Stephen Hawking, according to Stephen Hawking, is not in heaven or with God, neither of which he believed in. His consciousness has not reunited with any kind of divine force behind the universe, the late theoretical physicist and cosmologist would say. If there was ever anything before the universe and its physical laws — God or otherwise — Hawking didn’t particularly care, because there was no way to study it. Hawking, who died last week at age 76, was about as pure an atheist as they come.