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Permalink Reply by Gary C on February 9, 2012 at 8:34am

Those who have spent a lifetime studying the universe can explain its existence without resorting to a divine creator:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-b...

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Permalink Reply by DP Inc on February 11, 2012 at 1:23pm

Oh, so GRAVITY created the universe... That makes so much more sense than God creating it, right??

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 11, 2012 at 1:29pm

Yes, the idea of a magical sorcerer creating the universe makes much more sense, doesn't it?

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on February 15, 2012 at 11:42am

I don't think we're saying gravity created the universe. Actually, the universe was never created. It's pretty hard to wrap one's head around it, but time flows indefinitely forwards and backwards. The Big Bang wasn't the creation of the universe, it was an expansion of a single point, a single point that contained all of the matter of the universe, and (as far as we know) had existed forever. That point began expanding and the universe was created from it as it took up more and more space, and the matter it contained was allowed room to react and form systems like atoms, and molecules, and eventually, stars and galaxies.

In the hearts of stars, a lot of elements needed for life are created. Chief among them is Carbon because all living things on Earth are made of it. All the Carbon there is comes from these stars and without them humans and life never would have started on earth. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the Big Bang happened 13.9 years ago. This means that, at most, it took 9.4 billion years of stars generating Carbon, then super novaing to spread this Carbon across the universe, which then formed together to form our planet, and others, with the other elements from stars, before our lovely home in space came to be.

So, again, it was not gravity that created the universe, because  that's just silly. The universe was never created, it has merely existed forever, and shall exist forever more. Perhaps, one day, our universe shall reach the point of complete entropy and shall no longer contain matter as we know it, but we humans will have had a good long run by that time.

Disproving God is extremely difficult because there's no proof that he does exist. God is not "falsifiable," which basically means we can't prove him false, but because of that we can't prove him to be truly here, either.

 Nonetheless, I don't really care to believe in a god because, what's the point? Believing in gods means you don't take as much responsibility for things yourself because you think they will take care of it for you. And for the things you have to do to "get into heaven" or avoid hell are the things human beings should be doing anyway. The fact that religious people, who believe in an afterlife or paradise, think that they HAVE to do good things for their own eternal pleasure later on, is entirely selfish and, in my eyes, immoral. Why should I be good for my own happiness, when I can be good for the sake of the world's happiness. I personally want to be a force for good in the world, and I don't have a heaven that I feel I'm going to get into.

In the end, if by some odd, obscure chance there IS a god out there somewhere, and he does return mortal favours of good behaviour with some kind of paradise, then how could that god, or gods, EVER turn away people such as myself, who do good for goods sake, for people's sake, and for the world's sake. Unless those gods are not benevolent, in which case, why would I ever choose to worship a religion that followed entities that don't care how good the world is.

I know I will not change your mind about God, and really, I don't intend to. You can have your beliefs. Just please know, you aren't changing ours either, especially with such weak arguments as you've used here. If you don't think you can provide an argument on par with my own, or those of others here, please, do yourself, and us, a favour and please stop trolling us. If you're here to learn, ask us questions. But don't be cynical. For we might answer  in kind.

I am an atheist, and I am proud.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on February 15, 2012 at 12:37pm

Interestingly Alexander, possibly without even knowing it, you've almost perfectly paraphrased, in your own words, those of the Philosopher Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who said:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

-- Marcus Aurelius --

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
www.in-His-own-image.com

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on February 15, 2012 at 5:18pm

I think that's because this concept is one of those things that if you actually take the time to think about, makes a lot of sense. Just like many of us on this site feel that believing in a God is silly for our own different reasons, we might come to similar conclusions about the concept and existence of a divine entity.

However, ask a theist why they believe and they will most probably give you some response that has been drilled into their head by years of religion and parenting. This thread, in and of itself is an example of this refusal to think about why: why there may or may not be a god, why we're here, or why any of this actually matters.

A theist says the universe is their evidence that god exists because they've been taught that god made the universe. So the universe being here means there is a god, somewhere. This is very silly, because they never proved that god made the universe in the first place.

We ARE here, in this universe, and if we like it or not, there is no god actively among us. We work for our own means, we do what we must to survive and we do what is good, because it is the right thing to do. Not because some entity is telling us to, or else.

Maybe, by some minute chance, there is a god somewhere, and maybe one day he will come to claim us for paradise, or to destroy us, or separate the "good" from the "bad." This is totally irrelevant to anything we should actually be worrying about in our lives. If it comes, that'll be great, or terrible, whichever, but until it (doesn't) come, I will continue to life my life how I see fit.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Møller Pedersen on February 9, 2012 at 8:38am

Well, there's not much to debunk, really. It's just an assumption without proof, not an argument. And, as so often pointed out in atheist debates, if the universe needs a creator, then surely the creator needs a creator. And so on. An infinite regress. Or the other way round, if god can exist without a creator, why can't the universe?

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Permalink Reply by DP Inc on February 11, 2012 at 1:25pm

Because God is in the supernatural. We can't grasp his scale of time, infinity, etc. The universe are all material things, and beings...

 

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 11, 2012 at 1:35pm

How do you personally know that there is a God? ...that He is in the supernatural (along, presumably, with banshees and leprechauns)? I think even a divine being would have about the same grasp of infinity as we do, since infinity is a purely conceptual construct. A useful one in mathematics, perhaps, but there's never been any proof of an ACTUAL infinity.

What's the difference between saying that God created everything and saying that a Mumbo The Great created everything? Amounts to the same thing, right?

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Permalink Reply by Dale Newton on February 9, 2012 at 9:04am

Well with that question they've debunked their whole Genesis story of God creating all this, in only six days, because our Universe is still expanding, "something out of nothing" everyday.

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Permalink Reply by DP Inc on February 11, 2012 at 1:27pm

It's not "something from nothing" if it's expanding from what God has already created. Think about your comment.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 11, 2012 at 3:53pm

Nonsense, clearly it was all created by the Pan-Dimensional Space Duck. There's just as much evidence for the PDSD as there is for your god, which is to say none.

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