I am fascinated by cosmology and astronomy. They can be awesome subjects and sometimes provide real challenges to religious thinking. I also really enjoy dialoguing with atheists and agnostics.
Professor Stephen Hawking said that the universe could have created itself spontaneously out of nothing. But his reason is that he believes in the multiverse theory, namely that there are many universes, so one was bound to develop that suited creatures like us. Maybe there are many universes, but there is no proof of the multiverse theory. So Hawking is saying: ‘You don’t need belief in God which is an ‘unproven’ theory because of my unproven theory about the multiverse!’ The question remains: why is there something rather than nothing? As for spontaneous creation of the universe out of absolutely nothing, (without a divine agent) – that seems to me to be dangerously close to “believing what you know ain’t true.” Hawking seemed to be saying it happened because there is a law of gravity. But why is there gravity? And so we can go on.
© Tony Higton: see conditions for reproduction