There Is No Heaven, It's a Fairy Tale: Hawking

The belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking has said. In a dismissal that underlines his firm rejec-tion of religious comforts, Britain's most eminent scientist said there was nothing beyond the moment when the brain flickers for the final time. Hawking, who was diag-nosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, shared his thoughts on death, human purpose and our chance existence in an exclusive interview with The Guardian. The incurable illness was expected to kill Hawking within a few years of its symptoms arising, an outlook that turned the young scientist to Wagner, but ultimately led him to enjoy life more, he has said, despite the cloud hanging over his !inure. "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said. "I regard the brain as a omputer which will stop working when its comp°. nents fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for bro-ken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added. Hawking's latest comments go beyond those laid out in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he asserted that there is no need for a cre-ator to explain the exis-tence of the universe. The book provoked a backlash from some religious leaders including the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, who accused Hawking of com-mitting an "elementary fallacy" of logic. The 69-year-old physicist fell seriously ill after a lec-ture tour in the US in 2009 and was taken to Adde-nbrookes hospital in an episode that sparked grave concerns for his health. He has since returned to his Cambridge depart-ment as director of research. The physicist's remarks draw a stark line
between the use of God as a metaphor and the belief in an omniscient creator whose hands guide the workings of the cosmos. In his bestselling 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking drew on the device so beloved of Einstein, when he descri-bed what it would mean for scientists to develop a "theory of everything" - a set of equations that desc-ribed every particle and force in the entire uni-verse. —Agencies

I'M NOT AFRAID OF DEATH' 

■ HIS REMARKS draw a stark line between the use of God as a metaphor and the belief in an omniscient creator whose hands guide the work-ings of the cosmos. 

THE 69-YEAR-OLD physi-cist fell seriously ill after a lecture tour in the US in 2009 

■ HAWKING rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasised the need to fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives.