Why is?

[The Sum of Awe]

Why does it all exist instead of not exist? Wouldn't one think that the default state of 'existence' is, in fact, non-existence? Existence requires action/energy to exist, whereas nonexistence is just the lack of existence, it doesn't require anything.

Why did nonexistence beget something? (even if you believe in a God or gods, they still happened to exist instead of not exist)

It makes it clear to me that everything that is happening is exactly how it's supposed to happen. From the leaves blowing in the wind and getting caught, not on the third, but the fourth hole of the gutter. To the squirrel that climbed up a tree and rested, not on the branch on the bottom, but the second branch from the bottom. To the human that is signing up for an account on Religious Forums, not yesterday, but today.

Whether it came from God, or is God, or came from natural forces, or is natural forces, (or all of the above), this IS the default, everything that's happening. But it's just so curious as to why it's the default.

 

[Secret Chief]

Above my pay grade.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If the characteristic of non existence or existence went missing, one would never be able to distinguish between the two terms.

I would say it's all the same side of a no sided coin.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Why does it all exist instead of not exist? Wouldn't one think that the default state of 'existence' is, in fact, non-existence? Existence requires action/energy to exist, whereas nonexistence is just the lack of existence, it doesn't require anything.

Why did nonexistence beget something? (even if you believe in a God or gods, they still happened to exist instead of not exist)

It makes it clear to me that everything that is happening is exactly how it's supposed to happen. From the leaves blowing in the wind and getting caught, not on the third, but the fourth hole of the gutter. To the squirrel that climbed up a tree and rested, not on the branch on the bottom, but the second branch from the bottom. To the human that is signing up for an account on Religious Forums, not yesterday, but today.

Whether it came from God, or is God, or came from natural forces, or is natural forces, (or all of the above), this IS the default, everything that's happening. But it's just so curious as to why it's the default.

You're making the unfounded assumption that nothing existed prior to the beginning of our universe. The Big Bang suggests that everything existed prior to the expansion, but just in a different form... something akin to a singularity.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

You're making the unfounded assumption that nothing existed prior to the beginning of our universe. The Big Bang suggests that everything existed prior to the expansion, but just in a different form... something akin to a singularity.

But that would also be 'something' and therefore the question repeats itself: why did that exist?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

If the characteristic of non existence or existence went missing, one would never be able to distinguish between the two terms.

I would say it's all the same side of a no sided coin.

Hmm, so are you saying that existence exists because without it there would be no lack of existence?

 

[QuestioningMind]

But that would also be 'something' and therefore the question repeats itself: why did that exist?

Unless someone can figure out how to look at what happened prior to the Big Bang, we'll never know.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Why does it all exist instead of not exist? Wouldn't one think that the default state of 'existence' is, in fact, non-existence? Existence requires action/energy to exist, whereas nonexistence is just the lack of existence, it doesn't require anything.
Why did nonexistence beget something?

Perhaps you are right. I also think that existence and non existence are just phases. 3,000 years ago, RigVeda also said this.

sato bandhum asati niravindan hṛidi pratīṣyākavayo manīṣā ll
"Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent."
sat = existence, asat = non-existence, bandhum = kinship, hridi = heart, kavayo = sages, pratishya = surmised, manisa = by contemplation
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation.

Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek said "Nothing is unstable". What we lack is a solid proof of it.

 

[F1fan]

Why does it all exist instead of not exist?

Quite the contrary. If nothing exists, then end of story.

If nothing exists, then how can existence just begin unless something exists to cause it? So you trap yourself with your own question.

I hear theists insist their God caused things to exist, but then their God must exist first, and what caused it? And somehow the uncaused God can cause something from nothing. So no clear line of thinking there.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yeah, difficult to understand at present time, virtual particles being the closest to it. What do we know about properties of existence and non-existence? Did we know the "concepts including 4-dimensional spacetime as a unified entity of space and time, relativity of simultaneity, kinematic and gravitational time dilation, and length contraction" (Theory of relativity - Wikipedia) in 19th Century (not touching Quantum mechanics - Wikipedia at the moment which is even more strange )?

Why there is anything at all - Wikipedia (Philosophical explanations)

"To set nothing correctly apart from something, one must declare the specific level at which the something and the nothing are articulated. Both are therefore not only declared by their own definition but need to be declared within a larger reality as well. Without declaring the overall setting — and this brings us to the overall level that Gödel already explored — it becomes difficult to declare whether we're talking about a tree or about a forest, particularly where nothing is concerned."
Something (concept) - Wikipedia