If so, then in a new ID the Future podcast, Rabbi Moshe Averick is highly impious. Talking with host Ira Berkowitz in Jerusalem, the author of Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism considers the late Dr. Hawking’s final broadside against religion, delivered in the posthumously published book Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Averick concludes, “If he did physics that way his university would have fired him.”

Download the podcast or listen to it here.

The rabbi laughs at the idea that even the world’s most brilliant physicist is necessarily equipped to hold forth on faith, as Stephen Hawking did, when the atheist scientist seemingly has, or had, only the most superficial familiarity with the subject. He cracks up, and he has a good time doing so. I personally find this response — mirth — quite refreshing. I think you will, too.

Photo: Stephen Hawking in 2008, via Wikimedia Commons.