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Topic: Stephen Hawking, doing his part. (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Don Zomberg
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 6:50am | IP Logged | 1  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_britain_hawking

His announcement doesn't raise an eyebrow from me--but the frightening replies from believers will keep me awake the next few nights.



Edited by Don Zomberg on 02 September 2010 at 6:53am
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 6:55am | IP Logged | 2  

I was somewhat amused by the reply that went (and I'm paraphrasing) "I have no idea who this Hawking guy is, but he's very stupid for not believing in God."
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Matthew McCallum
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 7:38am | IP Logged | 3  

I would prefer to read the extract in context to get the full gist of the theory but this quote --

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.

-- presupposes the existence of physical laws prior to the existence of the physical universe. I can happily get my head around the concept there was no time before there was time, but the thought that all the physical laws pre-exist the Big Bang and indeed make it inevitable will take a bit more pondering over the breakfast cereal.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 4  

There are two ways to look at this. (Well, there are a bajillion ways to look at it, but bear with me.)

First, for a long time, proponents of the Big Bang have held that "nothing", ie the state (or more precisely non-state) of things before the Universe popped into being, is inherently unstable. Nothing "wants" to be something. So physical laws are not required per se in order for the Universe to happen, but when it does, they come into being at the same instant, and help foster that moment of spontaneous creation. One cannot exist without the other, and they are so tightly interwoven that to say the Universe comes into being is the same as saying the physical laws come into being, and vice versa.

On the other hand, with M Theory (for "Membrane" or "Brane Theory"), which is my personal preference, our Universe is merely the latest (at least, from our perspective) in an infinite progression of such things, and as such physical laws do, indeed, predate our Universe. One of the elements that makes Brane Theory appealing is that it helps explain how this can be -- plus, it eliminates the need for "inflation", which is a rather clumsy way of getting the Universe to where it needs to be, AND the initial moment of "creation" in a "Brane" universe would read exactly the same as the Big Bang. Only difference, it happens everywhere at once, instead of everything spewing forth from a single incredibly dense point.

In any case, Hawking's statement is nothing new, not even to him. He long ago caused ripples by saying that while God might not be dead, He was unnecessary.

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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 8:02am | IP Logged | 5  

No need to argue about this one. There's a simple method of determining whether this new theory of Hawking's is true or false: put him in boiling oil. If he screams, he is possessed by the devil and is lying; if he makes no noise he is telling the truth.

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Jeremiah Avery
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | 6  

I may pick up that book.
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Ray Brady
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | 7  

My personal suspicion is that new universes are popping into existence all the time, each with its own random set of physical laws. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these random sets of laws are incompatible with a universe's sustained existence, and it immediately collapses, and ceases to exist.

Once in awhile, a universe pops up with a viable combination of physical laws, and that universe "sticks". If it sticks around long enough, it will eventually develop tiny little creatures who assume that their particular universe is the only possible one.
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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | 8  

I'm sticking with creation.
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Don Zomberg
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | 9  

I'm sticking with creation.

Great. Please tell us who created God.

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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 02 September 2010 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | 10  

Xenu created God.

And before you ask who created Xenu, the answer is L Ron Hubbard. And God created L Ron Hubbard, so the circle is completed.

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Thanos Kollias
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Posted: 03 September 2010 at 12:54am | IP Logged | 11  

I'm sticking with creation.

Great. Please tell us who created God.

+++++++++++

What you are basically asking is who existed BEFORE God. In this way you are taking time as something other than it is. Time is a dimension, the fourth one. As such, God is beyond it and its boundaries. God exists on a different level and created time as well as everything else.

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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Posted: 03 September 2010 at 1:15am | IP Logged | 12  

" As such, God is beyond it and its boundaries. God exists on a different level and created time as well as everything else."

Pft. Cop-out. This just amounts to saying "Whatever you can't disprove yet, that's what God is. If you can disprove this claim, it just means that God is something else. "

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