Atheists: Is it really reasonable to reject the possibility that an infinite being created the universe?

For thousands of years, people have said that their god was behind what they didn't understand -- lightning, stars, earthquakes, life, the origin of the world or the universe, etc. You are using the same concept.

Positing a god to supposedly answer a question solves nothing. It just stops you from asking more questions.

Science has shown that there's no need for gods to explain the traditional reasons for a god -- origin of the universe, origin of life, origin of species, origin of humans, origin of morality. Science also shows us the psychological reasons that people believe in god(s).

There are many well-respected physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Sean M. Carroll, Victor Stenger, Michio Kaku, Alan Guth, Robert A.J. Matthews, and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, who have created scientific models where the Big Bang and thus the entire universe could arise from nothing but a quantum vacuum fluctuation -- via natural processes.

I know that this doesn't make sense in our Newtonian experience, but it does in the realm of quantum mechanics and relativity. As Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman wrote, "The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as she is — absurd."

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today."

— Isaac Asimov

For more, watch the video at the 1st link - "A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss.

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Your view is based on something which has lost it's credibility. Like the boy who cried wolf maybe some parts of it are true, eg Jesus existed. Creationism asks that you believe an infinite being created us in his image yet made us finite. That we accept that all of us are a result of inbreeding. That we choose to ignore dinosaurs and what evidence there is to support the theory of evolution, evolution is backed by much more fact than creation.

If you suggest that god being infinite is logical then the universe and everything outside of it being infinite shouldn't be difficult for you to believe. I have never heard of a theory which suggests a universe could be created from nothing other than that found in the bible, the bible just expects "god did it" to be an adequate explanation. The big bang theory says the universe is expanding constantly like an explosion. Try to imagine nothing, there is no space to be empty, there is no colour, no light, no darkness. If you are imagining anything that isn't right, because it isn't nothing. We are incapable of understanding it so some say god must have done it.

Wait, wait. The universe didn't evolve life.

Repeat that sentence until you understand it. The universe did not evolve life.

Life evolved in the universe.

Now, "[a] bit like magic under the guise of scientific conjecture"? Honestly? My dear young fellow, what you're proposing is just plain magic. A bearded dude sitting in the sky, knowing everything (including the misery of the future) and still setting it into motion...and then you tell us that what we come up with are "A bit like magic under the guise of scientific conjecture"? Come now, let's not play pots and kettles again...

By the way, let's say that you're a pantheist, in which case you believe that *everything* is God--the universe is God. Then what happens to your question?

And if you use the argument that "something cannot come from nothing," then you have to provide an explanation of where "God" came from in the same breath.

There's a huge difference (which apparently you don't understand) between rejecting specific claims that specific infinite beings DID create the universe -- because they have no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and rejecting "possibility."

Darn near anything is "possible." It's "possible" the universe was created by giant purple sentient tomatoes. You can't prove that they didn't create the universe, either. Does that mean if I go around claiming that's what happened, you should believe my claim? Or should you (rightly) reject my claim, without any supporting evidence, as worthless?

You're the one that claims a infinite being created the universe. Since you have no evidence of any kind to show that claim is correct, I reject your claim as worthless. It has no more value than mine about tomatoes does. If you don't know how the universe began, the honest thing to say is "I don't know yet." It's dishonest and fallacious to claim you DO know, when you don't. And you don't.

By the way, there is no scientific explanation of anything, anywhere, that says "nothing suddenly became something for no reason." So not only are you making fallacious and worthless claims, you're doing it out of ignorance of facts. How sad.

Peace.

The idea that an infinite omnipotent being that existed for an eternity all alone before decided to create the universe out of nothing for no reason seems pretty far fetched to me. It's completely like magic and fairy tales under the guise of religious doctrine. For any god to exist, it must have had something greater, or something spontaneous, to have put this god in motion. Nothing just 'exists' without cause for an eternity.

It is reasonable to reject any unprovable or supernatural explanation.

However, once it is proven, then I won't reject it.

If you want to base the existence of your god on the fact that it was that god that created the universe, then will you become an atheist when you are proven wrong?

If you learn about quantum physics - and it doesn't take a whole lot of classes to do this, maybe just a few physics lectures, or a few easy-to-read books, you will see that something can indeed come out of nothing.

Currently, as you implied, we have no proven model of what existed before or caused the universe.

I might take pleasure in thinking my brain created the universe, or my great-great-grandfather's god created the universe, or even that your god (or something you describe as an infinite being) created the universe.

But, the fact is, we do not know.

The question of life is a different question, and much easier.

I don't reject the possibility that an infinite being exists. I reject the claims made that such a being does exist.

It is no different from my rejection of the existence of aliens. I don't reject the possibility of there being aliens, just the claims that there are aliens that have visited us.

No one says from a scientific point of view that nothing became something for no reason. Your question shows that you do not understand nor have studied cosmology. Nothing in cosmological studies relies on magic. Your ignorance of a subject does not make it any less reasonable.

Until evidence of your infinite being, which is othing more than a special pleading argument in disguise, your hypothesis is less likely.

That's because you're using a giant straw-man argument. There was never "nothing"; likely just a previous, collapsing universe that expanded again. These "laws and order" are just how matter and energy work; if they worked any other way, you'd say the same thing.

It is possible that a deity exists, but its properties are unknowable. I can reject specific gods whose characteristics are self-contradicting (a flawless being that needs worship, an all-loving being that condones eternal suffering, etc.).

I dont reject the possibility, in the same way it perhaps IS possible that an undetectable dragon is hovering above your head and will kill you in the next 10 seconds, but the thing is, there is no way to falsify it's existence, no credible evidence for its existence, and its existence is exponentially improbable.

EXACTLY like anyones concept of a personal god or intelligent creator.

Logically, the universe did not even require a cause, much less a creator, much MUCH less your chosen concept of one.

Something didn't suddenly come from nothing. The pieces and parts were present to establish and cause something different to come into existence. The things you call "law and order" are just how things work. Gravity exists because it does. It doesn't exist because a deity named it. It is more magic and superstition to believe in the existence of a god without any evidence of his existence than to believe in a mundane creation of the universes that we know exists.