“We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life. We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.”

Quoted in "Leaping the Abyss" (April 2002) by Gregory Benford, in Reason Magazine http://reason.com/archives/2002/04/01/leaping-the-abyss/4

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the univ…" by Stephen Hawking?
Stephen Hawking photo
Stephen Hawking 122
British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942–2018

Related quotes

Norman Vincent Peale photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“And this Consciousness of the Universe, which a love, personalizing all that it loves, discovers, is what we call God.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity
Context: Consciousness (conscientia) is participated knowledge, is co-feeling, and co-feeling is com-passion. Love personalizes all that it loves. Only by personalizing it can we fall in love with an idea. And when love is so great and so vital, so strong and so overflowing, that it loves everything, then it personalizes everything and discovers that the total All, that the Universe, is also a person possessing a Consciousness, a Consciousness which in its turn suffers, pities, and loves, and therefore is consciousness. And this Consciousness of the Universe, which a love, personalizing all that it loves, discovers, is what we call God.

Stuart Kauffman photo

“It would be a triumph to find universal laws of organization for life, ecosystems, and biospheres. The candidate criticality law is emergent and not reducible to physics alone.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Stuart A. Kauffman (2010) Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. p.40

E.M. Forster photo

“If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.”

Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Three: People

Thomas Paine photo

“It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.

Alan Moore photo
William A. Dembski photo
Carl Sagan photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Quoted from the Discovery Channel, 15 August 2011.
"Stephen Hawking There is no God. There is no Fate." from episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7VTdzuY7Y · [Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?, http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/did-god-create-the-universe.htm, Discovery Communications, LLC., 7 August 2011, 4 July 2013]
Curiosity (2011)

Related topics