subject: Who lit the Big Bang fuse? [print this page] 'Hello Stephen Hawking.' 'Hello Stephen Hawking.'
'What? Who's there?'
'This is God, Stephen. Hear me.'
'But there is no God. The Cosmos created itself. It didn't need God to light the blue touch paper and set us going. God does not exist.'
'Do you exist, Stephen?'
'I wouldn't be here otherwise.'
'Nor me, Stephen. Look out the window. You can see me sure as sunrise.'
'No way. Sunrise is a natural scientific phenomenon.'
'So call me Science, call me Big Bang, I am here.'
'Then why do you allow the mess on Planet Earth? Stop the wars, end disease, eliminate floods and earthquakes.'
'Alas Stephen. Science works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. Planet Earth needs an occasional shakeup, but the human species has knowledge enough to survive. Simply help one another and Planet Earth can yet be paradise.'
'But people argue. We all have different opinions.'
'Hence the football betting, Stephen, hence horse racing. Hence your own writings in that new book The Grand Design. It is an erudite work of research and most interesting the way you comment on the Universe and the creation of Planet Earth."
'Well, I like explaining how science controls everything.'
'That is so true, Stephen. Science is the heart of all religions. Thus has it been ever since humans looked to the sky and wondered. How did all those stars get there? Are there other planets inhabited by your own kind? Isn't cosmology an amazing thing . . . it is pure science. And Creation . . . pure science. Believe science, Stephen, and you believe in God.'
(posted by Cathy Macleod at Booktaste, 17 September 2010).
