Atheists...?

Question

This is a serious question because I honestly want to understand your perspectives. If there is no god or creator of any kind, then where do you think the universe came from?

Not bashing... just wondering... Thanks!!!

Tusker... I dig the "Universe AS God" thing. That sounds like it has potential to bring the warring sides together.

This was a very honest and respectful question. Thank you to those who gave honest and respectful answers. I would have expected all atheists to be pleasantly surprised that a theist is genuinely interested in understanding them and learning from them.

Answer 1

An honest question deserves an honest answer...

I personally think that the Universe has always existed in one form or another. Perhaps it's an endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, perhaps our Universe popped out of some 'quantum foam', or perhaps it's something else entirely.

The First Cause argument has been used for a long time, but I don't think it's valid. If one comes up with a God to explain the origin of the Universe, then one is left with explaining the origin of God--just an extra layer of abstraction that doesn't really explain anything. If one assumes that the putative God has always existed, then why isn't it equally valid to assume that the Universe has always existed?

Answer 2

You have this question like many others because their brain or thinking is conditioned by start and end, creation and destruction, birth and death etc. Why can't you believe that the universe never came from anywhere or anything, and is not going anywhere or into anything? It always existed as it is. There is no start or end to Universe. There is no birth or death to universe. The universe IS.

Ok, now why don't you anyway consider the universe which is always IS, as the God. God does not create anything. God manifests himself (herself) as the universe. So whether you say that there is no God and the universe existed as it is, still you are not an etheist because the universe is the God. The problem is the definition of God

Answer 3

It is your concept of 'universe' that is worrying.
Imagine that there is ... let's call it nothing and there cannot be an end to nothing.
Now imagine that the universe is a term which is more accurately applied to all that nothingness.
Now imagine that there was some odd bits of dust floating about in all that nothingness. Let's call that stuff 'matter'.
Understand that everything, no matter how small, has a gravitational effect. The bigger it is, the stronger that effect.
Let us now imagine that two bits of this matter floated very close to each other and they stuck together.
Multiply that thought by countless other similar occurrences and, very gradually, over a VERY long time, all this matter came together in one enormous lump, with such a gravitational pull on itself that it became ever more dense, compressing itself under its own gravitational effect. This compression creates heat.
It all gets so very hot that ..........
Easy to imagine all that? Believable? Quite likely?

OR

Suddenly, only a short while ago, an invisible sky magician made it.

Choose wisely?

Answer 4

150 years ago, we didn't know about bacteria. No clue. It wasn't understood until Louis Pasteur determined that germs caused disease.

You are asking the same questions that scientists ask. Naturally, since you have asked this in the Religion & Spirituality section, where we are mostly humanities majors, not biologists or physicists, we're not the best source for such information. You're asking us to play to our weakness, which is, quite frankly, unfair.

Consider that you are proposing (not so subtly) that anything that is not explained is a place for God to be discovered. This is commonly referred to in ontology as "the god of the gaps" theory. It typically assigns God to any blank space that science has not yet reached useful conclusions. Remember what I said about disease? Before bacteria were discovered, it was assumed God was punishing the ill, or that they were demon possessed, or some other supernatural phenomenon caused sickness. This is the same god of the gaps.

Science never assumes, and should never assume, anything is supernatural. The purpose of science is to discover through measured observation, testing, and repetition what natural causes lead to our natural world. If you impose a statement "God caused it," then this stops the search for knowledge, because God is ultimately unknowable. This is the reason that the "god of the gaps" theory is discounted among learned ontological academicians, and is ignored by science.

Whereas for us who are not trained to find or evaluate the next scientific discovery, the best answer to your question is the one we give most often:

We Don't Know.

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^

Answer 5

There are several theory's about this, as of now the Big Bang seems to be the more widely accepted cause of OUR universe, but that raises the question of where did the Big Bang come from, String Theory claims to have an answer for this but it is widely deliberated. Simply put right now we just don't know. We may never know, but hopefully we will :)

Answer 6

The energy that became the Universe existed in the Field of Potential before it was Manifested onto the physical plane during the "Big Bang".

Answer 7

If I don't know where the universe came from, should I think that it must have been some god that did it? If so, where did this god come from?

Hmmm. If you postulate this god came from nowhere, and that it was always there, why can't we all postulate that the universe also came from nowhere, and that it was always there?

Why can't we make more exceptions if we are making one exception?

Why do we need to insert a god when it's not needed (occam's razor)?

Answer 8

Seriously, it resulted from a "dichotomous essentiality" - which in a nutshell means you really can't have a "nothing" without a "something". Otherwise, there is no point of reference from which to define either (if that makes any sense). In essence, the universe HAD to exist, so it did.

(FYI - This took me eight pages of nasty long equations and 1.5 cases of Bud Light to figure this out. I'm thinking about publishing it once I sober up.)

Answer 9

Science doesn't yet know. Heck, we still haven't even figured out quantum gravity, and there's no guarantee doing so will even get our models all the way back to the moment of the Big Bang.

"I don't know" is a valid answer.

However, based on the available hints, I think some variation of Inflaton theory is going to end up with the most evidence. But we'll have to wait and see.

Answer 10

Funny you should ask tonight.

MSN has a great article about scientists watching the formation of planets 400 million light years away. Awesome stuff.

There are multiple stars that have gas clouds surrounding them that are forming planets even now.

So although we do not have the technology (yet) to fully understand how the earth formed, we are getting close.

I also realize that scientific studies, proof and substance won't sway you, but hey, you can't knock me for trying.