That's not really the theory. 'Started out smaller than an atom' is closer.

'Something must have created...'

Something must have caused (or not, quantum events are thought to be random).

'That something must be god'

You can call that something anything you want, but it's sure not accurate to say that something must be YHWH!

well, one of them, was, as you put it, "it's sure not accurate to say that something must be YHWH!"

And, again, if there was "something" that caused anything to come into being or an event to occur, why don't people then ask what came before that? Yet it's a very popular argument that there must be a god because nothing could be but that which was created by something else.

I just thought they deserved a little criticism.

Kind of surprised. I didn't know Stewart was religious.

Last edited Sat Sep 28, 2013, 05:17 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm guessing. He was also pushing the point to Dawkins that religion has done a lot more good than bad in the world.

Jon has this fetish for proving that he's fair-minded that irks me. He often espouses the "both sides are just as bad" argument. And that kumbaya speeech he made at his and Cobert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear that was heralded as so true and so touching was, to me, cloying.

For one thing, it included this line, "Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Party-ers...is an insult, " as well the "life is like a line of cars taking turns entering the Holland Tunnel" analogy. Not to mention his presenting Republican (& probably libertarian) Kid Rock singing a pathetic excuse for a meaningful song, as described here (Though even that guy found the tunnel analogy "poignant"--clearly I am a curmudgeon--OK, maybe I did get a little choked up over it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a manipulative, manufactured tearjerker ):

You can just as easily ask "where did god come from", which automatically triggers a variation of special pleading argument, i.e. "Everything must have a cause except God because god is exempt."

My answer to this discussion is, well, we dont know (yet, at least) where or what the big bang "came from" (OR if that question or statement even has any meaning) however if you look at the history of man's increasing understanding of the universe, phenomena that were once ascribed to having supernatural origin- like where the Earth came from, for instance- are now invariably understood to have occurred through natural processes.

If and when we fully understand the big bang, I suspect we will discover it was the result of, or a part of larger, again, natural processes.

it occurred so long ago. A cold case file, perhaps?

the CMB wall of opaqueness, which is somewhere like 300K years out from the Big Bang or so I think.

If a theoretical framework could be devised which explains the big bang as part of a larger process (say involving string theory-related branes or the ekpyrotic universe) which had physical properties apart from the big bang which could be verified experimentally, then we could figure it out IMHO.

Edited to add: I also think saying "we'll never understand it" is a cop-out. Maybe we won't, but until then we can sure as shit try. Although saying "we don't understand it so it must have been 'God'" is an even bigger cop-out, of course.

are concepts above my pay grade! But I do know enough to know that your last sentence is correct!

I like Robert Ingersoll's answer to this problem

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]If we have a theory, we must have facts for the foundation. We must have corner-stones. We must not build on guesses, fancies, analogies or inferences. The structure must have a basement. If we build, we must begin at the bottom.

I have a theory and I have four corner-stones.

The first stone is that matter -- substance -- cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated.

The second stone is that force cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated.

The third stone is that matter and force cannot exist apart -- no matter without force -- no force without matter.

The fourth stone is that that which cannot be destroyed could not have been created; that the indestructible is the uncreatable.

If these corner-stones are facts, it follows as a necessity that matter and force are from and to eternity; that they can neither be increased nor diminished.

It follows that nothing has been or can be created; that there never has been or can be a creator.

It follows that there could not have been any intelligence, any design back of matter and force.

There is no intelligence without force. There is no force without matter. Consequently there could not by any possibility have been any intelligence, any force, back of matter.

It therefore follows that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. If these four corner-stones are facts, Nature has no master. If matter and force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no God exists; that no God created or governs the universe; that no God exists who answers prayer; no God who succors the oppressed; no God who pities the sufferings of innocence; no God who cares for the slaves with scarred flesh, the mothers robbed of their babes; no God who rescues the tortured, and no God that saves a martyr from the flames. In other words, it proves that man has never received any help from heaven; that all sacrifices have been in vain, and that all prayers have died unanswered in the heedless air. I do not pretend to know. I say what I think.

If matter and force have existed from eternity, it then follows that all that has been possible has happened, all that is possible is happening, and all that will be possible will happen.

In the universe there is no chance, no caprice. Every event has parents.

That which has not happened, could not. The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.

In the infinite chain there is, and there can be, no broken, no missing link. The form and motion of every star, the climate of every world, all forms of vegetable and animal life, all instinct, intelligence and conscience, all assertions and denials, all vices and virtues, all thoughts and dreams, all hopes and fears, are necessities. Not one of the countless things and relations in the universe could have been different.

Their argument is that god created the universe and that god does not need a creator because he has always been there. He is eternal.

Well, Atoms are made of matter and matter is made of energy; and, according to the first law of thermodynamics energy and matter can not be created or destroyed.

Therefore matter and energy are eternal. They have always been here since time began and needed no "creator."

Thus, god is nothing more than an unnecessary middle man. From there we note that by the law of parsimony that complexity in nature does not multiply beyond what is necessary; and, thus by Occam's Razor we can remove god from the equation entirely.

as Ingersoll says, it is pointless to pray to that "god" or to think that "god" cares about humans. (Although, seems to me that all the misery suffered by the innocent and all the success and power enjoyed by the violent, greedy bastards out there, regardless of how much or little the members of either of those groups prays, already proves that pointlessness.)

There is very little difference in saying there is no god and that god is all. It does not change how we relate to one another or to anything.

It seems to me like its pushing the definition of god to the limit or like some sort of "spiritual" atheism. I guess Pantheism is not my thing.

And, we've split plenty of atoms...

He said this in 1899. He did not have access to that information at that time.

We have to keep things in context of the times they were said.

My bad.

argument?

“My father taught me that the question ‘Who made me?’ cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made god?’”