Non-believers, Why?

Question

That when we christian ask a question concerning where things come from, non-believers are quick to reference a scientific PROCESS?The scientific process still doesnt explain where all the stuff came from;it just attempts to explain how the things interact.
The question is where did the stuff actually come or originate from if there was nothing in the beginning? I've only seen one person that actually gave attempted to answer this question. The answer was "well they must of always existed." Let me point out that this answer alludes to God;at the burning bush God told Moses "I Am that I Am"Meaning He always was,always is, and always will be.God is the only one that has always existed;so in a way that answer is admitting to there being a God.
So. Do non-believers actually have a good answer for where the materials actually come from?Dont just tell me about the processes,cuase I've heard it all before. Who can atually put forth an answer for where the materials come from outside of God?

Answer 1

No one knows anything about what happened or existed before the big bang. But we say, "I don't know," rather than, "God did it."

And, until we do know, that IS the intellectually honest and scientific answer.

Answer 2

>> non-believers are quick to reference a scientific PROCESS?

Because that's the real answer to your question. Would you prefer we just made stuff up on the spot?

>> he scientific process still doesnt explain where all the stuff came from;

Alright. So, let's suppose 'god' was your answer to the first question. I now say: "where all did god come from;it just attempts to explain how the things interact." See? We haven't answered the question. We moved it up a level. A more complex level, that is even more improbable and harder to answer than the first question!

>> The question is where did the stuff actually come or originate from if there was nothing in the beginning?

Sure. It's a valid question - but a meaningless one. For one: who cares. For two: where does your god "come or originate from if there was nothing in the beginning?" The point still stands - and your answer is also unsatisfiable. I'd argue, even more unsatisifiable. The argument that "god always existed" still doesn't solve the problem - why exist? Why just *not* exist? Surely nothing can only come from nothing! By your own admission!

>> Do non-believers actually have a good answer for where the materials actually come from?

Sure. There have been various hypotheses about "where" it came from. The collision of branes in string theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branes ), the result of a previous big crunch ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_crunch ) - a process that goes on "forever" in a loop (and has always "existed", much like you suppose your god does), even some have hypothesized that universes could arrive inside a black hole ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Singularity ).

The "material" is just "energy" (E=mc^2, where E=energy, m = mass, c^2 = speed of light squared). So if you have energy in a singularity, you can get matter.

Ultimately though, we know your question of "Why?" is completely unsatisfiable. It is a question for infinitists ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitism ) - which cannot be answered. I personally subscribe to foundationalism - I do not wish to engage in infinite regression of the "why" question, ultimately getting stuck at your "god" hypothesis. So I ignore the question - the question of "Where did the universe originate?" is on the same scale as "What happened before the universe existed?" And as the great Stephen Hawking has been quoted, asking what happened before the universe appeared is equivalent to standing at the north pole and asking which way is north. There is no answer.

Answer 3

Well, your reasoning that matter always existing alludes to God is false. Frankly, things could always have existed and there still be no God. By saying that, you are ignoring logic.

The thing is, humans don't know how or why or where the origin of life took place. And that's okay. There are lots of things we don't know or understand. And it's okay to say that. We don't need to come up with an answer like God to plug the holes in our knowledge.

Any answer regarding the origin of life, matter, the universe, would be speculation based on what we have observed here on earth.

And that's okay. We can still say that other concepts make more sense than "God". God has not been observed, but the processes we use to speculate on the origins have.

Answer 4

First of all, you have to understand that there were thousands of years of human history and ideas before the "burning bush". So if we say that the universe came from somewhere that we haven't figured out yet, the xians don't have a lock on all unexplained phenomena b/c of the "I am that I am" statement.

And as I've pointed out MANY TIMES, 150 years ago doctors had no idea what caused infection. If you had been alive and one said to you "Well, there's some agent at work here but we don't know where it is or where it comes from" would you have told him that he was copping out? That his response was just like admitting there was a god?

Should they have given up after a few THOUSAND years of medical research? Think about that, you will live for maybe another 70 years. We are talking THOUSANDS of years where we just didn't know what bacteria were. Now we do.

What if in 150 years, we know where the "cosmic egg" came from? Perhaps it will be in 350 years, I don't know. What will be the next "gap" for god to fill?

Answer 5

The first question we have to answer is are Christians believers of God or of the christian faith, there is a difference you know.
God and the burning bush, can you believe that with all the objects in the universe God picks a bush and talks to one man and all of humanity is to accept this man as telling the truth, for us to judge this man as telling the truth or not, so that rules out choice of believing or not. God in trusted one person on the planet to tell us the good news, did he take Adams knowledge away from him.
A scientific process or definition or theory is not an answer either, we can draw our own conclusions. So no one knows and everyone wants to know, but I say what difference will it make, we are still dumb.

Answer 6

Straw Man Argument!

Those quick with a reference to scientific process would not answer 'well, they must have always existed' because according to scientific process there is nothing in the known universe that always existed as it is. It is a process. The correct answer is we don't know yet. You don't know either. And to paraphrase a favorite theist arguement: How do you know God made the universe? Were you there when it happened?

Answer 7

According to Buddhism, there are no beginnings and no ends AND no creator "god". All existence is cyclical and everything that exists, does so due to causes and conditions, therefore nothing just pops into existence without causes and conditions. Even your thoughts can't pop into existence without something that spurs them, creates them, etc.

Anything that exists doesn't cease to exist when it's destroyed, just the CONCEPT of that item/person as we choose to perceive it/them. An item or a person becomes something else.

Everything we know of, in science and what we're just discovering, even to the subatomic particle level, never has a finite "beginning" or "end" point. Everything you know of simply "exists" as a concept in your mind, or how you perceive it, but how someone else might perceive that same concept might be totally different. There also is no such critter as "NOTHINGNESS".

So to answer your question as briefly as I humanly can without going deeper into Buddhist philosophy about the laws of dependent arising and so on... all materials come from everything else in a cyclical existence. It's a long drawn out examination of logical thought, that most Western thinkers have a hard time grabbing onto because dualistic Western religious thought has been pounded into our heads since childhood, whether we liked it or not because that same form of philosophy is what governed the way we study science, history and so on. We get to a certain point because we THINK we can't go deeper, and then shrug our shoulders and leave it up to some creator being, but again... this isn't logical thought. Buddhist philosophy and Eastern philosophy go deeper.

Even the "Big Bang" had to have SOME THINGS that caused it. Nothingness can't cause something, not even down to the subatomic level and below, not even radio waves or light waves. Everything is SOME THING that arose from other things. Even outer space is SOMETHING, it isn't "nothing"... even a vacuum isn't "nothingness", not really. So therefore, by progression of thought we don't even believe in any creator being that popped from nothingness, or created him/herself and started creating things... we find it wholly illogical, so we don't believe in "God" as most choose to define such a being.

If you get a kick out of thinking about this deeply let me suggest a book: "The Quantum and the Lotus" by Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan. It's not as hard to read as you might think, since a lot of the concepts are summarized and bring you to a general understanding of the science being discussed and the Buddhist philosophy that is running right along with it.

I wish you luck in your explorations! _()_

Answer 8

True to the nature of Christian belief, you assume right and wrong. As if my answer would be wrong if it did not coenside with yours. Real truth is seeing without prejudice, without assumption, and without pretense. There is no absolute proof of the existence of God. Just as there is no absolute proof that he/she/it does not exist. Please do not insult me by using ancient texts as a means of proof, they are only the writings of ancient men who are quoting stories handed down, and elaborated on through the millenia. The words of men offer no proof. It is easier for me to believe that an ant can carry a man on its back for miles, than to believe God as it were has always and will always exist. I look forward to the day when humans finally take responsibility for their own actions without attributing those atrocities to a God figure when they cannot, or will not accept or explain things. What is wrong with the words "I don't know?"

Answer 9

The correct answer right now is "no one knows". You don't know, I don't know, no one knows. No one has any idea where everything came from at the earliest possible point of the history of the universe (if such a point even exists). What I have a problem with is the fact that you're using science's uncertainty to all of a sudden conclude that the answer lies in ONE religion (out of thousands of religions) founded 2,000 years ago (0.0000001% of the estimated age of the universe) on ONE planet (out of countless planets) in ONE galaxy (out of billions of galaxies).

Science doesn't know = Christianity is true? How do you get from Point A to Point B? That's what I have a problem with.

Answer 10

That "nothing" is everything in the universe after it collapses on itself. It is expanding and will collapse again someday. so the matter has always existed, just in different forms. I'm sure I could go into the nuclear density of our galaxy to explain it better, but if you really wanted the truth you would have looked for it by now.

Answer 11

In my opinion, neither science nor religion has the answer to your question unless religion can tell you where God came from. Whether you say that all matter existed without a reason, or God always existed without a reason, it seems to me there's no answer in either statement.