Atheists: Explain how the universe came into being if God did not create it?

Question

Something as complex as the universe couldn't just arise out of nothing. That doesn't make any sense at all.

P.S. - Only serious answers please.

Answer 1

I cannot explain it. People a lot smarter than I are working on the question. Some day they may come up with an answer which has some evidence behind it (which God does not). Until then I am prepared to say that I do not know, rather than making something up to fill the gap.

Answer 2

First, you start with absolute nothing, not even time and space. Just as the natural effect of an unsupported brick is to fall, the natural state of absolute nothing is to explode into a universe. No need for a cause because it is the natural state. Because the universe including time and space started at the same time, it is nonsensical to ask what happened before or what caused it to start. There was no time and thus there cannot be a "before" because this is an application of time.



Something from nothing - If you have nothing in the bank and you purchase a new car, you now have a new car and a negative balance in the bank. Likewise, the universe is made up of matter, antimatter, energy and negative energy. It is entirely possible that should you return this all together, you would end up with nothing.



The bible written almost 2000 years ago by people who did not understand physics or even astonomy (who did not even comprehend that the earth is spinning) answered the difficult questions with "God did it." The Bible says that God always existed, but common sense dictates that a personality requires time and outside stimulus to develop. A God outside of time and space without experience would not have a personality. Carl Sagan states "why not save a step and accept that the universe always existed.

Answer 3

Since I don't follow the science of the Big Bang stuff too closely (outside of what I've read here, my exposure to such things was very limited) I won't try to explain what others will explain sooooo very much better. I suspect you've probably read all that stuff already anyway, so it's not news to you.



Look, for the record & for the umpteenth time:



I don't need to know how it all started, nor do I care. Sure, I spent many hours, days even in my younger years thinking on such things. I also don't need to know, nor do I care how it's all gonna end.



I'm a fairly simple creature. I live in the here & now, dealing in the basics for the survival of my family.



I spent decades seeking God, the Christian one, and at least another good 10 years trying to find any other god...what I found was a puss infested, crappy, unbelievable cruel planet with such horrific occurrences...well, let's just say it does not make any sense to ME (like the beginning of the universe thing doesn't make any sense to you other than with a creator) that anybody could possibly be watching over any of us.



Now, SERIOUSLY, I'm not going to list off the endless things I've seen, we've all seen crap in this lifetime & if you have not, you are either very young (the crap is yet to come) or you just happen to be that random person who beats the odds. Statistically, somebody has to be that 'lucky.'



Common sense tells me nobody is listening, nobody is watching. Perhaps your common sense tells you something else. I'm a big enough person to allow for other opinions, are you???



I've also grown since my exposure to this site & all the info other atheists have had to offer. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a hard atheist, but rather a little agnostic...in so much as I don't KNOW a god EVER existed...maybe a Great Spirit (like so many in my community believe in) did create everything, I wasn't there. But, at this point, I'll again refer you back to my earlier point that I don't give a rat's butt how it all started - that don't put food on the table.



What I do know is if that is the case, then this creator either died or left us to our own devices a very, very, VERY long time ago. So, in reality, same difference as there isn't one....

Answer 4

WOW... This AGAIN?



We don't know... Yet...



But... Just because we don't know the answer to life, the universe, and everything in no way means we should jump to "Magic" as an answer...



Remember, it wasn't until the late 19th century when the Average Person understood that illness is the result of germs, viruses, toxins, etc. and not "Vapors", "Demons", and "Curses".



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

► Germ Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_Theory

The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases. Although highly controversial when first proposed, germ theory was validated in the late 19th century and is now a cornerstone of modern medicine and clinical microbiology, leading to such important innovations as antibiotics and hygienic practices.[1]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



Before the late 19th century, people actively fought against the scientists that were trying to tell them that "Invisible" critters were what caused people to get sick and not 'Bad Air'.



Typhoid Mary ended up having to be IMPRISONED because she refused to believe that SHE carried the illness that was killing her employers left and right because she WASN'T SICK so how could she have imaginary "Germs" making others sick?



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

► NOVA | The Most Dangerous Woman in America | PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/



► Typhoid Mary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



So who is right? The people that have the evidence, recently acquired evidence, or the people that for thousands of years believed that their neighbor giving them the "Evil Eye" is what caused them to get the flu?



Today, we haven't YET reached the technological level to conclusively document where life, the universe, and everything came from... That in no way means that the answer is therefore "GodDidIT!"



It's still an open question... Awaiting peer reviewed, documented, verifiable, reproducible evidence...



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

► Glimpse of Time Before Big Bang Possible

http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/070702_mm_big_bang.html



► Hottest temperature ever heads science to Big Bang

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100215/sc_nm/us_physics_temperature



► Hubble telescope shows earliest photo of universe

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100105/ap_on_sc/us_sci_hubble_photo



► Giant Mystery Blob Discovered Near Dawn of Time

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090422-space-blob.html



► Huge Hole Found in the Universe

http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/070823_huge_hole.html



► Greatest Mysteries: How Did the Universe Begin?

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070813_gm_universe.html



► Greatest Mysteries: Where is the Rest of the Universe?

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070820_mm_dark_forces.html

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Answer 5

"Explain how the universe came into being if God did not create it?"

It was there all the time.

Just like you say your imaginary space monster was-is.

There is evidence of a universe.

There is NO evidence for your sky guy.

Get over it.



"Something as complex as the universe couldn't just arise out of nothing.

That doesn't make any sense at all."

LuLz



That is the Argument from Personal Incredulity.

= I don't understand how stuff happens..

= there must be a god.





“ARGUMENT FROM CREATION, a.k.a. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL INCREDULITY (I)

(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists.

(2) Evolution(and science in general) can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable.

(3) Therefore, God exists.”



Hundreds MORE Proofs of God’s Existence: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

~

Answer 6

Please explain how the universe came into being if not from nothing. By some god? What evidence shows this 'god' exists? How do god's magical powers work? Where did god come from, and if eternal what proof do you have? Even if there is a god, what proof do you have that corroborates this god's claim that it is the creator of the universe?



With absolutely no evidence to support answers to these questions, a universe out of nothing is not as crazy as it sounds.

Answer 7

You can't blame the existence of the universe on a being that has never been proven to be real. Atheists don't claim to know how the world was created, but they are rational enough to know that the idea of God is not possible. What you said is really ignorant. "There is no other answer to how the world was created so therefore a weightless claim about a God never proven to be true has to be right".



STUPID

Answer 8

No one ever said the universe came from nothing. Just because the universe is complex doesn't mean a god created it. You are limiting yourself with the question of "who" when it could very well be a question of "what" or "how". Also my atheism doesn't rest on how the universe was created it's irrelevant to why I don't believe in god.

Answer 9

Your argument would eventually lead to an infinite regress, because if our universe was created by a being, then that being had to be even more complex than we are, and by your own admission, something complex couldn't have just arisen out of nothing... so where did God come from?

Answer 10

if we knew that there would be no need to ask the question.



do keep in mind that all atheists are not scientists, nor do we claim we know how things are done. you also can't assume that it was created at all. it makes very, very, very little sense that a god created the universe, one that is billions of years old probably older, and yet was god himself was created less than 10,000 years ago.



and what is a serious answer - how the hell would we know?

Answer 11

HUMANITY hasn't discovered all of the mysteries of the universe yet. We're working on it, but unfortunately it takes time, money and resources... but mostly time. We have to understand that we might not know the answer within our life time. Substituting what we don't know with "god" is not only unhealthy, but it sets us back in finding out what actually happened.

Answer 12

Which god? Where did he come from? Why can't any argument you can use to answer those questions apply to the universe?



Mary-Beth: the Bible also says that God murders babies just to show that he can. Exodus 10:1.

Answer 13

God can't rise out of nothing either, yet you all claim that he did. He couldn't have just always been there. Your logic is flawed if you think our view is more ridiculous than yours. If god could have always existed, then why not the universe?

Answer 14

"universe come into being" is a contradiction. It means you supposed there was a "being" before universe(as if you have the house first;then the car); but every "being" can included in universe.

Answer 15

Existence exists is axiomatically valid. Reality just...is.

Answer 16

They can't. They always start with a "God Partical" that mysteriously forced its self into existance, because they have to BELIEVE that matter just sprouted out of nothingness one day. Truth be told atheisum relies on abundant asumptions that are based entirely in the realm of our Lord.

Answer 17

Explain how your god came into being.



If you say it didn't need a creator, then there's no problem for the universe not to have a creator too.



If you say that god has a creator, then that god's god needs to have a creator and that god's god's god needs to have a creator and so on until infinity.

Answer 18

yea its convenient to invent your own argument : its too complex bla bla bla



read a little bit (other than the bible)



FYI no atheist can give you a straight answer cause science hasnt discover it yet

Answer 19

I don't know, neither do you, and "a god did it" isn't an explanation, it's an excuse for lazy simpletons.

Answer 20

Honey it's way over your head. However two views



http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j11/goswami.asp



http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Where%20universe%20from.htm

Answer 21

Pyfiot new chimney.

Answer 22

Once upon a time, long, long ago, something smaller than a pea exploded in the Big Bang and created everything we see today.

Answer 23

Also, ask them for evidence like they always ask us - lol