Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.
Guardian writer Ian Sample asked Hawking if he feared death in a story published yesterday. This was his response:
I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Hawking’s 1988 book “A Brief History of Time” sold 9 million copies, and in it Hawking referenced God metaphorically as the force that could fully explain the creation of the universe.
But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that “science will win” in a battle with religion “because it works.”
“What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God,” Hawking told Sawyer. “They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.”
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When he reaches the other side of death’s door and steps into the eternal existance he will know the truth. Truth remains true even if no one believes it. Truth needs no one to believe it in order for it to be true. Everyone will die with their own beliefs but only one belief, that one being in the Truth, will give eternal life. Otherwise, all other ways will lead to eternal torment-neverending seperation from the One who gives life which will mean unimaginable sufferings. Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to God apart from Jesus, the Christ.
Questions: when will science answer the question as to why there is sinful behavior in each man’s psyche? If there is no God then what is the purpose of being sinful? Why is there evil at all if there is no good (God) to compare it with?
May Stephen Hawkings come to know God, the only true God, and His Son whom He has sent. Let this day be the day of his salvation!
“Sin” is a moral judgement, based on the set of ethics/morals of the individual posing the question. The scientific method isn’t a tool for explaining “sin”. Many people in this world do not define the judeo-christian god as the sole measure of “good”, and “evil” is another moral concept/judgement not universally defined in the same ways, and the concept isn’t even used by many in assessing events in life.
The scientific fields of sociology, psychiatry, and psychology are involved in trying to find better understandings of why some people think and behave in ways that are detrimental to their lives, within their given society/culture.
You imply that without your idea of god/”good”, no person can truly be “good”, which many law abiding, caring, loving people would consider an insult.
No one is good; no, not one! Romans 3:10
http://bible.cc/romans/3-10.htm
Many law abiding, good, moral people thought they could enter the Kingdom of God apart from Jesus, the Christ; they are now in eternal torment for not knowing the truth of the matter. Only God’s own Son is good enough, holy enough, to come before the Most Holy God. He is without sin and God cannot look upon sin which is woven into the very nature of man. No matter who you are or who you think you are, if you are not found by God to be in Christ Jesus you are not going to be saved from His wrath which abides on the unrepentent sinners already.
Let them be offended and insulted! They are an offense and an insult to God apart from His Son, Jesus, the Sent One, who came to redeem mankind with His very life.
Well, so much for any attempt to engage in a civil, intelligent discussion…
The salvation of a person’s soul through the only means God has provided, i.e., Jesus, the Christ, isn’t debatable.
“There is a way that seems right to a man but ends in death thereof.” Proverbs 14:12
http://bible.cc/proverbs/14-12.htm
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
At this point (without reading through the rest of your blog to confirm it) I have to think it’s just as likely that you’re just trolling the “conversation.” Surely you realize the logical fallacies of your position — that, or you genuinely believe that every non-christian on this planet is bad, “evil”, “sinful”, offensive, insulting, and deserving of an eternity of the worst possible tortures imaginable, all for rejecting your gods supposed infinite “love.”
If you are indeed just trolling, well, you’re convincing in your persona of a crazed religious fanatic, but I’ll have to leave the game here. If you are instead actually such an intolerant, judgmental, intellectually dishonest christian, you obviously have no interest in reasonable discussion, so nothing else I can write will be of any use.
You say:
“Surely you realize the logical fallacies of your position”
What fallacies? To me, and God’s children, its a fallacy to think one can be good enough before a Most Holy God so as not to deserve His wrath especially since His standards are perfect sinlessness. I know I’m not that perfect and am glad God has provided a way, The Way, Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross taking the punishment due me in my stead for me to have eternal life. Apart from Him I, too, would be found in eternal damnation, my soul perishing.
“— that, or you genuinely believe that every non-christian on this planet is bad, “evil”, “sinful”, offensive, insulting, and deserving of an eternity of the worst possible tortures imaginable, all for rejecting your gods supposed infinite “love.””
YUP! I used to be that bad, evil, sinful, offensive, insulting being that God’s wrath rested upon. But then God, Himself, called me to His Son and chose me to be His child through faith in what His Son did for me on the cross in order to impute His righteousness on me. That’s love I surely did not deserve!
But those who want to reject God’s way of salvation and eternal life (of which His ways are higher than ours) get what they deserve for that rejection. Our righteousness is as filthy rags to Him. He only acknowleges His Son’s righteousness. After all that His Son, Jesus, the Christ, has done to save us from God’s wrath only fools would say in their heart there is no God. Stephen Hawkings is a fool no matter how intelligent he deems himself to be. He worships his god-his intellect. In the end of this life when he steps into the eternal next life he will see that none of his good works could buy him a place in God’s presence. His god, his intellect, won’t save him from the torment.
God calls His children to discern between the good and the evil (to be “judgemental” as you define the term). How else would we be able to pray for the unsaved souls that God would draw them to His Son Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. God offends the mind to reveal the heart so I will not apologize for any offenses in that regard. I’m glad I once was offended so that I would come to search out the matter with this christian God.
I will pray God opens your eyes to the Light of Truth.
Q. I would like to know why God gave the Law. Up to the time of Moses, people had a relationship built on faith. Other than the conclusion, “the law is to show up your sinful nature” why do you think God gave the Law?
A. In Romans 3:20 Paul said, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” Without the standard provided by the Law there’s no way to tell what is sin and what is not, just like without a posted speed limit there’s no way to tell what is speeding and what is not.
When Jesus clarified the requirements of the law in Matt. 5-6, He showed that God’s standards are so high that even the Pharisees, who were obsessive about keeping the law, could not hope to achieve the righteousness God requires (Matt. 5:20). His purpose was to demonstrate man’s inescapable need for a Savior.
In summary the Law was given to quantify God’s requirements for righteousness, so we would know what He expects, and to convince us that without a Savior we can never meet His requirements.
Grace Thru Faith
The reason why there are morals is because of conventions. Most of the world believes killing is wrong. That has been established through civilization.
Quite true, sherry! But what standard are those conventions based on?
God and Science
We might wisely remember one other fact about science. Eric Cohen observed that “From the beginning, science was driven both by democratic pity and aristocratic guile, by the promise to help humanity and the desire to be free from the constraints of the common man, with his many myths and superstitions and taboos.” In other words, scientists too often have a divided heart: a sincere desire to serve man’s knowledge, and a sincere disdain for what they see as the moral and religious delusions of real men and women. If this doesn’t make us just a little bit uneasy, it should. Both faith and science claim to teach with a special kind of authority. One of the differences is this. Most religious believers accept, at least in theory, that they’ll be judged by the God of justice for their actions. For science, God is absent from the courtroom.
Discovering in Your Own Life What It Means to be Fully Human
Origins of the Moral Law
The Unsurprising Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.
But why bother? Its no biggie if you don’t live right. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die.”
Anyhoo, Happy Birthday, Stephen! 70 years old today. You have truly beaten the odds! God is still pursuing you!
Women are a mystery to British physicist Hawking
You know it is so easy that all you have to know that if this world is Godless – there is no hereafter – you won’t rise up on a day of judgement – Agreed! Because you (mankind) do not have any such powers to even “eak out” a dying person.
But if, and because there is one true God, it’s easy for him to raise you up as anything. The concept to understand is actually “What do you think of the word ‘God’?”
You start judging God as holding human capacities and thus you deny.
God can create you, kill you and resurrect you anytime without any difficulty….only that once you understand he is.
For him nothing is impossible.
Well said, Haroon!
I really liked this part of your comment~
You start judging God as holding human capacities and thus you deny.
Reblogged this on News You May Have Missed and commented:
Stephen Hawkings View of Death
Would you rather live your whole life believing in God then die and find out that HE wasn’t real – or live your whole live as if God didn’t exist and die, then find out it was true – God is real!
He is indeed! Thanks for your comment!~
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mbarber/130421
FTA: According to NBC News, “M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained, with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist. Hawking mentioned that he felt fortunate to be living in this state of existence.”
This is also known as the “multiverse” theory. It is, essentially, the God-deniers last best attempt to explain away a universe that exhibits smoking gun evidence of intelligent design and fine-tuning clearly intended to support life. The multiverse theory – to the extent it can be called a theory (there’s exactly zero evidence to support it) – conjectures that our universe is merely one universe among an infinite number of invisible, parallel universes. It just so happens that we live in that one spontaneously self-created universe wherein, against astronomical odds (quite literally) – everything fell right in to place.
Poof – here we are.
In other words, we won the cosmic-parallel-dimension lottery at a-bazillion-to-one odds.
And they say we rely on blind faith?
1 Corinthians 1:18-19 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’”
Indeed, how frustrating it must be. So bright, yet so dull – “fearfully and wonderfully made,” yet in stubborn denial of the Maker.