For atheists: What do you believe caused you to come into existence?

Question

I mean you no disrespect with this question.

You believe you exist, and I believe you exist. But what, besides your parents, caused you to come into being?

And if your answer is only your parents, then what caused them to exist and all their ancestors to exist? Your answer cannot be God, because you are a proclaimed atheist, so what was the original cause?

I sincerely hope your answer is not an anarchy of random atoms, for then I would have to ask you what caused them to exist or to act so randomly, and fortuitously.

RoboJeep asks a good question: What caused God to exist? I think many believers in God would define God as the original cause but an entity that is beyond their humble ability to fully comprehend. Worship, yes, but understand and justify, no.

I am not taking sides in this debate; I am merely trying to understand it.

Answer 1

Big bang > Abiogenesis > Evolution

Answer 2

This problem is known as negative progression. Simple put, it is the assertion that everything must have a cause.

This assertion has not been proved. Rather, it is often taken as a mere premise, which may or may not be correct.

Assume for the moment that it is true; everything must have cause. Our parents came from their parents, their parents come from their parents, and so on.

Which, if this line of thinking is taken to the extreme, then the question remains, where did our original parents come from?

Many religions would say that their god created the first human beings, that their god is the "unmoved mover". This is also one of St. Thomas Aquinas' so-called proofs of God.

However, if one is to play this game of negative progression, then they would also have to define what caused their god. Since everything must have a cause, then their god must also have a cause.

Its considered cheating if someone were to change the rules of a game while in the middle of playing. And this is where most, if not all, religions fail in honesty or logic (your choice).

If a religion were to claim that their god was the start of everything else, they would not only have to prove the following;

1) The negative progression problem is an valid premise.
2) The negative progression problem has a solution
3) This solution has been solved by their religion
4) There was only one cause, and not multiple causes
5) Their god was the cause of everything else.

This is a tall order to fulfill.

Again, this approach is considered cheating. One can also make the assertion that a unicorn, a dragon, or other mystical beast created the world. Note that this not so far fetched as you might believe.

Having a book (e.g. a bible) that says so does not make this assertion true - there have been many books and documents that say other deities were the cause of the world and universe.

No one knows where everything originally came from. And that includes anyone claiming a religion. ;)

Rob

Answer 3

Okay, I could go on about abiogenesis and the Big Bang but if you wanted an actual explanation you wouldn't have asked in the religion section, would you? And the fact is, your argument would be no more valid even if there were no scientific explanation.
Think about it, if you go back just a few thousand years we didn't have scientific explanations for a lot of things. We didn't know how lightning worked, for example. Some people suggested that lightning was caused by a god, and if they met someone who didn't believe in this god they might have asked 'how do you explain lightning then?' And of course the person would be unable to explain lightning, as they lacked the scientific knowledge to do so. Does that make the existence of a lightning god any more logical?

If your only argument is 'if God didn't do it, what did?' then logically you're obligated to believe in not only every creation myth that's ever been told, but also the infinite number of creation myths that haven't been invented. And this isn't only the case for the creation of the universe. Really, you should believe that every possible supernatural being is responsible for everything you don't personally understand. See how stupid that is?

Answer 4

im not an athiest but i dont know if i believe in go either. As there is no real hard evidence about gods existence and there is for theories such as the big bang it is hard not to side with science.

You say:
"sincerely hope your answer is not an anarchy of random atoms, for then I would have to ask you what caused them to exist or to act so randomly, and fortuitously."
I Ask you:
Well what causes god to exisit? have you got evidence of gods existence or just the bible ?

This topic will be debated for years and years why cant people just belive what they want without preaching and without people telling others to believe and not to? ?
There is so much violence over religion, we should all just learn to accept one anothers point of veiw.

Answer 5

The spontaneous creation of an anti de Sitter space around 13.5 billion years ago (with size a fraction of the size of an atom). This then underwent metric expansion and inflation. The energy released caused huge temperatures, the remnants of which can be observed easily today. Expansion lead to cooling which broke underlying gauge symmetries of the fundamental fields of this space. This led to the condensation of a range of particles, some with mass.

Massive partciles formed early atoms - principally hydrogen. Atoms condensed into nebulae and galaxies, and star formation occured. The most powerful telescopes can see distances that mean they are looking at the universe as it was about 500 million years after its creation, and can see these nebulae.

Nuclear process in stars created heavier elements. All of these processes have also been observed astronomically.

Condensation of heavier elements into planets lead to our 3rd or 4th stellar generation solar system.

Quite soon after the Earth cooled sufficiently abiogenesis occured - creation of simple organic chemicals. This has been reproduced in a lab. Once chemicals existed that could carry information - the one present today is DNA - natural selection occured.

Natural selection is one of the fastest problem solving processes known, and this led to spontaneous complexity. The evidence for this process is abundant, and can be traced to very early times - at least 2 to 3 billion years.

So you see, I know enough not to need a fictional superbeing whose existence I cannot explain to understand what is around me.

Your god neither solves nor provides an explanation for anything.

Answer 6

I at present have faith it has constantly existed contained in this style of quantum fluctuations. examine out A Universe From no longer something - Lawrence Krauss on youtube in case you opt for an answer from somebody who's conscious what they are talking approximately. in actuality, depend and anti-depend cancel one yet another out whilst they arrive into touch, like useful and adverse numbers. besides the fact that, it incredibly is soooo sooo lots greater complicated than that. that's at present the in basic terms right concept I even have discovered to describe it. i'm at present uncertain as to what set those fluctuations in action. On one hand, why did something unavoidably could set them in action? the only logical place for me is to have faith that there has constantly been something there. no longer a god, yet quantum debris fluctuating out and in of existence. (This has been pronounced via the way in Geneva, Switzerland or maybe in South Dakota interior the USA.) Quantum fluctuations produce universes and could o.k. have been the beginning up of ours.

Answer 7

While I don't know 100%, there is evidence to suggest that the first life came about through the natural mechanisms of basic chemicals.

From there it's just a matter of time.

Answer 8

billions of years ago single-cell organisms evolved into 2-cells and so forth until some of them became more complex sea dwelling creatures....skip ahead a few million years and now you have land based creatures....fast forward a bit then you have walking talking human beings that can reproduce

And all of this is done without any of that magical god crap.

Answer 9

Very interesting. I just want to see what kind of answers you get, because, they don't have an explanation other than evolution, which is a theory with no viable explanation concerning the origin of matter. You have my star.

Answer 10

A sperm fertilizing an egg. Same thing that's happened since time. Need a lesson on the birds & the bees? [Agnostic]