

Stephen Hawking: Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something - chunkyslink
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493

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zdw
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>)

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ballpark
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.

~~~
loup-vaillant
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.

~~~
ballpark
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.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> 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.

