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it."
But Hawking said he's shopping for a new system because the hardware he uses is large and fragile. He also said it uses components that are no longer made.
"I have been trying to get a software version, but it seems very difficult," he said.
He urged people with physical disabilities not to give up on their ambitions.
"You can't afford to be disabled in spirit as well as physically," he said. "People won't have time for you."
The moderator at the lecture told the audience that at a recent dinner, she asked Hawking what his ambitions were. He said he wanted to know how the universe began, what happens inside black holes and how can humans survive the next 100 years, she said.
But she added he had one more great ambition: "I would also like to understand women."
Hawking ended his lecture saying, "We are getting closer to answering the age-old questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from?"
I don't believe JPII even said that, so I'll just ignore the entire assertion.
That said, you don't gotta be an atheist to ignore innappropriate requests of any religious leader.
It would be interesting to have a video tape of the whole of this experience--the presentation given by Hawking that day and John Paul II true comments.
Mutual? I'm fairly confident Galileo understood the church.
Pope ping
[An agnostic is a gutless atheist.]
A typical statement made by persons completely ignorant of the real distinctions. It is the equivalent of someone saying that a Christian is just a more cowardly version of a Muslim.
I once read a quote from a woman that watched over the death of a famous author in the 19th century, who was an atheist. She said she would never again nurse a dying atheist, the anticipation of their oncoming death is wrought with severe agony and pain. But this is not true of any believing Christian. No, it is just the opposite.
Hawking, himself no longer knows what he's hawking.
Makes Hawking sound rather like a creep, to me.
Thank you for being the first to make a sensible statement.
Except for that part about one of the few religions growing in the US.
That in any event, is how this near Atheist sees it.
...or indifferent.
the ethical and moral responsibilities connected to scientific research can be perceived as a requirement within science, because it is a fully human activity, but not as control, or worse, as an imposition which comes from outside. The man of science knows perfectly, from the point of view of his knowledge, that truth cannot be subject to negotiation, cannot be obscured or abandoned to free conventions or agreements between groups of power, societies, or States. Therefore, because of the ideal of service to truth, he feels a special responsibility in relation to the advancement of mankind, not understood in generic or ideal terms, but as the advancement of the whole man and of everything that is authentically human.
4. Science conceived in this way can encounter the Church without difficulty and engage in a fruitful dialogue with her, because it is precisely man who is "the primary and fundamental way for the Church" (Redemptor hominis, n. 14). Science can then look with interest to biblical Revelation which unveils the ultimate meaning of the dignity of man, who is created in the image of God.
Since Revelation includes Genesis, this seems like an open invitation to me. In defense of the Hawkings anecdote, however, I'd like to point out that JPII's official acceptance of cosmological physics and evolutionary biology was a gradual thing, and I am quite prepared to believe that he had not shaken off old Papal attitudes about these sciences entirely (or probably ever) when the incident Hawkings refers to occured, and it seems more likely than not to me that the Pope might have advised Hawkings, in informal conversation, not to mess with Genesis.
Thanks for the ping!
That's an interesting point. Fifty years ago, when Catholics had their own neighborhoods and schools and many were still first generation Americans, nothing could have been less true, but today, there's a lot in what you say. Of course, the international and hierarchical structure of the Church is different from that of the Congregationalists or Methodists, so there are limits as to how "American" and liberal the Catholic Church will become.
Eastern Orthodoxy might be an interesting case -- have those churches become mainstream? Maybe Catholicism will remain at a midpoint between churches like the Russian, Greek or Syrian Orthodox on the one hand and the American mainstream denominations.
It sometimes looks as though the hope of the hierarchy is that immigration will bring back the old days of not so long ago, but as you note, many Hispanics are moving to evangelical Protestantism. With today's mass communications, you don't get the kind of closed communities you once did.
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