Does Stephen Hawking believe in God?

In an interview with The Guardian in 2011, Stephen Hawking was dismissive of the view that there is a God. He said he believed that the human brain is like a computer, which dies after its components fail. In Hawking's opinion, there is no afterlife to look forward to.

In 2010, Stephen Hawking published a book, "The Grand Design," which laid out his thoughts on religion. In it Hawking said, "There is no need for a creator to explain the existence of the universe." Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease more than 50 years ago, but he has since become one of the world's most noted physicists.