Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, the iconic cosmologist shares his views on life, death, and the afterlife.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said.

"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," he added.

Hawking's comments on death and the concept of heaven are sure to provoke further backlash from those who took issue with comments in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he stated that the universe did not require a creator.

Although Hawking has often been quoted by religious figures for his references to God, it has remained quite clear that Hawking's use of the word 'God' is metaphorical (as was Einstein's).

Hawking has said of his use of the word 'God':

"If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed. If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence."

"If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God."

In his brief interview with The Guardian, Hawking had a very simple suggestion for how humans should live their lives:

"We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Read the full interview here.

Bill Maher: 'If you’re a Christian and support killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself'

From the May 13 airing of HBO's Real Time:

Presbyterians to Allow Gay, Lesbian Clergy

Today, the Presbyterian Church became the latest mainline religious denomination to begin to emerge from the Bronze Age.

USA Today reports:

Non-celibate gays and lesbians will become eligible for ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) following ratification of a constitutional amendment that reverses decades of official policy.

The long-debated change came late Tuesday when a Minnesota presbytery, or regional governing body, voted 205-56 to ratify an amendment lifting an effective ban on gay ordination in the church constitution.

That vote by the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area brought to 87 the number of presbyteries approving the change for the Protestant denomination based in Louisville, Ky. -- the majority needed to amend the constitution.

This hints that the momentum is building, as more and more liberal congregations have also voted to allow gay and lesbian clergy.

The 10 Worst States To Be a Woman

Over at Alternet, Amanda Marcotte has compiled a list of the 10 worst states to be a woman. the list is based on the nearly 1,000 laws introduced by Republican (and some Democrat) state legislators in 2011 limiting women's access to reproductive health.

The losers:
1. Mississippi
2. Texas
3. South Dakota
4. Indiana
5. Oklahoma
6. Kansas
7. Minnesota
8. Georgia
9. Arizona
10. Louisiana

Most of these states, unsurprisingly, have other notable things in common.

See Marcotte's full story to learn more about what's going on in these states.

Bryan Fischer (American Family Association): Obama Hates America and White People

Bryan Fischer, weighing in on the whole Common silliness, provides further evidence that he is completely batshit:

Dawkins: 'Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon?'

The Washington Post's On Faith column asked four prominent figures in fields of science and theology about Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping's calculation that the rapture will occur on May 21, 2011. The group of four included evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Surely The Post knew that they were dropping a turd in the punchbowl.

Q. While many are laughing at the suggestion, Camping’s followers are taking him seriously, bringing his message of impending doom to billboards and public spaces around the country. What does your tradition teach about the end of the world? How does end time theology impact real world behavior?

A. Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.

So, the question becomes, why are there so many well-heeled, gullible idiots out there? Why is it that an idea can be as nuts as you like and still con enough backers to finance its advertising to acquire yet more backers . . . until eventually a national newspaper notices and makes it into a silly season filler?

A few more snippets:

Evidence-free beliefs are, by definition, groundless. What my ‘tradition’ (or your ‘tradition’ or the Dalai Lama’s ‘tradition’ or Osama bin Laden’s ‘tradition’ or the bad-trip ‘tradition’ of whoever wrote Revelation) says about anything in the real world (including its end) is no more likely to be true than any urban legend, idle rumor, superstition, or science fiction novel. Yet, the moment you slap the word ‘tradition’ onto a made-up story you confer on it a spurious dignity, which we are solemnly asked to ‘respect’.

Science is not a tradition, it is the organized use of evidence from the real world to make inferences about the real world...Science knows approximately how, and when, our Earth will end. In about five billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen, which will upset its self-regulating equilibrium; in its death-throes it will swell, and this planet will vaporise. Before that, we can expect, at unpredictable intervals measured in tens of millions of years, bombardment by dangerously large meteors or comets. Any one of these impacts could be catastrophic enough to destroy all life, as the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago nearly did. In the nearer future, it is pretty likely that human life will become extinct – the fate of almost all species that have ever lived.

However it happens, the end of the world will be a parochial little affair, unnoticed in the universe at large.

Dawkins' full answer can be read here. The other three responses can be accessed here.

A Christian Chaplain Who Helps Gay Farmers

Keith Ineson

You rarely, if ever, hear about gay farmers. And there's likely a good reason for that. Like any number of rural outdoor professions, there is a masculine mythology associated with farming. There have been countless academic papers dealing with the intersection of agriculture, gender, and masculinity. And as much of the research finds, this perception is truly a myth. And that makes it difficult for some to do their jobs without hiding who they really are.

Keith Ineson, an English ex-farmer who works as a Christian chaplain for Churches Together in Cheshire, has often been there for those who are troubled. But after running into a few separate cases involving suicidal farmers who happened to be hiding the fact that they were gay, Ineson opened up a dedicated help line where other gay farmers could reach out for help.

The Guardian reports:

Within six months of launching the dedicated helpline at the end of 2009, Ineson had received 52 calls – mostly from gay farmers over 50, some of whom were single, and all of whom felt imprisoned, thinking that they were the only gay farmer around. The concern is that if Ineson stopped work tomorrow, the helpline would stop with him: there is a need for Christians with rural knowledge and an understanding of gay issues to get involved in the work Keith is doing.

The helpline is supported by a network of local rural organizations and an array of churches (including Anglicans, Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, and others).

Ineson, who is himself gay, says its not his sexuality, but his faith, that moved him to reach out and offer support. He believes God is using his sexuality to help people. He says his calling is to stop gay farmers from ending their lives.

One of the cases Ineson handled involved a farmer in his forties who was tormented by a memory from his youth. The farmer told Ineson how he and his dad once saw a man hanging from a tree one evening when they were out walking around their farm. His dad cut the man down from the tree, but when he found out that the man had been trying to kill himself because he was gay, he told his son that he wished he had left the man to die. The farmer carried this memory with him for years, believing his dad would have left him to die if he had known that he was gay too.

Ineson's story should serve as an example to congregations everywhere. His is a true example of living with the intention of reducing suffering in the world, rather than further maligning our fellow human beings at a time when they are dangerously vulnerable.

For more information on Ineson's helpline, visit the Gay Farmer Helpline Website.