I'm sure it's been discussed a million times on this forum but I'm not sure how to find it using the search option. I have a question and have never really known an atheist to ask it of. It's, I'm sure, the question you get most frequently but I was really curious as to some of the different answers. For what it's worth, I believe in God (though I have doubts) but do not subscribe to any religion. Anyways:

If there is no God, where did the first object, thing, molecue, whatever you think came first, come from? What is your explanation?

This is the only part of Atheism that I can't grasp. Even atheists have to believe in something that's unexplainable, right? or am I wrong?

You seem to assume we must have a definitive answer, but for the questions we cannot answer, the best answer is: I don’t know.
Once we start to make up answers, we are, for one, almost certain to be wrong; we also grow emotionally attached to our made up answer.
You will see how hard it is to move people from a position they have grown attached to, if you follow these debates.
I don’t know is an underrated answer.

the only acceptable answer to your question given the evidence is "i dont know".

but that wont stop people from trying to claim they do know.

the question you have to ask yourself, is why do you need to know?

p.s. theres a difference between "unexplainable" and "currently no good explanation". The beginnings of the universe could be either of those (too early to tell), but if history is any guide, it, hopefully, is the latter.

"Unexplainable" <> "Unexplained"

Being an atheist does not make me all-knowing. (...and given the internal conflict present in the major religions, religion does not appear to give all the answers they promise either.)

I don't assume that you atheists have the answer. In fact, I know you don't. However, religion at least gives what they think is the explanation and I was wondering if there was some sort of explanation on the atheist side. I mean, that one piece of the puzzle but creep in to your mind in the form of doubt of your beliefs, right? I was wondering how you explain it away. What thearies you might have that you can live with.

The thing to recognise is that God isn't a good fix for this problem anyway. It just changes the problem to "Where does God come from?". When you start to answer that, you're just making stuff up, imposing conditions upon God that you could have just made upon the universe. If you don't answer the question, then you haven't managed to offer a good explanation for where the first thing (which is now God) came from, which was your stated aim.

I can't offer a better explanation than God. I don't think I need to offer a better explanation though. Even if we could get it right, I don't think we'd know it. What it boils down to, is that it just seems better to say "I don't know".

Atheist don't doubt their belief because they have none. That doesn't mean they are not interested in the correct answer to the issue.

Nor would "doubts" creep in anyway, because not knowing the origins of the universe != goddidit.

We're fine with saying we don't know.

200 years ago, you might have said the same thing about the question of how humans came to exist on the Earth. You might have thought that we were put there by God simply because there was no convincing evidence to the contrary. Now, science has shown that life can arise spontaneously with in the right conditions, and that evolution can explain why we are the way we are. What I'm saying is just because we can't answer the question right now, it does not mean that we will never be able to.

If you're interested in the latest scientific work on the nature of the universe and how it may have began, this lecture by Lawrence Krauss (posted in RGT a couple of weeks ago) is extremely interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

There are so many things I don't know the answer to that this one thing is certainly not going to cause me to believe in god. And, as usual: where did god come from?

As long as you're going to fall back on "god always was" as a reasonable explanation, I can always assume the universe always was.

What I meant was that you seem to assume we must commit to one particular answer; that we cannot be content with uncertainty.

When I wrote this: in my original answer, I was trying to preempt the kind of response you give here.
The problem with the argument "at least they have an explanation” is that the explanation is made up nonsense.
It is far better to have no explanation than a false one.
Once you commit to a false explanation, especially if you do so for a long time; it becomes very hard to give it up, this makes it difficult to accept the real answer if it is ever discovered.
Take for example those Christians who deny evolution. At one point in time it made sense to claim that God made all living creatures, because we didn’t know better, and as a result you know have people defending that viewpoint against overwhelming evidence.
They are unable to give up the obviously mistaken answer, because they are emotionally attached to it. This is the danger I see with the "at least they have an answer" mentality.


These are no doubt deeply puzzling questions, but I don’t see there being anything to explain away; I am not claiming that the answer to the origin of the universe, if there is one, must be deterministic; I am simply saying I don’t know, and as far as I can tell no one else does either.

I dont know is an answer and its really not hard to live with.

Something would make us doubt that we don't know where the universe came from? That's the only thing I'm positive of -- no one knows.

This is not a form of agnosticism. Considering the immense size of the universe, and that most of it is super hot gas, it is apparent that no anthropomorphic deity takes a special interest in our measly little galaxy, much less me. So while it makes no sense that a deity concerns itself with humans, beyond that, I have no idea why there is existence, and I doubt we will ever know.

I remember reading of the big bang, that it began with a "singularity." I was enthralled, thought that word represented some sublime insight, and started reading furiously. Eventually, I figured out it was a big word for "sumpin hapnd reel speshul." Well, theists don't actually know where anything came from either. They just replace "singularity" with God. I can't conceive of something that would make me think I actually do know where everything came from.

This.....just because science has not "yet" explained everything, we should not assume God did it!!!

for now we're not entirely sure, but whatever the answer to this is, an eternal intelligent god with superpowers isn't going to be a satisfactory answer. at least not to me.

whatever the origin of reality is, it ultimately has to be very simple. so far, we've got the necessary and sufficient conditions of the universe pretty much pinned down to the presence of gravity (see stephen hawking's latest book for a common-man explanation).

but one thing is probably sure: there will always be some "unknowables". there will always be people saying "oh yeah, but where did THAT come from?!", trying to get the other to be compelled to conclude that god must have done did it.

the problem i have with these people is that they never apply their insistence on knowing where "THAT" came from to their own theory. to them, they can stop asking that when a superpowerful god is introduced. does that make sense?

science is all about trying to dig deeper to know where the next "THAT" came from. so far, all of the next layers have shown decreasing complexity. i believe that the trend should continue, and others want to believe that at the end of the chain of ever-decreasing complexity, there's a being of unimaginable complexity controlling the whole thing.

What? No it has not.

This is also an article of faith, not science. Though maybe you could stretch your definition of "explain" to accommodate.

Nobody currently knows the answer. Theists have a made up guess. If that appeals to you more than not knowing, then use that (just remember that it is irrational and unjustified). But if that is the case, why not just make up your own explanation?

You're right, I mis-spoke. I should say there are valid theories as to how DNA was created spontaneously from natural precursors. As you rightly point out, this has not been demonstrated in practice (AFAIK), because the chance of random molecules becoming arranged in such a manner is so small that the resource requirements for such an experiment would be massive.

I meant this: "Now, science has shown how life can arise spontaneously with in the right conditions"


I'm not sure what you mean by this. Evolution gives a mechanism for how humans developed the physical and mental characteristics we have today.

UnexplainED and unexplainABLE are not the same thing. Just because we don't have a complete understanding of something does not mean god did it or that it is inherently beyond out understanding. It just means we haven't figured it out yet. We'll keep learning and moving towards the truth. We may even get close before we blow ourselves up or destroy our habitat without building a replacement.

no one knows, no proof = no conclusion -> that's science/ atheists

god did it, faith = proof ->theists

Some people, who happen to be scientists, have speculated about how life can arise. They have not shown it (obviously) or even described a sufficient set of measurable causes for it (the minimum requirement of science).

Okay, "evolution" (not science) gives a mechanism. There are no scientific descriptions of the origin of species (i.e. macro-evolution), only faith-based speculation couched in sciency language. There's a huge difference between the two. A scientific description is entirely reducible to known physical phenomena (not that the entire process must have been observed), meaning no handwaving.

Concerto, whats your scientific/educational background/experience?

If nothing existed at t=-1 (one second before big bang), how do you know time existed at t=-1? Just because you can conceive of t=-1, doesn't mean it existed, much like God. If the other dimensions are bounded, there is no reason time can't be bounded as well. If you can't conceive of no t=-1, maybe the problem could be a flaw of yours rather than a problem of reality. After all, the world revolves around me, so time and universe are both a few decades old imo

I'm curious if you're questioning the validity of the claim that life can occur spontaneously out of scientific diligence (if so, then I commend you), or because you think it is more likely that God performed the task of creating life (in which case your belief requires that you find fault with other theories). If it is the former, then I have no problem and appreciate the constructive questioning. If it is the latter, then you presumably think that God initially creating life has a probability of greater than 50%, while current areas of scientific speculation are less than 50% likely to be the true explanation. If this is the case, I wonder if you could present the case for why your belief is more rational than the current scientific hypothesis.

I don't purport to be an expert on macroevolution, and I'm not going to do a Splendour and post some random link with "evidence" which may or may not be reliable. If any of my atheist brethren who know more about the subject have some reliable evidence then I'd appreciate a link.

Even if it's the case that there is no evidence for macroevolution, I hardly think the extension of the mechanisms of microevolution to macroevolution is "faith based speculation". Applying proven mechanisms onto a larger scaled system may still be speculative, but it is speculation based on a firm scientific foundation. Conversely, religious speculation has no evidence basis whatsoever, and is worthless in the pursuit of explanations for natural phenomena.

What? Only a moderator can stop you from using the ad hominem approach, but it's rather lol to ask me to go off-topic to participate in it with you.

There is no contradiction between the two approaches. My criticism against the "evolution" faith is due to its fraudulence as a science.

Neither belief is scientific, while only one pretends to be. That is the extent of my claim. I don't know how to quantify the respective "rationality" of the two approaches.

Assuming the differences are only of scale without a basis in observation is not scientific. That is the point.