Physicist Stephen Hawking died in March, but not before working on a final book that provides his answers to a host of major issues – including his disbelief in God.
The book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, was released Tuesday. The book wasn’t complete when he died at the age of 76, so his family and friends used his notes and archives to finish it, according to CNN.
“Do I have faith?” he writes. “We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe, and no one directs our fate.”
He adds: “When we die, we return to dust.”
It wasn’t the first time Hawking expressed his disbelief.
On other issues, Hawking said he believes there is other intelligent life in the universe.
“There are forms of intelligent life out there,” he writes. “We need to be wary of answering back until we have developed a bit further.”
Further, he predicted, “within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System.”
News of Hawking’s book sparked plenty of discussion on social media.
“He has come face to face with the God he rejected his whole life. So sad. Pray for those that are submitting to his influences,” wrote Ben Throwbridge on Twitter.
On CNN’s Facebook page, reader Chris Hart wrote, “I wonder, in 2000 years will [Stephen Hawking’s] book be a book that people cling to? Yet, the word of God still remains. In less than 50 years you will be able to ask teen aged kids who is [Stephen Hawking] and they will have no clue. Jesus will still be known and adored.”
Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.
Photo courtesy: Greg Rakozy/Unsplash
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