The best way to sum up what irks me about Stephen Hawking’s statement that heaven is for “people who are afraid of the dark” is that it stingily generalizes thousands of years of diverse cultural and spiritual inquires in our shared human experience. Progressive folks wouldn’t tolerate this kind of talk from self-styled “religious” people, nor should we embrace it from Hawking. Embrace his belief that there’s nothing to the spiritual all day long. That’s fine. But let’s not confuse an irresponsible soundbite for some kind of meaningful blow against the forces of reactionary religion. It’s not. Neither are all the people who hope or believe they’re engaged in some kind of spiritual life a bunch Bible-beating, Koran-beating, whatever-beating fundamentalists who can’t cope with some scientifically provable rejection of their schema. But we all know that, don’t we?
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Chris Cocca 
Someone who has spent his life thinking and theorizing about the scope of the natural world is bound to be mystified and a bit uninformed about the scope of the supernatural. That’s my biggest problem with his comments.
I mean, I don’t go to my pastor for help on my taxes. I don’t go to my doctor for photography tips. And I don’t go to a physicist for information or theories on heaven.