This is incredibly stupid. I own google shares and I want them to save EVERY DIME of taxes they can. There is ZERO moral requirement to pay taxes if they can be avoided through legal "tax avoidance" (which normal non-idiotic journalists just call, you know, following the law).

Also worth noting: almost no one on the internet seems to know what begging the question actually means.

My family hears the altar bell in church every Sunday.

"Theology as an intellectual pursuit is barren..." And the arrogance- and foolishness- of that position is no better than that of a fundamentalist who ignores data which proves the Earth is more than 10,000 years old. There is little to no difference between the two. I'm certain you're right that original papers don't use that word, but it seems that anytime they actually say or write something they think might be heard and digested by people outside of academia, many otherwise respectable scientists (Hawking, Krauss) fall into the trap of saying things that discredit the dispassionate approach they claim to have (by virtue of calling themselves a scientist). It is audacious, bumptious shortsightedness of the worst kind.

I'm getting stitched up because I value science (and scientists) as much as I value theology and religion, and don't want them (physicists) saying ridiculous things that enable people in my religious community to say "See? Scientists have an agenda! Why should I listen to them?" It drives me crazy. Both theology AND science (and philosophy as well) are fields that have valuable things to say to me and to everyone. Anyone who totally excludes one or the other is an idiot. There is only ONE truth. There isn't scientific truth over here, and theological truth over there. There is just Truth, and to exclude any avenue for attaining knowledge- whether an atheist rejecting theology or a fundamentalist rejecting science- is hubristic and simple minded.

Drop by your local university's philosophy department or seminary. The box is the same size it's always been. Maybe physicists have box envy? Well the ones fixated on something-from-nothing nonsense, anyway. Yes, I realize they don't actually mean Nothing; yet they insist on using the word (Lawrence Krauss even wrote a book about it). Sandbox envy.

Then it isn't nothing. Nothing means nothing. Get another word.

But but but... MULTIVERSE!

Turns out, the cause of disease can be seen under a microscope. We found a way to observe the previously unobservable. Awesome. But when physicists start talking about "something from nothing", they have jettisoned scientific inquiry. At least you can try to observe evil spirits and deamons (which is how the real cause of disease was discovered). After all, that's all science is: observing, and applying those observations. But you can't observe nothing. Ergo, you are in the wrong sandbox, kiddo.

In "God and the Astronomers", agnostic Robert Jastrow chronicles the development of the Big Bang theory, and how for decades many physicists resisted it; not because of data, but because it meant the universe had a beginning, which was at odds with their worldview (“The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be." --Karl Sagan). They recognized that if there was ever truly NOTHING, that science would never be able to explain why there is SOMETHING. The question of origins is outside the reach of scientific inquiry. I wish the physicists would stop playing in the philosophical and theological sandbox.

Physicists seem to have a curious definition of "nothing" (see Lawrence Krauss' book).

Or they could just man up and drink it black the way God intended.

Oh sorry- it is called SMath Studio. Kind of relevant information to leave out.