How do athiests believe the universe came to be?

Question

I want to find out why athiests do not believe that God created everything. Is it theory of evolution, or something else?

Disregard "Is it theory of evolution, or something else?".. please just answer the question asked.

Answer 1

I am not an atheist, but in general I have seen answers fall into several categories. First, there are those who find the question has no bearing for them. That is fair enough. As a mathematician I spend some time on the Math&Science section helping out, but many questions are just plain boring.

Some years ago and second, Hawking suggested that the Universe was self-sufficient (there are parallel arguments for the deity) and thus created/sustained itself. This required the introduction of "Imaginary Time" and "Negative Mass." Most cosmologists found this too unpalatable. Hawking seems to have retreated from this position.

Some folk offer a substitute. "Quantum singularity", "Quantum equations", and others all vie as candidates for the creation of the Universe. Unfortunately, no one has shown that they are necessary; that is to say, *why* was there a quantum singularity, or why are the "laws" of quantum mechanics they way they are. The fundamental issue that these explanation miss is that they do not address the need of being necessary, and as long as they are contingent, physicists and cosmologists can continue to ask (and rightly so!) why this and not something else.

As you can see, arguments --real arguments-- for atheism are very difficult to come by, easily as difficult as argument for theism. Most folk theists and atheists alike in R&S just make naked assertions with little or no logic presented.

HTH

Charles

Answer 2

In short: We don't know entirely...yet.

And not just atheists, anybody who recognizes the scientific evidence associated with the big bang likely agrees with me.

What we do know is that the universe it getting cooler and larger. What that means is that it once was much smaller and hotter....run that "video tape" back far enough and you arrive at the big bang, or the initial creation of this universe.

Current science is adequate to explain how the universe evolved (different from the Theory of Evolution) from right after this initial big bang (less than a second after it happened), but we cannot yet calculate or theorize exactly how it happened. There are a number of hypotheses, however:

*String theory has some ideas
*M-Theory has some ideas
*The anthropic principle connected with a multiverse has some ideas

Just because we don't fully know the answer yet, doesn't mean we never will (2,000 years ago they though the thunder was when the gods got angry...then we figured out friction and electromagnetism).

We do know quite a bit, however. We know the big bang occurred based on the enormous wealth of evidence the cosmos gives us.

Does that mean a "god" of some sort didn't flick the first domino to set it off? Of course not.

What it means is because we can learn more, and continue to learn more, we are unwilling to throw up our hands in collective defeat and say "goddidit" and move onto shuffleboard.

Science is like an onion, as we continue to peel back layer and layer to get closer to the truth. To assume under the current layer of knowledge exists god, after we have already peeled back so many after that claim has been made before, would be silly.

Let's keep learning and looking. Who knows what we'll find?!?

Answer 3

I'm not a "strong" atheist. I believe that the existence of any non-falsifiable entity, whether it be an invisible dragon that lives in my garage or an invisible man in the sky, is irrelevant to how I will live my life here on Earth.

I don't pretend to know all the answers. Science has some interesting theories, which fit all the observations made of the cosmos thus far. I don't think the big bang precludes the involvement of some higher power. God could have easily set that in motion.

A higher power isn't necessary to explain the existence of the universe. You claim that a God created the universe. Who created God? The whole notion of a "first cause" in the long chain of cause and effect known as existence is silly.

Answer 4

I was an atheist long, long before I knew anything about evolution, abiogenesis, or cosmological theories pertaining to the birth of the universe.

As to how the universe came to be.. I don't know. I wasn't there :) However, I find fascinating the idea of an expanding singularity giving rise to our universe.

Answer 5

Personally I believe reality is ultimately mathematics (necessary logical truth) . It only looks like space and time because we see so little of it. Nothing is ever really created. The key here is a powerful selection effect (our existence ) which selects the portion of reality we find ourselves in. Only in very interesting portions (ones that appear as rapidly expanding space-time) of this vast infinite reality could we evolve.

Our understanding of reality is layered. You see the world in terms of large physical objects. But you are aware that those are illusions made up of atoms, and atoms in turn are made of smaller particles. Many believe that these so called "fundamental" particles are not fundamental but are built on a layer of mathematical objects called strings. My belief is that all reality including space-time itself is built upon mathematics and mathematics is what is truly fundamental.

The reason why we see top layers instead of lower layers is due to our inability to see all of the the details in the lower layers.

The reasons for my belief are way too involved to cover here so I will just post a link to something simple enough that you might understand it. I fear my actual reasons are likely to be well beyond your comprehension unless you have a very advanced graduate physics background.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.0646v1.pdf

As mathematics ( necessary logical truth ) is fundamental and necessary it is not created. Existence simply equals necessary truth. Mathematics "just is" because it is necessary and tautologically simple ( Zero complexity ). But Mathematics does not create reality. Mathematics is reality.

The problem with the design hypothesis is your god needs to be more complex and hence more unlikely than the reality you are attempting to explain. Saying your god just is, still leaves a much bigger question than you had to begin with.

Just as a sideline unrelated to my argument : Since I have taken graduate level cosmology I will tell you how mass and energy are thought to have formed because most people do not know.

As most people are aware total mass/energy are thought to be conserved.

However most people do not know Gravitational potential energy is negative.

Rapid inflation results in large amounts of both normal mass/energy and gravitational potential energy which are thought to exactly balance each other.

Most of mass/energy you observe today formed in the first few milliseconds after the big bang as a direct result of the extremely rapid inflation which produces normal energy balanced with gravitational potential energy summing up to zero.

I agree with Charles below that reality as a whole must be necessary otherwise one can ask why is it not different. The reason it doesn't appear necessary is that we see so little of it.

Answer 6

Perhaps the answer is that an athiest has a different view of reality than you do. In my view of reality "creation" is ongoing, not something that happened thousands of years ago. Time is not an absolute concept, it is only a device that we use to set up markers within our life. Thus, the "beginning" for each of us in this Visit to Earth is our birth and the "end" for each of us is our "death". I use the quote marks to make a point. Perhaps there is no beginning and no end of anything. Perhaps birth is not the beginning of a life and death is not the end of it. Perhaps we live before we are born, and continue to live after we die.

Answer 7

I was there, with Doctor Who, at the very beginning! It was fantastic! A quantum singularity particles started clinging together, and forming a circular clump star dust, and rocks! Then it started happening faster and faster, and growing bigger, and bigger, until finally, the Doctor said we had to come back, or ahead, depending on how you look at it!

Now, that's as plausible as anything else I have heard on this site, from the creationists.

drink

Answer 8

To me, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that I need food, water, shelter. For me and my critters. It doesn't matter how we got here, but I'm not about to assign a pretend name to some intangible concept.
Why would it matter to you how the universe came to be? Don't you have things to do? Other than wonder where we came from?
Question why so many people want to breed their animals, and then shelters have to kill like 6 million every year because they don't have homes. That's more important than wondering where we came from. Tell me about an immediate need, not a dreamy one.

Answer 9

i beleive i am the NI of UNIVERSE
because NI=(sealed together) IV I=(sealed together) IIII I
which describes My left rist.
i beleive E=[iL when read down from the top.
i beleive [iL could be pronounced kill.
so
UNIVERSE
is
U (sealed tegether)IV I VERS [iL
becomes
U (sealed together)IIII I VERS(e) KILL
so if GOD really meant Thou shall not kill, then My left arm won't out of respect for a fellow LORD.
but the right wouldn't be bound by that cause self defense should be a human right.
so the UNIVERSE came about cause TODD made Himself the (sealed together)IIII I and doesn't mind versing kill, cause everything justs wants to live, and i can respect that, irregardless of what killer warriors think.
so the UNIVERSE came about cause of TODD.
thats why you see His name in both the LORD and His GODDESS when you spell them in times new roman font.

so didn't the bible say God created all things for His Son, through His Son? And God is the Son. And God is forever to be known as the I AM?

notice
I AM=I AIVI (sealed together)=I AIIII I (sealed together)
I AM=i am
larri (cut and sealed together)=i am

thus TODD came to be known as larri who was cut and sealed together as I A IIII I.

SO since kings traditionally give up their old names upon coranation perhaps since becoming the I AM, i should just change My name to God. Thus the Mystery of God's new name is tied to His old name.

Answer 10

I am NOT an atheist; I am Roman Catholic (and I'm proud of it) but I do know what they believe in. They believe in the big bang which was created by an atom which exploded in the big bang.
Also they believe in evolution where modern day living things such as humans, animals and plants evolved from magma. They believe in scientific theories.