Stephen Hawking makes clear anti-religious statements.

It is often claimed that Science and religion are in conflict, but as Stephen Hawking recently demonstrated recently most of the conflict results from the anti-religion position of atheists like himself. It is the insistence of such people on assuming that God and the supernatural do not exist that cusses the conflict. This is because if you start with the assumption that something does not exist you will produce theories constant with that assumption.

Upon being asked if religion and science could be reconciled Hawking said. "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." However this not an accurate statement since it is not totally accurate ether science or religion.

For example while Christians see the Bible authoritative, reading and understanding it is up to the individual Christian not just ministers. Nor are Christians required to take a pastor’s preaching at face value but are encouraged to compare it to the Bible. Further more much of the Bible is a result of the observation of events often witnessed by the human authors. The bases of the resurrection of Jesus is not some vision but on the reports of men and women who saw the risen Jesus themselves. Even today we can go to Jerusalem in Israel and observe the empty tomb for ourselves.

On the other hand while science is ideally based on observation and reason. This is not always the case. Stephen Hawking is actually a good example of this because he personally does little if any actual observation, but most of his work is the result of theorizing within his own mind. Furthermore, little if any of his work has produced testable predictions that have ever been successfully tested by observation. Despite this he himself is seen as an authority in science with some people taking his every word as truth with as much unquestioning faith as is seen in the most gullible regions person you could know.

The point is that in his ABC news interview he showed clear contempt for religion, and there by showed the real source of conflict between science and religion. That is atheistic control of establishment institutions.