Hawking ditches God (The atheist delusion)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, September 10, 2010, 23:13 (4977 days ago) @ David Turell


> > "But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?" 
> > 
> > One might argue that the universe IS the creator. The question then would be whether it has awareness of itself and of what it is doing. Is it just a vast mass of matter and energy ... with life and consciousness emerging as the product of an astonishing series of accidents ... or does it have an intelligence of its own?
> 
> You know my answer. The universe is intelligent. But I wonder about the Hawking quote above. If the universe is expanding from a central point, however it started: Bang, quantum fluctuation, etc., then our space-time is expanding like a big balloon into whatever IS NOT out there, i.e., nothing. -I can answer this part: The universe--even in the "Big Bang" model, "expands" literally into nothing. There is no "outside" the universe. The word "expands" is not the best word choice as it carries connotations that lead to incorrect conclusions--I defer to an expert at Cornell:-http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=274->>Space time is flat, according to the latest findings. However if we try to reach an edge we will simply curve back on ourselves within our universe.-There has been some confirmation of a flat model, but a firm consensus does not exist:-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rummaging-for-a-final-theory-
>> We can 'see' out to the area of 300,000 years after the Big Bang (if I may use that term advisedly). At that 'place' we pick up the background radiation from the 'Bang'. How do we make that measurement if there is no 'edge"? And finally, from Leibnitz, 'why is there anything?', and Hawking can't answer that any more than I can. And finally Hawking (Cambridge) and Lenox (Oxford) violently disagree. One vocal mathematician, like one snowflake, doesn't make a comfirmative snowstorm.-No... but my real reason for posting the quotes was due to your mild assertion that Hawking too believes in a creator: I think those quotes do a good job of representing a definite shade of doubt.[EDIT] As to your final section, dealing with Leibniz's question, this question is inconsequential; it is not an answerable question and is truly a distraction--it does not matter that there is something rather than nothing. Existence is an axiom, a statement that is true because it hasto be; no more.-
[EDITED]

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"