If there is no God who started the universe

[Spirit of Light]

The word 'started' actually implies a Newtonian view of time. The general relativity picture is of a space-time manifold, with time being entirely internal to it, the manifold itself didn't start to exist, even if it's finite in the past timelike direction.

In any case, as I said, if you think a god did it, it's up to you to provide a reason, not up to others to provide an alternative. We could make up any number of baseless stories about how it all started (most culture did) some of which will involve a god and some not. It's entirely the job of the person making the proposal to justify it.

My reason for believing God created our universe is so human beings can repay their past sins, and after all is repayed, go back to original existence in heaven.
And God given us the teaching to get back, we just have to practit every day.until we stop doing sinful things.

 

[ratiocinator]

My reason for believing God created our universe is so human beings can repay their past sins, and after all is repayed, go back to original existence in heaven.

You seem to be assuming that god did create the universe and then telling me why (its motivation) you think it did so, not giving me a reason why you think (what has convinced you) that a god exists and created the universe.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The word 'started' actually implies a Newtonian view of time. The general relativity picture is of a space-time manifold, with time being entirely internal to it, the manifold itself didn't start to exist, even if it's finite in the past timelike direction.

In any case, as I said, if you think a god did it, it's up to you to provide a reason, not up to others to provide an alternative. We could make up any number of baseless stories about how it all started (most culture did) some of which will involve a god and some not. It's entirely the job of the person making the proposal to justify it.

That is your subjective rule. Now provide a reason for why you decide what I should do.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I do agree with your answer, but
If they do not believe why bugg the hell out of belivers for believing in God? What is the purpose?
No matter what "proof" is laid before them they refuse to say, ah ok thats how you believe in God.

Here is an example of my own actions towards Islam, relevent to your faith.

I have an old friend and a former colleague who are muslims. I have debated the existence of Allah with one of them but with the other I discuss his religion without trying to disprove it. This is because they are from different schools of thought and one practices a "different Islam" to the other.

My muslim colleague was the the one who instigated debates. I was a JW at the time but the way I would go about things still holds true to today and still happened with him after I rejected religion. He told me that Christianity was speaking lies, was corrupted, made claims about it and described how great Islam is. But upon researching I realised that he was propagating lies and was extremely biased following verbatim the reasoning of muslim apologists, did not know a thing about Christianity, misrepresented atheists and Shia muslims, hated the Shia with a passion, denied events like the Armenian genocide by the Turks and supported muslim violence, always attacked Christians and was evasive when his faith and religion was criticised, etc. He was an indoctrinated hypocrite who thought that his fellow muslims only did good and never did bad, condemned all critics, said there were no true ex muslims. He deliberately tried to indoctrinate me with lies and deception. This is the state of many many muslims unfortunately. He was dangerous so I attacked his religion and today he is not so religious but still in denial.

Alternatively, my old muslim friend is the complete opposite. He practices a different Islam. He is extremely humble and willing to accept his faults. He isn't indoctrinated and actually studies his faith and is a wealth of knowledge with regards to his faith. He can reason consistently. He doesn't condemn other religions based on lies. He condemns outright Isis, the Armenian genocide, Saudi Arabia and all those who he sees as not practicing Islam according to what he sees is the true faith as he believe it has been hijacked. He has no illusions of what proponents of Islam has done in the past. I respect him, his faith and do not attack his faith in the least.

Can you see my motivation in the one scenario verses my lack of motivation in the other? I don't believe in Islam in the least, but I can respect certain forms of it, and I will attack the ones that I do not respect because they are dangerous and they attack me.

 

[stvdv]

Nobody knows how come we are here. It is unknown.

If you are not God, you can't know if God is a trickster God or not.

Exactly, that proves my point ... not smart to make a generalizing claim for all humans about what they know about "how come we are here"

 

[ratiocinator]

That is your subjective rule.

It's not my rule at all (subjective or otherwise). It's actually the only practical way to approach things. If I had to go around disproving everybody's fantastical claims all the time in order to not believe them, life would simply be impractical and you'd end up having to believe endless contradictory nonsense.

Now provide a reason for why you decide what I should do.

You can do what you like - but if you want your beliefs to be taken seriously be rational people, you'll have to provide reasons for them.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

You can do what you like - but if you want your beliefs to be taken seriously be rational people, you'll have to provide reasons for them.

Now you just have to prove that everything can be known and decided rationally and that rationality is universal, objective and what not.

 

[Spirit of Light]

You seem to be assuming that god did create the universe and then telling me why (its motivation) you think it did so, not giving me a reason why you think (what has convinced you) that a god exists and created the universe.

I have been spiritual or religious since i was 15 years old (now 43) this time i have studied Buddhism, Falun and now Islam, and all of them speak of experience heaven or God/Buddha, my understanding gorwn from thinking nah i am unsure about God to my personal belief that yes God exist. And its important to not i say my personal belief, because what others believe or do not believe is not important to me anymore, i leave them having their belief.

But i still trying to gain a good answer to why some say "God does not exist "where is their evidence? I have yet to see a good answer to that.

 

[ChristineM]

So if noone knows, should those who do not believe in a God get away with not having an answer when believers ask them to explain their view, but believers have to "prove" God exist?
How come one side have to prove there belief but the other side does not need to?
Thats over my understanding

I will add, you, nor any god believer is under any obligation to prove their faith, it is enough to know it is faith.

However
If i say, pigs can fly, you would expect me to provide evidence, you would not be expected to disprove my statement
.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Here is an example of my own actions towards Islam, relevent to your faith.

I have an old friend and a former colleague who are muslims. I have debated the existence of Allah with one of them but with the other I discuss his religion without trying to disprove it. This is because they are from different schools of thought and one practices a "different Islam" to the other.

My muslim colleague was the the one who instigated debates. I was a JW at the time but the way I would go about things still holds true to today and still happened with him after I rejected religion. He told me that Christianity was speaking lies, was corrupted, made claims about it and described how great Islam is. But upon researching I realised that he was propagating lies and was extremely biased following verbatim the reasoning of muslim apologists, did not know a thing about Christianity, misrepresented atheists and Shia muslims, hated the Shia with a passion, denied events like the Armenian genocide by the Turks and supported muslim violence, always attacked Christians and was evasive when his faith and religion was criticised, etc. He was an indoctrinated hypocrite who thought that his fellow muslims only did good and never did bad, condemned all critics, said there were no true ex muslims. He deliberately tried to indoctrinate me with lies and deception. This is the state of many many muslims unfortunately. He was dangerous so I attacked his religion and today he is not so religious but still in denial.

Alternatively, my old muslim friend is the complete opposite. He practices a different Islam. He is extremely humble and willing to accept his faults. He isn't indoctrinated and actually studies his faith and is a wealth of knowledge with regards to his faith. He can reason consistently. He doesn't condemn other religions based on lies. He condemns outright Isis, the Armenian genocide, Saudi Arabia and all those who he sees as not practicing Islam according to what he sees is the true faith as he believe it has been hijacked. He has no illusions of what proponents of Islam has done in the past. I respect him, his faith and do not attack his faith in the least.

Can you see my motivation in the one scenario verses my lack of motivation in the other? I don't believe in Islam in the least, but I can respect certain forms of it, and I will attack the ones that I do not respect because they are dangerous and they attack me.

A very good answer, i like your approach

Yes i see your point, i hope i can come acras one who dont say to other believers that they are wrong, its non of my business to tell them they are wrong.
As you know i have for a long time " disagreed" with atheists in their approach toward believers or religion. That is not to harras them, but to get them to see that to prove God can be done, but then they have to practice a religion or spiritual teaching.
God does not just pop up screaming " Juhuuuuu here i am" no God must be understood before you realizing you looking at "him"
But it seems like atheists do forget that step.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

A very good answer, i like your approach

Yes i see your point, i hope i can come acras one who dont say to other believers that they are wrong, its non of my business to tell them they are wrong.
As you know i have for a long time " disagreed" with atheists in their approach toward believers or religion. That is not to harras them, but to get them to see that to prove God can be done, but then they have to practice a religion or spiritual teaching.
God does not just pop up screaming " Juhuuuuu here i am" no God must be understood before you realizing you looking at "him"
But it seems like atheists do forget that step.

I think you are generalizing atheists to much.
Here is an example of a religion in a sense, which some atheists can get aboard with:
Our UU Faith

I used to be an atheist and atheists are as diverse as religious people are diverse.

 

[ratiocinator]

But i still trying to gain a good answer to why some say "God does not exist "where is their evidence? I have yet to see a good answer to that.

I don't say "God does not exist", for a start, the unqualified term "God" isn't well enough defined to even come to an opinion. Unless a specific god is defined, I'm ignostic. With regard to specific gods, again I don't claim that they don't exist, just that nobody has ever given me any good reason to take any of them seriously - that's where the burden of proof comes in. If I claimed I had an invisible dragon in my garage, it's not up to you to provide evidence that I don't, so why should I need to provide evidence that gods don't exist?

I lack belief in gods because nobody has ever given me any good reason to take any of them seriously.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't say "God does not exist", for a start, the unqualified term "God" isn't well enough defined to even come to an opinion. Unless a specific god is defined, I'm ignostic. With regard to specific gods, again I don't claim that they don't exist, just that nobody has ever given me any good reason to take any of them seriously - that's where the burden of proof comes in. If I claimed I had an invisible dragon in my garage, it's not up to you to provide evidence that I don't, so why should I need to provide evidence that gods don't exist?

I lack brief in gods because nobody has ever given me any good reason to take any of them seriously.

So is a good reason universal, objective or what?

 

[Samael_Khan]

A very good answer, i like your approach

Yes i see your point, i hope i can come acras one who dont say to other believers that they are wrong, its non of my business to tell them they are wrong.
As you know i have for a long time " disagreed" with atheists in their approach toward believers or religion. That is not to harras them, but to get them to see that to prove God can be done, but then they have to practice a religion or spiritual teaching.
God does not just pop up screaming " Juhuuuuu here i am" no God must be understood before you realizing you looking at "him"
But it seems like atheists do forget that step.

Thanks

Yeah, I know you have had quite a journey and your past experiences will influence how you interpret and practice your current faith quite a lot.

I think that the first step in both sides understanding each other is to genuinely listen and try to understand the reasoning, experiences and benefits the worldview of the person representing the other side contributes to their life. But also, I think that the reason why many people hate religion is because of the bad track record of religions in the past and the present. If all religious people were benevolent I don't there would be remotely as much hostility towards religion, but the tribalism of religion has caused havoc. So I think that there is a deeper problem here than simply proving what is true. There is a big emotional and moral element to the argument.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Thanks

Yeah, I know you have had quite a journey and your past experiences will influence how you interpret and practice your current faith quite a lot.

I think that the first step in both sides understanding each other is to genuinely listen and try to understand the reasoning, experiences and benefit the worldview of the person representing the other side. But also, I think that the reason why many people hate religion is because of the bad track record of religions in the past and the present. If all religious people were benevolent I don't there would remotely as much hostility towards religion, but the tribalism of religion has caused havoc. So I think that there is a deeper problem here than simply proving what is true. There is a big emotional and moral element to the argument.

I agree on this

 

[HonestJoe]

All the time i hear "there is no God, evolution is the cause of our existence "

Those are two entirely separate (and incomplete) points so there is zero reason to consider them together.

My thought: i believe many religious people are thinking, if there is no God, how did it all start?

Lots of non-religious people are also thinking; "How did it all start?". God isn't automatically relevant to that question.

How can something suddenly go Bang ( big bang) but nothing triggerd the bang to happen?

The "Big Bang" didn't go "bang". It is a misnomer for the idea (initially coined as a dismissive joke but that caught on).

If you really want to understand the idea, asking questions about God on a religious forum is the wrong way to go about it, you need to seek out any of the pure scientific sources introducing the "Big Bang" and surrounding concepts at the introductory layman level. To be fair, even if you're actually only interested in shoring up and promoting your faith, you'd do better with a basic understanding of the theories you're dismissing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Those are two entirely separate (and incomplete) points so there is zero reason to consider them together.

Lots of non-religious people are also thinking; "How did it all start?". God isn't automatically relevant to that question.

The "Big Bang" didn't go "bang". It is a misnomer for the idea (initially coined as a dismissive joke but that caught on).

If you really want to understand the idea, asking questions about God on a religious forum is the wrong way to go about it, you need to seek out any of the pure scientific sources introducing the "Big Bang" and surrounding concepts at the introductory layman level. To be fair, even if you're actually only interested in shoring up and promoting your faith, you'd do better with a basic understanding of the theories you're dismissing.

As long as you get that the "Big Bang" is not a fact, we can play that came.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because a gazillion threads in RF is about that "God does not exist"

I don't see how that relates to my post.

Another way to look at my question: even if we assumed that God does exist, wouldn't we still want to understand how the universe started?

... or do you think that you already have an understanding of how the universe started (and this understanding depends on God's existence)?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't see how that relates to my post.

Another way to look at my question: even if we assumed that God does exist, wouldn't we still want to understand how the universe started?

... or do you think that you already have an understanding of how the universe started (and this understanding depends on God's existence)?

Do you think, we can understand that as such?

 

[Polymath257]

By definition God always existed and will always exist. Is that so hard for people to grasp? Really!

Well, that is certainly *one* possible definition. So, using that definition, how do we know that the universe isn't God?

All I know is that existence exists so there must be eternal, infinite existence out there.

I don't see how that follows.

In an infinite existence you could conceivably have an existence that is fundamental, and totally unconditional as for its eternal existence.

Conceivable is not the same as actual.

No one knows if our universe is eternal, or exists because of prior conditions. One thing I'm certain of is that the universe in its present condition is fleeting. It won't stay the same forever.

That may depend on how broadly you mean 'the universe in its present condition'.