Hawking: "God did not create the universe!"

[Palehorse]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/index.html?hpt=C1

. . .God did not create the universe, world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book that aims to banish a divine creator from physics.
Hawking says in his book "The Grand Design" that, given the existence of gravity, "the universe can and will create itself from nothing," according to an excerpt published Thursday in The Times of London.
"Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," he writes in the excerpt.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going," he writes. . .

I will be reading this book when I can get my grubby little hooves on it!