Either there was a first cause, which everything has resulted from, or there is an endless cause/effect ladder. Both are unsatisfactory. I'd like to hear the atheist perspective of the initial cause- and if you believe there wasn't an initial cause, why is there something instead of nothing?
2007-06-25 09:44:58 · 31 answers · asked by Joe 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
By the way, I'm not professing any belief here, just asking a question.
2007-06-25 10:02:56 · update #1
It's interesting- few people have answered the question, but a vast majority take this as an opportunity to bash religion or faith.
2007-06-25 10:31:55 · update #2
The flaw in your question is that you allow "God" to be the only acceptable answer for a "first cause".
I would be interested in hearing either who or what created God, or a scientific explanation for how God has always existed. Without either of these, your First Cause argument falls flat.
2007-06-25 09:47:52 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 6⤊ 1⤋
"Either there was a first cause, which everything has resulted from, or there is an endless cause/effect ladder. Both are unsatisfactory"
You claim that there are two options, and you don't like either. I am not sure how we can help you with that.
Either the universe never had a beginning, or it did. If it did, it was sheer randomness. In the space of infinity, before matter existed, the possibility of matter forming randomly was very real. How probable it was doesn't matter because it had eternity to happen.
2007-06-25 09:51:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Ok, we all know that you don't sincerely care to know what atheists think the first cause is, but are rather trying to say "Ha! See! I told you! You NEED to believe in God to explain these things!"
Well, let's use a little analogy. Pretend that you are an ancient Mayan. You see the sun rise and fall every day and have NO idea how it happens. You ask the spiritual leader of your village and he tells you that it is because the Sun god makes it so. This is the best explanation you can come up with at the time, so you accept it.
We all now know (hopefully) that the Earth spins on its axis and this causes the change from day to night and back again. No belief in a higher power required! Cosmology is the current uncharted region that we can't explain, but based on the trends of the past, we will be able to at some point, without god. Just because we can't explain it now doesn't mean we need to jump to theistic conclusions in order to satisfy our questioning. We just need to wait. Study, observe, test, and wait.
You ask a "why" question, which of course no one can answer. My question to you is Why does there need to be a "why"? Maybe there is just an "is".
I can't say with any large degree of certainty how the universe started. I've looked into the Big Bang theory a lot, and it seems to be the best explanation so far, but it definitely won't be the last, definitive one we come up with. It takes time, technology advancement and study. Answers will be found, but there will always be more questions. Don't use the god crutch.
2007-06-25 09:54:20 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous 3 · 3⤊ 1⤋
I have no idea. I suspect that the first event was in the nature of twinned opposite reactions resulting in the universe being reordered to a potential difference of matter/energy but I don't know. If so, this cause would have been self-perpetuating until it was played out. At the present time it would still be playing out.
Think of it; a universe with no matter or energy is as ordered as it is possible to get. At some point there in all probability had to be an event that broke down this zero state into chaotic matter and energy.
We have no way of knowing how many quintillions of years passed before this improbable yet absolutely expected alleged event occurred.
2007-06-25 09:48:23 · answer #4 · answered by Dharma Nature 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋
There always was something and always will be. There's no "origin". Before this universe of our knowledge there were others and when this one goes there will be others. A brief study in Quanta Mechanics will show the plausibility a few of the parallel universes. An award winning British Physicist, David Deutche, has written a book, "The Fabric of Reality", that you might find interesting reading.
2007-06-25 09:55:16 · answer #5 · answered by Don W 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
my view is this....
there is no such thing in nature as nothing, zero is a human invention. The vacuum of space is constantly generating and destroying particles. This part is fact as far as can be described. I believe that the intial cause of the universe was simply there was a finite probability for it to occur. Given sufficient time it happened.
2007-06-25 09:54:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
I have no idea. That is invoking a level of physics well beyond my one class at the undergrad level. I think that the M-Theory is very interesting, though.
Why is the "endless ladder" hypothesis unsatisfactory?
2007-06-25 09:52:11 · answer #7 · answered by N 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
If you referring to the cause of the big bang scienbce has yet to solve the riddle, mainly because they've only been studying it since early in the last century.
Thay do have some excellent theories. Look into string theory and M theory
2007-06-25 09:51:15 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
I'm inclined to support inflaton theory, which asserts that the Big Bang/Inflationary Era occured on a quantum field that was itself eternally existing.
Like it or not, everything comes down to a prima causa or an endless chain, as you point out.
I simply see no reason the prima causa must be a deity.
2007-06-25 09:50:23 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
There's no solving it. You can speculate using mathematics and physics about the cause of the big bang, but then you wind up with an uncaused multiverse or an accordion universe or something. Some questions can't be answered.
But adding God solves nothing, but God is the phenoemna that needs a very grand explanation.
2007-06-25 09:47:49 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 10⤊ 1⤋