In the course of my normal pondering I came upon a point that I’d like to discuss here. I’m an atheist and I’ve engaged in countless religious debates with my faithful friends and one of the things they ask me is “If there is no god, where did the universe come from?” and I have a really logical answer for that. Think about this… There are two basic states that you can lump everything into: existence and nothingness. Nothingness, by its very definition, cannot exist. So logically, the universe has to exist because it’s impossible for it not to exist, right?
So for now, that’s basically my question: is there a flaw in my logic? Also, I’d just like to hear other atheist doper’s thoughts on atheism…
And a note to the mods: I didn’t stick this in Great Debates because I didn’t want this to turn into a debate about religion…but if one of you feels that, or elsewhere, is where this belongs, I will bow to your superior wisdom
St. Anselm tried to prove (did prove, he thought) that God exists by arguing that since God is the greatest being that can be imagined, and since things that exist are greater than things that don’t exist (all other aspects being equal), then a God that exists is greater than one that doesn’t exist. And since God is the greatest being that can be imagined, not the second greatest, then God must exist.
Yeah, right.
Depending on just what you mean by your argument, comparison to the first may or may not be fair. If you merely mean that “if the universe didn’t exist, there’d be nothing here, and we wouldn’t be arguing,” then that’s fine. If you actually mean that there’s something in the nature of universes that requires that they exist, well, that’s poppycock. The fact is that there is such a thing as energy, and it fills the universe with stuff; if your faithful friends really need more of a prime mover than that, that’s their problem.
Anything really…I’ve had very few conversations with fellow atheists…it’s just nice to share opinions with people who hold views similar to your own. Just things like how you came to atheism, your thoughts on death, good mac and cheese recipes…things of that nature… good jokes are always welcome…
For instance…
A van full of musicians on their way to a gig is involved in a severe car crash and all the musicians in it are killed. The musicians arrive in heaven and find themselves conversing with god. God asks the flute player “What did you di in life?” and she replies “I played the flute and entertained people with my music.” He then asks the trumpet player “What did you do in life?” and the trumpet player responds “I taught others the joys of the trumpet.” Finally, god turns to the trombone player and asks him what he did in life. The trombone player says “I played trombone, and I believe you are sitting in my chair.”
Here’s how I see it. Suppose you have a quarter that your flipping…only it’s impossible for it to land on the ‘heads’ side because it doesn’t exist. It will always land on ‘tails’ because there is no other option. Nothingness doesn’t exist, so the universe has to.
And I don’t really care what they think of my reasoning, I’m secure in the conclusions I’ve come to in life. I just wanna know if there’s a flaw in my logic…
do you believe that there is no God, no creator of everything? Or do you believe that there is a God - a creator? If things exist, would they necessarily have to be created to exist? And if the answer to that is Yes, then is it necessary to say that if something is created, that a creator exists? Stepping out of the circle for a second, IMO nobody can say 100% that God exists or doesn’t exist. Why not be an agnostic like me??
Aha. Well, I was raised as a de facto Christian although we rarely went to church. Any sort of joke about religion or doubt about God would have gotten a major scolding from my mom though.
For all of my childhood and most of my teen years, I believed but began having doubts as to god’s existance about the time I turned fourteen. I supressed them the best I could and even forgot I was having a crisis of faith for a while until I got to high school and learned that others felt the same way… a big shock to someone raised in the middle of the Bible Belt.
I finally admitted my atheism when I was about 17. My mom hated it but she has dealt with it okay until recently when she rediscovered god herself. We’ve had some heated discussions since then.
For what it’s worth, I assign no mysticality to life or death. I believe we’re simply born, live our lives, and eventually die, when we just cease to exist. If life has any point, it’s only to pass on our genetic material and I’m not sure I even believe that.
Stimpy, I take it on faith, lol. Actually, I just don’t think there can be a god. It doesn’t make sense. Certainly not the Christian model of a god, anyway. And think about it, all the ancient civilizations had gods that they used to explain what their knowledge could not. I think that given enough time, religion will die out on Earth.
As for my story of how I became an atheist… I just stopped going to church when I was pretty young…6 or 7 and I didn’t miss it. Eventually it got to a point where I just didn’t think about religion and then at some point…around when I was 12 or 13 I realized I didn’t believe in any kind of god.
our stories are similar. brought up, rather loosely, as a methodist, sent to sunday school to learn about lion’s and thorns and the like. around about 12/13, decided to refuse to sing in morning assembly the hymns we were instructed to sing - a weak rebellion, i still mouthed the words i knew so well!
then i became an athiest at heart. i decided that there really was no-one in charge. THEN i heard talk of a middle way, that is an agnostic belief. not one to ever refuse a seat on the fence, i firmly put my arse there.
God - “So, you didn’t believe in me?”
Me - “It’s not that I didn’t believe…”
or
Worm - “Hello!”
Me - dead, no response…
Either way, I have no answer now, but one way or the other we’ll all find out.
you’re friendly vampire been visiting, frank? or have you been checking out the local zoo to see which animal you’d like to come back as? not really Dr. Who are you??
Didn’t Descartes try a proof of a god’s existence (from memory here, I’m not in lookup mode tonight) along the lines of:
God, by definition, is omnipotent
Omnipotence implies the ability to exist
If something can exist, it will exist
Therefore, God exists.
Always seemed like circular reasoning to me. Agnostics take the prove it to me approach that leaves them with the perspective that says it’s beyond man’s ability to ever know. And I agree with them up to that point.
Then atheists such as myself take a leap of faith similar to that of deity bound religionists and say, in my best assessment of the knowledge available, there is not (or is) a deity.
am i truly agnostic then? no, i won’t take a leap of faith, and therefore cannot say that God either does or does not exist. But neither do i state that it is beyond man’s ability to ever know. I don’t know.
on the Socrates tip, i think that all the great philosophers of our time boiled down to basically asserting that God did and does exist. Their brains were much bigger than mine… collectively!
The answer is simply “The universe didn’t have to be created, it just is.” Then you ask, “Where did God come from?” What answer can be supplied other than “God didn’t have to be created, He just is.”?
If God can just exist, without having been created by someone/something else, it’s just as logical to posit that the universe can just exist, without having been created by someone/something else. The existence of the universe does not require the existence of God, any more than the existence of God requires the existence of (insert whatever you like here).
I completely agree. In fact, I have used that line of reasoning in some of my arguments. Unfortunately, my partners refused to open their eyes and accept the gospel of atheism, lol.
Eh, I used to pray and stuff, but my prayers were never answered (that I noticed). And I was brought up in what was very much a Sunday Christian kinda home. You could be as horrible as you wanted during the week, but as long as you sat in church for an hour on Sunday, everything was alright. Questioning THAT led to me questioning religion as a whole, and then I got on the Internet and found a great site called Why Christians Suck. The original essays are still online, but the site was HUGE, with plenty more than the originals, like a catalogue of various horrors, all kinds of arguments against, demolitions of popular arguments for God, all kinds of good stuff. That pretty much settled it for me (and I am, indeed, sad to see the site’s gone).
So I did some other spiritual searching, looked at other religions, but nothing seemed to work for me. I suppose my cynicism has something to do with it. There IS no meaning to it all except what we make of it. Frankly, the further away I get from religion (the more I settle into my athiest, I guess), the more absurd spending Sundays singing songs to the Big Man Who Lives In The Sky sounds. We’re just kinda smart monkeys who happened to evolve on a ball of rock in a huge galaxy full of life. Now THAT I can buy into.
