Of the sorts of things that lead people to think there has to be some God making everything work, Hawking came closest in my book. The weirdness of the smartest man of our time being frail and unable to speak, living every day with the very real possibility that it was his last, has always struck me as some bizarrely sick joke. Like somewhere a guy in a cubicle on Magrathea had this brilliantly cruel idea over drinks one night.
I also appreciated that despite his condition he still had a keen interest in hot chicks. He was somewhat famous in the swingers circles in So-Cal for enjoying female companionship to the best of his abilities. That's cooler to me than learning to play basketball from a wheelchair.