RIP Stephen Hawking, myth and atheist

Yesterday Stephen Hawking, physicist and scientist, but above all myth and cult figure, passed away. It will probably not be appreciated by many for saying this, but the combination of a fantastic brain in an extremely vulnerable body has contributed to the fact that he is spoken of in superlatives yesterday and today.

He is often mentioned in the same breath as Einstein and Newton. I don't know if it is entirely justified and is enough honor for the first two in that list. Yes, Hawkings has made an important discovery about black holes and has succeeded in opening up a piece of science to more people than the group that the original would have interested. On the other hand, he has often made statements that were mediagenic. I even wonder if he would have been so famous without his wheelchair and voting computer?

Despite all the tributes I read today, I notice the undertone of other scientists who, on the one hand, want to take full credit for his thesis on black holes and their radiation, but on the other hand also point out that he was the rock star of the universe thanks to the popular books he wrote. As a result, there were often statements of his that took on a life of their own and were wrongly presented as the opinion of the entire science.

Atheist to the core

In addition to the fact that the man has become a myth and cult figure (which he certainly deserves; science is too important to leave it to nerds alone, even if they are cool nerds like me), I would especially like to take a moment to consider his atheism, in which he proclaimed quite a missionary zeal. He was quite dogmatic about this.

He once said:

We are all free to believe whatever we want and in my opinion the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our universe and no one directs our destiny.

Hawking himself has made it clear several times that he was an atheist, including this controversial statement in 2014 during an interview with Pablo Jauregui, a journalist from El Mundo, a Soanian newspaper:

Before we understand science, it is logical to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more compelling explanation. What I meant by "we would know the mind of God" is, we would know everything that God would know if there were a God who is not. I am an atheist.

It is of course his right (and that of many others) to be an atheist and not believe in God. I just think it's a shame that Hawking and so many others say this simply because one dogmatic belief (in God) has been replaced by another (in science).

Hawking states in the quote above that science offers a better explanation, but isn't it actually more scientifically correct to say that science offers a better explanation for many things than religion previously did, but that there are still many things for which science has no answer? After all, science is defined by many scientists on the basis of what we know versus what we do not yet know. The big problem with this is that an index of the first part can be made quite well, but not of the second part. Sometimes you know what you don't know yet, but you don't know if there is much more you don't know. A scientific paradox, in my opinion.

For me, that is where the fallacy of Hawking and so many other atheists lies. Yes, they are right that historically people have often turned to religion to have (dogmatic) answers to phenomena that are now better explained by science. I am a science fan myself and I will always give credence (sic) to what has been scientifically proven.

For me, however, that does not rule out the possibility that there is a place for religion in addition to science. I make even more of a distinction that science is the best way to answer the how questions (how does something happen), but that religion is often better suited to answer the why questions. It is not because science is now almost certain of the Big Bang (indeed, quite certain, this also requires a certain level of belief within science and there are proponents and opponents), that one knows why the Big Bang ever happened.

Science and religion: two windows on the same truth

Stephen Hawking must have admitted this to himself somewhere, because there is the following quote from him that has become quite famous:

God might exist, but science can explain the universe without needing a creator.

He just leaves it in the middle there. After all, just because you discover how God created things does not mean you have proof that God does not exist.

As a Mormon, I am a fan of the following statement by Stephen Hawking:

I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe that the universe is governed by the laws of science. Those laws may have been set by God, but God does not intervene to break those laws.

I am also not religious in the normal sense, which is what many people think religious always is: dogmatic, stupid, outdated, ... I am a Mormon and Mormons are encouraged to do science and keep learning. The Mormon doctrine states very clearly that we as people will continue to learn and discover more and more, but also states in the creation story, for example, that God created the universe by determining the laws and that it is crucial for the functioning of the universe that God does not intervene.

As an atheist, Hawking actually provided the answer to one of the arguments most commonly used by atheists: “If there is a loving, all-powerful God, why does He allow so much misery?” Because if He did that, the workings of the universe would be so disrupted that it would no longer work.

In short, for many people Stephen Hawking may be the symbol of the scientific atheist, but when I read his books I regularly notice things that rather point to the fact that it is all so skillfully put together that science can explain it with fixed laws, that you can ask yourself the question that if it had all arisen by chance, it would not have been much of a mess anymore. Just think about that.