A category mistake

According to reports in today's newspapers, in a new book co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking writes, '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.'

If there is nothing then there is no law of gravity. If there is no law of gravity, then the universe cannot create itself from nothing as a result of the law of gravity. Hawking appears to think that nothing is a kind of something. But something (even a set of laws) is precisely what nothing is the opposite of.

Those of a scientistic world view will try and argue that gravity does not depend on matter, that 'laws' and 'forces' can exist even when there is nothing. This is because they confuse the category 'nothing' with the category 'no material thing'. But nothing refers to the complete lack of anything, whether material, immaterial, whether a physical object or an idea, or a law, or a force.

If gravity exists without matter, then there is not nothing even if there is no matter, in which case the universe does not create itself from nothing. What Hawking appears to be describing is the mechanism by which the material universe is generated. He is in fact unwittingly putting forward a proof of the existence of a Creator, since he suggests that the universe requires 'something' to exist in order for it to be generated, 'something' that exists even when there is nothing. This 'something' must be 'something' the existence of which explains any mechanism of creation. That's what is meant by God as Creator.

That nothing is a kind of something is a category mistake, to which physicists seem to be particularly prone.

Another atheist deception

The influential American Constitution Society for Law and Policy has recently published a pamphlet containing the texts of the US Constitution, the American Declaration of Independence, and Lincoln's Gettysburg address.

According to this pamphlet Lincoln said, 'It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.'

Of course what he famously said (as all the contemporaneous witness accounts testify) was in fact, 'that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom'.

It is amazing how openly dishonest atheists and their secularist friends can be, and get away with it. It's reminiscent of the criminal rewriting of history one always finds in atheist states. Perhaps I should send a copy of George Orwell's 1984 to my learned friends in the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Hypocritchins

Read Terry Eagleton's hilarious review of Christopher Hitchens' new book here. At Balliol Hitchens was known as 'Hypocritchins' because of his two-faced habit of ingratiating himself with 'knobs' while at the same time being to all intents and purposes a revolutionary socialist and their class enemy. And, according to Eagleton, 'made Uriah Heep look like Little Nell'. In Eagleton's view, 'Hitchens, despite being one of the world's most renowned public intellectuals, was never very adept at ideas.' Now anyone bored by the recent round of so-called 'debates' in which atheists such as Hitchens regularly claim to trounce their theological opponents, largely through a mixture of ignoring or simply failing to grasp the subtlety of their opponents' theological arguments, packing the venues with their atheist supporters and playing to that gallery, might wish that Eagleton, who knows how to be entertaining, would engage Hitchens on the question of God. Eagleton's insight into the mind and personality of Hitchens suggests he is someone who has the nous to take Hitchens on in what, let's be honest, amounts to a public brawl, and win. Now that would be a 'debate' worth attending. Of course, the down side of this is that it would provide more oxygen of publicity for Hitchens' new book.

The intellectual poverty of the so-called 'new atheists'

David Bentley Hart presents an illuminating analysis of the so-called 'new atheists' and the failure to provide their beliefs with any rigorous intellectual foundation.

Haldane versus Hitchens

The philosopher John Haldane and Christopher Hitchens are taking part in a moderated debate at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, tonight. The title of the debate is 'We Don't Do God' and is about the role of religion in public life.

In an article written for The Tablet 'In the Crossfire', John Haldane speaks about his part in the Antony Flew controversy and what he calls the vulgarisation of the intellectual debate in the USA which he fears may infect discussions of theism versus atheism here. It would be interesting to find out his view on the current state of the debate in this country after his encounter with Hitchens.

Dawkins' witch-hunt

Dawkins' latest invitation to anti-religious hatred has been to call for the arrest and prosecution of Pope Benedict when he visits the UK in September. Dawkins' article in Tuesday's The Guardian newspaper proceeds by attempting to muddy the waters around the Pope's involvement in the case of an abusing priest by drawing an analogy between the actions of the Pope (then, Cardinal Ratzinger) and those of a teacher in a secular institution who failed to report a teacher, who he knew to be abusing children, to the police. But Dawkins' analogy is a misrepresentation of the facts because the priest in question had already been reported to the police. In the letter repeatedly cited in the current media frenzy the then cardinal was treating the issue of whether the priest should also be defrocked, which, as a matter of fact, he subsequently was. But then atheists never let facts get in the way of a good story as anyone who is accustomed to reading the wildly defamatory, and usually violent, comments by atheists on comment threads understands. For instance, this piece of erudite reasoning was posted under Dawkins' article in The Guardian: 'Lets accuse him [Pope Benedict] of witchcraft and see if he floats'.

Dawkins' attempt to make child abuse into an anti-religious issue, and specifically an attack on the Roman Catholic priesthood per se draws attention away from the widespread incidence of child abuse which is endemic throughout society, in secular, as well as religious, institutions and in the family. Indeed research indicates that the incidence of child abuse is higher in the general population and in secular institutions than among Roman Catholic clergy. But what tops all this in terms of hypocrisy is Dawkins' sudden interest in the topic of child abuse given his previous lack of concern for such victims voiced in The God Delusion. There he complains about the 'hysteria' and 'mob psychology' over pedophilia which he likens to a witch-hunt. Yet he has shown himself only too happy to ignite the hysteria of the mob when it suits his atheist agenda. In particular, his ill-judged comment that subjecting one's child to a Catholic education was in itself more damaging than sexual abuse had the effect of branding millions of teachers and parents who send their children to Catholic schools as guilty of crimes more heinous than those of a child rapist.

The Beginning of the Argument

In this, at times, moving video Peter Hitchens talks about the motivation for writing his new book, Rage Against God: How Atheism Led me to Belief (see post below, Monday March 15th 2010).

According to Hitchens it was 'atheism', which he describes as 'the beginning of the argument', that led him to faith. He talks about why he changed his mind and how his brother Christopher Hitchens' atheism was a major motivating force in writing this book. As a young atheist and 'revolutionary socialist', reporting around the world in his capacity as a journalist, Peter Hitchens witnessed at first hand the hostility of totalitarian regimes to belief in God and the dangers posed by atheist attempts (both old and new) to drive God from the world.

Hitchens also talks about some of the other influences in his life and recalls the moment his consciousness was raised by seeing Van der Weyden's startling depiction of The last Judgement. It was then that he realised for the first time that his life, like everyone else's, would be judged.