Hawking Says Heaven a 'Fairy Story'

Whenever there is a discussion about whether or not there is a God, I just love to contribute my two cents.  I like the medium of the internet, blogs, etc., because it allows me to think through my response before posting it.

Today, I couldn't help but respond to a report about the great British scientist Stephen Hawking saying that "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven of afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark."

I respect Dr. Hawking a lot for his courage in facing A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig's disease) for almost 50 years now.  I appreciate his willingness to explain the theory of relativity and other challenging concepts in his book, A Brief History of Time.

Here is my response:

If there is no God, what is the point of being good? Why not just get away with everything that we can? If there is no God, what is this feeling I get in my heart when I help a stranger, or hold my 3 week-old son?

Isaiah 45:15 says, "Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel." If God appeared to everyone, and manifested His power to all, there would be no one who didn't believe in Him. God deliberately hides Himself behind a veil, waiting to reveal Himself to those that seek him "as a child," humbly and sincerely. It has always been so. This is God's plan, that we choose for ourselves.

But our freedom to choose does not give us the power to alter reality. Either there is a God, or religion is the biggest farce ever concocted. Remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31? After the rich man died, he looked up in torment at the beggar Lazarus in heaven, and begged God to send a miracle to his relatives still living, so that they might believe and repent, and avoid the suffering he was in. But God said, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them. If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

Point is, to those who seek Him, God will reveal Himself by the "still, small voice" (King James language. The NIV calls it a "gentle whisper." See 1 Kings 19:11-13). To do otherwise would remove the requirement of faith, the key component for our growth and development as His children.