Stephen Hawking is a terrorist

"Science Akbar!" -Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking recently published an excerpt from his upcoming book. I'm sure the excerpt had many interesting things to say, but it was all ignored because three sentences ignited a shitstorm.

"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. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

This is similar to how Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein viewed God. Far from endorsing positive atheism, they simply felt that the question of God was distracting, and shouldn't be dwelled upon in matters of science. Since there's a lack of evidence for God, unbelief should be preferred. Occam's razor.

Sagan: "If the general picture however of a big bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly, somehow created? How did that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer is that a God or Gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue the question courageously, we must, of course ask next question: where did God come from? If we decide this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed? There's no need for a creation, it was always here."

Naturally, it the response to this truly despicable claim by Hawking has been complete outrage. I spent a good deal of time reading comments left by readers on a number of articles covering this. You'd be surprised at the number of people who are inspired by God's love to make fun of paralyzed people. These are real:

• ‎"Ha, Ha!!, This is not really news. A statement like this would come from an athiest. Why is this suprising? Stephen Hawking is probably a bitter man because of his physical condition and God never restored him."
• ‎"Hawking is an idiot. His attitude and beliefs, and his insistence on spreading his poison, explains why he's in that wheelchair. He should have gotten the Message when God took away his voice; He did it for a reason."
• "Just a bitter, crippled, little man filled with wild theories that never been proven. I find him appallingly arrogant. If he weren't in that wheelchair, he'd just be another little known, wacko academician. He fancies himself in the same league with Newton and Einstein; which he is certainly not."

Of course, they weren't all this bad. Most of the other critics simply had opinions about science without having a fucking clue of what science actually is.

• "Stephen Hawking's faith in his ideas appears to be much greater than the faith many have in God. “Because there is a law such as gravity... Spontaneous creation”! The highest proof of evolution is found in the evolution of Science “facts”. “We have to work our way back from the present” over merely several decades of discarded science text books as proof positive. Scientific “facts” die off and are replaced more “advanced facts” which we very well may observe to evolve again in the near future."
• "regardless your belief or disbelief in God or creationism, starting with a conclusion and postulating a theory backwards to support it is always bad science. add this to his latest on E.T.'s and I would have to wonder if he hasn't taken a walk off the map."
• "The one problem I have with scientist and those who esteem them is that they can only believe in what they can prove. They can't prove the spirit world so they feel it does not exist. They are unable to say "we can't prove their is a spirit world...but it may still exist"."

But I guess claims like "crippled people are a bunch of cunts" and "science is always wrong" isn't enough for some people. Did you know Stephen Hawking is now the Taliban? It's true.

[Hawking] also attacked philosophers for failing to keep up with modern developments in physics and biology so that “their discussions seem increasingly outdated and irrelevant”.

Lady Greenfield said: “Science can often suffer from a certain smugness and complacency. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest scientists, had a wonderful quote, he said: ‘There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right’

“What we need to preserve in science is a curiosity and an open-mindedness rather than a complacency and a sort of arrogance where we attack people who come at the big truths and the big questions albeit using different strategies.”

Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”

She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…is to make sweeping assertions about a whole category of academia.”

She later claimed her Taliban remarks were "not intended to be personal", saying she "admired Stephen Hawking greatly" and "had no wish to compare him in particular to the Taliban".

I don't even know where to start tearing into this shit.

Welp, you heard Lady Greenfield. From this point on, nobody is allowed to have any opinions. As Lady Greenfield established, every person who thinks he's right about anything is now arrogant. See, the problem with holding opinions is that you're going to think you're right. And people who think they're right are smug. Therefore, anyone who holds an opinion is smug. That goes for you too, Lady Greenfield! How dare you believe in God!? How arrogant! You should use different strategies in trying to understand the universe! Be more open minded!

And of course, Hawking "attacked people" too! It's more than obvious that when he said "It is not necessary to invoke God," Hawking actually meant, "Good news, everyone! I concluded with my latest experiment that you're all a bunch of dipshits!"

She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…is to make sweeping assertions about a whole category of academia.”

It's okay to make sweeping assertions about science though. Hawking is right about the philosophy comment. They taught us about Paley's watchmaker analogy when I took philosophy classes. William Paley!

Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”

[...]

She later claimed her Taliban remarks were "not intended to be personal", saying she "admired Stephen Hawking greatly" and "had no wish to compare him in particular to the Taliban".

You know who Lady Greenfield is like? Hitler. Every word that comes out of her mouth is literally another Jew being thrown into the ovens. But I'll also say that while this woman is literally Adolf Hitler, she is also not Adolf Hitler at the same time. You can't argue with me now.

I will never understand what it is about atheism that makes believers go so unbelievably batshit. Remember how the general public used to respect Stephen Hawking as a world-renowned cosmologist? Now he's a bitter, know-it-all member of the Taliban, all because he doubts the universe had an intelligent creator. Why is it okay for people to say these things in public? Why is that atheists are one of the only minority groups in the west that are socially acceptable to trash?