Atheism : Love it or Leave it?

[Zoken]

I have a question for those who are athiests:

Where did we come from?

I, as a Christian, believe in evolution. However, where did the first cell that led to all life on Earth come from?

Science tells us that everything comes from something, correct? Well how did the the first life form materialize out of nothing?

I just want to see your perspectives.

it is believed that the first cells originated in the oceans which were, what has been called, a primordial soup of organic materials. there's no real answer, as I know it, but they think it was just the right combination at the right time linked together and and little lighting luck...

 

[The Senator]

I have a question for those who are athiests:

Where did we come from?

I, as a Christian, believe in evolution. However, where did the first cell that led to all life on Earth come from?

Science tells us that everything comes from something, correct? Well how did the the first life form materialize out of nothing?

I just want to see your perspectives.

Christians always ask this question, as if they think it will strike up some sort of epiphany with non-believers. There's just as much evidence which suggests life comes from a giant finger in the sky as there is otherwise. I don't know where we come from, but that little mystery alone isn't going to sway me to believe in God or the Christian doctrine.

 

[Anguissette1979]

I have a question for those who are athiests:

Where did we come from?

I, as a Christian, believe in evolution. However, where did the first cell that led to all life on Earth come from?

Science tells us that everything comes from something, correct? Well how did the the first life form materialize out of nothing?

I just want to see your perspectives.

I'm going to answer this, I just can't do it from work

 

[Danalys]

the first life didn't come from nothing. the building blocks of a life form are the same as for none life forms (as far as we know,) just in another arrangement. the first life only needs to be a simple replicator. elements of which come together naturally under various conditions. even so the odds should be long for that first replicator forming. but not long enough that because of the number of attempts it couldn't happen. think of it like a lottery not much chance of winning but since there are enough players one wins, even tho it was unlikely for them to win. it's the same with the first life, a collection of chemicals won the lottery when so many other arrangements didn't.

anyway now you can ask why chemicals work the way they do. then why atoms, gluons etc work as they do, untill the fundimental forces of the universe are in question, so that you can look for god as the answer.

 

[teseract]

I have a question for those who are athiests:

Where did we come from?

I, as a Christian, believe in evolution. However, where did the first cell that led to all life on Earth come from?

Science tells us that everything comes from something, correct? Well how did the the first life form materialize out of nothing?

I just want to see your perspectives.

Depends, what do you consider Life?

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

Who cares about where "Life" came from?

What about TIME, and the Sun, and Gravity and the Elements.

There was just nothingness, and then a Universe full of rock and gasses just appeared spontaneously, fully-formed, literally Out-Of-Nothing, and there were no rules of thermodynamics, no physics, and then, *p00f* there suddenly WERE, and they set themselves up and remained consistent, spontaneously, for no reason...

Preposterous.

 

[C.F. Kane]

I have a question for those who are athiests:

Where did we come from?

I, as a Christian, believe in evolution. However, where did the first cell that led to all life on Earth come from?

Science tells us that everything comes from something, correct? Well how did the the first life form materialize out of nothing?

I just want to see your perspectives.

You're giving us the "God of the Gaps" argument for religion: Any scientific question that has not been answered by traditional science must be proof of God the Creator. It's a fairly common belief, but the God of the Gaps is only a temporary one. Those gaps will eventually be filled.

Take the Ancient Greeks as an example. They were a very intelligent civilization in many ways. But ask a Greek what causes earthquakes, and he would probably say "Why, the wrathful Poseidon, of course".

It took years upon years upon years of scientific discovery to prove the existence of tectonic plates and de-mystify earthquakes once and for all. But to the Ancient Greek, who has no knowledge of fault lines or tectonic drift, or the tools of sonar and deep sea exploration used to prove their existence, what better answer could he possibly have than a vengeful god of the oceans?

So, what caused the first cell to come into being? The answer is not "I don't know", but "I don't know yet."

 

[teseract]

To say with "100% certainty" that there is no God, is making a rash judgment, severely lacking in information. It is something we can never know. We can have our theories, our opinions, but we can never know, and never produce solid evidence as to whether there is or is not, any sort of higher power.

God is simply put uneccessairy. The god concept goes against the principle of Occam's razor and that principle has been proven to hold in every instance of physical discovery. Therefore, concluding from how things work in our world, God is highly improbable.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

So, what caused the first cell to come into being? The answer is not "I don't know", but "I don't know yet."

The only way it can be known is if we use a time machine.

 

[Danalys]

There was just nothingness, and then a Universe full of rock and gasses just appeared spontaneously, fully-formed, literally Out-Of-Nothing, and there were no rules of thermodynamics, no physics, and then, *p00f* there suddenly WERE, and they set themselves up and remained consistent, spontaneously, for no reason...

Preposterous.

presumptious aswell. but either way if there's always been something or not, if things work in certain ways inexplicably, they'll always be more likely than what it would take to create them.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

presumptious aswell. but either way if there's always been something or not, if things work in certain ways inexplicably, they'll always be more likely than what it would take to create them.

That ISN'T the way things work. Mass doesn't just appear out of nothing. Planets and stars and forces don't just appear out of nothing, *p00f*

You don't have an empty box, and the, *p00f* a rock that never existed before appears inside of it.

 

[Danalys]

who said things did come from nothing. hense the presumption. oh and quantum physics being a bit strange, does have things popping up out of a random sea of possibilities for some reason that i know nothing about. but then i'm not a fan of quantum physics despite it's aparent predictive power.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

who said things did come from nothing.

Believing that a rock has "just always been there" is actually more insane than believing that there was an infinite intelligence that didn't "just always exist", but rather, that IS a pure state of existence, outside of time itself...and then it created Time itself as a necessary "aquarium" for finite, created things to inhabit.....which would make the invention of artificial linear time a necessity since, before this creation, nothing was ever CREATED before, it was a pure state of being, and THEN, that being created something, making it the first thing ever to HAVE a beginning (which sparks the beginning of Time)

Because we, and all we experience, had a beginning, we can't conceive of anything that never had a beginning, but it makes sense that all there was was an intelligence, the creative act creating for the first time, "Beginnings".

 

[Danalys]

who says time is linear either. full of presumptions today aren't you. not only that but the act of creating suggests time existing already. any action is a change in state, and we only know of time by the change of state of things.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

who says time is linear either.

Of course we don't know that it is. Time is the biggest mystery of them all.
But since we know there's an irretrievable yesterday, and another yesterday before that, and before that, going back a week, a month, 10 years, 5,000 years, etc. It's really understandable that someone would feel that since this progression goes only one way, as we are in a constant, imperceptible state of "now"....that the days we can trace back, and the lives that could trace back, and the species and civilizations that could trace back, could lead back to a beginning moment.

No one knows about the origin of the universe. I've never professed to. I'm not being presumptuous, but only giving my opinions on it.

not only that but the act of creating suggests time existing already.

Wrong. that's because you are thinking of it in a limited, human way. What we think of as the time in which a linear succession of events (God decides he wants to create a universe, THEN, he creates it, etc.) is STILL THINKING INSIDE TIME.

The only time I'm proposing...it's like an object, in God's lap...the "left" extremity of which is the first moment of time, the "right" extremity of which is the last moment of the universe.
We can't conceive of consciousness unfettered to a perception of itself within the bounds of linear time, which is one thing that makes it sound all the more plausible to me...religious people always say, "We can't understand the awe-inspiring, complex nature of God."

But rarely do people get a real taste of what that means, "We. Can't. Understand. God."

Plus, there's absolutely no reason to assume that the act of creating time wouldn't be a self-referential creation as well, meaning that, yeah, God was pure, timeless being, and then created Time when he decided to act.

Then, yeah, he creates, for himself and for us, time.
Creation is a start of something.
I could easily imagine that the very act of Creation (which necessitates a 'beginning'...something wasn't there and THEN, it started to exist...) created time, as a medium for it's own expression.

 

[Danalys]

well the reason i didn't go into a thinking process for a god taking time was because that wasn't nessersary for my arguement. an act of creation requires time. that includes the creation of time. even if it's a time that is not our own, like another dimension of time. time is the change of state of things. if somethings changed that is a moment of time. if the observable universe is a four dimentional object in god's hands, that wasn't there then was, that's still a change of state and thus time.

anyway the point is no matter how bizarre a universe that didn't need creating would be, something capable of creating a universe would be yet more bizarre and unlikey, and also unnessersary for there to be such a thing as reality at all. since we have no reason to impose limits on the nature of reality, to say that it would need a god.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

well the reason i didn't go into a thinking process for a god taking time was because that wasn't nessersary for my arguement. an act of creation requires time. that includes the creation of time. even if it's a time that is not our own, like another dimension of time. time is the change of state of things. if somethings changed that is a moment of time.

God and the non-linear time could've always existed apart from one another, and then God entered time to create (in time) matter, space, energy and Life.
God could BE time.
I've often thought that maybe that's why we can't understand time...because Time is God.
Then the creation is an aspect of God, created in the medium of God/Time.

anyway the point is no matter how bizarre a universe that didn't need creating would be, something capable of creating a universe would be yet more bizarre and unlikey,

I totally disagree. An intelligence taking the initiative to start something, and our inability to understand it's existence before that Creation, because we ARE that Creation, IN that Creation, having a start, in a world where everything "comes about" makes way more sense to me (for us, understanding it would be like asking a goldfish to make himself a new aquarium), than what would be necessary for the other explanation to be true, which would be like the Genie in "I Dream of Jeannie", blinking and making a planet appear where there wasn't one, BUT, then removing the Genie from it.

I know what you're saying, but in light of my supernatural experiences, and other things that I won't go into now, I've had sufficient evidence, for me PERSONALLY, that there is "something going on" here.

 

[Gilpesh]

I know what you're saying, but in light of my supernatural experiences, and other things that I won't go into now, I've had sufficient evidence, for me PERSONALLY, that there is "something going on" here.

Dammit. I told them not to unplug the Someone-else's-problem generator.

 

[The Lizard]

Plus there's the whole possibility of the multiverse, which means that all sorts of forms of intelligence, time, energy and matter creation may be linked to an existence completely outside the realm of this universe and its history.


One possibility that occurs to me occasionally, although I find it somewhat depressing, is that this particular universe exists only for humanity alone and all the planets and galaxies in this universe are going to remain empty and devoid of intelligent life until humanity fills them over the next several millenia.

No proof of that of course, but just I thought I have sometimes.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Plus there's the whole possibility of the multiverse, which means that all sorts of forms of intelligence, time, energy and matter creation may be linked to an existence completely outside the realm of this universe and its history.


One possibility that occurs to me occasionally, although I find it somewhat depressing, is that this particular universe exists only for humanity alone and all the planets and galaxies in this universe are going to remain empty and devoid of intelligent life until humanity fills them over the next several millenia.

No proof of that of course, but just I thought I have sometimes.

Dude, that's just what the reptillian alien overlords want you to believe.

 

[Zoken]

I have seen the new Runaways artwork... there is no God...

 

[Spider-Jay]

You're giving us the "God of the Gaps" argument for religion: Any scientific question that has not been answered by traditional science must be proof of God the Creator. It's a fairly common belief, but the God of the Gaps is only a temporary one. Those gaps will eventually be filled.

Take the Ancient Greeks as an example. They were a very intelligent civilization in many ways. But ask a Greek what causes earthquakes, and he would probably say "Why, the wrathful Poseidon, of course".

It took years upon years upon years of scientific discovery to prove the existence of tectonic plates and de-mystify earthquakes once and for all. But to the Ancient Greek, who has no knowledge of fault lines or tectonic drift, or the tools of sonar and deep sea exploration used to prove their existence, what better answer could he possibly have than a vengeful god of the oceans?

So, what caused the first cell to come into being? The answer is not "I don't know", but "I don't know yet."

See, this is exactly the answer I'm looking for and the reason why I believe in a God.

Until mankind can answer every question, I, and many others, will continue to believe in a higher being.

The question will go on and on, "How did it all begin?"

Again, it comes down to the main essence of religion: faith

I'm a science nerd myself and so I see everything according to the scientific world as opposed to the Bible.

However, we can only go so far.

As a flawed species there is no way we can know absolutely everything.

Whereas science requires evidence in order for you to believe, all that religion requires is faith.

BTW, there are people who think proof has something to do with religion. In actuality proof has little to do with it, if any. Just blind faith.

 

[Gilpesh]

See, this is exactly the answer I'm looking for and the reason why I believe in a God.

Until mankind can answer every question, I, and many others, will continue to believe in a higher being.

For such superficial reasons, you could at least picked a cooler deity.

For me, it's the Norse Gods. Ragnarok > Four horsemen

 

[Spider-Jay]

For such superficial reasons, you could at least picked a cooler deity.

For me, it's the Norse Gods. Ragnarok > Four horsemen

Funny thing is, although I'm a Christian, I believe all religions are right.

I just feel we view "God" differently.

Of course, there are other reasons why I believe in a higher being, but the idea that we are flawed and cannot understand everything entirely is one my main pillars of belief.

Of course it would seem superficial to you, but it aint to me.

 

[Spider-Jay]

Ultimately, the science vs. religion debate can end in only one way:

Science proving that there indeed is no God/Higher entity and everything
in our universe is as is because of a random coincidence.

Until that day comes, people will continue to believe and religion/faith will continue to live on and be a major part of our world.