God is not dead — he or she never existed in the first place, Stephen Hawking declared in his final book. “There is no God,” the late theoretical physicist wrote in “Brief Answers to the Big Questions,” CNN reported. “No one directs the universe.” The British scientist pointed to his own diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, for the basis of his belief. “For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God,” he wrote. “I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.” Hawking died in March at age 76 before the book could be completed — but colleagues and family, including his daughter Lucy, stepped in to finish it. “He realized that people specifically wanted his answers to these questions,” Lucy told CNN. In the book, he also postulates about alien life — saying “there are forms of intelligent life out there” — and time travel. “Travel back in time can’t be ruled out according to our present understanding,” he wrote. Hawking also suggests that “within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System.” Lucy Hawking said her father saw the world on the cusp of a “vast transformative change” when he died, but was troubled over how “divided we’ve become.” “He’s asking us not to go into the future blindly,” she said. “How good is the track record of the human race in using advances in technology for the good of ordinary people? “He makes this comment about how we seem to have lost the ability to look outward, and we are increasingly looking inward to ourselves,” she added. In the final chapter of his book, the renowned scientist offered one last bit of advice in answering the question “How do we shape the future?” “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet,” he wrote.<doc-sep>A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members continue preparations during the third day in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Giuliani did an on-camera interview with One America News Network's Chanel Rion before talking to other journalists about Vice President Joe Biden and the news that Russian intelligence may have paid Taliban operatives to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Vigils & tributes to George Floyd one year since his murder ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 28: Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Here's what reported grand jury in Trump case may look like NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: People walk past the Trump Tower as the impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins in Washington on February 09, 2021 in New York City. After listening to nearly four hours of legal arguments, the Senate has voted on Tuesday to move ahead with the impeachment trial of former President Trump. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the conflict in the Middle East from Cross- Hall of the White House on May 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Israel and Hamas announced that they would agree to a cease-fire, which will take into effect on Friday, following days of fighting that claimed more than 200 lives. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) SAN JOSE, CA - MAY 26: A view of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light-rail yard where a mass shooting occurred on May 26, 2021 in San Jose, California. A VTA employee opened fire at the yard, with preliminary reports indicating nine people dead including the gunman. (Photo by Philip Pacheco/Getty Images) A healthcare worker prepares to administer a Pfizer/BioNTEch coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine at The Michener Institute, in Toronto, Ontario on December 14, 2020. - Ontario, Canada's most populous province and one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, had 1,940 new cases and 23 deaths on Monday. The province is expected to give its next doses to nursing home workers as a priority, according to media reports. (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) 'Never seen levels like this': Union president on airline passenger misconduct Memorial Day weekend will bring rain and cool air for much of the East Hawking on the creation of the universe (2010) NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 12: Stephen Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research, University of Cambridge speaks on stage as he and Yuri Milner host press conference to announce Breakthrough Starshot, a new space exploration initiative, at One World Observatory on April 12, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize Foundation) (CNN) — There is no God – that’s the conclusion of the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, whose final book is published Tuesday. The book, which was completed by his family after his death, presents answers to the questions that Hawking said he received most during his time on Earth. Other bombshells the British scientist left his readers with include the belief that alien life is out there, artificial intelligence could outsmart humans and time travel can’t be ruled out. Hawking, considered one of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, died in March at the age of 76. “There is no God. No one directs the universe,” he writes in “Brief Answers to the Big Questions.” “For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God,” he adds. “I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.” Hawking suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, for most of his adult life. The scientist died while still working on the book, which his family and colleagues finished with the help of his vast personal archives. ’Increasingly looking inward’ While Hawking spoke of his lack of belief in God during his life, several of his other answers are more surprising. “There are forms of intelligent life out there,” he writes. “We need to be wary of answering back until we have developed a bit further.” And he leaves open the possibility of other phenomena. “Travel back in time can’t be ruled out according to our present understanding,” he says. He also predicts that “within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System.” “He realized that people specifically wanted his answers to these questions,” the scientist’s daughter, Lucy Hawking, who helped complete the book, told CNN. Hawking saw the world on the brink of a “vast transformative change” when he died, she noted, adding: “He’s asking us not to go into the future blindly. How good is the track record of the human race in using advances in technology for the good of ordinary people?” In remarks prepared by Hawking and played at the launch of the book in London on Monday, the scientist also turned his attention to the world he was leaving behind. “With Brexit and Trump now exerting new forces in relation to immigration and the development of education, we are witnessing a global revolt against experts, and that includes scientists,” Hawking said.<doc-sep>From his desk at Cambridge University and beyond, Stephen Hawking sent his mind spiraling into the deepest depths of black holes, radiating across the endless cosmos and swirling back billions of years to witness time's first breath. He viewed creation as a scientist, and when he was called to discuss creation's biggest puzzles — Where do we come from? What is our purpose? Are we alone? — he answered as a scientist, often to the chagrin of religious critics. In Stephen Hawking's final book "Brief Answers to Big Questions," published Tuesday (Oct. 16) by Bantam Books, the professor begins a series of 10 intergalactic essays by addressing life's oldest and most religiously fraught question of all: Is there a God? Hawking's answer — compiled from decades of prior interviews, essays and speeches with the help of his family, colleagues and the Steven Hawking Estate — should come as no surprise to readers who have followed his work, er, religiously. "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?" In life, Hawking was a vocal champion of the Big Bang theory — the idea that the universe began by exploding suddenly out of an ultradense singularity smaller than an atom. From this speck emerged all the matter, energy and empty space that the universe would ever contain, and all that raw material evolved into the cosmos we perceive today by following a strict set of scientific laws. To Hawking and many like-minded scientists, the combined laws of gravity, relativity, quantum physics and a few other rules could explain everything that ever happened or ever will happen in our known universe. "If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence," Hawking wrote. With the universe running on a scientifically guided autopilot, the only role for an all-powerful deity might be setting the initial conditions of the universe so that those laws could take shape — a divine creator who caused the Big Bang to bang, then stepped back to behold His work. "Did God create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to occur?" Hawking wrote. "I have no desire to offend anyone of faith, but I think science has a more compelling explanation than a divine creator." Hawking's explanation begins with quantum mechanics, which explains how subatomic particles behave. In quantum studies, it's common to see subatomic particles like protons and electrons seemingly appear out of nowhere, stick around for a while and then disappear again to a completely different location. Because the universe was once the size of a subatomic particle itself, it's plausible that it behaved similarly during the Big Bang, Hawking wrote. "The universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature," he wrote. That still doesn't explain away the possibility that God created that proton-size singularity, then flipped the quantum- mechanical switch that allowed it to pop. But Hawking says science has an explanation here, too. To illustrate, he points to the physics of black holes — collapsed stars that are so dense, nothing, including light, can escape their pull. Black holes, like the universe before the Big Bang, condense into a singularity. In this ultra-packed point of mass, gravity is so strong that it distorts time as well as light and space. Simply put, in the depths of a black hole, time does not exist. Because the universe also began as a singularity, time itself could not have existed before the Big Bang. Hawking's answer, then, to what happened before the Big Bang is, "there was no time before the Big Bang." "We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in." This argument will do little to persuade theistic believers, but that was never Hawking's intent. As a scientist with a near-religious devotion to understanding the cosmos, Hawking sought to "know the mind of God" by learning everything he could about the self-sufficient universe around us. While his view of the universe might render a divine creator and the laws of nature incompatible, it still leaves ample space for faith, hope, wonder and, especially, gratitude. "We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe," Hawking concludes the first chapter of his final book, "and for that I am extremely grateful." Originally published on Live Science. WANT MORE STORIES ABOUT THE UNIVERSE? FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.<doc-sep>Getty Images Late physicist Stephen Hawking's final book was published Tuesday, and he doesn't fail to take on the big issues, including the existence of God. Enlarge Image Penguin Random House "Do I have faith?" he writes in Brief Answers to the Big Questions. "We are each free to believe what we want, and it's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe, and no one directs our fate." Hawking goes on to say that this realization made him decide belief in an afterlife was just "wishful thinking" and that "when we die, we return to dust." But Hawking, who died in March at age 76, also saw a silver lining in what to some could be a bleak view. Humans live on in their influence, and in their children, he wrote. Even though Hawking said he didn't believe in a personal God, if there was one, the scientist said, he had a question for Him. "If there were such a God, I would like to ask, however did he think of anything as complicated as M-theory in eleven dimensions," Hawking wrote. M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. It's probably not the question most other people would ask a Supreme Being, but then, Hawking was one of a kind. In the book, Hawking answers other major questions, such as whether we can predict the future (in principle yes, in practice no), if time travel is possible (he can't rule it out), and if there's other intelligent life in the universe (yes). Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, wrote the book's foreward. He relates that before Hawking saw the movie, he told the actor he would be honest with his review, whether it was "Good. Or otherwise." Spoiler: Hawking liked it, though he could've done with more physics and fewer feelings, and he notes that Redmayne played "a particularly handsome version of me." Disbelief in God notwithstanding, Hawking's ashes now rest in London's Westminster Abbey, near those of fellow legendary scientists Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton.<doc-sep>
There is no God -- that's the conclusion of the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, whose final book is published Tuesday.The book, which was completed by his family after his death, presents answers to the questions that Hawking said he received most during his time on Earth.Other bombshells the British scientist left his readers with include the belief that alien life is out there, artificial intelligence could outsmart humans and time travel can't be ruled out.Hawking, considered one of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, died in March at the age of 76. "There is no God. No one directs the universe," he writes in "Brief Answers to the Big Questions. ""For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God," he adds. "I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature. "Hawking suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, for most of his adult life.The scientist died while still working on the book, which his family and colleagues finished with the help of his vast personal archives. 'Increasingly looking inward'While Hawking spoke of his lack of belief in God during his life, several of his other answers are more surprising. "There are forms of intelligent life out there," he writes. "We need to be wary of answering back until we have developed a bit further. "And he leaves open the possibility of other phenomena. "Travel back in time can't be ruled out according to our present understanding," he says. He also predicts that "within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System. ""He realized that people specifically wanted his answers to these questions," the scientist's daughter, Lucy Hawking, who helped complete the book, told CNN.Hawking saw the world on the brink of a "vast transformative change" when he died, she noted, adding: "He's asking us not to go into the future blindly. How good is the track record of the human race in using advances in technology for the good of ordinary people? "In remarks prepared by Hawking and played at the launch of the book in London on Monday, the scientist also turned his attention to the world he was leaving behind. "With Brexit and Trump now exerting new forces in relation to immigration and the development of education, we are witnessing a global revolt against experts, and that includes scientists," Hawking said.Hawking had been a critic of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, and called Donald Trump a "demagogue" in 2016.His greatest concern, his daughter said, "is how divided we've become," adding: "He makes this comment about how we seem to have lost the ability to look outward, and we are increasingly looking inward to ourselves. "Hawking's final message to readers, though, is a hopeful one.Attempting to answer the question "How do we shape the future?" in the book's final chapter, the scientist writes: "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."