Stephen Hawking: ‘heaven is a fairy story’
Scientist says he is not afraid of death as he prepares to tackle the question: ‘Why are we here?’
STEPHEN HAWKING has once again braved the anger of the religious community after saying heaven is a "fairytale for people who are afraid of the dark".
In an interview with the Guardian today, the eminent cosmologist, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, says he is not afraid of dying, having lived with the prospect of an early death for 49 years.
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail," he says. "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
The statement is Hawking's latest challenge to religion, coming after his comment last year that "it is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going" which he made in an interview to promote his book The Grand Design.
The book set out to show that the birth of the Universe was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics and did not need a creator to act as midwife.
However, he did not actually say that God does not exist – a distinction that sets him apart from that arch-atheist and bete noire of the religious, Richard Dawkins.
Hawking's interview comes as he prepares to give a lecture at today's Google Zeitgeist convention in London in which he will address the question: "Why are we here?"
In it, he will return to the theme of The Grand Design and talk about 'M-theory', the proposed mathematical model that predicts the existence of 11 dimensions, including time and space, which is hyped by some as a 'theory of everything'.
Unfortunately, Hawking does not explain why we are here to the Guardian. But as for what we should do between now and the moment our "components fail"? Hawking says: "We should seek the greatest value of our action." ·
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Sure Ian, the fact that A book revealed 1430 odd years ago describes the big bang "theory", the fact that one of the most recognized scholars of embryology, after researching the descriptions of the embryo and it's growth stages in the afore mentioned book, had to admit that it's origins could scarcely be from the mind if any 7th century man, add up all the other scientific revelations, include the fact that this book was supposedly written by a 40 year old illiterate man, the fact that it was revealed over 23 years without a change in writing style, That it's challenge to produce a single verse of equal style and content (and have a scholar agree to it's equality) still stands, add the reams of other amazing things about this book which some might call evidence, add that to your strict ideology and you will still deny that anyone has ever brought you evidence. You are described to a T in that book.
Mr Legere: Professor Hawking does not have to explain the chicken and egg "conundrum". It's almost certainly the egg,as most biologists have agreed for a century and a half. God-twits like you always whine about "arrogance" in scientists.
They would cheerfully admit "we don't know" to the casualty problem. (it's a commonly used phrase by people who use their brains and ask questions). When they propose a theory or announce a discovery, they produce evidence, research, proof. Not once in my fifty years has a feeble-minded religious nincompoop offered the slightest shred of evidence for their particular rag-bag of myths, propaganda and fiction. The best they manage is the inevitable "science doesn't have all the answers you know", smugly implying their access to inner-truth. No, scientists don't know everything, that's why they ask questions!
Instead, invisible-sky-wizard fans blithely expect humanity to variously mutilate their genitals, arrange their diet, wear their clothes, organise their family relationships and, oh yes, occasionally brutalise, enslave and kill their fellows. All because they say "we know the truth, we don't have to give proof, just do as we say".
That's why people who think hold religion in contempt.
Bravo! Hawking is one of the few uncowed, prominent individuals who consistently takes a stand against the absurdities of faith and religion. He is one of the few great champions of reason.
"Think not God to scan," wrote Alexander Pope. "The proper study of mankind is man." So, of God and man, which is chicken and which egg? Dawkins's atheism is grounded in the non-existence of gods or God. But what is interesting about religions is where they lead in trying to understand the idea of God - which is of course a human idea. So God certainly exists in millions of human minds, where he or she or it has been safely lodging for many thousands of years. If the idea of God were not interesting, which of course it is being fundamentally a consequence of the very controversial and awkward idea of goodness, nobody would waste much time on it or take it seriously. But of course God is our business, whereas we are not necessarily the business of the Universe, of all being, of existence. Dawkins is already 3 score years and 10, and Hawking soon will be, and of course most of us who are not going to be around that much longer have come to the conclusion that the notion of heaven or of eternal life is an expression of value rather than a reality in any useful way. What is life for? Why are we here? Life is for living, of course, while you can. There are many far more interesting things about Christianity or Islam than the idea that after the joys and perils of this life we shall have to live for ever without reproduction or sex or any reason for being around at all - except that somebody who is said to have created us is said to want it, out of love for each one of us. It does seem awfully odd to make a world as interesting as this one in order to live for ever surrounded by human beings without the things that make them human, especially their tortuous inability to be certain about what is good and what is not.
So, apparently, every action has an equal and opposite reaction but the original reaction (the "big bang")had no causal action. Maybe Mr. Hawkings wil next explain the chicken/egg conundrum.
It's ironic that these science types use the term "fairy tale" to describe faith in the unseen while taking huge leaps to explain the universe.
I, for one will continue to pray and believe in my creator until such time as those who ignore common sense can explain how a 7th century desert merchant was able to describe things those same scientific types just discovered in the 20th century