If you ever wondered why God decided to afflict Stephen Hawking with motor neurone disease, you need wonder no longer.
SCIENTIST Stephen Hawking has dismissed heaven as a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark”.
Renowned physicist Hawking, 69, admitted his views were partly influenced by his long battle with motor neurone disease, which has left him wheelchair-bound.
He said yesterday: “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. I regard the brain as a computer that will stop working when its components fail.
“There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers – that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”