God Never Created the Universe Says Very Brainy Man

I was taught that this was the image of god

Stephen Hawking,  the renowned British physicist has written a new book claiming that the universe was not created by god. In the book, The Grand Design, written with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow that will be published September 9th, Hawking claims that science, or the laws of physics are behind the big bang instead. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing......Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."

An example of why, he writes, is the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions - the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth, Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings."  In other words, fairy tales, especially one that puts humans and our planet at the center of the universe and the special creation of a supernatural force from outer space somewhere, are not only a more compelling and entertaining argument, but a much more useful one.  We are special, we are unique, and those who rule are the most unique of all.  After all, wasn't Galileo ostracized by the Catholic church for suggesting that the earth was not the center of the universe, that the earth revolved around the sun? Silly man.

And this is what god's son looks like

Even if I was not an atheist I cannot imagine that we are the only life forms in the universe.  It just doesn't make sense.  The only way it would make sense is if I believed that we were created specifically by a god.  I should make clear, that while I am a non believer myself, I defend the right of people to have religious beliefs free from persecution.  These beliefs have no place in public life though and cannot become the property of society, they are a private matter.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." writes hawking.

I could have told the world that and I'm no physicist.  But then my book wouldn't have gotten much press and the money wouldn't flow in now would it?