I'll be interested in picking up his new book and reading it. Remember when you read the article it is meant to be vague and excite controversy. That is how the media operates. Do NOT make judgments on Hawkings from this article. Please, before you make a judgment read his book!


LONDON (Reuters) – God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.

"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.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

Since 1974, the scientist has worked on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics -- Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large-scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers subatomic particles.

His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.

He wrote in A Brief History ... "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 latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

"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.

When we say something like “God did not create the universe” it’s very important to define terms. That one sentence is loaded with 'em!

What do we mean by “God”? How do we define “create”? What about “universe”?

This may be an accurate description of the way things are (I doubt it), but it doesn’t come close to being an explanation. One might ask the question “Why does the potential for spontaneous creation exist?”, and is then left with an infinite regress of similar questions and “answers”.

Why is it so hard for some to accept the fact that we don’t know why we are here – why anything is here? Religious people will invent religious explanations, scientific people will invent scientific explanations.

The observable universe consists of somewhere around 96% dark matter and energy, and the observable universe is considered by many physicists to be an infinitesimally small part of the “whole” universe. So it’s a simple fact that we don’t know what the universe actually is. How can we explain the creation/existence of something when we don’t even know what that something is?

And the questions I’ve raised so far don’t begin to deal with the nature of reality. For example, if our reality is a sophisticated computer simulation, then anything we “discover” describes reality as defined in the simulation and says absolutely nothing (and can't ever say anything) about the deeper underlying “reality”.

Existence is a profoundly deep mystery, and it will remain a mystery.

Stephen Hawkings is a tremendously gifted logician, scientist and physicist. These qualifications hardly make him a reliable source for that which is beyond the grasp of intellect. The right brain is a wonderful tool to analyze data and cognize minute differentiations between this and that. It is, however, a poor vehicle to access a union or merging with Indivisible Consciousness. Why? Primarily because it cannot reach into the unknowable. The transcendent levels or frequencies of mind, abide in mystery (as Gibran2 stated). It simply cannot be known, in the traditional sense of the "known" and the knowable. It can be superimposed upon the individual, if and only if the individual dies (as witness to phenomenon). The quest of mathematicians and astronomers is to map out all possibilities of verifiable data, to the extend of said capacities. This, in and of itself, makes for a most imperfect foundation, whose basis for experiencing the union of relative awareness and Absolute silence (the Void) is stuck on this side of the looking glass. Whereas, boundless Spirit Omnisciently awaits our union... on the other side. "I AM THAT I AM".

Sacred Medicines have gifted shamans and priests of the Clear Light, to cross into self obliteration and ego death. Only those who have merged with the Infinite, can even remotely comprehend this fusion. Just prior to... and immediately post ego-death/ spiritual union, a glimpse of this Ultimate Truth can be gleaned. I personally believe Stephen would benefit from smoking DMT or ingesting clean LSD-25. Hey, what do I know, maybe he has? If so, it's obvious that he never had a breakthrough experience. Neither did Eckhart Tolle. :idea:

Those who have been shattered by the Omnipotence of God... often allude to the experience, thus leave footprints in the sands of time. Sometimes, these can be interpreted by those who aspire towards the One. Without surrendering both, the rational and irrational aspects of finite awareness, the union is impossible (consciously). Most of what can be said or thought about, in terms of that which has been referred to as God, are so far above rational cohesion, that nothing can really be said about such a unindividuated frequency of pure being. Even so... it is known and can be realized with the soul-connection to the whole of undifferentiated Self. All is one. All is Divine Self, inherent within the spark of life and it's shadow, mortal ego, is but transitory illusion. In other words, the language required to bridge the gap between theory and integration of the supreme God-head... is communicated in a non-verbal manner.

As the Chinese mystic, Lao Tse, has been quoted as saying, "The Tao which can be spoken of with words, is not the Eternal Tao." As well as, "Those who speak do not know. Those who know do not speak." When scientists speak about God, they are usually making excuses for why they can't PROOVE there is one. Why not silence the waves of the mind and SEE what is always here and now, substantiating all life with it's essence? Isn't it most obvious that no observer can be present to witness that state of being, which is unattainable by subjective analysis? Just saying, since I cannot really know... as long as my self is isolated and fixed upon this sentient frequency of reality.

Peace, love & Light, Rising Spirit

i have to quote this - "adults with imaginary friends are lame"

eg - no explanation - oh god did it.

im kinda sick of that lame escape route being used - obviously its more along the lines of pure physics.

eg - yeah adam rode a t-rex

aaarg - sorry to rant in public - i was just pushed around by even adults as a kid for not being a run of the mill xtian or something.
some other childrens parents thought there was something wrong with my whole family for not being xtian - we were all to go to hell apparently and we are all evil too.
also - back in the day the amazon had nice original native religeons - crocodile gods etc - now ever few km there is a missionary barracks or whatever those places are called - with white robe twits pushing their western religeon on tribal ppl.

they should all be strangled - let ppl flipping be.

Don't you mean that the observable universe is 4%? The 96% is the unobservable (unverified) stuff.

seems Steven Hawking has a definition for "god"..dangerous linguistics there, Steven.

Poor Dr. Hawking. He is trapped in a fallacy and don't even recognize it. Like fishes can't see the water around them!

Come on Dr Hawking! "Laws of Physics?" "Laws"? "Physics"? You cannot explain a phenomenon by using a law. It's the other way around! Things do not behave like they do because of laws, laws were created by man as models of phenomena! I will not even comment if those "laws" were created or not, but I will ask that damned question: "why the laws are this way and not another?" Why is E=mc2 and not E=m2/c or something equally meaningless? Using "physical laws" as the explanation is EXACTLY THE SAME as using God.

Please note that I'm not a deist or something like that. I'm not defending religion, but indeed science IS a religion. Cunningly disguised as something else using "Reason" as an excuse, but the ultimate results are the same when trying to understand the Universe. And like any religion, when pushed to the extreme, its fragility is shown and it can collapse like a card castle. Poor Dr. Hawking. He should have done his homework and read this tiny little article from some of his colleagues: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

Yes – that’s what I said. (My phrasing was a bit confusing.) I include in the “observable universe” the region containing dark matter and energy (whose presence we can deduce, even if we can’t observe it directly). We only know what 4% or so of the observable universe is made of. Cosmic inflation theory states that much of the universe can’t be observed at all because the light from these distant regions hasn’t yet reached the Earth.



This means that the matter and energy we can observe represents less than 10^-69 % of the entire volume of the universe. This difference is larger than the difference in volume between the Earth and a hydrogen atom. Hard to say you have an understanding of the Earth if all you’ve ever seen is one hydrogen atom that is a part of the Earth!

God just IS and created what IS

But it's also very easy to forgive a man with a lot on his mind. Although he may not have the answer, we are that much closer just by sharing our existence with the man.

There is nothing poor about Hawking. He's certainly a lot more aware than most.

Legend.



God's not a label for the gaps. Just because big stuff went down it doesn't mean it's any more special than taking a dump. It was all bound to happen. God could interveen, however now the wheels are thoroughly in motion and the wave of elegance that resonates with it is all that we should ever be greatful for.

Though that said, I did take an awesome dump this morning.

I'd really like to ask mr. hawking what his definition of god is.. and what was going on before the big bag..and a bunch of other questions..just before i gave him a loaded VG



Sounds exactly like what this preacher used to say when he'd get stuck in a corner during conversation

its a fallacy because you cant have what your trying to prove be considered a given in your premise. It makes no sense and adds nothing. I hated it when id ask my dad when i was little why the earth was here and he'd say "it just is".

Its very convenient to say this is that, or this isn't that, as the aristotelian dualism goes in our society.. But to assume god (whatever the hell that means) created the universe because there are gaps in our understanding of it isn't really getting us anywhere fast..It spins the other way around to IMO...it also seems meaningless to my mind to conclude that there is NO god or conscious force or multiverse( or whatever) that our universe sprang from just because we have discovered what we believe to be the laws of the physical universe and evidence of its origin pointing to a completely natural and logical process that is, as far as we've seen, in complete accordance to our calculations.. In the end we really have no fucking clue either way for sure and know very little about this big mystery

Yea nice, sure ... have always at least liked the ideas of that genius mind.

but i will still place my bet on taoism when it comes to understanding god, nature, one.. or whatever mislabel.

damn there is so many things i would like to look into further...
dont know where to start anymore

i don't know about all that... but on recent journeys i've been given the notion that we are helping to create the universe, as it expands... like with our imaginations... for example: art

I'd like to quote this and say I agree with the rest of the post. Hawkings is a man of physics and science. Physics deal with the physical world.