If there was no God or higher power, how did it all begin? What happen before that?

Answer 1

There is a God and he is the higher power. So we know how it all began and there is no before that.

Answer 2

The atheist Bertrand Russell wrote in his book "Why I am Not a Christian" that if it is true that all things need a cause then God must also need a cause. He concluded from this that if God needed a cause then God was not God (and if God is not God then of course there is no God). This was basically a slightly more sophisticated form of the childlike question, "Who made God?" Even a child knows that things do not come from nothing, so if God is a "something" then He must have a cause as well, right?

The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be. The answer is that the question does not even make sense. It is like asking, "What does blue smell like?" Blue is not in the category of things that have odor, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created, or come into existence, or are caused. God is uncaused and uncreated - He simply exists.

How do we know this? Well, we know that from nothing, nothing comes. So if there was ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence then nothing would have ever come to exist. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been existing. That ever-existing thing is what we call God.

Recommended Resource: Knowing God by J.I. Packer.

Answer 3

By your logic of things have to have a beginning,then god would have to have a beginning. Saying that he always existed does not work.

What happened before the universe began? If that is what you are asking no one knows exactly but there is research going on all the time. Some people think that this universe was born from another universe. Even if we don't know it doesn't mean that some god did it.

Answer 4

First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By one chance in a thousand something hit our sun and made it produce the planets; and by another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the right temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of the matter on this earth came alive; and then, by a very long series of chances, the living creatures developed into things like us. The other view is the religious view. According to it, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for purposes we do not know, but partly, at any rate, in order to produce creatures like itself--I mean, like itself to the extent of having minds. Please do not think that one of these views was held a long time ago and that the other has gradually taken its place. Wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, 'I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so,' or, 'I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such temperature and it did so-and-so.' Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science--and a very useful and necessary job it is, too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes--something of a different kind--this is not a scientific question. If there is 'Something Behind', then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself know in some different way. The statement that there IS any such thing, and the statement that there is NO such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them.

Answer 5

I don't believe time is fundamental. A movie on a DVD begins at the beginning of the movie, but we can see the movie is just some bits on a disk. The universe exists but our interpretation of it as space changing with time is likely illusory. When you ask what is before the big bang event, it is like asking what is before the beginning of a DVD movie. The question makes an assumption about time that may well not be valid.

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 is built upon mathematics and mathematics is what is 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:


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


In my belief, 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 only reason it looks like a rapidly expanding big bang space-time is we are restricted to only find ourelves to be a part of that mathematics conducive to our evolution.

The problem with the god 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, leaves a much bigger question than you had to begin with.

Answer 6

The bible used the name in reference to God as a name the ancient of days, that leaves alot to think about. When he questioned Job God stated that he put all the stars out there and even knows their name!

Answer 7

Hello dear!
God is the tag to the unknown, this is your question all about! We don;t know how and why it happened, thus we invent god!
Also, you mention: before, that means: TIME! And time "created" after the stars, planets, galaxies, ... Think of it. What is day, month, year!

Answer 8

Read "A Brief History Of Time" by Dr Steven Hawkin.

If you understand 50% of it you will know more tham 99% of the population on this subject.

He explains it far better than anyone on this forum can.

Ian M

Answer 9

Because consciousness evolves over many lifetimes, but our physical system is genetically geared for survival, we are susceptible to a fear of death and other negative conditioning from the people in our environment while we are at the mercy of the reptilian/survival and old mammalian/emotional brains during early childhood.

Until we are spiritually developed enough to have a conscious awareness of being OTHER than our body, we will overly identify with the defensive ego and will not only fear existential death AND physical death, but will be unable to conceive of a reality without a beginning.

The best explanation I've read for how our material universe evolved (out of photons) is by chemist William Day ("The New Physics" and others) and his book "Holistic Physics" (Google the article by that name with his) which offers a better explanation of space and its relation to matter. I'm not convinced of the big bang; multiple cosmic membrane crashes sounds more plausible, but at this point we simply haven't advanced enough as a species to know.

But, ultimately it is irrelevant - to our lives and purpose on this bit of earth in our little corner of the cosmos - OR to the discussion of a higher power or god. Humans have evolved a massive thinking brain and thus a capacity for higher levels of consciousness that science is still too primitive to understand - that there is an intersection of psychology and physics.

But adepts such as Jesus (and others who have the biological capacity for altered states of consciousness) HAVE understood the relationship between being and reality, and they have all offered various ways to achieve unity consciousness; i.e., to transcend the conditioned defensive identity (ego) and experience rebirth/return to the authentic (Christ/annointed) Self which is necessary for fulfilling our passion and purpose and which stabilizes an experience of "eternal aliveness" (heaven).

Humans tend to project their attributes onto deity, and their defects onto others. And because the non-material multi-dimensional field of reality in which we are embedded is responsive to consciousness, humans explain the miracles and synchronicity that they sometimes observe and experience by imagining a personified deity that cares about them as individuals. God/Reality is neutral.

Our experience of reality is a failsafe system for spiritual growth because it mirrors the contents of consciousness. Most of our conditioned beliefs are imprinted into the subconscious during early development before the thinking brain is on-line, and these beliefs (we literally "live by faith") control perception, thoughts, feelings and reactions as well as being causative/creative of reality. Our EM field is impacted by the entire field (including earth's) and impacts others fields so humans are creating our reality individually and en masse.

We have an incredible capacity for creation and invention, but our unhealed egos have an equal capacity for folly and misery. Brilliant adepts such as Jesus lead the way and no one has surpassed his marvelous psychological metaphors (inherent in every event of his life) for achieving transcendence and purpose.

Answer 10

General scientific theory currently believes that everything in the universe existed in a single point. Then came the Big Bang, and here we are several billion years later. But you can keep the question going indefinitely. If God created the Universe, who created God? And who created that creator? etc.