I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.
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"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."
"Slapstick is always funny. Oh yeah? How about now?"
"The universe is a big place, and we are a small part of it. But we are an important part of it."
"The universe doesn't allow perfection."
"Both of us."
British theoretical physicist whose Hawking radiation work and A Brief History of Time (1988) brought black-hole physics to a mass audience while he lived with ALS for 55 years. Closely associated with Roger Penrose (his collaborator on singularity theorems) and Carl Sagan (fellow popularizer who wrote Brief History's foreword). For an intellectual contrast, see William Lane Craig, American philosopher of religion — Craig's Kalam cosmological argument depends on the Big Bang requiring a divine first cause; Hawking's no-boundary proposal was specifically designed to remove the moment that would require one — the cleanest cosmology-vs-natural-theology contrast in modern thought.
From his book 'The Grand Design' (2010), also cited in a 2011 Fox News article and a 2007 New Scientist interview.
Date: 2010
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The universe requires no creator or divine overseer to exist. Without a God, heaven and afterlife dissolve as concepts, leaving us with a single finite life. Rather than finding this bleak, embrace it as liberation: one life to witness the staggering complexity and beauty of physical reality. Gratitude replaces supplication. Wonder replaces worship.
Hawking spent his career revealing that physical laws alone govern cosmic origins — his no-boundary proposal with Hartle suggested the universe has no beginning requiring a cause. Confined to a wheelchair by ALS for decades, facing mortality daily, his atheism was hard-won: he chose scientific awe over theological comfort, finding meaning in equations rather than prayer.
Hawking made this statement around 2010, during a period of vigorous public debate between New Atheism — Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett — and religious institutions responding to scientific cosmology. The Large Hadron Collider had just launched, string theory dominated physics, and questions about cosmic origins were front-page news. His voice carried extraordinary cultural weight as the world's most famous living scientist.
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