Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created Itself From Nothing

Created Itself Spontaneously.

I shouldn't pick on Stephen Hawking.  He is severely disabled and is now in retirement.  Perhaps his judgment and scientific analysis are not as keen as they once were.

Nevertheless, I found it curious that Hawking believes the universe created itself.  He said:

“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.”

Okay. Maybe if I want a pizza, it will create itself from nothing.  I will call this "the Stogie Theory of Pizza."  I just hope it doesn't spontaneously create any anchovies.  Well, a few on the side is okay.

Hawking also stated that he does not believe a personal God exists.  Am I offended by this?  No.  But it seems so stereotypical of the establishment,  materialistic scientist, who can't see beyond his rack of test tubes.  Scientists are generally so cause-and-effect in their thinking (and that's a good thing), that it is curious to hear Hawking describe something so completely illogical and irrational in human terms:  that the universe created itself from nothing.

Maybe God created it.  Okay, but then who created God?  There is no plausible cause-and-effect scenario there, either.  Right.  I do agree.  Whether we are talking about God or the universe, the very existence of either is utterly impossible if we rely solely on human observation and experience.

But that's what human logic tells us -- and human logic is limited.  Human logic is based only on phenomena and natural laws that we can measure and observe, with our limited senses. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Lord Rees is said to be the greatest scientist in the United Kingdom, and he, like I, believes that the why and the how of the universe is beyond human understanding.  I always like to use my pet analogy, i.e. that we can no more understand the existence of the universe than a boll weevil can understand higher calculus.  No matter how hard that boll weevil studies math, or how advanced its calculator, it will never be able to understand E=MC2.  This is true even though the boll weevil has a big ego and believes there is nothing beyond the reach of his massive brain.

Lord Rees has his own analogy, and it ain't bad.  He says:

Some aspects of reality – a unified theory of physics or a full understanding of consciousness – might elude us simply because they’re beyond human brains, just as surely as Einstein’s ideas would baffle a chimpanzee.

Some other man, one J.D.S. Haldane described my position exactly when he said:

Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.

Ah, great minds do think alike!

A materialist looks at a sky full of stars and sees a cosmic accident with no meaning or purpose. I, however, am more optimistic than that.   I see in the same sky a complex system that was purposely set into action, and though I do not understand it, that mankind is an important part of it all.  And it is good.

Update:  Reader Courtney sent me the attached graphic, "Atheism," in her comments on this post.  I liked it and I am adding it here!