Jesus, you people really go full throttle. Just need to clear up some things though.
1: Being a deist, even a theist, is fine. I'm not trying to persuade you people away from your
faith.
2: There is a plethora of evidence backing this up, and please, this is in no way just Hawking's thoughts. This is not just some idea what popped into the dude's head while eating his Captain Crunch.
3: You guys keep mixing up what theory really means. A scientific theory is a deductive theory, meaning that it can be taken as a axiom, a fact. So a scientific theory isn't a idea, but more or less a hypothesis with empirical evidence to back it up. Take the theory of general relativity for example, which is far from a idea, but a indistinguishable scientific fact.
4: *Laura, you completely misunderstands the theory (see point 3) of evolution, which to this day has a massive amount of empirical evidence to back it up, in stark contrast to creationism for example, which is nothing more than pseudo fringe science. Go on a rant, but get your facts straight. It's not about chance and luck. Go ask any paleontologist or genetic engineer about the empirical evidence evolution has. Denying it is just ignorant.
Let's say you're religious, so obviously you don't agree with Hawkings, as what he says clearly contradicts whatever holy book you put your faith in - but give the man his well earned respects. He, as just about any other scientist, spends his/her life trying to find the answers for things that'll in some way or another impact and improve your life. Vaccines, satellites, genetically enhanced food, fusion/fission research - I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. I understand how someone can be Christian, Jewish or whatever, I get the idea of it, but you people treat scientists as if they're pedophiles and child rapists (que catholic priests), when in fact society and humanity would be totally buttfucked without them. Even worse; religious groups works against scientists in stem cell research for example, which is highly likely to one day, which will come a lot later thanks to you guys, cure cancer, MS and Parkinson's to just name a few.
Believe whatever makes you feel good - but I don't get you people. You're like a walking contradiction.
Here's a Christopher Hitchens quote to end it off, him being his brilliant and eloquent self:
A modern believer can say and even believe that his faith is quite compatible with science and medicine, but the awkward fact will always be that both things have a tendency to break religion's monopoly, and have often been fiercely resisted for that reason. What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs and surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications? Roughly the same thing as happens to the rainmaker when the climatologist turns up, or to the diviner from the heavens when schoolteachers get hold of elementary telescopes