I want to understand the atheists' perspective on the origin of the first substance/atom/molecule. I am a theist. I believe that God is eternal and had no beginning or end, and anything outside of God had its origin from God and can be traced to some action from God. This logic is based on the assumption that nothing in our reality is eternal. I try to imagine infinity's past, and in a flash of confusion, I'm lost, and have to try again.

Question: Similar to Mormon doctrine as taught by Joseph Smith, do you as the atheist believe matter is eternal? Or was matter spontaneously formed out of nothing? I see only two options as an atheist: Option A, that matter is eternal, or Option B, that matter was made from nothing.
[Option A] If matter is eternal, then over billions and trillions of years, life formed and here we are today.
[Option B] If matter is not eternal, then there was a point in time that the first atom/molecule/substance formed. Then, Option A was able to be completed.
If Option B is true, how can SOMETHING jump into existence from NOTHING?
(Is there an Option C? or D? Let me know!)

Here are my thoughts... Nothing in our human realm is eternal. My logic tells me that everything had an origin at some time. So, I give credit to God. Even though I can not imagine God's eternality, I can believe that I was created by him/it with this flawed understanding of his eternality. Whether or not God cares about us, or interferes with our life experience; I have no idea. I have faith and hope in happiness after life, but its still a toss up. So, I understand the agnostic viewpoint, but when it comes to atheism, I'm a little lost. Thanks for your input.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2010 10:50PM by php.

But, to borrow a phrase from Mormons, it isn't relevant to my salvation, er, well being.

I'm personally far too busy living the only life I've got to worry about answers to those questions when I probably don't have enough science background to really understand it anyway.

I'll never understand how to stop a retro virus or why there was a big bang. I don't care to as long as someone else gets it, especially the virus part. It's all advanced science to me.

I'm a lot more interested in how to feed my hummingbirds during the big freeze.

I have no idea if anything is eternal. I simply don't know and am happy to admit the limits of things I do not know.

Why would you decide "God" is eternal and matter not? Now you are stuck having to explain where your eternal god came from and why you extend to god concessions you won't consider for the universe. How can your god, jump from nothing into existence? After all, the god you describe is even more complicated than matter.

Adding god solves nothing to the questions. I think maybe your logic isn't consistent if you don't apply your rule that everything had a beginning to god. It is equally problematic.

As an atheist, I simply lack belief in god. There could be anything out there, but the evidence does not justify postulating an even more complicated creator to explain. And where did this god get the "stuff" to create you? From nothing?

Check out Hawking's Grand Design- not that he satisfies your questions- but physics is pretty amazing.

We don't know much as measly humans but that doesn't mean I'm going to make stuff up about a god. It's frustrating knowing we will never have all the answers we would like, but that's something I have come to accept.

Which would mean God has an origin somewhere. Or, if He always existed, why not everything else?

I tried to justify this flaw in logic by admitting that God created us with the inability to comprehend the infinite. I didn't do a good job, its complicated :P.

Trouble for creationists is, scientists are looking into this and will probably discover it someday. Please remember it was only a few decades back that we discovered antibiotics and X-rays. Religion hasn't come up with anything new in about 2000 years.

I don't mean to be rude about it. I was a believer once upon a time and not too long ago in the grand scheme of things. The world of religion gets smaller and sillier with each scientific discovery that comes along and they're coming fast and furious lately. 200 years ago the Bible was literal truth and had been for more than 1000 years. It's now been thoroughly discredited.

I am also a theist -- a Latter Day Saint to be precise.

But I learned to have a great deal of respect for the
Mahayana Buddhist atheists I lived with in South Asia.

Their explanation of the material world, is that it is a
phenomenon which we sentient beings are subject to mis-read.
We tend to believe our perceptions and to think of matter
as some "thing" which is solid and exists in space-time.

My atheist neighbors of 30 years ago experienced the
physical world as something like the visible tip of an
iceberg -- a partial reality whose perceptible portion
obscures and distorts a greater, uncreated Reality.

That was not (and is not) my religion. But I think that
those folks did a good job of explaining how they see
the world about them.

Uncle Dale

I dunno. But my lack of knowledge doesn't coerce me into believing in the God du Jour.

Cats and dogs and horses and jellyfish don't believe in God. They just exist. They are part of the Earth's system. That is my "religion," -- that I just exist.

We have eyes that view a restricted spectrum. Other species see better. Our ears hear only certain frequencies. Other species hear better. There is all kinds of stuff out there happening that we can't sense, yet we arrogantly think we perceive it all.

This whole concept of God is based on our human ability to think and perceive. However, we as humans have bought into the concept that we are the object and design and end result of "creation," and that "God" made it all for us.

Humanity is overated. Years ago I didn't exist. Years from now I won't exist. That also eliminates my need for a God. Death is certain. Subsequently, living things will be consuming from of our decaying remnants.

I would hope that humanity is not done evolving... and can continue to do so, sans more mass extinction events. Maybe then our progeny will have the ability, senses, perception, etc. to comprehend what the hell it's all about. At the moment, we don't. Better than cats and dogs and horses and jellyfish, though. We just speculate and wish and hope according to our human sensory abilities.

"[Option A] If matter is eternal, then over billions and trillions of years, life formed and here we are today."

Unless that matters destroys and rebuilds itself repeatedly.

We don't believe in god.

Beginning of universe is up to science. Look into the theory of the big bang. Atheists try to understand the most complete theory of the big bang, understanding that the details may change given more information. The information are facts that lead to hypothesis that can lead to theories. It isn't about "belief" as trying to understand the most recent theory and understand its potential "pitfalls" and need of further research.

We don't see evidence to believe in your "god" or logic. That's all. Understanding the universe is researching the current view of the universe based on evidence knowing that certain "gaps" exist.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2010 11:05PM by raptorjesus.

Now I'm thinking more about some kind of multiverse. Several universes floating around out there. They collide, exchange matter, expand decay and die. A huge chaotic mess. Makes for a neat metaphor to our own lives.

On a similar note, does the universe extend and expand eternally? Is there a finite limit to its lengths? And if there is an end, what is on the other side? You would reply, "Another universe, duh." lol

Right now the universe is expanding. And we can observe this. The question is, do we have enough matter for the universe to expand indefinitely, or will it collapse because of gravity?

These aren't metaphysical questions dealing with "logic" and "philosophy" these are questions that can be observed and answered with mathematics.

If the universe expands indefinitely, without gravity causing it all to come crashing back in on itself, then physicists are mostly agreed that matter will become less and less dense in the universe, particles, continually decaying into their component elements, and eventually all will dissolve into virtual nothingness.

The other likely alternative is that gravity WILL cause everything to crash back in on itself and, voila, another big bang and it all starts over again.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

I'm no physicist but I've read enough to get the general idea. The idea I find most compelling now is that there are anywhere from several to many millions of universes interacting across an unimaginable scale of time and space. Some expand and decay into nothingness and the scraps are then accumulated into other universes. Others expand for a while then contract into a singularity and then BANG! That would be my prediction as to the next step in the big bang theory. There are many big bangs. Our universe happened to spawn us. Others didn't. Maybe some other one out there did. I'm sure we'll never know as we'll kill ourselves off in a religiously inspired nuclear holocaust.

My question seems to be the common one, which is to wonder how one can figure that everything had a beginning except for God.

php said:
"Option A] If matter is eternal, then over billions and trillions of years, life formed and here we are today.
[Option B] If matter is not eternal, then there was a point in time that the first atom/molecule/substance formed."

My advice is to study up on some theoretical physics, interesting stuff. The first thing I recommend to read about is the massive Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Learn about the speed of light, energy converting into matter, matter to energy...

If you are like the rest of us, you're questions will not be answered.

The way I see it, you can call me an Agnostic because I say "I don't know," or you can call me an atheist because I deny the possibility of there being an omnipotent entity which created/rules the universe.

I like Option A, that Light & Matter, the stuff of the Universe, is eternal; that the Universe is eternal, without beginning and without end; and that over billions and trillions of years life formed and here we are today, as you say.

But I am not an Atheist, for I also believe in an Eternal God that is part and parcel with the eternal Universe of Light & Matter.

However and alas, God is unnamable; in fact, once it is named it is no longer God. God is ineffable, but nevertheless can be known via experience. Oddly, this experience is less about knowing than it is about being known (a rather gnostic formulation).

An atheist may object to this upon many grounds, and do. But the experience persists, and so I persist upon believing.

Everything has an origin then what created God?
You don't know if God cares about humans, so how does your belief improve your life? Does it just give you some comfort to think there is something bigger than yourself?

It is not clear to me why you feel your belief in the possibility of something is superior to an atheist who says there is no evidence of God. Neither you nor the atheist claim to have any knowledge of divine laws governing your life.

Atheists do not say there is no God or nothing beyond this life, they simply say that from what they have seen there is no evidence of God or an afterlife. You do not claim to have evidence. It just seems to make sense to you because in your mind everything came from something. But why does that something need to be a supernatural being?

>why does that something need to be a supernatural being?

Perhaps because most of us just naturally think of our
origin and preservation in terms of "beings" -- of parents,
relatives and neighbors who were larger and more powerful
than we were as infants and todlers.

There is something deeply re-assuring, in the idea that the
origin of the Universe has an intimate relationship with
ourselves -- that human beings merit a place among the stars.

Existence is probably beyond human words to describe. Reality
is a precept that we can only just begin to define. Infinity
is practically beyond our comprehension.

But when we relegate the origin of everything to a "Being"
that cares about us individually -- that is intimately
associated with our own existence -- life becomes a bit
easier to live out.

At least that has been the case for the last few thousand
years. Perhaps we will evolve beyond such limitations.

Uncle Dale

Try The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow--$14.95, 188 pages, highly readable with color pictures and even a few cartoons. I haven't cracked into it yet because I stupidly promised this guy I'd read The Case for Christ.

If you really think there has to be an invisible, unimaginable being who's powerful enough to have created everything, then no number of atheists explaining themselves will make a difference.

And by the way, it's not your logic telling you to give credit to god.

:-)

What ever it is that makes up God, how did it come in to being? God has to be made up of SOMETHING or you have to admit that God is nothing, so what ever "partials" or magic you want to say makes up your God, where did that stuff come from? So, theists are really stuck with the same problem when it comes to God.

Ether you have to explain where the particles that make up the universe came from or you have to explain where the "particles" that make up God come from.

According to quantum physics virtual particles can form from the vacuum of space- literally something from nothing. Viola! No god needed. Adding an anthropomorphic being to the equation just seems silly. So how did this great omnipotent god get started? How did he think of creating the universe? Does he have a frontal cortex? This makes the big bang so much more complicated.

One of my favorite books is "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Green.

Time is relative to our existence. God does not explain physicality better than anything, you or I could propose.

So tell me just what your non-sequitur straw man has to do with Atheism ?


Can you say "free of theism" ?

I didn't think so.

You don't understand it therefore a god did it.

Where have I heard this crap before ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2010 12:34AM by Dave the Atheist.

Look at video games from 25 years ago and their clunky 2D graphics and compare that to today's PS3 or XBOX with their very realistic 3D texture mapped real-time animations. Imagine what computers can do in another 250 years.

Maybe the physical world that we know is nothing more than a simulation in a very elaborate computer. Ever play Sim-City? All of the physical laws are simply equations being processed by the computer. We think it is "real" because we are simulations as well.

That would make God nothing more than a computer scientist and programmer. How does belief in the "great programmer" make life better? The answer is that it doesn't. We will never be "programmers" ourselves. We are just simulations.

The only thing that truly makes life better is an understanding of our world that leads to useful objects. Science has brought us object like electricity, medicines, the internet, etc. that makes our lives better.

Religion brings nothing useful to the table. If the Catholic church had their way we would still think the earth was flat and at the center of the universe. We would all live in poverty like they did 1500 years ago. Sitting around in the dark knitting our own clothes while hoping we had a good enough harvest to not starve to death before the next harvest.

The world is full of fables and fairy tales. Many were written to convey some piece of wisdom. Some were based on real people, places, or events. But they are just stories. Some children think they are real. They truly believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. For a child, those beliefs are generally harmless fun. But what happens when the child grows up? It is usually a bad thing when they keep believing those fairy tales. I see the Bible as being nothing more than a collection of fairy tales.

Some people claim the Bible is infallible and take everything in it as being true (never mind that some parts are in direct conflict with other parts). Some people go so far as to believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. Scientists and scholars have examined the history of the Bible and the truth is the Bible is not as true as people would like you to think it is. It is nothing more than a collection of the writings of MEN. Some of it may refer to real people, places, or events but in general, it is just a collection of stories.

In the end, there is no more evidence that God exists than there is for ancient aliens or Bigfoot. If you need to believe in God to give your life meaning and direction then go right ahead and believe but please don't expect me to believe in your fairy tale as well.

One last thought. Just because you don't understand how something works, does that make it from God? Nobody knows for sure what happens to matter that "falls" into a black hole; or how neutrinos can travel at the speed of light and still change from one type to another; or how gravity functions on the quantum level (quantum gravity). Maybe someday science will give us answers to these questions but does the lack of answers mean it the work of God? When you set a glass too close to the edge of the counter and it falls to the floor and shatters, is that God at work or just gravity?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2010 01:41AM by Mnemonic.

I'm an atheist. I agree with you that god has no beginning or end. but not because he is infinite, but rather because he doesn't exist =)

I go where the evidence points to. Eg- the prevailing theory is the big bang--the universe was created from a singularity. In the future this theory might be refined, or superseded by some better theory. The point is science doesn't have all the answers, BUT it's always getting better and answering more questions. One day it may very well explain how the universe was created. We are just now able to recreated big bang conditions at the LHC. I read just the other day scientists were able to capture anti-hydrogen in a gravity field for the first time. We are living in very exciting times!!

One thing many theists believe is that all will be revealed unto them when they die. I simply can't imagine any sort of existence without discovery. It would be boring as hell, might as well be called hell. An infinite amount of time in heaven with nothing to explore, sounds rather dull to me.

An all-knowing, all-powerful (yet invisible) being came from where? Or what? That idea is much more mind boggling than atoms or stars forming on their own.

And I'm really not trying to be snarky, but we have evidence that atoms and molecules exist. Where is the evidence for God, if we exclude flawed logic (like, how ELSE could we be created?) or an appeal to emotion or eternal consequences?

In answer to your original question: I'm not a physicist, so I really can't explain how matter came to be but I have watched a few tv specials, and yes, it CAN be created. That bit in the Book of Abraham (I think it was) that said no matter can be created or destroyed . . . . That was JS just making stuff up as he went along.