Yes I know Stephan Hawking is a genius theoretical physicist who should fear no harm from me. Over the last year Stephen has been making definitive anti-theology statements. Things like "God wasn't needed to create the world" and "Heaven is a fairy tale". I love fairy tales. Lets talk about the biggest fairy tale that ever existed. Us.
A waterlogged molten lava centered sphere hurtling through space and orbiting a giant ball of fire that provides light and heat source so 100s of thousands of species each very similar and each completely different from one another in capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, size, living habitat, food needs, environment needs, longevity of life, gestation period, some use hibernation, some mutate from caterpillar to butterfly, some live under the seas, some live on land, some live on land or sea, some live buried in the dirt, and some fly above the land and seas. Flesh and bone, scales and claws, feathers and beaks, fins and scales, and hair and tails. All so alike. All so different. We all live in a fairy tale.
A world where dogs can impossibly find their owners hundreds of miles away when the family moved. A sky where bird migrations are understood at birth. A sea where whales and dolphins communicate with miles between them. An ancient past when mythical dragons roamed, flew, and swam freely in this fantasy world.
Most species born helpless and protected by their parents, nurtured to independence, each carrying a DNA blueprint of who and what they are, and where they fit into this fantasy world kingdom of species. They grow, mature, and survive through their own tenacity, and the cooperation within a species or between species.
All levels of intelligence within all the species is reflected in how each species adapts and or modifies it's world for it's needs and desires. Some species are simple and live within almost boiling water, some live miles deep in the sea, and some live atop mountains. Some complex species have verbal and written communication, some just verbal, and some just visible communication. Thousands of ways to protect themselves all very different between species. Some species have the intelligence to modify, improve, and destroy their whole world. We all live in a fairy tale.
Millions of people in little wheeled vehicles powered by the combustion of exploding gas, zipping here and there, all over the world. Machines that fly and contraptions that submerge under the oceans. Ever advancing technology producing marvelous and amazing tools and toys. Technology communication architecture is very similar to a brain's synapse structure, except it is on a planetary level. We all can communicate with each other instantaneously from anywhere we are in our fantasy world.
This fantasy kingdom fixed in our little neighborhood in the blackness and expansiveness of space. We don't how we were created. We don't know how we got here. We don't know why we're here. We don't know where we're going. Like the mythical Sissyphus we do what we need to do to get through the day and survive for the next day. In our hearts and in our souls, the inner core of man's existential understanding, we all know there must be more to our creation, existence, and end of life. Nobody has created all this for nothing, and it's too complex to have happened by chance. But none of us knows who, what, and why it is. It just is.
There are written attempts at explanation whose accuracy and source is often unknown. Some get comfort from them. Some get no comfort from them. From religious texts to scientific manuals our world has history and changes every day. Religious texts attempt to explain the why of things. Science explains the how and what of an existing physical reality. Atomic structure was around long before humanity documented it's existence. So exactly what, how, and why was atomic structure created as the building block of physical reality is unknown to us all. No one on our planet knows the answers to these questions. Without those answers we fumble aimlessly in the dark looking for a spark of understanding. Everyone finds answers and explanations in their own way.
So when somebody questions theological texts and states a certainty like "heaven is a fairy tale", its time for the speaker to prove his theory. Exactly what convinced him that all theology is wrong. He might be right be he must prove it or admit it's just a theory.
It reminds me of a psychic's predictions. If the predictions don't come true, nothing is lost, they were just wrong. But if the prediction comes true, then they are a genius whose powers dwarf all others. A living and breathing god among men. If you make enough predictions, eventually one will become true.
We are all in a fantasy kingdom we don't understand. We are living proof that fairy tales exist, because if you look closely enough it makes no sense that we exist at all. So if one fairy tale can exist, can't others exist? I don't think we are smart enough to know. But I do think we are smart enough to understand what we don't know.
Fairy tales can come true, it has happened to you. Even if your numb at heart.
