Theology unnecessary, Stephen Hawking tells CNN

[Studeo]

Theology unnecessary, Stephen Hawking tells CNN

By the CNN Wire Staff

September 11, 2010 -- Updated 1106 GMT (1906 HKT)

(CNN) -- Theology is unnecessary. So says Stephen Hawking, the world-famous physicist who controversially argues in a new book that God did not create the universe.

"God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator," Hawking told CNN's "Larry King Live" in an interview that aired Friday.

Hawking, 68, says in his book "The Grand Design" that, given the existence of gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. "Spontaneous creation," he writes, is the reason why the universe and humanity exist.

"Gravity and quantum theory cause universes to be created spontaneously out of nothing," Hawking told Larry King.

King asked Hawking why he thinks people have reacted so strongly to his book.

"Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion," Hawking replied. "The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary."

Hawking said his book is an attempt to give a "broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire and it also puts our worries in perspective."

The idea behind it is "M-theory," which, he says, allows there to be many universes that were created out of nothing, none of which required the intervention of God.

That's because if there are many universes, one will have laws of physics like ours -- and in such a universe, something not only can, but must, arise from nothing, Hawking says. Therefore, he concludes, there's no need for God to have played a part.

That's the point of his book, Hawking told King -- "that science can explain the universe, and that we don't need God to explain why there is something rather than nothing, or why the laws of nature are what they are."

Hawking said that if he could travel through time -- which he said is theoretically possible -- he would go to the future to "find if M-theory is indeed a theory of everything."

Hawking has ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which has confined him to a wheelchair and leaves him unable to speak without the help of a computerized voice synthesizer. The disease is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease in the United States and motor neuron disease, or MND, in Britain.

He told King he's doing "pretty well" with the disease, 45 years after he was first diagnosed. The disease has a life expectancy of two to five years, according to the ALS Association.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/eu...JZPt&wom=false

[Steven]

Posted by Studeo (here)
...God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator,"...

And it is the purpose of science Mr. Hawking. One day or another, science is discovering that this whole Universe is animated by a Great Spirit. God is indeed a word with so many tags attached to it that it seems irrelevant to use it anymore.

Namaste, Steven

[Carmody]

Science, Religion, and finance have always been closely related. Some feel that we are nearing the point where the bastard child of religion, science...re-combines with religion. Again. However, that which likes to control Finance, most certianly does not want that, with regard to any clarity of thought or capacity to appear in science.

Joseph Farrell has a interesting book out (his latest) on such subjects, and it is called: Babylon's Banksters:The Alchemy of Deep Physics, High Finance and Ancient Religion.

[Dale]

"God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator,"

I can logically explain how the model ship got in the tiny, wine bottle on my desk; but can I be certain that my explanation is the only explanation? Or if it's even correct?

It sounds to me like Mr. Hawking is grappling with his own lack of knowledge concerning "God."

Manly P. Hall sums it up best in one of his lectures. The concept of God is so immense, so unimaginable; that our tiny, human brains cannot even being to describe or understand the true, beautiful nature of His presence.

I like to think of God as more a "feeling" than a physical being; that spark of divinity that resides deep within each of us.