Why do so many people still believe in God?

Great Debates
661

Everything in our universe was created in our universe, by our universe. The bigger question is, what, if anything, created our universe. If there is a “why” to our existence, it probably can’t be answered by observing our universe. For that, we need to know what, if anything, preceded the Big Bang.

Our universe is the observable region of space and time that contains all the matter and energy we can detect or interact with. The Big Bang started the expansion of our universe from a hot, dense state ~13.8 billion years ago. Understanding how and why our universe came into existence is one of the fundamental questions in cosmology.

But answering this question isn’t easy, because we have very little information about what happened before the Big Bang, or even if the concept of “before” makes sense in this context. The Big Bang is the singularity where the laws of physics break down and become unpredictable. Anything that preceded the Big Bang is beyond the reach of our current observations and theories, and may remain so forever.

Some physicists have proposed models of how our universe may have come to be before the Big Bang, based on extensions of our existing knowledge. For example, some models suggest our universe was created by a quantum fluctuation in a larger multiverse (with different physical properties). Other models suggest our universe was born from a previous universe that underwent a contraction and bounce (the Big Bounce), driven by exotic forms of energy or gravity. There are other models, but no model has been conclusively confirmed or ruled out by empirical evidence.

To test these models, we’d need to develop new ways of observing and measuring the early universe, like detecting gravitational waves (ripples in the fabric of space and time), caused by the movement of massive objects. Gravitational waves could carry information about the conditions and events that occurred near the Big Bang, and possibly before it.

We’d also need to develop new theories of quantum gravity (combining the principles of quantum mechanics and general relativity). Quantum gravity could reveal the nature and structure of space and time at the Planck scale (the smallest possible unit of measurement).

We may never know for sure what happened before the Big Bang, or if there was a reason for it, but we can still try to find out as much as we can, using the best tools and methods known to science.

But, I’m not holding my breath. I don’t need to know “why” we exist. I just want to know if a harp will be in my post-mortal state of existence. If so, I should start taking harp lessons.

662

I for one welcome our new ant overlords!

Right, exactly. There are no really satisfying answers for any of it, no matter what paradigm you are using. Well, some people are apparently okay with “why is irrelevant” but I have a hard time with that.

Supposedly, when Carl Sagan was asked by a theologian what happened before the Big Bang, he said, “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

Well, I want to know. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to know, no matter how much I want it, but that doesn’t change the desire.

Science is fantastic for answering how questions. Not so much why questions. Not so much questions of purpose. That question is thoroughly outside the purview of science and belongs to philosophy and religion. Which is why I consider both valuable, to an extent - people need a sense of purpose to be healthy and productive. I am an existentialist, so while I recognize that we have no inherent purpose, I’ve gotten by through constructing my own purpose, which is stable in some ways and in other ways changes from moment to moment. I’m especially interested in the question of how people make meaning out of suffering, and I look to people who have experienced incredible hardships for answers that help me.

Quoth Frankl, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

But I consider all of that kind of a consolation prize to actually knowing anything.

663

It’s not so much that ‘why’ is irrelevant, it’s that ‘why’ is nonsensical.

Why is gravity? Like, why is it that mass curves spacetime? That is not a question that makes any sense.

Maybe one day we will discover gravitons, and then we could explain the underlying mechanisms that cause massive particles to exert gravitational force. We would know how gravity works*, but not why.

*Everyone always asks, “why is gravity”, but no one ever asks, “how is gravity?”

Here’s the thing about why:

There are two definitions presented. The first is what you seem to be going for; “for what reason or purpose?”. The second is what we respond with: “due to these causes”.

So we can talk about the underlying mechanisms that cause things, including even things like the Big Bang (though then we are often dealing with vague quantum hypotheticals, at least at our current level of understanding).

But that chain only goes so far. “WHY are the quantum mechanisms that led to the Big Bang the way that they are” is a question we could maybe answer eventually through the future field of meta-quantum mechanics, but that would just tell us about the underlying mechanisms of quantum mechanics, not about their purpose. And it is also possible that quantum is as far as the rabbithole will ever go (or as far as we will ever be able to get from our position within a universe governed by those mechanics).

At the end of the day, without a sentient Creator, you end up with explanations of the mechanics that make things function the way they do, but never with a purpose to these things.

So if we ask “why” hoping to find a purpose, we are barking up the wrong tree.

664

That sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome to me.

665

I overall agree with your post, but this is missing the point of those asking about purpose. It’s only a wrong tree because the scientific method does not climb that tree. But the tree is still there. You may decide for yourself that the tree is unimportant to you, but the tree is still there. That is, “why” questions are sensical, but not amenable to the scientific method.

Or, let me introduce another analogy. Science is a hammer. It works great at putting in nails. And there are many, many nails. But one day we find a screw. Some theists take the hammer and use it on the screw, but that doesn’t work. Some atheists see the screw and ignore it, because it’s not a nail. Others (both theists and atheists) see the screw and wonder about it, despite our incapacity to hammer it.

666

My point is that “why” as in “for what purpose” requires an intelligent being who made things the way that they are for a given purpose. Asking “why” meaning “for what purpose” (as opposed to “due to what underlying conditions”) of anything that was not intelligently designed is a fool’s errand.

667

That is a reasonable position. But it is not a scientific one; it is another unfalsifiable wonderment.

668

What position is unscientific?

I don’t think it is unscientific to proceed under the assumption that the universe was not created by an intelligent being until presented with evidence that it was.

669

I’m pretty sure it isn’t. Humans evolved to see patterns, and we find them everywhere but they’re just mental constructs that help us “make sense” of the universe. The universe is not our mental model of it.

670

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The scientific position is to not make any assumptions about things we do not have evidence of.

Of course, the evolutionary process selects against scientists who pursue hypotheses for which no evidence can be found. But that’s more about our economic system than the scientific method.

671

True, but our mental models are all we have. I mean that literally: our consciousness is only a mental model. Any interaction with the universe is a manipulation of one’s mental model. So when people ask a question “why?”, that question is really there in their mind. Someone else saying “I don’t have that question” does nothing to answer the question in their mind, that they really do have.

672

That’s true. There is a branch of philosophy called epistemology which covers that. It has a sub-branch called philosophy of science, about which many universities have a course or two. It’s worth study for anyone who wants to understand the scientific method, and why it is the best means humans have discovered so far for understanding the reality of the world around us.

673

OK, but then shouldn’t we give equal credence to the idea of a creator as to the idea of there being no creator?

674

Yes!

Thus spake the Ant-Prophet, @Czarcasm:

We all have equally valid answers to non-scientific questions.

This is the Way.

675

And even if there IS a creator, why should their intended purpose take precedence over whatever purpose we come up with?

Absent an elaborate system of eternal reward and punishment, of course.

676

Absent evidence, why have any discussion on the topic at all? There is no evidence for any of the satiric substitutes for God, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but we don’t feel obliged to consider them seriously (at least I don’t).

677

Well put, but it does sort of emphasize the pointlessness of indulging each other’s obsessions.

678

Because we are specimens of a social species who each develops an idiosyncratic moral system of what should and shouldn’t be. At least we’re discussing and not killing each other.

Or, because some of us are curious and like thinking about such things and are willing to consider multiple answers. Or, because some of us are incurious and want to tell and be told what the only answer must be.

679

Equally invalid, perhaps.

This is a total aside, but there’s a very old Civ IV parody “What if Civilization had lyrics”, which has a line that this thread really reminds me of: “Spread your equally valid religions”

680

Excluded middle.