Thursday, April 18, 2013

"Catholic Online" writers publish peevish article

World-renown [sic] physicist and author, Stephen Hawking, gave a lecture last night at Pasadena's California Institute of Technology astoundingly claiming that God wasn't needed to create the universe, and that instead physical laws would cause the universe to spontaneously appear.
So begins a poorly thought-out, poorly written article at Catholic Online. I've never heard of them before and now I know why. Apparently they're shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- that Stephen Hawking said something that virtually every other scientist agrees with. They continue:
An entire auditorium and an outdoor venue were packed with thousands who gathered just to hear Hawking say that the universe didn't need God.
Uh, no. They were there to hear a brilliant man tell them whatever he wanted to -- because he's, you know, brilliant. Here's a bit more:
Hawking's elegant theories neatly explain how everything fits together, but that's about it. [Duh.] And when the physicist launches forays into the reasons and whys, he is so shut off from his Creator that he sees only darkness and concludes nothing is there.
Testy, testy. This is a nitwit article written by Catholic writers who never encountered a science book. (The byline is listed as "Catholic Online" -- apparently this tripe was a group effort! That makes it even funnier.) Go read the article if you want a laugh. Here's how they ended the piece:
God has explained what we most need to know. God has given us the whys that elude Hawking. Isn't the teaching of our Holy Church enough?
Uh, no.

This article is so off the beaten path. It makes me wonder if the writers are aware of the massive number of priests who raped children and then saw their predatory acts hidden from the authorities by the church itself -- including the last pope. This is the specific, real-life "teaching of [their] Holy Church".