THE BEGINNING IS NIGH!

Lots of people like to make fun of the people who wear or wave signs that say "THE END IS NIGH!" (or near).  Last week I read about Stephen Hawking's new book "The Grand Design" with which Hawking argues that because of the Law of Gravity the Universe had to create itself out of absolutely nothing. He is quoted as saying:

"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." 

Maybe you remember the "Mother Of All Bombs" or MOAB that the USA developed and exploded just before their invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some say the demonstration explosion in Florida of the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world was the first shot in the "Shock and Awe" campaign. Well the MOAB weighs in at 10.3 tonnes and I've got to say based on what I learned last week, when I asked "How much does nothing weigh again?" the MOAB is most obviously an example of typical USA over indulgence and over engineering. They didn't need a 10.3 tonne weapon, they needed nothing at all... which takes us to a terrifying point of discussion! 

The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters represent a "clear and present danger" to, not just the USA but the Universe as a whole! Back in 2008 the Mythbusters decided to bust the myth that says the NASA Moon landings were a big fat hoax. Little did any of us know at the time that these men and women had our very existence in their little hands!


Stephen Hawking says that because of the Law of Gravity the Universe can and will create itself out of nothing. Part of the episode was testing if a flag cannot flap in a vacuum. Here's what MythbustersResults.com had to say about this test.

A flag cannot flap in a vacuum.

BUSTED

The Build Team placed a replica of the American flag planted on the moon into a vacuum chamber at the Marshall Space Flight Center. They first tested at normal pressure and manipulated the flag. The momentum moved the flag around but the motion quickly dissipated. In vacuum conditions, manipulating the flag caused it to flap vigorously as if it were being blown by a breeze. This demonstrated that a flag could appear to wave in a vacuum, as the Apollo flag did.

They used a VACUUM CHAMBER!! A place where there was ALMOST nothing! Danger Will Robbinson! DANGER! The Mythbusters who are well known for blowing things up, causing damage and mayhem were foolishly allowed to get dangerously close to deploying NOTHING! - and I have it on video! Check it out:

Am I being unreasonable? Well, I don't think so! In May 2008, no one questioned handing such power to the unruly Mythbusters, but by September of that same year people were much more concerned about some scientists. The headlines every where read like this "Boffins set to cause Big Bang!"

In 2003 the USA used the MOAB to scare Saddam out of Iraq and it looked like this:

In 2008 people were all freaked out because some scientists wanted to smash some really tiny particles together at really high speed... a black hole or even another Big Bang was expected. 

However, what we should have been worried about, if we are to believe Stephen Hawking, is that the Mythbusters almost caused another Big Bang! 

With people playing with vacuums (Yikes! I just realized that we put vacuum cleaners in the hands of disgruntled house wives every day!!!) perhaps we should heed Homer Simpson's dire warning to us from the beginning of this article! THE END BEGINNING IS NIGH!!!

How much does nothing weigh again?

OK I'm sure I'm not the first Christian blogger to respond to the news of Stephen Hawking's forthcoming book with the same simplistic thought - "How much does nothing weigh again?" Perhaps I can distinguish myself in some other way then?

First off I completely agree with you, I am no where near as smart as Dr. Hawking is. However small my intellect is, I am however still able to call "shenanigans!" when I see them going on.

The article is about Dr. Hawking's new book "The Grand Design" which sounds more than a bit intentional. It's good to be intentional though, especially when you're making claims. Intentionality makes it easier to confirm, and debunk your claims. So I'm glad he's intentionally making an argument against so called "Intelligent Design."

The article starts with these words; "Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God." It is his intention to debunk the creation account by postulating an alternate theory. Good on him! At least he's being honest with a full on frontal attack, not and not being slimy and subversive like some other popular anti-creationists.

Let's check out a couple of quotes from this article shall we?

In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.

Is it too simple to ask how much nothing weighs again? OK let's continue....

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

OK that's rich, but before I get too excited and call the man a fool I must remember I have not yet read his masterful work in which he no-doubt explains how absolutely nothing is affected by gravity that does not yet exist to the point that it does something... and then eventually blows up and becomes everything all neatly ordered and such.

Apparently, Hawking says that it is "M-theory" which is a sort of "string theory" that has allowed us mere mortals to understand how the universe created itself. This of course prompts long time universal sports fans to shout "Go Uni!!" in unison purely by chance, and then quickly stop because their unity made it appear as though some form of intelligence might be at work.

OK the universe isn't really getting cheers... it turns out that humanity is the real star of the day!

"The fact that we human beings – who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature – have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph."

So I've been taking a few pot shots... and EASY ones at that. I'm sorry, really... well ok I'm not going to lie I've had more than a few giggles writing this post. Here's a more serious point.

Hawking says the first blow to Newton's belief that the universe could not have arisen from chaos was the observation in 1992 of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions – the single sun, the lucky combination of Earth-sun distance and solar mass – far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.

I feel the urge to remind you that Dr. Stephen Hawking is much smarter than I am, and I'm aware of this fact. However, saying that because there are other planets (non of which thus far found, or invoked, are even remotely close to being able to support life) orbiting around other stars is even the slightest evidence that the Universe was not "designed" by Creator God is like saying this;

I saw a pile of steel beams on the way home from work today. This is the first blow to the belief that Hyundai Corp designed my car.

Anyway, if you want to celebrate the triumph of the human imagination to come up with any excuse possible not to worship God then check out Dr. Hawking's forthcoming book The Grand Design on Sept 7th, and read the rest of the article I've been discussing at The Guardian.