Stephen Hawking: Physics Leaves No Place for God

Channel 4 News, 9-2-2010

From The Times:

Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.

Just as Darwinism removed the need for a creator in the sphere of biology, Britain's most eminent scientist argues that a new series of theories have rendered redundant the role of a creator for the Universe.

In his forthcoming book, an extract from which is published exclusively in Eureka, published today with The Times, Professor Hawking sets out to answer the question: "Did the Universe need a creator?" The answer he gives is a resounding "no".

Far from being a once-in-a-million event that could only be accounted for by extraordinary serendipity or a divine hand, the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, Hawking says.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist," he writes.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going," he finds.

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Below is a link to the transcript from the live webchat with Richard Dawkins, Ruth Gledhill and Hannah Devlin from 2.30pm Wednesday 2nd September 2010, in the wake of Stephen Hawking's assertion that God played no role in creating the Universe.

http://tinyurl.com/29xdxs2

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