Atheists, as far as causes go for life or the universe or whatever.?

You're trying to understand "no starting point" with a human brain. There are limits to understanding. Perhaps the universe has always existed in some form or another.

What we call "Our Universe" is a subset of dimensions within a larger Cosmos which is infinite, unending, and without cause. Our Universe came into existence due to natural conditions in the larger Cosmos. What those conditions were and how they work is unknowable. Those conditions have no intelligence and no purpose. There is no reason for our Universe being formed. It came into existence because it did. No other reason. There is no purpose to our Universe. It will continue to exist and expand until far in the future it will fade into nothingness.

Life is the natural consequence of carbon based organic chemistry following the physical laws of our Universe. The reason we are here is pure, simple, random chance. Life has existed on the planet Earth for nearly four billion years. It will not exist on this planet forever. Eventually conditions on the Earth will become too hostile for life to exist on it. If the human race does not develop the means to leave our solar system and learn to live in deep space eventually moving to other stars, it will become extinct. Of course eventually the entire Universe will become hostile to life and everything, every alien race everywhere will become extinct and no one will be left to care.

The secret to life is that there is no secret. We have to live life right now in this very moment, not in some make believe, other existence that doesn't even exist.

Have a real grateful day.

A creator cannot create if there is no time to create in the first place. Two infinite values such as a creator and time is not applicable. Can a creator create a universe so big even he can't finish it? Thats doesn't make sense because the creator would never finish creating, unless you believe the universe is closed... which I highly doubt because time and space are infinite. I believe in the chaos theory.

It's hard to mount a plausible argument from incredulity when all the options are equally incredible. No matter which way you look at it, the universe is more than we can really get our heads around. An eternal universe or one with definite end points are equally beyond human understanding.

Because man's notion of the universe is defined by natural perception, and all natural perceptions imply a change in perception, all things naturally perceived imply a former perception. Thus since the perception at the limit of causal imagination requires a former but unknown perception, God is proven to exist.

Why do you think atheists believe there was no "starting point"?

Just because we don't think some dude up in the sky created the universe doesn't mean we don't think it's possible that there was a starting point.

1. The universe did not have to be created.

2. The concept of a first cause is evidence against God.

3. The chain of causality has never been proven to be absolute.

First Cause arguments have been long refuted.

First Cause Theory, huh?

Alright. Who created the creator?

Even if this kind of logic leads to where you want it, as far as your purpose in asking this question in the first place goes, how would you know the creator is who you think it is?

Scripture?

*Then* starts the questions of scriptural scholarship, which are just as hard if not harder to answer than these questions of science, philosophy, and creation.

Good luck to us all.

If you want to convince atheists, this is a bad way to go. Most atheists will easily refute the First Cause argument and any variation of it.

yes, there has to be a start point. So?

by the way, I wouldn't use 'created'. If the universe was created, something would have had to create the creater, et cetera.