Dr Paul Allen

Image via Wikipedia Some modern theorists believe that the world was created by nothing. Note the difference between saying that the world was created from nothing and saying that the universe was created  by  nothing.  In this modern view the rabbit comes out of the hat without a rabbit, a hat, or even a magician. The modern view is far more miraculous than the biblical view. It suggests that nothing created something. More than that, it holds that nothing created everything—quite a feat indeed! Biblical creation sounds better than the big bang out of nothing theory Related articles Why Does a Species Keep Perpetuating? (zazenlife.com) Evolve : Speed (milkandcookies.com) In A Data Driven World, Tablet Publishers Have An Evolving Toolset (readwriteweb.com) Evolve : Flight (milkandcookies.com) Down the Rabbit Hole and Back Again: An Interview with Vanessa Carlton (Feature) (popmatters.com) Can we escape from our biology and become more evolved? (ch1me.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia I think that it is impossible for something to create itself. (I also think that it is impossible for something to explain itself.) So I disagree with the claim -- attributed to Hawking -- that the universe can create itself from nothing.  This is not to say that I disagree with Hawking's model of the universe (though, given the track record of global cosmology , I'd say the odds are that it is false); what I disagree with is the suggestion that that model involves something that is properly called 'self-creation'.  (In my opinion, Hawking's model either involves absence of cause, or else it involves necessary cause. Most plausibly, absence of cause.)  There are many good things that have been written about cosmological arguments. As on almost any topic in philosophy , a good place to start is with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:   http://plato.stanford.edu/   . Most discussions of cosmological arguments make some comments about