Stephen Hawking said that there are laws of science and the universe and those laws leave little room for.....

I'd like to know the citation for that statement. I'm not doubting it, I just wonder when/where or in what work he made it.

I've read his works, and they have led me to feel that because we have a linear, causal view of time, we are limiting ourselves somewhat. We HAVE to see time as non-linear, and in some ways, all things are "now." I've certainly never felt that his work either confirms or disputes the existence of a deity, and indeed, for me, convinces me more and more that such a thing IS possible.

As for his "bitterness," I've seldom had occasion to deal with a person who seems LESS bitter. Certainly he's less bitter than I would be, under the circumstances.

for those inquiring about the quote

the full quote:

"What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary." [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989]

apparently it's from a Spiegel magazine interview he gave in 1989. i'm looking for links to the original article or a link to the full text of the article somewhere.

edit: i struck out. tried google books and went several pages deep on the engines. there are a couple german sites that look promising but as i don't read the language...

i did go to the link the question asker provided to the charlie rose interview. another interesting quote from professor hawking during the interview:

"physicists believe that the universe is governed by scientific laws. these laws must hold without exception or they wouldn't be laws. that doesn't leave much room for miracles or god. i regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark."

Unfortunately, in order to keep his position in the physics and astronomy of present science, he can not acknowledge any othre. He may not be bitter, just following the demands of his work.

Yet, those same laws also point in the direction of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Elohim, Adonai, Emmanuel, the only God of the universe. Sad is the path of modern science which chooses to deny the existence of God in the universe. Just about a little more than 200 years ago, science was studied as the result of the creative work of God. Science rejecting God was a great loss to science.

The universe is perfectly understandable without the hypothesis of a deity.

It used to be that people thought God was constantly involved in the day to day workings of the universe, but as we've learned more and more about the way the universe works, we've had less and less need to explain things in terms of God.

I don't know why he would be bitter...God has given him the ultimate opportunity to know Him better than most. Actually many of Professor Hawking's fellow scientist in the exciting world of study on the expanding universe see more of a reason to believe in the Grand Architect...God.

Cosmic Intelligence itself is God. One may call it by various names. The Supreme Truth is God, but our concept of God as per Bible is a defective feeding which need be corrected in the light of Stephen's findings.

Sorry I'm only about 15 and all that stephen hawking stuff makes my head a'splode?

No, he lives by logical observable principles of reality. None of the notions of God fit in those principles, and the room for ambiguity that people have left throughout the ages to explain the nature of God (initially inspired by Plato as evidenced in Saint Augustine, then after much contention allowing the Aristotelian model of Aquinas to predominate until Luther turned that on its head, and so on... all of it inspired by various messianic cults in contemporary Roman territories, particularly the Seleucid figure Apollonyius mentioned in the works of Josephus, and various other cosmological mythologies) has been reduced as discoveries about the true nature of the universe are made. People have to keep redefining God to correlate to the realities of the universe, not the other way around. God has been proven to have such a low percentage of probability it is virtually negligent, which completely contradicts the alleged apparence of God extolled by his followers.

If any kind of entity exists, it will be far beyond the ideas of most humans, if not all of them, and the chances for an afterlife are null. Hell is a logical paradox because no existential experience can be so bad that nothing would be comparably worse, that is a tautological fallacy by its own definition. The whole offer of reward for works, or even less so for faith (which by definition is the acceptance of a proposition even when presented with evidence to the contrary, which would place any schizophrenic in the category of being a true believer), is an elaborate Ponzi scheme that portends to acceptance of a particular belief and religious practice based on the geographic area of one's education and the moral and intellectual contexts at the time in which on lives. No Christian living today would be able to escape charges of heresy during the time of Tertullian, just as the Pope who is god's alleged vicar on earth would be excommunicated by the Gregorian papacy for advocating doctrines that were considered to be hallmarks of sin in the seventh century.

God is a social invention, those who are bitter are the ones who either deny they have fallen victim to a ruse and demand others extoll the unearned respect for such an overvalued virtue as faith, or those who market mass appeal and bandwagon appeal in order to mislead large groups of people desperate enough for psychological security they are willing to misplace their objective reason - such frauds as Kent Hovind and Ted Haggard are perfect examples of confrontational hucksters. The physical concepts of the universe are self-evidents to anyone with proper mathematical training and availability of observational instruments, despite their geographic and ethnic origin, spoken language, political views, and concepts of morality. In other words, the laws of science and the universe are based on FACTS, which can be proven true or untrue. A hypothesis such as god can only be proven probable or highly improbable, and the evidence based on FACTS is revealing it as much more improbable every passing scientific discovery.

I don't know if Hawking said this, but regardless it just his opinion and does not prove anything. Pope John Paul ii said of evolution to be actual, however this does not prove anything. I do think though, that we do not need god to explain natural phenomena and science alone explains this.

I didnt even know that you existed...

Things like God really dont have much chance to exist.. We must assume them harder to exist to prove that Hawkins was wrong