Sympathy for Stephen Hawking

After news of Stephen Hawking’s death began to circulate around the internet, I must confess that I was appalled to read comments from some alleged Christians, who were rather gleefully speculating that Professor Hawking was roasting in hell at that moment, due to his atheism.

The first two thoughts that came to my mind were a Bible verse and a parable. The verse was Matthew 7:1, which reads:

Judge not, lest you be judged.

My next thought was to remember the parable about the workers in the field who were all paid the same, no matter how many hours they worked. I interpreted these connected thoughts in this way: even if it was with his dying breath, if Hawking said, “Jesus, forgive me!” we should expect to see him in heaven one day. By acknowledging that Jesus has the power to forgive sins, he would have implicitly been saying that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and also God, the Son, and according to Romans 10:9, that would have been all that was necessary.  It doesn’t really matter when he saw the light, as long as he saw it before his last breath.

And if Professor Hawking didn’t repent, well, that’s between him and God. Judging whether or not a man I never met was worthy of heaven is way above my pay grade.

It’s certainly no cause for celebration, nor a reason for Christians to gloat. If there’s any question about my opinion on this subject, see how our atheist friends have also noticed some Christians are behaving badly. Though from what I saw, the only truly reprehensible comment was from the Westboro Baptist Church, which should hardly be a surprise to anyone. I’ve seen much worse on  the internet than the examples given in the article on Patheos.

Just as I was appalled by atheists who denigrated the memory of Billy Graham after his death, I found myself disgusted by the thought that some Christians so gleefully speculated that Stephen Hawking was burning in hell at that moment. Even if you believe that to be true, it isn’t going to persuade an atheist, to be acting like a complete jerk during a very somber occasion.  My personal rule of thumb is that if you’re about to say something that you’d never dream of saying to the family of the deceased at the funeral, perhaps it shouldn’t be said, period.

I’m very sorry that Stephen Hawking is dead. He was a brilliant scientist, and I particularly appreciated his sense of humor. I felt great sympathy for Professor Hawking during his life, too, because of his virtually lifelong struggle against “Lou Gehrig’s disease”, officially known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.  Professor Hawking was left confined to a wheelchair for more than forty years, famously reduced to communicating to the world through a computer with a voice synthesizer. However, in spite of the tremendous physical adversity that is difficult for me to comprehend, he managed to make significant contributions to science.

For that, Professor Hawking deserves our deepest respect and admiration. He did manage to overcome his horrific adversity to achieve remarkable accomplishments.

Frankly, it isn’t difficult to imagine that spending fifty years of his life confined to a wheelchair and dependent on caregivers to meet even basic needs, unable to even bathe or dress himself, left Professor Hawking bitter and angry, and what convinced him that there isn’t a personal God. He preferred remarkable good luck and multiverse hypotheses to a creator God, perhaps believing that a personal God wouldn’t let him suffer from such a horrible disease.

However, without knowing Professor Hawking or ever communicating with him during his lifetime, it’s impossible for me to say what he was thinking, or why he was thinking it. All we can do is read or listen to his words, and think about what he was trying to say. On the other hand, it’s easy to speculate and assume that while Professor Hawking often teased theists with comments about “knowing the mind of God” and that sort of thing, and might have occasionally toyed around with the idea of the deist’s version of God, he was rather adamant about his personal atheism.

The irony of Professor Hawking’s quote above is that he admits appreciating “the grand design of the universe.” If there is no Designer, how can we possibly claim something is the product of design, or has been designed? Don’t say it unless you really mean it. And if you don’t mean the universe has been designed, then stop saying that it is. Please.

Of course, Professor Hawking can’t acquiesce to my request, because unfortunately, he’s dead.

In one sense, the death of Billy Graham really was a cause for celebration. According to the Christian perspective, a faithful servant has gone on to meet his just reward. These same people should be joining our atheist friends to mourn the death of a great scientist, and marvel at his earthly achievements, which were significant.

Of course, it’s impossible for me to empathize with Professor Hawking, because I’ve enjoyed almost full use of my appendages for most of my life (the occasional surgical repairs notwithstanding), where he was robbed of his mobility at an early age.

Using the exhausted argument for determinism, if I could exchange my body for Professor Hawking, atom for atom, I would then know what it was like to be quadriplegic, where I’ve only briefly experienced the total loss of use of a single limb. Extrapolating that thought process further, it would mean that I should be a brilliant physicist, and an atheist. If his personal suffering was not the main reason for the atheism of Professor Hawking,  surely it played a significant role, using the argument that God doesn’t answer prayers…which is an assumption, not evidence-based. The more correct assumption might be to think that perhaps God doesn’t answer every prayer in the manner prescribed by the petitioner, rather than assuming that because your individual prayer wasn’t answered the way you wanted, no prayers get answered.

If you don’t like God’s response, maybe you should think a little harder about your specific request next time. And before you get offended by the rather flippant tone of that comment, let me remind you that Deep Thought basically said the same thing to the pan-dimensional mice in the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I merely paraphrased.

There’s an old expression that says, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I can choose to believe that if I were in Stephen Hawking’s shoes, or more accurately, his wheelchair, that I would be an atheist…or I can believe that in spite of my physical adversity, I might be as amazing and inspiring as Nick Vujicic. It’s impossible to listen to this man speak and not feel like I’ve personally been ungrateful because of my own petty, little problems.

Comparatively speaking, I have no reason to complain about anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jhcxOhIMAQ

Stephen Hawking claimed to be grateful for life, but was he, really? Remember, there are many smart people who believe in God, in spite of what some atheists might have you believe. Yes, of course, Stephen Hawking had a brilliant mind, but that doesn’t mean he was the smartest person in the world. His perseverance over his physical affliction made him the most famous smart person in the world, which isn’t the same thing as the most intelligent person on Earth.

Which Hawking may have been, during his lifetime…but that doesn’t mean he was always right, or that he knew everything. Arguably, we all know virtually nothing, in the Big Scheme of Things, and maybe he knew one or two things more, but not as much as we’d like to know.

Stephen Hawking was afraid that artificial intelligence or natural disasters might wipe out humanity, and very worried about the future of mankind, when he should have been focused on experiencing the present. He was famous for making quite a few “doom-and-gloom” predictions that were surely influenced by his assumption that a creator God does not exist.

I feel most sorry for Professor Hawking because he couldn’t find the joy in his life that Nick Vujicic obviously has found, because he reportedly never found God.

I will continue to pray that those reports are wrong.

One of the most mean-spirited, puerile websites on the internet has a title that is self-explanatory: “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?”

The point seems blatantly obvious — atheists assume that God does not exist because an important scientist like Stephen Hawking was allowed to suffer. The thinking is that if God existed and truly answered prayer, that Hawking would have been healed. And if God won’t heal Stephen Hawking, it cannot be said that God is good. It’s known as the problem of theodicy. Here’s the problem with theodicy–the Bible doesn’t promise us paradise on earth. It informs us that rain will fall on both the just and the unjust. That all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. And that the wages of sin is death, but the gift from God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. If Professor Hawking had understood and believed that, I would be celebrating his life along with Billy Graham’s, instead of mourning his death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfmAZb6EmlI

Don’t waste time asking me why won’t God heal amputees. Just ask Nick Vujicic instead.