# Evidence of a Creator **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307 "2010-01-17T12:15:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/141 "2010-01-18T13:54:19Z")
As A.J.Ayers once said “It may very well happen that even when people’s beliefs are false they are as fully convinced of their truth as they are of the truth of what they know… from the fact that someone is convinced something is true, however firm his convictions may be, it never follows logically that it is true.” ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/142 "2010-01-18T13:55:09Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > For me, I find it odd that the universe itself have no cause. I find it odd because we can point to nothing else that is causeless. Some people like to claim that quantum mechanics has particles being created with no cause. But the sudden and apparent random appearance of a particle is hardly proof that it’s _appearance_ in new location means that is was spontaneously _created_. So, for me, the simpler explanation is that since everything must have a cause, anything that does not would have to be extra-natural. A Creator God is the only thing that fits that bill. > > I couldn’t agree more. (Though I don’t often see people claiming this.) I’ve stated things similar to this numerous times. Even if one thinks the First Cause argument proves, or is strong evidence for, the existence of a Creator God, it is a flawed leap to attribute any characteristics to that God. The argument is merely a strong argument for his _existence_, but it is _completely_ mum on the _flavor_ of that God. For all we know, every religion known to man is 100% wrong. > > I’d just add that it is also fallacious to argue in the other direction that even if every religion we know is flawed or completely false, that is not a valid argument for the non-existence of a Creator God. What if the Creator God is not ‘a’ being, who knows all things etc., but existence itself? No god like the Abrahamic God or others? What if God is the totality of all that exists? There are many definations for the word God. Many religions and few in agreement. The fact is no human knows or has known. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/143 "2010-01-18T14:00:40Z")
A “god is in the details” deity would be far easier for me to accept than one that chooses specific people to translate its message and spread it around. Those type of gods make me feel very excluded! And the ones that care a jot about what we eat and wear, are just too pathetic for my comprehension of a deity. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/144 "2010-01-18T14:12:14Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > No, the argument just goes to the existence of God. Period. If people then take the additional step of saying what God is or wants, that’s beyond the scope of the Firs case argument. And when they start to build a religion around him, that another step yet—a big one. This is a subtle goalpost move though. **Czarcasm** ’s objection was against the argument from personal experience, which **Stratocaster** used. Here it is quite revelant that people differ about what kind of god they experience, and his instructions (and also, I may add: it’s relevant that millions have not had any religious experience at all). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/145 "2010-01-18T14:20:40Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > You can be perfectly OK with it if you wish, but it seems the less probable option, because it requires one extra thing to happen that is not required in option 1. So, you can argue something-from-nothing is _possible_ if you really want to, but more _probable_ than option 1? Me and this big Razor would disagree. Occam’s Razor is a guideline, not a Law. But anyway, adding a step _which requires no extra entities_ is exactly the opposite of postulating an eternal entity as option 1, which means Occam’s on my side in this one, actually… ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/146 "2010-01-18T14:23:55Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > Billions of people also have believed the world was flat, and the center of the universe. Some have the need to want a being that takes care of them. > > Belief about a God is the belief in another humans words, or beliefs, that is why believing that the Bible or the Koran or any book is not proof of God’s sayings but what some human says it is. I almost didn’t post what I did because of my near certainty that no matter how I explained it, some would prefer to respond to a point not being made at all. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/147 "2010-01-18T14:38:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > _If_ this was acceptable as evidence, it would be evidence of hundreds of thousands(if not millions) of _different_ gods, considering all the different and contradictory messages the populace receives. I didn’t offer it as evidence; in fact, I specifically noted it wasn’t. But to answer you directly, why couldn’t this be suggestive of thousands (if not millions) of people misunderstanding and misinterpreting the one divine revelation, a revelation that is subtle by all accounts (unless you’re Paul on the road to Damascus, I guess)? Again, I’m not suggesting that’s the only explanation. But our own experience with human communication makes this plausible to me. Two people hear the same thing, but they describe seemingly contradictory situations, and that’s for some simple stuff. And, again, it’s beside the point of this thread, IMO, which is that a prime mover seems a logical explanation for our universe, but any attempt to assign specific attributes or intentions to that prime mover seems to defy a logical argument. That doesn’t mean it cannot be accurate, only that one can’t offer “natural” evidence for the essence of a being that exists outside the boundaries of nature. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/148 "2010-01-18T14:44:51Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I didn’t offer it as evidence; in fact, I specifically noted it wasn’t. But to answer you directly, why couldn’t this be suggestive of thousands (if not millions) of people misunderstanding and misinterpreting the one divine revelation, a revelation that is subtle by all accounts (unless you’re Paul on the road to Damascus, I guess)? > > Again, I’m not suggesting that’s the only explanation. But our own experience with human communication makes this plausible to me. Two people hear the same thing, but they describe seemingly contradictory situations, and that’s for some simple stuff. When millions of people experience millions of different things, we usually assume that they are having millions of different experiences…unless, of course they are experiencing their diety, in which case all the rules are thrown out the window, and we assume that most of them are getting it wrong and they are _really_ having the same experience? Using this “logic”, I put forth that all ice cream tastes the same, and that most peoples’ tastebuds are defective. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/149 "2010-01-18T14:53:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > When millions of people experience millions of different things, we usually assume that they are having millions of different experiences…unless, of course they are experiencing their diety, in which case all the rules are thrown out the window, and we assume that most of them are getting it wrong and they are _really_ having the same experience? > Using this “logic”, I put forth that all ice cream tastes the same, and that most peoples’ tastebuds are defective. So, when eyewitness accounts differ, we assume that the two witnesses must have been seeing different events? “Must have been two different robberies, since the accounts differ.” That’s the inviolable rule you’re referring to? ETA: And do we conveniently ignore the commonality–e.g., “God is caring, he wants us to love one another, etc.”? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/150 "2010-01-18T15:01:16Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I think you’re getting way too hung up on this. It’s true that the argument from creation doesn’t automatically imply the Judeo-Christian God, but that’s hardly a substantive objection. Philosophical arguments typically involve a series of steps, and when it comes to the deepest questions of human existence, one can seldom expect to arrive at immediate answers. True, but it doesn’t imply anything except a very weak sort of deism. _If there was any evidence_. > [@](#): > > Besides, the title of this thread is “Evidence for a **Creator**.” Not necessarily the God of the Bible, but some sort of cosmic creator. I added the last paragraph a about God/gods because of the OP’s closing sentence: > [@The OP](#): > > While not proof of a Creator, I would be interested to know why some people would claim it isn’t at least evidence of one, given how often atheists like to make the claim of “there is not one single shred of evidence that a god, or gods, exist”. God doesn’t equal creator and doesn’t equal ultimate cause. > [@](#): > > As I said, postulating an uncaused cause provides a philosophical starting point. Could there have been multiple creators? In principle, perhaps, but that would be an ontologically bloated proposition – multiplying agents beyond what’s necessary. Well, it also depends on how complex each agent is. I would prefer an explanation involving 2 mindless forces over one that stipulates an intelligent intentional being. > [@](#): > > Similarly, one could question whether this agent has an influence in the universe. However, if this agent were powerful enough to create the universe, then it would be implausible to suggest that he was somehow incapable of influencing it in any way. We don’t know that. If the hypothesis that black holes create new universes “at the other end” is true (and I have no idea how plausible the idea is), then we humans could theoretically create new universes all we want with far less than “ultimate power”. That would put us in the position of intelligent intentional creators. We still wouldn’t be able to interact with whatever is “inside” that universe, though. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/151 "2010-01-18T15:11:14Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > So, when eyewitness accounts differ, we assume that the two witnesses must have been seeing different events? “Must have been two different robberies, since the accounts differ.” That’s the inviolable rule you’re referring to? No, that just shows that personal experience is a very bad indicator of what’s actually happening. > [@](#): > > ETA: And do we conveniently ignore the commonality–e.g., “God is caring, he wants us to love one another, etc.”? Those are not commonalities. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/152 "2010-01-18T15:15:37Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > So, when eyewitness accounts differ, we assume that the two witnesses must have been seeing different events? “Must have been two different robberies, since the accounts differ.” That’s the inviolable rule you’re referring to? But we’re not talking about two differnt witnesses at a single event at the same time, are we? Your analogy doesn’t hold. > [@Stratocaster](#): > > ETA: And do we conveniently ignore the commonality–e.g., “God is caring, he wants us to love one another, etc.”? Not a universal commonality at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/153 "2010-01-18T18:09:41Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > There are billions of people who believe they have connected with God, have felt his presence and influence. Now, understand my point, I’m not suggesting this is evidence that God exists. But it is consistent with the existence of an “active” creator God. > > I’m just reacting to the comment “no indication of its involvement since.” Nothing provable, but certainly there is an indication of a possible ongoing involvement. But, for me, that’s beside the point. It is apparently irresistible to respond to the assertion of the First Cause with the question, “But how does that prove that the God a given people believe in exists?” even when that notion was specifically disavowed. So you want to suggest it, but not _actually_ suggest it? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/154 "2010-01-18T18:30:37Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So you want to suggest it, but not _actually_ suggest it? No, I want to point out that your suggestion that there has been “no indication” is false. There has been at least an inconclusive indication. That was the only point. Here, try this analogy. Suppose in a given town there were widespread reports of people seeing a UFO. There are on the same night countless panicked calls regarding the sighting of an alien spaceship. The reports seem unrelated–different parts of town, unrelated people. The descriptions are inconsistent. Some seem to have commonalities, but some seem to contradict each other, in the ways that eyewitness accounts often do. If you were to respond by saying this does not prove an alien spaceship was actually in the vicinity, that some other circumstance could explain it, I’d agree. If you were to say, “there’s absolutely no indication that an alien spaceship was here,” I’d respond that this is demonstrably false. Since I have already offered as a given that the specific nature of the prime creator is unprovable, I’m not sure where we otherwise disagree. And I’ll say again, there’s more than a couple of instances in this very thread where the straw man “God must exist with the attributes and intentions I have discerned” has been enthusiastically knocked down in response to a post that said no such thing. It’s irresistible, it would seem. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/155 "2010-01-18T18:36:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But we’re not talking about two differnt witnesses at a single event at the same time, are we? Your analogy doesn’t hold. Only if you beg the question in assuming that the experience isn’t really one and the same, experienced over and over again, just misinterpreted. Again, I’m not suggesting you accept that the experience is true in any specific instance, or in ANY specific experience; only that you not assert that since the reactions are different, by definition there can be no basis in truth for _any_ experience. That’s inarguable. You needn’t give up your atheist membership card in conceding this. > [@](#): > > Not a universal commonality at all. Common enough, ISTM. No one said universal. Enough with the straw men. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/156 "2010-01-18T18:52:00Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > 1. Something came in to existence from nothing The Big Bang theory makes no comment about what’s outside the universe, just that at some point umpteen billion years ago everything was one and then it dissociated. We have no information about what was before the Big Bang. That doesn’t mean that there was nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/157 "2010-01-18T19:04:40Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Common enough, ISTM. No one said universal. Sure, “love each other” and messages like that are common. Not universal, but pretty common. Funnily enough, you get exactly the same kind of messages from aliens. One might suspect that that’s because it’s a pretty simple message that anyone could think up. It’s never anything that’s actually useful. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/158 "2010-01-18T19:05:01Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The Big Bang theory makes no comment about what’s outside the universe, just that at some point umpteen billion years ago everything was one and then it dissociated. > > We have no information about what was before the Big Bang. That doesn’t mean that there was nothing. Yep ,it probably does. But if you are silly enough to claim god was there and created it all, you have to tell us where god came from. The idea of what came first is an endless one, without a definitive answer. Making one up and saying it was god is completely inadequate. What is more logical, I don’t know what started the big bang, or I know and it was an invisible creature called god,who I have absolutely no proof of, did it? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/159 "2010-01-18T19:15:24Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > No, I want to point out that your suggestion that there has been “no indication” is false. There has been at least an inconclusive indication. That was the only point. > > Here, try this analogy. Suppose in a given town there were widespread reports of people seeing a UFO. There are on the same night countless panicked calls regarding the sighting of an alien spaceship. The reports seem unrelated–different parts of town, unrelated people. The descriptions are inconsistent. Some seem to have commonalities, but some seem to contradict each other, in the ways that eyewitness accounts often do. In this case, though, people _aren’t_ reporting what they personally saw - they’re reporting what their parents said, who are reporting what _their_ parents said. The witnesses aren’t independently coming up with accounts of lights in the sky; rather they’re reporting traditions that there were _once_ lights in the sky, long ago. A possible test would be to find someone who is entirely untouched by these traditions and ask him if _he_ ever saw lights in the sky. > [@](#): > > If you were to respond by saying this does not prove an alien spaceship was actually in the vicinity, that some other circumstance could explain it, I’d agree. If you were to say, “there’s absolutely no indication that an alien spaceship was here,” I’d respond that this is demonstrably false. That’s a very very generous application of “demonstrably” on your part. By that standard, the lights in the sky could be a mass hallucination, time-travelers, steroid-taking fireflies… literally _no_ explanation could be ruled out, so my question would be why assume an alien spaceship when any number of alternates exist, many of which are more plausible? In fact, before the modern era, a common explanation might be dancing faeries. If the only difference is a hundred years or so of human technological progress, why are faeries less plausible? > [@](#): > > Since I have already offered as a given that the specific nature of the prime creator is unprovable, I’m not sure where we otherwise disagree. And I’ll say again, there’s more than a couple of instances in this very thread where the straw man “God must exist with the attributes and intentions I have discerned” has been enthusiastically knocked down in response to a post that said no such thing. It’s irresistible, it would seem. Nevertheless, belief in such a God continues, despite its lack of foundation. Its existence, let alone connection to whatever mechanism may have created the universe, remains elusive. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307/160 "2010-01-18T19:58:50Z")
> [@KellyCriterion](#): > > What is the origin of anything? What was there in the beginning? How did “stuff” begin? Well, to answer this question, we know that the answer falls within one of two deliberately very broad categories: > > 1. Something has always existed, and it was from this something that everything that is here now, came to be. > > 2. Something came in to existence from nothing (that’s a literal “nothing”. No thing. A lot of people (some atheists, especially) seem to have a lot of trouble understanding what is meant by “nothing”. To them, “nothing” can mean anything from quantum foam, zero energy entities with energy potential, singularities, all sorts of somethings that aren’t nothing. Please understand that by _nothing_, I am talking about what rocks dream of). > > Now, I would argue that option 1 is more probable, because it requires one less thing to occur (something coming in to existence from a literal nothing). Both require something to exist, but option 2 requires one additional event - the coming in to existence of something from a literal nothing. Not only is there a serious question mark over whether something coming in to existence from nothing is even possible, the fact that option 2 requires this additional event renders it more improbable than option 1. > > So if something has existed “forever”, what is this “something” made of? Surely not _matter_, because matter is bound by time. Remember, time is simply a measure of change. If something is changing from one state to another, you have time. The wiggle of an atom, or the movement of a sub-atomic particle is _change_, and change = time. Although the Big Bang is already very strong evidence that time began some 14 billion years ago, there’s another way to think of it that also offers very strong evidence to suggest time must have a beginning. Namely, as each second ticks by, the amount of “time” that has lapsed increases by one second. Infinity can not be increased, nor added to, because infinity is not a quantity. Hence, the amount of time that has lapsed so far, however huge that amount is, must be finite. > > So, _something_, has existed forever (or more accurately, exists eternally), is immaterial, is not bound by time, and led to the origin of other things. > > While not proof of a Creator, I would be interested to know why some people would claim it isn’t at least _evidence_ of one, given how often atheists like to make the claim of “there is not one single shred of evidence that a god, or gods, exist”. The huge structural problem with the argument you have formed here is that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too with regards to time. You do this both with the rather dodgy phrase “always existed” in your option 1, which _means_ to have had infinite prior existence in the current timeline, but more importantly you do it by quietly ignoring the fact that for this god of yours to have created the universe, it itself must exist in _some_ sort of timeline, which even if it’s not our timeline still requires a first cause of its own! Theists speak of being “outside of time” like it’s some kind of get out of jail free card, but the simple fact is that actions, _all_ actions, require time to be passing to happen. This is because an action is a change in things, a difference between the way things were before, and the way things are now. For this to be happening time must be passing. For a god to do anything, it must be experiencing time passing. For it to _think_ anything, it must be experiencing time passing - without the passage of time, nothing ever happens and nothing is ever done, nothing at all. So, God has to be experiencing time. It needn’t be the same sort of time _we_ experience - I could get into this more, but all that we need to be clear on for this discussion is, if causes are _required_ to happen in a timeline, then God’s timeline needs a first cause too. So, can God be the first cause in its own timeline? By the rules of the argument you’ve presented, _no_ - being your own cause is equivalent to being uncaused, from the perspective of the argument. So the “Goddidit” option _is_ option 2. And in fact by your own standards it’s less likely than the big bang version, because it requires an “additional event”: 1. The timeline is infinite and something always existed, which eventually got around to starting it all at time infinity+1. 2a. The big bang is a spontaneous uncaused explosive event of simple raw energy, that instigated the chain of events leading to our universe. 2G. God sprung into spontaneous uncaused existence as a fully formed complex sentient entity, who then touched off an explosive event of simple raw energy, that instigated the chain of events leading to our universe. As you note, there are both observational and logical arguments ruling out option 1. Which leaves option 2a the obvious victor on the front of simplicity, if one wants to argue from such a position. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-a-creator/525307.md?page=9)