{"id":248,"date":"2010-09-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html"},"modified":"2010-09-07T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-07T08:00:00","slug":"stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Hawking&#8217;s Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. What better way to start off a short week with a big religion news question: what does Stephen Hawking mean, writing that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/tech\/science\/columnist\/vergano\/2010-09-06-hawking-book_N.htm?csp=34news\">God is &#8220;not necessary&#8221; to explain the Big Bang<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>My hunch is that the God focus is more a&nbsp;(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.observer.com\/2010\/culture\/hawkings-book-shoots-top-amazon-sales-after-he-denies-gods-existence\">highly successful<\/a>) marketing ploy to get folks excited about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking\/dp\/0739344269\">The Grand Design,<\/a> Hawking&#8217;s new book about the origin of the universe, rather than the genius physicist officially throwing his&nbsp;hat&nbsp;into the atheist-provacateur ring with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/fun-friday-atheist-christopher-hitchens-still-alive-kicking-and-blaspheming.html\">Christopher Hitchens and Co.<\/a> What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>Here are five links to the religious reactions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/WORLD\/europe\/09\/03\/hawking.god.universe.criticisms\/index.html?hpt=T2#fbid=XONZ2S30moy&amp;wom=false\">Religious leaders hit back at Hawking <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/science\/god_may_want_a_minute_alone_wi.html\">God may want a minute alone with Stephen Hawking<\/a> (Episcopal Cafe)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/newsblogs.chicagotribune.com\/religion_theseeker\/2010\/09\/the-rev-robert-barron-priest-and-theology-professor-university-of-st-mary-of-the-lake-in-mundelein-and-author-of-w.html\">Stephen Hawking&#8217;s answer to God question tiresome <\/a>(The Seeker, Chicago Tribune)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/hawkings-new-book-does-not-dismiss-the-real-god-from-creation-jesuit-scholars-say\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">Hawking&#8217;s new book does not dismiss real God from creation, Jesuit scholar says <\/a>(Catholic News Agency)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/killingthebuddha.com\/ktblog\/stephen-hawking-decrees-god-away\/\">Stephen Hawking decrees God away<\/a> (Killing the Buddha)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. What better way to start off a short week with a big religion news question: what does Stephen Hawking mean, writing that God is &#8220;not necessary&#8221; to explain the Big Bang? My hunch is that the God focus is more a&nbsp;(highly successful) marketing ploy to get folks&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stephen Hawking&#039;s Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stephen Hawking&#039;s Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. What better way to start off a short week with a big religion news question: what does Stephen Hawking mean, writing that God is &#8220;not necessary&#8221; to explain the Big Bang? My hunch is that the God focus is more a&nbsp;(highly successful) marketing ploy to get folks&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-07T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stephen Hawking's Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stephen Hawking's Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response - Belief Beat","og_description":"Hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. What better way to start off a short week with a big religion news question: what does Stephen Hawking mean, writing that God is &#8220;not necessary&#8221; to explain the Big Bang? My hunch is that the God focus is more a&nbsp;(highly successful) marketing ploy to get folks&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-09-07T08:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html","name":"Stephen Hawking's Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-07T08:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-07T08:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/stephen-hawking-god-not-necessary-in-creation-of-universe.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stephen Hawking&#8217;s Not-God Conclusion &amp; the Religious Response"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}