Stephen Hawking Says Pope Told Him Not To Study Beginning Of Universe

[Amethyst]

Stephen Hawking says pope told him not to study beginning of universe

 

World-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that the late Pope John Paul II once told scientists they should not study the beginning of the universe because it was the work of God.

 

Hawking, author of the best-seller ``A Brief History of Time,'' said John Paul made the comments at a cosmology conference at the Vatican. He did not say when the meeting was held.

 

Hawking quoted the pope as saying, ``It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.''

 

The scientist then joked that he was glad John Paul did not realize that he had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began.

 

``I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo,'' Hawking said during a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

 

The church condemned Galileo in the 17th century for supporting Nicholas Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

 

But in 1992, Pope John Paul II issued a declaration saying the church's denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from ``tragic mutual incomprehension.''

 

Hawking is one of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation. He has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, and he proposes that space and time have no beginning and no end.

 

During a question-and-answer session, Hawking was asked where constants like gravity come from and whether gravity can distort light.

 

But there were several humorous moments.

 

The wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, communicates with an electronic speech synthesizer. Hawking was asked why his computerized voice has an American accent.

 

``The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986,'' he said. ``I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.''

 

He said he once considered using a machine that gave him a French accent, but he did not because his wife would divorce him.

 

But Hawking said he is shopping for a new system because his current hardware is large and fragile, using components that are no longer made.

 

``I have been trying to get a software version, but it seems very difficult,'' he said.

 

He urged people with physical disabilities not to give up on their ambitions.

 

``You can't afford to be disabled in spirit as well as physically,'' he said. ``People won't have time for you.''

 

Hawking ended his lecture saying, ``We are getting closer to answering the age-old questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from?''

 

* * * * *

 

So what is the pope afraid of? Proof that the universe wasn't created by the Christian god, perhaps? Evidence that the Bible is false? Why should answering questions be forbidden?

 

This is one of the things I hated about the church even when I was religious. They wanted to forbid people from gaining knowledge about certain things. If the Bible god was truly real, then logically the church should have nothing to fear from people seeking answers to questions. Yet the church dislikes people asking hard questions, probably because if everyone had the answers they were seeking, the church would crumble into dust like a vampire exposed to daylight.

 

(Yes, I've been watching the Buffy series on DVD. Heh heh.)

[Antlerman]

So what is the pope afraid of? Proof that the universe wasn't created by the Christian god, perhaps? Evidence that the Bible is false? Why should answering questions be forbidden?

I suspect it has to do with the possibility of questions that it might raise that they might look foolish trying to answer. That's a real problem for an institution that positions itself as an authority on guiding people’s lives. Either that or the Pope had some special knowledge that if science looked there, it might get God pissed off enough he would come and kill all of us for sticking our noses into his private areas! :angry:

[Lycorth]

 

Oh my Gods, the Pope thinks he can tell Stephen Hawking not to do something?

 

 

[sonofspong]

It woulda been hilarious if Hawkings, in that robotic synthesized voice, said:

 

"PopE--shUt-tHe---fUck--uP"

[Ex-COG]

So what is the pope afraid of? Proof that the universe wasn't created by the Christian god, perhaps? Evidence that the Bible is false? Why should answering questions be forbidden?

I suspect it has to do with the possibility of questions that it might raise that they might look foolish trying to answer. That's a real problem for an institution that positions itself as an authority on guiding people’s lives. Either that or the Pope had some special knowledge that if science looked there, it might get God pissed off enough he would come and kill all of us for sticking our noses into his private areas! :angry:

I've always thought that the failure of the church to support scientific research on the universe's beginnings was proof that Christians don't really believe supernatural creation is true. If creation myths were true, wouldn't science discover this fact? I used to believe that way; that research would back up the belief that "God did it". Church big-wigs fear that this isn't true, so want to stifle scientific inquireries into the origins of the universe. If science is allowed to poke at the mysteries of the universe, it inavertently pokes at beliefs about those mysteries.

[Dhampir]

I've always thought that the failure of the church to support scientific research on the universe's beginnings was proof that Christians don't really believe supernatural creation is true. If creation myths were true, wouldn't science discover this fact? I used to believe that way; that research would back up the belief that "God did it".

The problem is with urgency. I'm sure most church leaders past and present knew the hoax, but those that actually believed might consider that between now and the time science corroborates their faith, that the evidence suggesting that the universe came about through natural means would cause deconversion.

 

There's also the fact that the reason most people join religions, despite what they may say, is because they believe that religion to be the only source of what they're looking for, in this instance answers. If people believe otherwise about that fact, then they're less likely to try religion.