For some Christian theists who believe in an omnipotent god, the story of creation as relayed by the Bible is already enough to explain how the universe has come about. Famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking, however, is not sold on the idea of the world and all that is in it being created in the flip of an all-powerful hand.
The renowned British theoretical physicist and best-selling author known for his theory on time and space said that science offers a more convincing explanation on the origin of the universe and pointed out that scientific facts do not go along well with the miracles that religion believes in.
Hawking's statement came during an exclusive interview with Pablo Jauregui, a journalist with the newspaper El Mundo, while he was in Tenerife, Spain for the Starmus Festival, an astronomy-related event where he spoke on the origin of the universe.
The astrophysicist said that the creation of the world is a scientifically explainable phenomenon and not something that has to do with "God," pointing out that his theories about the origin of the universe are not compatible with the idea that the world was created by a supreme being.
"Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation," Hawking said in a video posted by El Mundo.
In the popular science book A Brief History of Time, which was published in 1988, Hawking, who suffers from the progressive neurodegenerative disease amylotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, wrote that a unifying theory of science would make it possible for mankind to "know the mind of God" but he pointed out during his interview with El Mundo that this statement does not mean that he believes in the existence of a god, saying without qualms that he is an atheist.
"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. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist," Hawking said.
Hawking has been critical of divine explanations on the origin of the universe. In a speech he made at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in 2013, Hawking even poked fun on the supposed power of god asking what God was doing before the creation. Three years ago, Hawking also said that heaven is a fairytale for those who are afraid of the dark.
