# Ok, Atheist. What's the problem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025 "2010-06-05T05:54:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4bbf92/32.png) [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Hamsandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/201 "2010-06-18T04:41:15Z")
Can you provide evidence about whats out there? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/202 "2010-06-18T04:46:39Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > Can you provide evidence about whats out there? Um, NASA has quite a few photos… ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4bbf92/32.png) [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Hamsandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/203 "2010-06-18T04:49:32Z")
Der Trihs, can you provide a crystal quality peer into our galaxy… that would be sweet ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/204 "2010-06-18T05:00:31Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > Der Trihs, can you provide a crystal quality peer into our galaxy.. that would be sweet I have no idea what you are looking for out of the many thousands of images that have been taken. Googling NASA + “Milky Way” gets me 103,000 results; I’m hardly going to link to all of them. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/205 "2010-06-18T05:07:47Z")
My beliefs about what is meant by “God” aren’t traditional, so I’m not going to argue one way or the other. But I think it’s interesting that many of you talk about “creation” as if it’s a thing of the past. The Big Bang is essentially still happening. The parts of the universe are still moving apart. And the sound of the bang is still out there. And outside of man’s own construction of the measurement of time, it began just a bit ago. What I haven’t expected is that the parts of speeding up instead of slowing down. Now isn’t that a twist? Almost illogical as it stands now. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/206 "2010-06-18T12:02:43Z")
> [@NOLA\_Cajun](#): > > But we do know it ALL did begin at some point in time. We do? I don’t think this the case at all. ---
**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:** [June 18, 2010, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/207 "2010-06-18T12:05:56Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > What I haven’t expected is that the parts of speeding up instead of slowing down. Now isn’t that a twist? Almost illogical as it stands now. Almost as if there was some quasi-gravitational effect drawing them? ---
**Author:** ![NOLA\_Cajun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea666f/32.png) [@NOLA\_Cajun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NOLA_Cajun)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/208 "2010-06-19T18:14:49Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > We do? > > I don’t think this the case at all. Well you convinced me. You’re right. None of this is real. We aren’t really here. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/209 "2010-06-21T05:09:32Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The trouble with using a term like “God” to mean “The Universe” or “The Uncaused First Cause”, is that it sneaks a lot of assumptions into the argument. Is the Universe or the UFC intelligent? Conscious? Purposeful? Does it care about humans? Is it even aware of humans or other intelligent species? > > Even if we find indisputable evidence for some sort of cosmic consciousness, that force whatever it is would be so different than a bearded guy who lives in the sky and chisels stone tablets that using the word “God” to describe both ideas seems ridiculous. Perhaps, or perhaps its the only way our minds can grasp consciousness? > [@Marley23](#): > > The starting point is the time the universe came into existence. Time doesn’t have any meaning before that. Really? If the universe is finite, then what exists beyond the dge of the universe? Does time have meaning there? Did it exist before the universe? > [@Lemur866](#): > > As for “where did the big bang come from?”, our best guess nowadays is that we’ll never know, because any information about the first instants of the big bang were obliterated by the big bang. If your house burns down that could destroy the evidence that would have told you why your house burned down. So you’ll never know why, because the event destroyed the evidence of the cause of the event. Or we don’t have the technology to figure it out right now. We are starting to develop theories that includes how other universes might be created. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m responding without reading anything but the OP, because I am just that big fo a jackass. > > To the OP: why should does the universe imply a pre-existent creator, but not the same for God? God transcends time and space? > [@elbows](#): > > If there was a ‘designer’, where’d he go? Why’d he stop designing? What the hell? Just stopped by for 6 days of creating and then nothing for 2 millennium? Well, if you believe the beginning of Genesis, he stuck around for about 13.7 billion years between the big bang and about 2000 years ago. Still, you’d think he’d pay more attention after creating an entire universe just for us. > [@](#): > > If he’s so intelligent, how come, all this time later, no definitive proof has been found? I mean, we found proof of long gone civilizations, dinosaurs, quantum physics. I should think we’d have stumbled onto something, by this time. WHy do you think he wants us to have physical tangible proof of his existence? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Well, something like titanium would be nice; a common element (if hard to extract and work technologically), very strong, light, and compatible with human tissue (which is why it’s used surgical implants). If our evolutionary history had been a bit different perhaps we’d be using titanium instead of calcium. Well, if the human body served as a concentrator of titanium, I think that would cause some problems too. > [@](#): > > For something more typically found in living things, perhaps something similar to wood. Wood unlike bone is capable of both being strong and somewhat flexible at the same time. Add in a copy of spider dragline silk - (it’s strong enough for bulletproof vests) to further increase it’s strength; that would also be a nice augmentation to the rest of the body in fact. You should write comic books. > [@Trans Fat Og](#): > > Hey, NOLA Cajun! What did your face look like one year before sperm merged into egg? But faces did exist before he was born right? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because we evolved from quadrupeds; the human female pelvis is a compromise between bipedalism and birth. And because our distant ancestors didn’t have big brains to squeeze out though a narrow birth canal. And because evolution doesn’t redesign things from the ground up like a human would. > > And, most importantly because it’s good enough to keep the species going; evolution doesn’t care if it hurts or not. Are we the only bipedal animal? Ostriches are bipedal and have you seen the size of those eggs? > [@Shawn1767](#): > > Why would an intelligent designer who hated sin, create people he knew were going to sin since he knows everything and planned everything out? Unless he was a psychopath and wanted to send people to hell? Also, I don’t know why people are debating what our bones would be made out of since an “intelligent” designer could just change the laws of physics so that we wouldn’t need bones or need to eat even. An appendix? Why even a digestive system? If you have infinite power, there are steps and things you could skip over and no one would have known the difference. Some people think this is all a crucible and life is just a test. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Virtual particles come to mind; they constantly appear and vanish, no cause required. Not only are effects without causes possible; the universe literally seethes with them. So is that the answer? In the infinity of time a universe’s worth of virtual particles formed in the exact same place and caused an explosion? Why didn’t the virtual particles disappear the way virtual particles tend to do? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not necessarily. Various theories speculate that this universe is part of a larger one, or spawned from another; our time may have started with the Big Bang, but not necessarily all time. Then when did the bigger universe begin or is this other universe ageless? Is this other universe the medium in which our universe is suspended. ---
**Author:** ![GreenHell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@GreenHell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenHell)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/210 "2010-06-21T05:34:24Z")
The existence of the gods solves no problems. If the Universe had to come from somewhere, then the creator god(s) must have come from somewhere. If the concept that the Universe always existed is unacceptable for whatever reason, then why would eternal gods be acceptable? If the gods are not eternal and had some creator, then we go back to something that presumably is eternal in nature or represents another iteration of the “creation treadmill”. This is only one angle of the theism question. I’ve examined philosophical and moral angles also and find theism equally unsatifying for those as well. I don’t hold that theism is absolutely wrong or even an undefensible position, only that it doesn’t seem to solve any greater/more numerous problems than it raises. OP: are you really an acadian or living in Louisiana? Just curious, I’m acadian and living in the Lake Charles area. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/211 "2010-06-21T11:54:48Z")
> [@NOLA\_Cajun](#): > > Well you convinced me. You’re right. None of this is real. We aren’t really here. That’s not my position either. In your initial response you beg the question towards the a series. I do not hold that the a series is correct. I’m a proponent of the b series, primarily because it makes more sense out of relativity (ie, it makes sense out of simultaneous presents). ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/212 "2010-06-21T14:03:59Z")
> [@NOLA\_Cajun](#): > > Well you convinced me. You’re right. None of this is real. We aren’t really here. This can easily be disproved by a good solid punch or kick. That’ll make a believer out of you. Not that I am actually threatening to batter you, I’m just saying that this can very easily be demonstrated to be untrue. Similarly, if God/dess would bestir him/herself to do a little righteous, unambiguous smiting, I’d start believing immediately. In fact, I have a list of targets that should get a good smiting. If the Christian God existed, then we’d have much less trouble with the Taliban, I would imagine. Similarly, if Allah is the One True God, and America is the Great Satan, then I’d expect something considerably less subtle than a hurricane here and an oil spill there. If our world actually has a multitude of deities and demigods looking after it, then I could see how one god’s efforts might be thwarted by another god’s, but then we have the problem of several gods claiming that all the other gods are just falsehoods. Any god, or for that matter any devil/demon, who wants to prove him/her/itself to me can easily contact me. I have a list of people who desperately need a good smiting, and in return I vow to worship him/her/it for the rest of my life. Just one or two people getting a good smiting, that’s all I ask. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025/213 "2010-06-21T14:37:58Z")
> [@NOLA\_Cajun](#): > > Doesn’t any of this say “intelligent designer”? Well, now that I think about it, I suppose it _does_. Just kidding. No. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-atheist-whats-the-problem/542025.md?page=10)