Guardian writer Ian Sample asked Hawking if he feared death in a story published yesterday. This was his response:
"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. I regard the brain as a computer which 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."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookou ... airy-story