This is such a dumb article. Anyone who had done any small amount of research on the subject would understand that Hawking, like Einstein, never envisioned the "god" in his book as an abrahamic deity.
Einstein believed in god, or some kind of god, and he claimed it guided a lot of his work. Same with Newton. But MC Hawking is so much smarter than other physicists. Stick to event horizons or STFU, Stephen.
Hawking radiation (at the event horizon of a black hole) is very important and a wonderful, creative piece of work. But what else has he done but become a sort of science media phenom? You must. Have. A partof yourNova spe.cial. With. DrHawkingrobotvoice. In full effect. There are lots and lots of astrophysicists who have arguably done more important and more consistent work. I shouldn't be so harsh after just reading one reporter's view of the book. I should check out the book. But if he's saying there's no role for a God, he's making crap up. We don't know enough to say that, at all.
I believe this question can be answered by saying that God is eternal. Since the big bang theory predicts that everything including time itself was created when the big bang happened, whatever caused the big bang has to exist outside of time and space and everything in our universe. Therefore this entity has to be eternal... in other words nothing created it. This shouldn't be too hard to believe as up until the 20th century many scientists maintained that the universe was eternal. So the answer is that God doesn't need a creator, because He is eternal, and by definition uncreated.
Newton, yes. But Einstein's god was a metaphorical one -- not God in a religious sense. Essentially, Nature was his God.
Depends on which historian and colleague of Einstein's you consult, but even if that was the case... why is that a problem or disqualification. It's definitely still a spiritual take.
Thats very intresting. Hawking is a brilliant man, the more you know, the more you don't know. This is a tough question to ask and answer in our society. Many people find it hard to believe in something that takes away from faith even when the facts seem to point more to science. Most of our society trusts in science until science goes against religion. Then they throw science out
Its not a spiritual take. He's using the language of religion to describe his feeling of awe and admiration towards nature. If Hawking chose to write in metaphor, he could have easily written something similar. In fact, he did: However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God." (A Brief History of Time - last paragraph)
We both know the "god" Einstein talked about isn't the god Hawking is talking about. I'm surprised you made this post.
which oddly enough can also be said of arguments claiming that the universe wasn't created by god. i prefer to stick with 'humans will never know exactly what caused the universe.'
But there's a big difference between science and religion. Science is constantly trying to test it's theories: to spot flaws, plug-in holes, incorporate new discoveries, wring every ounce of fact out of the empirical data. Religion is trying to do the opposite: it's telling you to take their word for it, despite the flaws, unplugged holes, new discoveries, and empirical data.
