A dubious Facebook page claims that Hawking ultimately went from being an unbeliever to becoming a believing Christian.

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 76. During his lifetime, Hawking was an avowed atheist. But the physicist Stephen Hawking allegedly visited Pope Francis before his death and then declared his membership of the Christian faith.

At least that's what a Facebook page claims. On March 14, 2018, the Facebook page “Catholics Online” published a photo of the Hawking meeting with Pope Francis alongside a fake claim:

Before he died, Stiph Hawkins who did not believe in God requested to visit the Vatican.
“Now l believe” was the only statement he made after the Holy Father blessed him. Before he died, Stiph[sic] asked Hawkins[sic], who did not believe in God, to visit the Vatican. “Now I believe” was the only statement he made after the Holy Father blessed him.

Hawking was a long-time and prominent atheist who often wrote and spoke about the origins of the universe and his views on the idea of ​​a divine creator (or rather, lack thereof). As the Washington Post documented after his death, Hawking told the Guardian in 2011 that he did not believe in an afterlife or heaven:

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.
There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. I think of the brain as a computer that stops working when its components fail. There is no heaven and no afterlife for broken computers; this is a fairy tale story for people who are afraid of the dark.

In 2010, he told ABC News : "One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary." (“You can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary.”)

Origin of the image

There is no evidence that Hawking deviated from these lifelong views before his death, and he made no statement of faith after meeting with Pope Francis: The photo in the Facebook post shows Hawking and Francis together at the Vatican in November 2016, their last meeting of the two men. Contrary to the Facebook page's claim, Hawking did not request a private visit with the Pope, but traveled to Rome for a planned meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Hawking was a valued member of the Academy and was ordained by Pope Paul VI in 1968. appointed to the academy. The listed Pontifical Academy of Sciences aims, among other things, to “promote the interaction between faith and reason and promote dialogue between science and intellectual, cultural, philosophical and religious values.” After his death, the Academy honored Hawking, tweeting a series of photographs of the physicist who included Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Popes. and met Francis.

Yet despite his decades-long commitment to the dialogue between science and faith, Hawking himself remained an unbeliever.

via Snopes


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