Stephen Hawking: 'heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark'

[Alex]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/stephen-hawking/8515639/Stephen-Hawking-heaven-is-a-fairy-story-for-people-afraid-of-the-dark.html

..."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."

He added: "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Asked how we should live he replied: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

He is due to speak at the Google Zeitgeist meeting in London, in which he will address the question: "Why are we here?"

He will argue that tiny "quantum fluctuations" in the very early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars, and ultimately, human life began.  ...

...In his latest book, The Grand Design, Prof Hawking claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.  ...



Alex's comment:  Agreed.  But this statement can be a two-edged sword.  Because it can also be an argument for the practical usefulness of the belief of heaven as a means of psychotherapy.  In short, for people afraid of the dark, apart from heaven (ok, it is non-existent, just an imaginative fairy story), what alternative soothe can we offer to them?

[Alex]

霍金：天堂只是童話故事
明報
http://exchristian.hk/forum/viewthread.php?tid=7157

霍金否定來世：天堂是童話
星島日報
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/110516/3/ocef.html

霍金又發驚人語：無天堂與來生
路透倫敦
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/110516/21/oc6y.html

[Alex]

Related entries from npr 13.7 blog:

The Final Word On Life After Death
by ADAM FRANK
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/05/17/136406757/the-final-word-on-life-after-death

Experiments On Life After Death
by MARCELO GLEISER
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/05/18/136391917/experiments-on-life-after-death



Alex's comment:
This saying in "The Final Word On Life After Death" article attracted me:
"I do ponder, though, that as we incorporate new matter over our lives, we DO become different beings—our "I-ness" changes over time."

[Alex]

Discussion

Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven,’ God is not ‘necessary’ for creation

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking said in an interview with the UK Guardian published Monday that he rejects the idea of heaven, calling it a ’fairy story’ for people afraid to die. Hawking also wrote in his 2010 book The Grand Design that he believes God was not ‘necessary’ for the creation of the universe and that ‘spontaneous creation‚’ instead explains existence. Hawking seems confident in his conclusion about God, but then again so do believers. Who is right? Can God and science co-exist?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/stephen-hawking-there-is-no-heaven-god-is-not-necessary-for-creation/2011/05/16/AFtQ164G_blog.html?hpid=z7



Alex's comment:  
I agree with this (more than those of celebrities) remark by "Carstonio" posted at 5/18/2011 11:41:41 PM GMT+0800:
Instead of flatly declaring that gods and heavens don't exist, Hawking should have said, "There's no evidence for either gods or heavens, and the propositions don't allow for even the possibility of evidence proving them false. So while I don't know if they exist, I do know that claims that they exist are merely speculation." ...