tephen Hawking was born in Oxford, England during World War II. His family moved there from London to escape the relentless bombing of that city, but quickly returned after Stephen was born. He grew up and attended high school in St. Albans, England.
Hawking is a scientist, perhaps the world’s most famous and often-quoted scientist. As such, he has dredged up the old science vs. religion argument on more than one occasion. He clearly feels that religion is inferior to science in terms of finding answers to question of the natural world. He once said:
There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.1
However, Hawking has reconciled the belief in God with an acknowledgement of the importance of science, but only with the condition that God isn’t necessarily all-powerful. He said:
One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.2
God must act in accordance with the laws of physics!? Then wouldn’t physics be God? It’s telling God what to do, after all. According to Hawking, that’s pretty much it. He said:
What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.3
Essentially, Hawking might be able to concede calling the whole of the natural universe “God” if that floats your boat, but tradition conceptions of God seem, to him, to be rather silly. We could call it a pantheistic view, but more than likely, Hawking is an atheist.