Yeah, the complete lack of objective evidence for his existence is clearly no reason to disbelieve in him. :rolleyes:
I cannot fathom why anyone thinks this “logic” somehow answers the question…
“Where did the universe come from?”
“Oh, The Creator created it.”
“OK, and where did The Creator come from?”
“Oh, he’s always been there.”
(Great Hubble picture, BTW :))
Hey, that’s my line! pout
It’s much easier when you finally come to the conclusion that there is no “why?”
Meh. You can take out the “why”, but there’s still an explanatory gap there IMO
I’ve explained this before, but I mostly agree with you. If you put the various views about deities on a Venn diagram, I’d put atheism and pantheism as two circles that almost completely overlap, then I’d put deism as another circle fairly close by. Then all the various theism religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Roman Paganism, etc., as circles that are pretty far away from that atheism-pantheism-deism cluster.
Within that A-P-D cluster, the reason that I fall in the atheism circle and not the deism circle is that a creator being existing for no reason is way harder to believe than an uncaused burst of energy occurring for no reason.
You’re asking that if we imagine accepting this position on deism, is it such a stretch to get from there to the common historical view of theism? Yes, it is a stretch. Those various theisms are quite a long way from the atheist-deist position. And there’s NO reason to believe that any of the traditional claims about this being are true, anymore than we’d accept the revelations of some guy in the modern Middle East who claims he has revelations about a god. If that happened, you’d be properly skeptical, but you seem to accept that the same thing happening a couple of thousand years ago must be an indication of the true nature of the universe. Why?
Lack of evidence. If there were a creator, I’d expect there to be clear evidence, but what we have is a universe that seems to have evolved naturally.
While I make no contention that the existence of God is a logically provable tenet, I find it interesting that there is an entirely unexamined counter contention that the assumption without evidence that “God did not do it” provides some illumination into the mystery of the existence of anything.
The laws of physics require the existence of the universe. The laws of probability require the existence of bubbles of reality of which one at least must have the necessary conditions which bring about observant life. The instability of absolute absence of existence create the conditions which cause existence.
Yeah, right. Much more logical, and provable than the existence of a creator.
Tris
I just wanted to add that I have never really understood this point. Sure those Hubble pictures are cool as hell and they inspire all sorts of feelings of awe, wonder, humility and so on but to go from that to “God definitely exists” still seems like a huge leap to me.
Yes, it most certainly is, because all those things actually exist, or introduce fewer unknowns than saying God did it". And again; saying “God did it” doesn’t explain anything anyway; all you do is push all your “why” questions back a step onto your god, and add yet more questions about God.
The assumption that “God did not do it” is perfectly in line with Occam’s Razor; you shouldn’t introduce an extra entity like God into your explanation unless you have evidence for it. And historically, the believers have been pretty relentlessly wrong about any verifiable assertion they make. God isn’t necessary to explain anything; he as said doesn’t actually explain anything; and there’s no evidence at all for his existence. And since religion has historically been relentlessly wrong there’s no reason to think it’s right about God existing. The ones that claim there is a God; there’s no reason to choose the ones that do over the ones that don’t, either.
It’s part of the whole “attribute all good things to God” phenomenon. Among its many flaws, religion is a thief; it steals the credit for anything pretty or good from both nature and humans to make unearned claims of greatness.
The “Goddidit” answer is the unnecessary addition to Occam’s Razor. It is the equivalent of looking into the freezer for the ice cream, finding an empty container, and assuming that the ice cream had turned invisible and intangible.
As leaps of faith go, this is probably the biggest one. There are questions about the universe we can’t answer, and maybe some we’re never going to answer, but “somebody did it” is not the natural assumption from looking at nebulae or the deep field view or fractals or something like that. It’s just the way our minds work and the way our culture works.
Here’s a recent article that may (in part) explain why matter exists. Not that this solves all of the OP’s questions, but it’s a little piece of information.
…which plenty of us don’t…
Once you assume gods exist you can pretty much assume anything you like about them and there won’t be any particular way to disprove it. But really, from a logical standpoint, why does a god care what people do? Would you give commandments to ants or mold, or would you consider that a waste of your time? I understand the reasons people believe in gods. But it’s hard not to laugh at the belief that a god that cares what you’re doing on Friday. This is a supposedly eternal being, but he’s looking at a calendar to make sure everybody keeps a day of rest?
We made up the whole ball of wax.
You’re now assuming that your hypothetical (which you didn’t prove even as a general point) is true in a specific instance. You can’t say “there might be a god… which proves there is a god and Islam is right.” That doesn’t make any sense.
Well said! Stuff exists. We know that. But why does stuff look the way it does? Let’s imagine alternatives.
Which universe is tougher to swallow belief-wise:
A universe which spontaneously sprang into existence consisting only of a one hydrogen atom
A universe which spontaneously sprang into existence consisting only of a fully wound Timex watch set to quarter past seven.
Each universe sprung into existence - and that by itself is difficult to imagine. But given the two choices, which is easier to believe? If you’re objective, you said 1), right?
Now which of these universes is more difficult to “believe in”:
A completely smooth earth-sized planet with only a single hill on its surface 10 feet tall, plus a one inch ball one foot away from the bottom of that hill.
A completely smooth earth-sized planet with only a single hill on its surface 10 feet tall. A one inch ball half-way up the hill.
I think you will agree both are equal in terms of believe-ability. Shortly after the spontaneous popping into existince of 4), though, something happens. The ball starts to roll downhill. Nothing spooky or mysterious about it - just plain ol’ gravity. But because of how the initial circumstances are set up, 3) and 4) have a dramatic difference - process!
One last time - which is more difficult to believe:
see above
A completely smooth earth-sized planet with only a single hill on its surface 10 feet tall. A one inch ball half-way up the hill. A vast creative intelligence with power to fashion into existence anything He can imagine.
If you honestly suggest 5) is easier to believe than 4) and 3), then… well, I got nothing. But with the givens of this discussion, the existence of the intelligence mentioned in 5) is not necessary to explain the ball’s movement.
The point: Our actual universe is much more like 4) A bunch of stuff that just exists, following natural processes - most of which are very well understood - and we’re learning more and more all the time. The existence of a creative intelligence just isn’t necessary to explain everything we see.
The difference is that the Big Bang argument is perfectly okay with something coming from nothing. In accepting the watchmaker argument or the first causes argument, one presumes that all existent things must have a creator. If this is true, then God requires a creator too, as does his creator, and his creator, and his creator… turtles all the way down.
The big bang approach lacks this problem because it doesn’t assume creators are necessary at all.
That, and the new questions that sticking God into it introduces. Like “what’s God made of?”, “how does God do what he does?”, and so on.
The fact that the universe exists has always been the biggest mind boggler to me. It seems like it’s impossible that we exist, and yet here we are. To me, no explanation makes sense.
[ol]
[li]The universe popped out of nowhere (or should I say the ingredients that formed the universe popped out of nowhere) . Doesn’t seem possible.[/li][li]The universe always existed (or the ingredients that created the universe always existed). Seems equally impossible.[/li][li]One or more deities created the universe. Even though I’m a Christian, the thought of a god existing before the universe seems as impossible as the universe itself existing.[/li][/ol]
The first two are possible. The third is astronomically less likely than the first two, and on top of that doesn’t provide an explanation; again, saying “goddidit” just pushes the explanation back a step.
The second seems far more likely though. For something to materialise, there would have to be some sort of background for it to materialise into.
Contrariwise I believe I’ve got a disproof of infinite past timelines. I’ve yet to convince a single person with it, but it’s enough to make me eliminate the possibility, making objects appearing from nowhere the only possibility. Whether the object is a big bang or a god is a separate question - though gods have their own problems, and as has been noted they have to exist somewhere, so at best a universe sprang into existence simultaneously wth them, even if that universe isn’t the one we can observe.
That’s not actually true. It defines the reality we’re familiar with but the universe is the background. There was no room for anything to exist in, and then suddenly it existed. The universe isn’t just stuff, it’s the space the stuff is in.
I am mostly a materialist, but am enough of an idealist that the idea that physical laws and some sort of matrix in which they can occur, are “nothing” is unsatisfying.
What actualized the physical laws? In order to posit the universe forming out of nothing you have to posit physical laws into which it can form itself.
The universe is so big, and there are so many different (I can’t think of a more eloquent word) things in the universe. Solids, liquids, gases, plasma, ect… And then all sorts of sub-categories. Under solids you have different types of rocks, metals, plant and animal life…etc…
And yet, either the building blocks for everything either somehow always existed, or came into existence. If it were possible my head would explode just thinking about it.