Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking tries to offer a "sound explanation for why God didn't create the universe."

Hawking is the famous British scientist who has been in a wheelchair for decades with Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Here he is in 2006. Considering his disability, he has lead an amazing and creative life. He had a 30 + year career at Cambridge, and he just retired .

Back in 1988 he wrote a very popular book on cosmology, A Brief History of Time, which I read at the time.  

Anyway, he has just co-wrote a new book, The Grand Design in which he pursues one of his favorite speculations, trying to prove God's non-existence.  

The Wall Street Journal this past Saturday had an excerpt directly from the book. The link may not be accessible if you are not a Wall Street Journal subscriber, but here it is -

Why God Did Not Create the Universe - There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world—no gods required
 

And here is the direct quote that gets to the heart of the matter -

As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Huh? That's it?

There is "nothing" but the "nothing" is governed by "the laws of gravity and quantum theory"? If there's "nothing", where did "the laws of gravity and quantum theory" come from? Aren't they "something"?

There were 1243 comments left to this WSJ feature (when last I looked). I only read the top half dozen, all of which were highly disparaging of Hawkings argument, several suggesting that at 68 years old and ill, he has lost it.

One of the commenters stated: "Hawking starts from the point of view of his own bias against God." I think that sums it up.

Since I just presented Hawkings argument in the above three sentence quote, I've saved you the $15.12 cost of the book on Amazon.

Comments

[Ellen Mullin]

Previously, Hawking was proven wrong concerning energy sucked into Black Holes. He maintained it was totally destroyed leaving no trace. Leonard Suskind proved beyond doubt that it does exist in a hologram on the periphery of space. Hawking conceded.
Come on, the man is not God. He does make mistakes while God does not. Ellen Mullin

[Tom Faranda]

Haha. Good point. Id say Hawkings opinion on God is more then just a
mistake - its a real howler!

In a message dated 9/7/2010 8:53:06 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

[Nancy]

I've known more non-believers than believers in my life. With the grace of God, hearts can and do change. Hawkings has suffered a great deal and I wish him God's blessings.