Monk

British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says he rejects the idea of heaven or an afterlife, calling the belief a "fairy story" for people afraid of dying.

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"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," he added.

-- Douglas Stanglin for USA Today

For my part, I wistfully entertain the idea of heaven not so much because I am afraid of death, but because I am afraid of never knowing true and full happiness. I feel deeply that we should be happy sometime, and I personally cannot see that kind of happiness in the world as we know it.

Oh, this life of mine has its satisfactions, but I don't think I've ever known true happiness, which might even be a fairytale in itself, save perhaps for new lovers, who I imagine might know such sweetness for a time.

What do you believe happens to our consciousness after death? —Elliot Giberson, SEATTLE

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one's memories.

-- Time.com

Theoretically, couldn't we leave out a few of the worse memories, and maybe create a few happy 'memories'? So long as we're going to the trouble, why not make it worthwhile? Throw in a little romantic love, sweeten the mix. Go ahead and cook up something with Claudia. Have her call me after reading my letter, and my life goes another way - the path not taken, the one that makes all the difference.

Stephen Hawking, the most revered scientist since Einstein, is a formidable mathematician and a formidable salesman. “I want my books sold on airport bookstalls,” he has impishly declared, and he’s learned how to put them there.

-- Dwight Garner for The New York Times

Hawking's new book is titled "Grand Design", and a number of commentators have caught onto the idea that his dramatic statement in support of atheism is as least three parts publicity ploy, cashing in on the big God debate that has been running rather warmly over the past year or two. I've obviously been a big spectator to this debate, but I think I'll have to pass on this one, though I was one of the many who contributed to Mr. Hawking's fortunes by buying his "Brief History of Time". As far as the God question goes, I suppose this is the meat and potatoes of it anyway:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

I don't begrudge him is wealth or opportunism. If I had money, I might buy it just to have a piece of the iconic man, and as a way of applause, mixed in with a little sympathy for the life that he is restricted to, in what can seem like a coffin-bound body - a pity there's not a Jesus walking around today that can lay his divine hands on him and heal the man.

As far as my meager dollars go, I have been voting on the other side of the God debate, having just ordered yesterday a volume on the mystic Bonaventure. However, this has less to do with my sense of the Ultimate Truth of the Universe than it does with my almost desperate need for spiritual food, a little something to salve this busted life, as I am perhaps more confined than Hawking. Besides, I don't have much of a mind for math and science anyway.

Reading on the little tempest stirred up by Hawking's new book and his atheistic statements, I am struck by how cool relations have grown between religion and science. Previously, there was more of an attempt on the part of the scientists to strike a compatibility, saying that they just answer different questions. But then one sees this statement by Timothy Ferris, which admittedly goes back to 1997:

“Religious systems are inherently conservative, science inherently progressive,” Mr. Ferris wrote. Religion and science don’t have to be hostile to each other, but we can stop setting them up on blind dates. “This may be an instance,” Mr. Ferris added, “where good walls make good neighbors.”

It's as though the science people have had enough of pussyfooting with the sectarians, and they just want to get on with their business without being pestered by religious sensibilities. I still like to think of it as just a matter of different perspectives on the mystery of life. I look to science to possibly cure cancer, as well as come up with even better video-game systems, but I look to Christianity for consolation and beauty. My faith is not yet strong enough to truly and deeply believe that it is up to God whether or not to open up to scientists and engineers the mysteries of disease and computer technology.

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Other Sources:

BBC News

Graham Farmello for Telegraph