Stephen Hawking bashes religion, but what does new paper say about God?

[sianrose]

Stephen Hawking bashes religion, but what does new paper say about God?

David W. Freeman ("CBS News," August 8, 2011)

USA - Physicist Stephen Hawking has given religion a cosmic thumbs-down, calling the idea of heaven "a fairy story" in a recent interview. But researchers say faith can have measurable psychological benefits.

Case in point: A paper published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology indicates that people who believe in a benevolent God are less bothered by the vagaries of life than those who believe in a deity that is indifferent or punitive.

The paper was based on two recent studies. The first, which involved 332 Christians and Jews, showed that those who trusted in God to look out for them worry less and are more tolerant of uncertainty than those who mistrusted God.

The second study involved 125 Jews who participated in a two-week audio-video program aimed at increasing their trust in God. It showed that those who participated reported significant decreases in worry and psychological stress.

"We found that the positive beliefs of trust in God were associated with less worry and that this relationship was partially mediated by lower levels of intolerance of uncertainty," the authors of the study - including Harvard-affiliated psychologist Dr. David Rosmarin - said in a written statement. "Conversely, the negative beliefs of mistrust in God correlated with higher worry and intolerance."

The paper noted that studies have shown that 93 percent of people believe in God or a higher power and that 50 percent say that religion is important to them. Hawking, whose long battle with a deadly neurological disease has left him withered and wheelchair-bound, certainly isn't one of them.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years," he told the Guardian, adding, "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."

[bohemian]

Stephen Hawking bashes religion, but what does new paper say about God?

David W. Freeman ("CBS News," August 8, 2011)

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years," he told the Guardian, adding, "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."

We know there is no afterlife in the sense that Stephen Hawking means, but do they think that religion is a fairy story because they are afraid of the light?

[sianrose]

good point Chris...some more points.

Follow the Light of the World

‘Let the light shine out of darkness,’ and he has shone on our hearts to illuminate them with the glorious knowledge of God by the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) Thus, the truths in God’s Word free us from ignorance and misinformation...

9 The situation today is as Isaiah 60:2 foretold: “Look! darkness itself will cover the earth, and thick gloom the national groups.” This darkness covering the vast majority of earth’s inhabitants is due to their not absorbing the spiritual light from Jehovah. And the root cause of the spiritual darkness is Satan the Devil and his demons, the chief enemies of the God of light. They are “the world rulers of this darkness.” (Ephesians 6:12) As 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, the Devil is “the god of this system of things,” who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” No human rule can rid the world of Satan’s influence. Only God can.

g93 4/1

#address of above article...

http://wwrn.org/articles/35905/?place=united-states

[Greenfield]

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...

What I would love to ask him:

What if the computer's Owner has all the computer's information stored elsewhere ready to load onto a restored computer?

[Dages]

Yes, stored in the "Cloud"