In an interview with The Guardian on Sunday, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking gave us a brief history of his thinking on religion when he stated, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Now, Hawking is a smart cookie, much smarter than you and I. The only black hole I can tell you about is a Disney movie featuring Maximilian Schell and Anthony Perkins. But he still doesn't have proof that a place someone thought up centuries ago doesn't actually exist.
Just ask Kirk Cameron, he'll tell you. You may remember him as Mike Seaver on Growing Pains, or from various cinematic turkeys, but now the father of six is a Christian evangelist with his own The Way of the Master ministry, and he's a bit perturbed by the statements of the famous scientist. He said:
"To say anything negative about Stephen Hawking is like bullying a blind man. He has an unfair disadvantage, and that gives him a free pass on some of his absurd ideas. Professor Hawking is heralded as 'the genius of Britain,' yet he believes in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything and that life sprang from non-life."
Cameron also, in a bit of a non sequitur, turned to John Lennon, painting him as an agnostic, and paraphrasing the lyrics of "Imagine" to illustrate his point:
"[Hawking] says he knows there is no heaven. John Lennon wasn't sure. He said to pretend there's no heaven. That's easy if you try. Then he said he hoped that someday we would join him. Such wishful thinking reveals John and Stephen's religious beliefs, not good science."
I was really looking forward to this Cameron-Hawking feud, but since the world is ending in a few days, I guess it's all sound and fury, signifying nada.