How do Atheist's explain the creation of the universe without an intelligent designer, and how does this?

Question

tie into an explanation for Humans? People have so much diversity, including imagination, spirituality, emotions...etc.

How do you explain all of it, if there is no source of Higher Power?

Answer 1

The more one studies science WITHOUT the presumption that the bible is true (i.e., openmindedness), one sees that there cannot possibly be a creator.

Space is a vacuum and in a vaccuum, particles can naturally come together and fall apart, from basically nothing, due to energy, which in the vast universe is zero, or positive energy. Here is an excerpt from a "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero. (Hawking, 1988, 129)

The energy then pushes these particles against one another and at some point, a few of them collided and the resulting reaction started a cataclysm.

Here's one more:

Once our minds accept the mutability of matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin of the biggest thing we know - the universe. Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness - a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility. (Pagels, Heinz; "The Cosmic Code," 1982, 247)

Isn't science wonderful?

Here's another point to ponder in the question of randomness. It is true, if anything were different, we wouldn't be where we are. But the fact is we ARE here because this is where we ended up.

"...rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable."
--John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

Answer 2

I'm not an atheist, but the complexity of human beings is hardly a compelling argument that there has to be an intelligent designer behind all this. It's possible that the universe has no real beginning. It's possible that it runs constant and has changes occuring within it, showing astronomers something that they take as confirming evidence of an origin. If the Big Bang is true, then how did that little beam of light turn into the visible universe without a little nudge? Then again, how did that beam of light get there in the first place? Though, what if all of existence is right here in this universe and it just keeps going and going like an Energizer battery? We don't know either way, and all the reasoning and science in the world will never prove anything. Just enjoy your faith and if you feel the need to spread it, don't try to make anyone look like they're wrong because they believe in something else. You just look foolish in the process.

Answer 3

We can't explain it, and neither can you.

Simply assuming the existence of a creator doesn't explain anything, because then you are left with the bigger mystery of where the creator came from - something that not only exists but has super-intelligence to boot.

If you can't or won't follow the logic of this argument, then you are a drag on scientific and social progress and should go out and play in traffic.

By the way, plurals do *not* contain apostrophes!

Answer 4

Wow, that's a loaded question. Well, I'm betting athiests explain it with big bang and 3 billion years of evolution. From single celled organisms in primordial soup to "advanced" civilazations of intelligent beings. 3 billion years is a very, very, very long time. Look at all the human advances in just the last 2 thousand years.

But I think the real gist behind atheism (being a former atheist myself) is that religion is just a way of being comforted in a nasty unfair world that has not rhyme or reason. Believing that what we do on earth has no consequences after death, that our loved ones dont live on, that no God loves us no matter what, that there is no master plan-- is is just too much for some people to handle, and so they fall back on religion. Atheists' tend to be realists, so religion is hard to buy into (bc they cant see it)

Atheists might answer your question with this one: If God created the universe, where did God come from? Even most religions have no explanation for this one. And if I'm going to believe in God, then which one? Which religion? Too many choices. How does a rational mind choose between competing theories of religion, all of which require FAITH. So much simpler to believe in science. Science you can prove. How do you "prove" a religion?

Lastly, I think atheists are skeptical about organized religion. I used to feel that people only believe in their particular religion bc that's what they were taught growing up. Baptist parents, baptist kid. Muslim parents, muslim kid. Hindu parents, hindu kid, etc. So I questioned whether its really a matter of faith or of upbringing. Not many people (percentage wise) change religions when they grow up. The fact that many people never question their religious beliefs kind of turns Athiests (and me) off.

So I see both sides. I respect everyone's beliefs. But for myself, I believe in a higher power, but I don't subscribe to any particular religion, for the 2nd above reason. Hope this helps answer your question. Or at least somewhat interesting.

Answer 5

Why should you need to explain?
Still,as humans,all we have are stories and speculation.
Some things can be proved,but no one alive today was alive then and remembers,so you can prove nothing either way.Who should care anyway ,we will all find out for sure when our time comes anyway...Then if you're a know it all and there is an afterlife,you can say haha,you're in hell and I'm not.
Hell may not be as scary as people make-believe it out to be anyway.What if it exists and is no different than some little town thats simply humdrum and unexciting?

Answer 6

Why do you need to have an explanation for something that cannot be proved anyway? Is it so difficult to say "we don't know at this stage how the universe has been created or exists". You do not have to come up with a hypothesis and call it truth.

Answer 7

natural selection can account for diversity among species, intelligent design does not even really come close.

think about it different animals of the same species living and adapting to different ecologies around the sphere we call home, spiders in subterranean caverns are translucent and blind, absence of light in their habitat, spiders above ground have better eyesight and sometimes have camouflage to blend into their surroundings when hunting. Which is a more intellectually appreciable theory when coming to judge the development of these animals, they adapted to their environments slowly over milennia, separate and diverse, but of the same species, branching out from a common ancestry. Or appearing suddenly in a puff of smoke or whatever all ready for their engineered environment?

The same model of natural selection may possibly be applicable to cosmological development not just to macro development of life in comparison...perhaps that is the 'natural' order of our universe... Ultimately you have to judge for yourself which suits your view of the world... but my question is that if you go for the latter supposition of ID, then can you conscienably balance it to physical evidence around us...

In my view of our universe it is one that has no 'meaning' or 'ultimate truth', no guiding forces, no supernatural entities. I can hear you saying, "then what do you have to live for if there is no 'meaning' to it all?"

That there is no ultimate purpose for the universe or life, further than it simlpy 'be' is truly amazing and mind blowing, therefore proving that there is so much more to learn...

Answer 8

There are about a dozen current possible explanations on the creation of the universe itself (the most popular is currently the Big Bang Theory). Abiogenesis is the current accepted explanation of how life was created. Evolution is how life got the way it is today.

You do not need a being to have done any of it.

Answer 9

Well I do think this universe is amazingy balanced. N we still havent solved a lot of its mysteries.. Man has always been driven to explore because of his questioning mind.
100s of yrs ago man knew less than wat he knows now. But his mind questioned neverthless.
To explain the mysteries... God was invented.. Anything man couldnt answer was answered by the assumption of existance of a divine being God.
Its known that man has worsipped everything from fire to mountains to rivers to animals... its just because man knows in his mind that there`s reason for everything..
believing in God is like answering a mystery with a mystery.

We still dont know how universe came into being.
To say that God doesnt exist might be an assuption but believing that God does exist is an assumption too.

( No disrespect to any faith . i recognize that every1 is free to chose his beliefs.)

Answer 10

Well first of all, just because I don't accept your explanation of a magical godfather in the sky, doesn't mean that I have an alternate explanation. I just recognize that yours is intrinsically absurd.


You have a book written, rewritten, translated, copied, transcribed, edited, redacted, revised, added to and expurgated over 1500 years.

I'll go with science, thanks.