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Is It Impious to Laugh at Stephen Hawking’s Thoughts on Religion?

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Stephen Hawking

If so, then in a new ID the Future podcast, Rabbi Moshe Averick is highly impious. Talking with host Ira Berkowitz in Jerusalem, the author of Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism considers the late Dr. Hawking’s final broadside against religion, delivered in the posthumously published book Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Averick concludes, “If he did physics that way his university would have fired him.”

Download the podcast or listen to it here.

The rabbi laughs at the idea that even the world’s most brilliant physicist is necessarily equipped to hold forth on faith, as Stephen Hawking did, when the atheist scientist seemingly has, or had, only the most superficial familiarity with the subject. He cracks up, and he has a good time doing so. I personally find this response — mirth — quite refreshing. I think you will, too.

Photo: Stephen Hawking in 2008, via Wikimedia Commons.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Science and Culture Today
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of seven books including Plato’s Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome and The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy. A former senior editor at National Review, he has contributed to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He received an A.B. magna cum laude from Brown University in 1987. Born in Santa Monica, CA, he lives on Mercer Island, WA.
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