“A belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a “fairy story” for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking has said.”
I would believe that also, were it not for the events surrounding the life of Jesus Christ.
One that really steadies my mind is this: Jesus, in his time was basically a poor worker - an nobody. Yet he claimed that eventually the entire world would hear of him and that he would have followers in ever nation. The fact that he (or the writer of the Gospel) made these claims is historically indisputable - we have the early manuscripts. These statements were not made up and attributed to him 500 years later.
Here’s the kicker - we are living in the fulfillment of his words 2,000 years later. He was dead on right.
If he was right about that, then he just very well may might be right about the other things he taught regarding heaven, hell, God, personal accountability, etc.
While I agree with you... and I very, very much agree... I want to point out one danger of this being the foundation of such an argument.
There was once an Arab man who made claims that APPEAR to be coming true (emphasis on appear).
That said, I think M.C. Hawking is a genius, but like all such brilliant minds something gets lost in the shuffle. In this case, it’s the rational, reasonable, LOGICAL argument that God and heaven are very, very real.