Everyone has a religion

[paarsurrey]

I don't believe in any god that I've heard of so far. What word would you use to describe someone like that?

Personal philosophies and religions are two very different things.

That's true for those who care to think on such things. But, again, philosophies and religions are not equivalent.

This is a common hiccup among the pious. One could just as easily argue that there was no beginning, making both arguments that you've presented here moot.

It's the religious position that something came from nothing. Be careful with your projections.

That you see only these two dichotomies is telling.

"It's the religious position that something came from nothing."

And what is the Atheism position on the above, please?
Regards

 

[PruePhillip]

"It's the religious position that something came from nothing."

And what is the Atheism position on the above, please?
Regards

The atheist posn is that something came from nothing.
The theist says that God (who lies outside the natural world) created the first things.
The atheist says a miracle happened to create the first things.
Go figure...

 

[YmirGF]

The atheist posn is that something came from nothing.
The theist says that God (who lies outside the natural world) created the first things.
The atheist says a miracle happened to create the first things.
Go figure...

Your post is absurdity on steroids. The sad part is that no matter how often or how clearly some will bother to explain this to you, you will likely carry on with this silly narrative.

Here goes... for those in the cheap seats and in the slow lane.

1. Atheism does not have a position about the creation of the universe. Many atheists do. Deal with it.
2. Atheists, in general, do not say that "something came from nothing" although many glib theists will pretend that is what we are saying. As others have said, time began with the inflationary model and so there simply is no "before". That said, what many scientist have speculated is that the original pre-creation universe was a cosmic primordial sub-atomic soup that was mindbogglingly hot. That "soup" is not "nothing".
3. Theists say a lot of things. Sometimes, on rare occasions, they even make sense.
4. This atheist (as I am not arrogant enough to presume to speak for all atheists) will never say the creation of the universe was a miracle. The idea simply would not occur to me to use such a religiously charged word to describe a natural event.

If you need further clarification, please ask and I'll even try to talk more slowly, if need be.

 

[LuisDantas]

"It's the religious position that something came from nothing."

And what is the Atheism position on the above, please?
Regards

First, it must be acknowledged that the statement in pink is hardly representative of religions as a whole.

More important still is that it is not necessarily perceived as important even by those that agree with it.

I want to emphasize that, because I really think that it is unfair to use this affirmation as a sample of religious thought. It comes dangerously close to a strawman.

That said, any claims about whether "something" can or can not "come from nothing" are sort of pointless. They just don't say anything useful and serve only to express some form of pride of belief.

 

[PruePhillip]

Your post is absurdity on steroids. The sad part is that no matter how often or how clearly some will bother to explain this to you, you will likely carry on with this silly narrative.

Here goes... for those in the cheap seats and in the slow lane.

1. Atheism does not have a position about the creation of the universe. Many atheists do. Deal with it.
2. Atheists, in general, do not say that "something came from nothing" although many glib theists will pretend that is what we are saying. As others have said, time began with the inflationary model and so there simply is no "before". That said, what many scientist have speculated is that the original pre-creation universe was a cosmic primordial sub-atomic soup that was mindbogglingly hot. That "soup" is not "nothing".
3. Theists say a lot of things. Sometimes, on rare occasions, they even make sense.
4. This atheist (as I am not arrogant enough to presume to speak for all atheists) will never say the creation of the universe was a miracle. The idea simply would not occur to me to use such a religiously charged word to describe a natural event.

If you need further clarification, please ask and I'll even try to talk more slowly, if need be.

The hot soup is something
ie energy and matter within a fabric of space and time and
acted upon by laws of physics and maths.
There's six things, right off the bat, that I can think of.
A Judaeo Christian theist posits that God lies outside of the physical world
and has created these things (Genesis gives a symbolic but fairly accurate description of the sequence)
As I see it an 'atheist' is one who does not believe in God. Therefore all we know had to have sprung into being without God, or laws, or matter, or energy....
...

 

[Jumi]

The atheist posn is that something came from nothing.

Some atheists think that. When I was atheist I didn't think that way.

The theist says that God (who lies outside the natural world) created the first things.

Some theists think that. I'm theist and I don't think that.

The atheist says a miracle happened to create the first things.

Never heard an atheist say that and I was one for decades.

 

[PruePhillip]

Some atheists think that. When I was atheist I didn't think that way.


Some theists think that. I'm theist and I don't think that.


Never heard an atheist say that and I was one for decades.

If the 'creation' without God isn't a miracle, then what is it?
How can something 'will' itself into existence, with nothing and for no reason?

 

[blü 2]

Science speaks of cause and effect.
An effect comes from a cause.

But of course classical causation can break down at the quantum level. Usual examples are the emission of any particular particle in the course of radioactive decay, and the spontaneous formation and mutual annihilation of any particular particle-antiparticle pair in the energy of the vacuum (a phenomenon that gives rise to the Casimir effect). Classical causation would require these things to be the result of chains of causation, but instead all that can be derived is a statistical likelihood.

(Don't take my word for it ─ google eg 'quantum indeterminacy'. You need to grok this stuff before you embark on arguments that rely on classical causation, chains of cause+effect.)

So in classical terms there are indeed causeless events, uncountable numbers of them occurring every second.

Saying it's all somehow "eternal" is disingenuous - it doesn't answer the question.

Eternal was your word. I just used it in my counterexample to keep the parallel.

As I keep saying to you, IF time is a property of mass-energy, THEN there's no problem about beginnings ┬ time exists because mass-energy exists.

 

[Jumi]

Bah...your posts still make sense. Aren't you supposed to turn into an irrational loon as soon as you step away from atheism?

Surprisingly little has changed after I became theist.

 

[Jumi]

If the 'creation' without God isn't a miracle, then what is it?

You said atheists say it's a miracle, but have you asked them? Or do you peer into the hearts of men with X-ray vision and find their ideas mirror yours?

How can something 'will' itself into existence, with nothing and for no reason?

Are you saying God always existed, but the universe couldn't always exist?

 

[PruePhillip]

You said atheists say it's a miracle, but have you asked them? Or do you peer into the hearts of men with X-ray vision and find their ideas mirror yours?


Are you saying God always existed, but the universe couldn't always exist?

Yes, a miracle, BY DEFINITION, is something "not explicable by natural or scientific laws" We tend to define miracles as being theological events but that aint necessarily so.
This business of 'who made God' isn't valid because the subject is the natural world, not something we know utterly nothing about.

 

[Jumi]

Yes, a miracle, BY DEFINITION, is something "not explicable by natural or scientific laws" We tend to define miracles as being theological events but that aint necessarily so.

You have your beliefs about what it must be, but you can't just say you know how others must think about it.

This business of 'who made God' isn't valid because the subject is the natural world, not something we know utterly nothing about.

If you're unwilling to think about it and there's no difference between someone arriving from something that we can't talk about and creating everything from nothing and some people's view that the universe came from nothing (a rare view probably, I might add) then I think it's a matter of preference which you pick to be the "weirder choice".

I personally believe the world didn't come from nothing, neither by someone creating it or it coming from void on it's own.

 

[Mock Turtle]

If the 'creation' without God isn't a miracle, then what is it?

Reality or just existence?

How can something 'will' itself into existence, with nothing and for no reason?

That we might never discover but we might have to live with this.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's a good point and I like it.
I see the behavior in non-religious people (atheist or otherwise) and akin to religious
behavior. Such people will often seek to live for certain things, hold to certain values,
have "explanations" for what-why-therefore of life, worship things, have their gods
and etc.. Marxism is an example of that, ie the sacred texts, the Trinity of Marx,
Engels and Lenin, its officiating class etc..

So then Christians have two (edit: or more) religions?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The atheist posn is that something came from nothing.

No, that’s a theist position: that something (God) came from nothing.

 

[PruePhillip]

Reality or just existence?



That we might never discover but we might have to live with this.

If so then don't ridicule the beliefs of the theist.

 

[PruePhillip]

No, that’s a theist position: that something (God) came from nothing.

Incorrect, we are talking about the natural world.
Either God created it (sounds implausible to the scientific mind) or it created itself
(it actually is implausible to the scientific mind.)

 

[jonathan180iq]

"It's the religious position that something came from nothing."

As I stated earlier, I was referring to the Creationist position of the OP. Not all religious thinking.

And what is the Atheism position on the above, please?
Regards

There isn't one. Atheism isn't anything on it's own. You'd have to ask the position of individual Atheists.

If you want to know the scientific explanations of origins, there are many. We do not know, and we may never know how anything came to be. But there are dozens of pretty good ideas out there, and none of them start with the claim that "first there was nothing, and then there was something." One of the foundational understandings of the Sciences is that there has always been something.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Incorrect, we are talking about the natural world.

There are no “somethings” apart from the natural world?

 

[LuisDantas]

If so then don't ridicule the beliefs of the theist.

How would that follow?