'I'm an Atheist': Stephen Hawking on God and Space Travel

[IDemo]

World-famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says flat-out that he doesn't believe in God, but he does believe that space travel offers the best hope for our species' immortality.

Those pronouncements came during the buildup to this week's Starmus Festival at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where Hawking and other scientific luminaries have gathered for rounds of talks, tours and elbow-rubbing.

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo engineered an exclusive interview with Hawking, and headlined its report with his views on the origins of the universe.

In the past, there's been a tiny bit of ambiguity: In "A Brief History of Time," Hawking writes that the discovery of a unifying set of scientific principles known as the theory of everything would enable scientists to "know the mind of God." But in a follow-up book about the quest for the theory of everything, titled "The Grand Design," Hawking said the mechanism behind the origin of the universe was becoming so well known that God was no longer necessary.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/im-atheist-stephen-hawking-god-space-travel-n210076

[tecelote]

1. Want to make America safe?

Let's put 10% of our military budget towards space exploration.

We may need to leave this planet.

We may discovery new ways to save the planet.

War is not the answer. Science is.

[Fred Sanders]

2. Alien life is likely, as Hawking says, to be islands in a vast expanse of space and time. Space

and distance people understand, the vast distances folks can grasp in terms of light years of travel.

But what is more difficult to grasp is the influence of time. Even if a technological alien race existed on a nearby planet, how likely is it it exists in the same age, the sample technological time, as earthlings?

4,000,000,000 years have passed since Earth formed, a billion since life would have formed, humans technologically are able to communicate with another planet for only the last 50 years.

The odds are slim there is anybody around within hailing distance in the same space and the same time.

[whistler162]

3. That's nice Dr. Hawkings... I am sure God still believe's

in you.

[GeorgeGist]

4. Who created this God you speak of?

[CANDO]

5. That's easy...

The collective imagination of man created God.