Stephen Hawking at it again... God,
 

Think I will pick this one up as it sounds really intriguing IMO:

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news...-not-needed-so

He's a smart guy, but let's look at his other "discoveries". Aliens may pose risks to earth.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36769422/

Here is the problem IMO. You labeled the comment about aliens as a "discovery". It is no such thing. It was a speculative statement which by sheer numbers alone is absolutely plausible. Talking how they could be a risk is nothing more than stating the obvious since any scenario is possible...

I don't really see anything in that article to disagree with. My personal belief is that it's very unlikely that aliens would ever visit here due to the huge distances involved. And that article says nothing to suggest otherwise. He's not predicting that aliens will visit. Only that if they did it could be dangerous because of the possible alien microbes they may bring with. And the potential danger that any intelligent life form introduces.

Thinking of all the possibilities is exactly what you would expect from an intelligent scientist. However, it's not unexpected that a journalist would write an article that sensationalizes the musings of Hawking.

Until there is evidence otherwise, my belief is that everything has always existed and it simply changes form.

"everything has always existed and it simply changes form"

That's pretty much a law of physics.

It's hard to wrap one's mind around the thought that time/space began at a particular point and there was no before. I've always thought of time infinity in going both directions from now.

Sarcastic dismissal of statements by Stephen Hawking as crazy-talk? Sorry, but I'll take SH's word on how the Universe works over the local parson's, every time.

The idea that something can be created out of nothing gives me hope that one day Jessica Alba will appear in my bedroom .;)




He is close to death and this is an attempt to grasp the limelight one last time. It will be no real loss to humanity.

Is any one person's death a real loss to humanity?

As for his statement, it's nothing new. Anyone positing a god as necessary to create "something from nothing" has simply shifted the question of origin from the universe to said god.

Taking into consideration his following, I think many will consider it a big loss.

I'm not touching the other ,Wes. :p

We all have a tendancy to skim articles. I do it all the time, but I thought I read the link I posted, so I went back and read it again. He speculates that they could be in large ships, having used up their resources on their planet. (Sounds like Independence Day and most other alien invasion movies doesn't it? Who'da thought he'd have time to watch TV?) The article states: He speculated that most extraterrestrial life would be similar to microbes, or small animals. Microbial life might exist far beneath the Martian surface, where liquid water is thought to trickle through the rock. Marine creatures might also conceivably live in huge oceans of water beneath a miles-thick layer of ice on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. He goes so far as to state they could be similar to small animals. He's a genius, but they could be taller than us or as small as ant. Nobody knows and neither does he.

I guess my point is that he is speculating about the smallness of an alien, but is an authority enough about the universe that he is able to completely displace God from the creation from it; but there are holes or "gaps" in his speculation. I believe he stated that God could be inserted to "explain" the gaps.

the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy) makes it really hard to believe that infinity is possible. if you think of the universe as what it truely is (burning gas seperated by vast cold space) its easy to see that at some point in time this would all equalize(think hot cup off coffee reaches room temperature when left out). if everything has been around for an infinite amount of time then that means it would have had to come to a even temperature everywhere by now given that its been around for infinity.

what if we're just a super advanced video game, like sims, played by beings of the future for their entertainment.... but if thats true... where did the future beings playing us right now come from?

We have no clue if the universe is all there is. Or even the only universe. My gut feeling is that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is only a portion of what we know in terms of how things work. And one day we may find that it falls short in the same way Newtonians laws fall apart wrt to quantum theory.

Scary thought, but I even considered that in my youth - actually, in my youth, it was more like an aquarium or ant farm. It was too hard to imagine the universe as Pong. :D

I always questioned these statements, only because the word itself means "everything that exists, everywhere". To me that is everything period...

Exactly. All of our Laws, theories et al are only based off of what we can witness, theroize etc. There is no way that anyone can say that something is not possible in some galaxy that is so far away we don't even know it exists, because a glass of water on earth stabilizes temp with it's surroundings, or any other law that we think is an answer.

Science pretty much describes the universe in terms of origin and size, rather than "everything there is". Your presumption seems to be that many believe the universe is "everything there is". But science and sci fi has repeatedly tossed out the idea that there may be multiple/parallel universes. So I'm sticking with the idea that the Universe is limited in scope to not "everything there is", but "everything we currently believe there is.".