For people who don't believe in God?

Question

I have answered many question where people talk about not believe in God or in any higher being. What, in your opinion, created earth and the universe? I have wondered because we have technology that past generations have not. A lot of things on earth we still can't make. What is your ideas on it? Please don't give me rude comments, I just want to know your thinking.

Answer 1

We're not sure. We won't make presumptions or claims until the hard evidence is in. From where it stands now, we have not been able to recreate the beginning of our universe, or conditions similar for that matter, so we are having trouble answering that. Even the best theories and models have kinks. Keep in mind, that these advances were only made in the past 200-300 years (science is still relatively new). Within time, we will have an answer.

Answer 2

So, you are unaware of alternate theories? How can you claim to know what you believe until you hear other points of view (not you specifically, but generally speaking)? Here's mine... since you asked.

Life has a force - you see it in both plants and animals. The catalyst for life is water. Wherever there is water, there is life. If the elements are right in the atmosphere (H20 o2 Co2) then life has a chance. I believe if there is another planet with a similar atmosphere - there will be life.

Now about this force - that is a mystery to me. What makes the plants sprout from the ground every spring? Why do we all want to live so much? We created god to explain this phenomenon. It obviously must be god, right? I think not. I think there are a variety of reasons we refuse to lay down and die. Darwin was on the right track - we have such an unconscious desire to live and eat well that we choose a mate that will make it happen for our offspring even more so than for ourselves. As a result every species either gets better and better at living .....or it dies out.

Answer 3

Aloha Pippenintheshire,

What you describe is a common mistake theists make - if they don't know the answer to something, it must be God! See Dreamstuff's links for the answer to "How was the universe created if not by God?"

Remember, just because we don't know the science behind something 100% doesn't mean we should just assume "God" is behind it. Joseph Lewis said: "Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label "God" there and consider the matter closed?"

"God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore."
— Edward Abbey

"Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things."
— Hippocrates; (ca. 460-377 B.C.E.), Greek physician, regarded as the father of medicine

Answer 4

The hardest part of this question is getting past the language we use...

I do not feel the earth was "Created" at all. That said, I beleive the earth was "created" from the resulting cooling of gases and matter after the Big Bang. The BB is what created the universe - at least this is the accepted theory, which makes the most sense to me. As for what CAUSED the BB...we havent a clue yet...

But not knowing is not a reason to say God did it. Saying God did it is a reason to put away the search for the how and why...and that will benefit NO ONE.

Answer 5

Astrophysics gives decent answers to all such questions. The exact mechanics of the big bang are not understood -- physical theories can't be applied at a singularity -- but everything that has happened in the some 13.6 billion years since appears to have proceeded according to rules that are uniform throughout all space and time. Fast forward nine billion years; a supernova explosion creates a shock wave that causes agglomeration of random material in space, contributing its own material as well, and you have the beginnings of the solar system. If you wish to posit the existence of a deity that prescribed the rules, you are free to do so, but such a position is provably useless -- it can't predict anything.

Answer 6

This current version of the universe was by the Big Bang.


Dreamstuff, the second poster, linked the wikipedia sites which are good for basic understanding but in no way truely scientific. So if you want a more scientific explanation you will have to dig a little deeper.

Answer 7

Created as we know it today? Millions of years after the big bang gases cooled creating the first stars which it turn created gravity fields that attracted debris and formed planets, moons, etc. I know so what created the material that was in the big bang? Why would it have to be created? Perhaps it had always existed or even existed in another form.

Answer 8

Science has actually learned quite a bit about the natural processes involved in the seperation of energy and matter, the creation of protons from subatomic particles, the creation of hydrogen from protons, the creation of higher elements from nuclear fusion, etc., as well as the basics of abiogensis and evolution. There is simply too much information to summarize for you in this forum. If you are interested I recommend the book Cosmos by noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Answer 9

I have no opinion of what created earth and the universe because I don't have any way of knowing that, and neither does anyone else. People who claim to know are just making assumptions.

Answer 10

An amazing question which we need to open our minds up to is - did anything need to have caused the big bang? Before the big bang there was no time, so with no time, there can have been no cause. An amazing possibility, but a possibility no less. I really think that we could well be here due to an improbable coincidence. The question really should be "why not?"