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On God, the universe and Stephen Hawking.

As any of you who have followed Mr. wOw’s posts over the past year and half know – Mr. W is fast and loose with grammar, punctuation, deep thinking and an intellectual bent.

He is quick and rabid. He didn’t finish seventh grade.

However there are a few absolutes in Mr. W’s world. Murder and stealing are bad. Sun exposure causes skin cancer – not to mention “age spots.” Drinking is fun, but it’s not worth it. (Uhhhh … the jury’s still out on that.)

But other than all that, it’s pretty much open to opinion and speculation. I was brought up sharp on this recently when Stephen Hawking declared that he could “prove” that God didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the creation of the universe, earth and life as we know it. Science, he says, could have done it all.

OK. Mr. wOw is a confirmed I-Don’t-Know. Raised within the guilt spectrum of Catholicism, he rejected all that Hellfire crap, but feels sure he’ll call for a priest at the end. (So depressing!) The Old Testament God seems more like Zeus – prickly, and vengeful and capricious. I do like what the New Testament says Jesus espoused. The basic Jesus. Not the one million “amendments” to the Scriptures. (Like the one that turned Mary Magdalene into a whore.)

But just as one can’t really “prove” the Bible is the literal word of God (and I sure hope it’s not!), likewise it is pretty hard to “prove” science. Scientific theories are overturned, improved upon, rattled, discarded and curiously regarded with some eye-rolling every generation or so. Look, we can’t even decide if eggs will give you a heart attack or not!

I am amazed that Hawking can state with some sense of certainty that God is out of the picture, creation wise. Even if the universe was created from nothing – nothing is still something. So who created the nothing?

If people want to attach themselves to a blonde couple named Adam and Eve Smith, wandering around a cul de sac called Eden until a snake led them astray – fine. Explain people of color.

I think evolution is a miracle. Every time I watch a show about nature, and learn more about how creatures have adapted, I am gobsmacked – incredible! Those creatures include man and his descendants. I believe in science. I could also believe in a God who created science; who didn’t want to work so hard for seven days and figured a few billion or million years of “creation” would leave him free for other tasks. (Hopefully overseeing a world where people are not tested so much by hardship!)

My boyfriend, B. (which stands for Brain!) read Hawkins’s new book, The Grand Design. He was not impressed. He passed it on to me, but it involves a lot of mathematics and quantum theories, the meaning of “reality” and the possibility of “multiple” universes, and other intelligent stuff. I got a bit lost. I am doing much better with Emile Zola’s Germinal.

I respect scientific theory and research. (The world, after all, is not flat – despite the flat heads of so many who inhabit it.) And lord knows we all benefit from medical research. But I am frustrated by scientists who hope to “prove’ God had nutttin’ to do with nuttin’. How does one prove anything? You can’t prove the Bible, but millions take it verbatim. And you can’t prove that creation was a random, spontaneous coming together of atoms or the chemistry of certain muck and mire.

I think Mr. Hawking was looking to sell a book. And nothing creates controversy more than the eternal battle between science and religion.

I believe in science. And I stand amazed at life in all its verities. I don’t know what to make of it. But the hugely opinioned, uneducated Mr. wOw would never venture as far afield as the brilliant Mr. Hawking. I’ll know someday. Or not.