Stephen Hawking says "God did not create the universe," Twitter explodes

Stephen Hawking — probably the world's most famous scientist (and definitely the guy with the world's coolest talking machine) — has stated in a new book that the universe was not created by God. The book, titled The Grand Design, goes a bit against some of his earlier writing, removing the possibility of a divine 'creator' that could have sparked the Big Bang. His new work says the creation of the universe was an inevitable product of the laws of physics.

And of course, the whole world is freaking out about. He's a top trending topic on Twitter, (that's right, the world's geekiest mathematician, in a spot usually reserved for Biebers), and the responses range from pissed off and to supportive to hilarious:

Predictably religious leaders around the world are lashing back at him — perhaps justifiably, since he is threatening their livelihoods. To me, however, it seems like a bit of a toss up: Is this actually surprising news? Or something you'd always assumed from so serious a scientist?