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'God did not create the universe'

God didn't create the universe -- it was actually a result of the inevitable laws of physics, British physicist Prof Stephen Hawking has concluded.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, Hawking said: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there's something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

In his new book, he has rejected Sir Isaac Newton's theory that the universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going," he was quoted by The Daily Telegraph as saying.

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'God did not create the universe'

Prof Hawking didn't dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world in his 1998 book, A Brief History of Time.

He wrote in his famous work: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God."

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological theory of the early development of the universe.

The theory postulates that the Big Bang event took place at some finite time in the past; according to the best available measurements as of 2009, 13.7 billion years ago.

According to the Big Bang model, the universe, originally in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly, has since cooled by expanding to the present diluted state, and continues to expand today.

Prof Hawking's book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, will be published on September 9.