stephen-hawking

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking has been misrepresented to support the baseless position that certain gods exist. Even though this is an Appeal to Authority fallacy, his book The Grand Design clarifies that he does not believe in a personal god. Hawking also regards Heaven as mythical:

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.

In 2010, Hawking contrasted religion and science by noting their fundamental differences. Religion is based on authority (imposed dogma and faith), while science is based on observation (reason and rationality). Science will trounce religion, he declared, because it works.

Without medical science, Hawking would have succumbed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. And yet countless numbers of people have died from disease. How many of those people could have reshaped the world for the better had they lived a full life? Now consider how much money is wasted on religious propaganda that could be used to advance medical science.

Religion affronts all of humanity in many ways.