Stephen Hawking's classic account of the origins of the universe — A Brief History of Time — is often cited by the ordinary Joe Sixpacks and their Grizzly Moms who are the backbone of the teabagger movement as scientific proof of the Biblical story of Genesis, in which God created the Heavens and this great country of ours approximately 6,000 years ago and told us to go forth and make sure that no goddamn raghead builds any mosques near Ground Zero.
When you consider that many godless scientists actually have the balls to believe that the universe is billions of years old and there were meat-eating dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden, it is comforting to true believers that one of the greatest scientists since Dr. Joe Lewis Terman is willing to put his reputation on the line by admitting that maybe 6,000 years is enough time to get to the point, even if he looks retarded. But really, he can't help looking like that. He got that way in a failed attempt to save the life of Lou Gerhig, who died while grounding into a double-play against the Cleveland Indians in 1941.
In his ground-breaking book back in 1988, Hawking became an adored and revered darling of the religious right when he wrote in A Brief History that "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God."
But that was more than two decades ago, and relations between the wheelchair-bound cyborg genius and his religious supporters have grown increasingly strained as he took controversial stands supporting embryonic stem cell research, championing death with dignity initiatives, and calling Pope Benedict a "Nazi pigfucking asshole."
Last weekend, Hawking turned down an invitation to introduce Sarah Palin at Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, which was attended by more than 60% of all registered voting retards in the United States. Beck was said to be furious "with that little sack of shit. Somebody should let the air out of his tires and smash his voice synthesizer."
And now, on the very day that Beck announced his intention to vacation with Palin in Alaska where they plan to host a secret event on September 11 — which accidentally happens to be the anniversary of the CIA assassination of Chilean leader Salvadore Allende — the mischievous motorized gnome was making the scientific talk show circuit shilling his latest attempt to break into Oprah's book club with his brand new sacrilege: My Grand Design.
In this new book, Hawking calls God a less than entertaining distraction, arguing that the so-called supreme is totally unnecessary to set the universe going. "A child quickly turns how to flip a switch," Hawking writes. "Even an illegal alien child could do what some idiots call their God can do."
In fact, Hawking says in an observation that has some church-goers calling for a convoy of European built trucks to run over his Dean Kaamen-designed human transporter, after noting the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting a star beyond our solar system, "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings."
And then, as if if intent on infuriating every God-fearing second Amendment loving person on the planet, Hawking writes that he found his current theory of creation on a tee-shirt at a Radiohead concert last year. Shit Happens, the tee-shirt read.
God could not be reached for comment on this story.