Stephen King on the 30th anniversary of "The Stand"

Speaking of the existence of a Great Architect and the afterlife, there is a good interview with Stephen King about his novel The Stand, a long-time favorite of mine that deals with themes of good versus evil set against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic America. From the interview:

It's a mystery. That's the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, it's mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously. I understand where Bill Maher is coming from when he says, basically, the world is destroying itself over a bunch of fairy tales about talking snakes and men who are alive inside fishes. I'm very sympathetic to it, but at the same time, given the cosmos that we're living in, it's very persuasive, the idea that there is some kind of first cause that's running things. It might not be the god of Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, it might not be the god of al-Qaida, and it might not be the god of Abraham, but something very well could be running things. The order of the universe as we see it, the interlocking nature, and the way things work together, are persuasive of the idea that there may be some overarching first cause.

The rest is at http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/10/23/stephen_king/index.html