There are quite a few people here calling Hawking an "atheist", when all he is claiming is that the Universe could have sprung into existence without the help of a "Creator" or a "God". The physics back him up, and his claim does not necessarily make him an atheist.
If Hawking claimed that ice could be created from water without the hand of a "creator", would that necessarily make him an atheist? Natural phase changes happen all of the time ... it is proven science, yet nobody claims that every ice cube has to be created by God individually. If he created the physics laws that made the ice cube able to create itself, then where is the problem? If God created a multitude of potential universes which could then follow the proven and universal laws of physics and pop into existence with any further help, then that is the same argument as that of the lowly ice cube. Itis all just physics.