Stephen Hawking: Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something | Hacker News Reader

Stephen Hawking: Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something

bbc.co.uk

13 pointschunkyslink7 comments

So, "It happened because it happened"?

Seems a bit circular to me, but then again, that's the science news cycle... (see here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174)

When I see a building, I know there was a creator. When I see the complexity of life, I know there's a creator. But you are all smarter than me, so you will downvote this bigtime. I DON'T CARE!

EDIT: Ok, maybe I care a little, but the truth must be spoken.

You may have fallen prey to anthropomorphism here. We're so used to man-made constructions that when we see something that we did not build, we tend to attribute its existence to an entity which is conveniently like us.

What did you mean by "creator"? From what I can see: us, or God. So, what we did not create (like the complexity of life), must have been created by God.

But what did you mean by "God"? Most of the time, God is refereed to as an infinitely smart, infinitely potent, utterly incomprehensible entity ("the ways of God are impenetrable"), which is very much like us ("he made us in his image"). In other words, magic with a personality.

I have a problem with magic: it explains everything, by explaining nothing. It's what in http://lesswrong.com they call a "curiosity stopper". In the face of magic (or God), I feel like a balrog before Gandalf: I cannot pass. It's very frustrating, because I'm naturally curious.

And to a point, I can satisfy my curiosity. For instance, the creator the complexity of life is evolution (skipping very very long explanation that I don't fully understand). The creator of evolution is the laws of physics, whose creator is… I don't know. For now the buck stops there. It doesn't mean, however that it should stick there. That would be freezing the current boundaries of our knowledge. If I replace "I don't know" by "God", I forbid myself to look further. Maybe there isn't anything further, but that I don't know.

So, you don't "know" there's a creator. You just marvel at the mystery of the creation. You don't want to really explain the creation, for it's precious mystery would be gone. Or you are just uncomfortable with uncertainty, so you tell yourself a story where the scariest uncertainties are easily explained.

Or you just didn't think this through. Yet.

That is an interesting perspective, and a good explanation of it. I even like that you admit that you don't know how the complexity of life was created. I am not against science and the study of how things came to be. However, science has gotten it wrong for a very long time. It was science that said the earth was flat until it was proven otherwise. Isaiah 40:21-22 refers to the circle of the earth. We both have made a choice. I have chosen to believe in a creator God, and you have chosen not to. I believe it is easier to believe in God than not to. You keep working on explaining there's no God, I will keep marvelling at God's creation.

> You keep working on explaining there's no God

Not exactly. Actually I'm wondering what's the difference. As far as I know, God ceased to mess with our world a long, long time ago. And if God created the universe, what created God?

So we're left with either the universe that explain itself (it just is), or a God that explain itself, and created the universe (and then left it alone). God is a bit like the Dragon in my Garage: everything happens as if it wasn't there.

So, my preference simply goes to the simplest explanation: that there is no God. I don't expect you to have the same preference. But I do expect you to either acknowledge that there is no difference, or to eventually identify those differences.

So, do you think there is a difference between "God exists" and "God does not exist"? Do you think his (non) existence would change your life? Do you think you would observe different things in either case? This is the question I think everyone on this planet should think about for 5 minutes. Once you answered it, you basically have defined your God, whose existence is now either refutable or unimportant. In one case, science will likely find out (eventually), and on the other, well, I don't care what one believes.

"It was science that said the earth was flat until it was proven otherwise."

Pythagoras (570-495BC) had a belief in a spherical earth along with a number of other Greeks in the same era.

The book of Isaiah was written no earlier than the 8th century BC.

These two date ranges and regions are quite close to one another. Your claim seems a bit off the mark.

" ... I know there's a creator"

When I see a creator, I have to ask where did that creator come from?

How is this not turtles all the way down?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com