Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A Proof of God’s Point-lessness (Not)


 Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time (1988; 2nd edn. 1996) p. 146, attempts to wave away the otherwise lurking Big-Bang singularity  by an appeal to Heisenberg Uncertainty.  Well, fine;  actually the whole enterprise of physics around that moment strikes me as eminently Uncertain -- but fine;  passe encore.  Instead of a pointy sugar-cone, you have one of those paper cones with a rounded bottom.  Fine.
Only -- from this he leaps to:

If the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end:  it would simply be.  What place, then, for a creator?

“Simply be”:  as though that were self-explanatory.   -- On the contrary:  philosophical-theological wonder has focussed on, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?”, and in no way on “Yipes!  There’s a singularity!  Ergo God!”

If Hawking is an atheist, fine, no problem.  What is bothersome is rather the chance that an ignorant and mesmerized public might fancy that, with such pronouncements from a media star, he has brought some startling new scientific insight into play, that would make Aquinas slap his forehead and say “Oops, you win!  K sry -- my-bad.  No God after all.”

(For an alternate proof of the non-existence of God, click here.)

No comments:

Post a Comment