@padt: according to the article, Hawkings does not deny the existence of God. He just challenges Newton's theory that the big bang must have needed an external force, you may call it God, others may call it 'consciousness'. So don't go banging on about western anti-christian sophistication too quickly, because Hawkins, like all theologians, ultimately are trying to answer the same questions; they just have different methods of seeking the truth.

@padt: according to the article, Hawkings does not deny the existence of God. He just challenges Newton's theory that the big bang must have needed an external force, you may call it God, others may call it 'consciousness'. So don't go banging on about western anti-christian sophistication too quickly, because Hawkins, like all theologians, ultimately are trying to answer the same questions; they just have different methods of seeking the truth.

I am noy a biblical fundamentalist. I read scripture and ask the question: What does it mean? - (not, 'what happened?)

Taking the Cook of Genesis as primarily a theological - not scientific - refelction on the 'origins' of things, including us, the text states: In the beginning (that means - before time and history began) God created the heavens and the earth. Note the text states the existence of God as a given - no where will Scripture 'prove' the existence of God - it's simp-ly a given. If you don't believe, then don't read on.

The point is, the theological reflection we find in Genesis begins with God. Before time and history there was only God.

So- to get to Professor Hawkins - the first thing God creates is - nothing. And out of nothing, God creates the world. And what does that mean? It means - to use 'human analogies' - God 'steps back' to create a space of nothing. Again, theologically, it means God puts 'Himself' at risk.

The act of creation by God is a supreme act of risk taking - that what He creates will turn on Him and repudiate Him. However scientifically the world came into being - Genesis isn't primarily concerned with this - for those answers go to the science books - but Jewish and Christian belief is that, howver the world came into being, it came about as the result of a sovereign act of supreme love by which God put Himself at risk of being rejected.

Now, the rest of that story is certainly history.

The problem with scientists is that they are not theologians. And many of them talk about God with the spiritual maturity of an 11 year old.

Of courdse, in the 'sophisticated' anti-Christian west today they have many allies, and people like me merely dismissed and get shouted down for presuming to speak.

It wouldn't occur to many liberated westerners that perhaps there problems with religion is because they hold a fairly childish understanding of it.

On my death bed I suspect I will ask someone to read to me something from Scripture. I doubt whether I will ask anyone to to read to me from the Works of the Good Professor - nor Das Kapital, nor Mein Kampf - nor most newspapers.

We have all come from somewhere - (the heart of God) and in this world we are just passing through - that accounts for the 'loneliness' we cannot explains the exists within each of us - and we are heading back home to the Heart. And there are going to be a few foolish grins on a few foolish faces. But in the end, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

This is a man who has every reason in the World to want to believe in a higher being, an afterlife, a God. He famously answered the question that was put to him: "do you believe in life after death?", "I hope so, this cannot be all there is."

Stephen Hawking is not simply a genius who possesses one of the most brilliant minds there has ever been, he is also one of the bravest men ever to have lived.

None of this should a surprise anyone. The vast majority of scientists are atheists.