by Mike Gray   

Why is our universe unique?
It’s the only one that string theory can’t explain!   

According to Jonathan Sarfati:   

Hawking has again made the headlines with his new book, co-authored with science writer and physicist Dr. Leonard Mlodinow, strangely called The Grand Design. This supposedly proves that no Creator was necessary. Yet once again, he goes way beyond the evidence.   

Indeed, Hawking’s early training, like the current president’s, was probably decisive in determining his world view:   

As usual with atheistic scientists, Hawking’s atheopathy long predated his science. His influential mother Isabel was a Communist, and in his teen years he admired the strongly anti-Christian mathematical philosopher Bertrand Russell.   

As with Dawkins, his arguments for atheism are puerile, e.g., We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that would care about us or even notice our existence.   

All of which is a spurious argument at best:   

. . . as C. S. Lewis pointed out, the medieval theologians were well aware that compared to the vastness of heavens, the earth was but a point in space. But somehow modern antitheists think this is news, regard it as a profound disproof of God, as if God needed a small universe to exist. And if the universe were small, then these same atheopaths would probably whine, “If God is so great, then why didn’t He create anything else?”   

When he runs short on science, Hawking defaults to philosophy:   

But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.   

What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.   

That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own—but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Whittle as its agent.   

Similarly, the laws of physics could never have actually built the universe. Some agency must have been involved. — Prof. John Lennox   

Sarfati summarizes Hawking’s approach:   

The universe looks designed, but a designer is not allowed.
  

So there must be some other explanation.
  

Let’s resort to some other religious ideas to explain the appearance of design (the multiverse).
  

Then let’s use even more religious ideas to support our religious idea.
  

And then let’s claim it is science to show no designer was necessary.
  

We win!