Atheists/Theists: What happened in the beginning?
955092
There is no "first cause," nor reason for the Big Bang.  There is no "reason" for anything that happens in our universe -- things happen because of reactions between matter and energy, and in accordance with natural laws.\n\nYour question actually does a very good job of pointing out what is really the BIGGEST difference between religious people and those who accept the evidence showing no god of any kind...\n\nReligious people seem to always assume there is indeed a reason for something.  You'll see the comments here all the time:  "I know god exists, because I saw a beautiful sunset and that just couldn't happen without a reason!" or "God put us here on earth for a reason!"  \n\nThose of us that accept the evidence that there is no god don't need reasons for everything that happens.  We know that if there's enough hydrogen gas in a large volume of space, and it gets gravitationally purturbed, it will start condensing and eventually form a star.  Planets form in the matter pulled into the protoplanetary disc around the star, and once the star begins fusing hydrogen into helium and any of the planets have atmospheres, you're going to get sunsets.  Any dust or particulate matter in a nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere, along with a little water vapor, makes the sunsets look red along the horizon.  Throw in some clouds to be differentially lit by the sun as you turn away from the sun in your planet's rotation, and you get a beautiful sunset.  It's physics, not the will of god.  There are beautiful sunsets on Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (and other planets), with nobody there to see them -- not because god made a beautiful sunset for anyone to see, but the same physics that give us ours.\n\nThere is no reason for things happening.  The natural universe goes merrily on its way, doing what it does ignorant of the little beings on the small blue planet in our solar system and of their desire to find a reason for everything.  The universe doesn't care about reasons...and neither do I :)\nPeace.
832745
WOWZER! You certainly did some serious investigation and put a LOT of thought into this! This kind of explanation makes an atheist proud (I'm serious)! Rather than the usual slings and arrows, you've delivered a very in-depth explanation of "the true believer" (or fundie), without calling names or the usual put-downs. Even so, just wait for the fur to fly anyway (from the fundies and others).\n\nI agree with almost all of it, especially the connection with how the Army breaks down its enlisted men & women, to brainwash them. You show how human survival mechanisms are actually turned AGAINST them in order to achieve full acceptance and subservience!\n\nNow, instead of feeling annoyed by fundies, this actually makes me pity them (well, 'til the next one insults me!). \n\nSome of the Behaviorist stuff has come under fire in recent decades, as too simplistic...but much of it holds water.\n\nI would LOVE to know what your sources are! Can you add them? GREAT POST!
1145860
i more than agree. the separation of teaching religions from public school caused to have an atheist generation. they don't believe in any thing but their insect desires. they become gradually like animals. I blame governments and parents for this decline. God is exist. he gives lots of things like health, family and love. and he gives illness and poverty because of our faults and mistakes, or to test our faith. I hope he be merciful with us at the day of judgement.
1100356
I wrote an article related to this... I hope you will take the time to really read it because it covers all the questions that you are asking. I wrote this paper not to accuse others... but to defend my faith in light of statements people ask concerning my faith in light of what I have learned from science. \n\n"Biblical Creationism: Fact or Myth? \nScientific Evidences for Skeptics to Ponder"\n\nDo you know what life is? I believe it's like a science experiment. We're here to find out why we are here. Unless you know a better reason, I'd say, it is to be skeptical and figure things out. \n\nIn case you didn't know; "skeptic" is a Greek word that means "to examine". We need to examine all the evidence and make up our minds what the truth is. I think that a lot of people get college degrees but devote themselves to one particular school of thought. They follow those thoughts without question and enjoy the mutual companionship of their closed group of peers. Most never realize that their grand theories are founded on mere presuppositions that have little to do with the facts.\n\nI think that a lot of people would believe in God right now if He personally appeared to them. If God appeared to anyone, in any form, it would be enough to convince them it was really Him! But then we wouldn't have a choice; no opportunity to grasp love's concepts. God does not want to force us to follow Him; just be willing to make that choice for ourselves!\n\nThink about it; all the ancient religions taught that the universe had no beginning,... but one. Some taught that gods came out of sort of a watery substance and that the earth was made through great upheavals and violence between the gods. A religion is worthless unless it is grounded in scientific facts! If there is such a religion today, then we better find out what the truth is in all this!\n\nI believe the God of the Bible is the most logical explanation for our universe as we know it today. Consider these next few statements of rational logic. First, there has to be a cause for every effect. The universe had to come from something. There is no natural explanation for how the sun, moon, and stars could come from nothing! Therefore, for every effect, there has to be a cause! This Cause has to come from outside the universe; outside of nature. In other words;...supernatural. When I state "supernatural" I mean; a limitless being outside of time and space. Think about it! The only religion that ever stated otherwise was the biblical concept of Genesis! God always existed, but the universe did not!\n\nSecond, the Cause must be independent of it's effect. It can not be required to depend it's existence upon the universe. For nothing can change from a state of nothingness.\n\nThird, the Cause must be infinitely powerful! If it were limited, it would have to be confined by some other thing. It can not be limited by nothing and if it were limited, it would not be independent any longer. The effect can not be greater than the cause. The Cause has to be greater than the effect! It has to be greater than all the forces of the universe combined!\n\nFourth, the first Cause must be eternal. The creator must exist outside of time. The God of the Bible stated this in Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58. All the other religions honored harvest gods, war gods, moon gods, sun gods, animal-headed gods, fertility gods and goddesses. In fact, most of these gods were restricted to time as well as location. (1)\n\nFifth, the first Cause must be spiritual. Only an entity outside the universe could have created it. It must be beyond the physical elements. John 4:24 states that God is Spirit.\n\nSixth, the first Cause must be all-knowing. The creator created the universe. Albert Einstein wrote, "The harmony of natural law... reveals and intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an
1091091
You picked a very difficult question to answer for the simple fact we have atheists that don't belive in God. The evolution of mankind lay's in the hand of the unknown, but it is simply a miracle of life period.
503823
Before there was any creation... there was Deity and there was "Void and Darkness on the deep"... and on the first day Deity created light and seperated the light from the darkness and the light he called day the the darkness night... and that was the end of the first day..."""\n\nWhat this all measn is that Deity (Deity is what finite man has named as God) existed before any creation was begun... Deity was without beginning and without end...in a dark void... no energy, nothing... no light... nothing... no space... nothing... on planets...nothing ... only VOID... emptiness and darkness... and Deity was the...UNCAUSED CAUSE... torpod, quiecient, omni-present; omni-potential; omni-niescnet.  The prefix omni = all and the word pressent = everywhere; the word potential = withouth limits able to do all things; and the word nicecent = knowing everything.  Remember there is no Time/Space as yet!\n\nGod was "quiscent"... meaning a sort of potential dormancy  a "happening waiting to happen..." and then he ACTED... and upon that one action potential became reality... and it was as if God "took his first breath"... and with that exhale... God's essence or particles filled the darkness and void... and that first breath was "energy" and the first aspect of creation was energy and it was created....and with that first breat of exhalation the creation of (light) energy became an explosion of "light" or energy...which we call the Big Bang... and Deity seperated the light... or energy into "day" = positive energy and "night" = negative energy... and that was the end of the first day.  And upon that action The Uncaused Cause became ACTIVE and EXISTENTIAL = THE FIRST SOURCE AND CENTER of all essence of CREATION.  What Quantum physicists call today... "The God Particle" of creation.\n\nDeity needed essence in order to create... essence that was to become matter... energy, positive and negative as the basis of all energy and matter... Deity went from being dormant to active and his essence fill the darkness and void into energy = (light) both Positive = (day) and Negetive = night) and for that God had matter or His essence to make material reality or Creation of the Universes... = "The God Particle."  \n\nYes and with that action on the first day Deity went from the UNCAUSED CAUSE to the FIRST SOURCE AND CENTER... and recognized hiself from inactive potential to active actual and became the I AM = self-awareness, from existential to experiential. And with the actualization of the I AM = GOD ...and the beginning of Creation, was established the Son of God... the CO-CREATOR, of THE ESSENCE OF GOD... the I AM... and the union of the CO-CREATOR within the I AM begot the union of the two by the mindal molding together by a DIVINE MINDAL SPIRIT that was shared  and made the two a union of one... and that binding... the activation of the DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT was the force that was the seat of all spiritual and mindal reality in the activity in creation of spiritual essence and the third essence of God the I AM, the First Source and Center, the UNCAUSED CAUSE.\nSo from the very beginning they all were contained within the UNCAUSED CAUSE... and the DIVINITY of ALL GOD'S attributes combined into ONE GOD ...the unification. \n\nSo Deity did exist from all time... as the UNCAUSED CAUSE... before there was a man who could with his finite and limited mind acknowledge him and give him recognition, and with the personalization of the Deity by man the term God always acknowledged and put into existence... We are the finite ones... NOT... GOD, THE CO-CREATOR SON, or THE DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT that is shared by the two to make three... as the DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE source of all Divinity... mindal attributes of spirit, that spirit that we are endowed with at our conception by God and fuse with our physical bodies that create our eternal souls... f
624323
Or another way to ask your question, what CAUSED God?  Only things that have a beginning require a cause to get started.  Seeing God had no beginning, he did not require anything to cause Him to be.  I think He said it best when He said, "I am".
919797
i was born an atheist (without belief in god(s) as everyone is, taught Catholicism (Christianity with saints), and then born again atheist for 20 years.\n\nbelievers are born without belief also, but they are taught to believe in one form or another, usually starting at early childhood.\n\nit's hard to shake the effects of brainwashing when it starts so young. some, like myself, are lucky to break free of the superstition.
754703
What would my being an atheist have anything to do with the existence of Christopher Columbus?  It's documented history that he landed his ship in the Americas.  It's a common misconception that he discovered them as well.  Understanding history has no bearing on whether or not I believe in God...
1135752
Bertrand Russell  and G.E Moore posed a similar issue many years ago when one of them suggested something like the following: Suppose you were created 5 minutes ago, complete with memories.  How would you prove what was real?\nThis has, of course, given way to many explanations and many theories of epistemology.  How do we know anything at all? Is it handed out by a great and powerful God or did matter just gel together and create mankind?\nI cannot pretend to be able to answer the question but I will suggest food for thought; in any human endeavor, we believe in something first and discover its efficacy later.  That is, we think we see something before our eyes, say as a child, and then we figure out how to reach out and grab it.  In this way, babies discover that they can reach their rattles and blankets and Mommy, but they cannot reach the window, the sky or the ceiling fan.  As adults, we learn to use the keyboard by pressing buttons and testing the results.  However if you wish to suggest that there might not be any keyboards in existence, I would give you a funny look and ask what you meant.\nHence I am suggesting that your question is turned upside down:  we do, in fact, each of us, believe that matter exists and has existed for some time.  While some believe in God as the prime cause, others believe in some sort of eternal material goo which somehow, and somewhat embarrassingly, developed a spiritual nature that ended up as mankind.  In both cases, what gives us comfort in our lives often leads us to our conclusions about beginnings rather than the reverse.\nLastly, when we are angry with the actions of others, we usually take it out on ourselves.  As Montaigne suggested, more blood has been spilled in the name of God than by any other cause.  Frankly, I don't see how we could blame God for that any more than we can blame him for not giving us the answers we demand.  I think His purpose might have been to teach us how ridiculous we are when we act in an immoral way, but judging by the present state of things, perhaps that isn't working all that well.  The state of the world today is better explained by the primoridial goo theory and the spirit of human beings? Maybe it's just a terminal case of a bad design flaw.  Of course it could just be bad personal behavior and unending greed, but lots of people would have trouble with an absolute morality.  By this time, maybe God does too!\nThink of this, the next time you get the urge to wonder about something: an atheist is, by definition, someone who denies the existence of something which doesn't exist.
325652
God never came into being, he just "was". A good philosophical question though. I think rephrasing it to something more like "What is God" Because God created time, so there was nothing before him, because he created the sequence of events. If you eliminate time from your thought and say, well if God is this thing out there always and been there always, can there be anything bigger or better or precede him. I try and ask these questions all the time but again I remember some simple things. God created our understanding. He created the unniverse, time and is all powerful. I don't think we could ever comprehend even what he is or "how he came into being". To us, we understand everthing as having a start and end, or at least a start. To God, none of this makes and difference to him. We would have to think outside the box to even start to understand. When I say out of the box I mean beyond our ability to think. Although if we goto heaven we supposedly are just our souls and then we can understand because our souls aren't limited to the physical realm which our brains are. \n\nAnyways hope this has helped. Yes God is always around us, don't think he is living, he is neither dead nor alive, just existing.
505300
god has no beginning and has no end\nhe wasnt created\nhe is since forever and will stay forever\nno time limits\nand the creation of the universe started with the BIG BANG which was an expolosion emmitting light.....\nso light basically was one of the first creations\nand god commanded...and things came into existance!
246724
OK, according to the Bible, the creation of the heavens and the earth was "the beginning". So, we don't know what God was up to before that time (and in most views, this is irrelevant because God is 'timeless').\nWe are given no explanation of where God came from, it is simply assumed that God always has been (no matter what belief system, Evolution, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, or any other, there comes a point where you simply have to say "I don't know where it/He/we came from").\nBack to the Bible ... Since 'the begining' is the creation of heavens and earth, NOTHING (other than God) existed before that time. God then began a process of 'forming' and 'filling' His creation. This process took Him six days. On day one, He created light and separated it from the darkness, calling it one day. This was the forming of the heavens (space/time).\nOn day two, He formed the atmosphere by separating the waters above from the waters beneath.\nOn day three, He begins to fill what He has formed, starting with the earth, separating the water from the land, and filling the land with growing things (plants).\nOn day four, He fills the heavens (above the atmosphere) with the sun, moon, and stars (probably the angels were created on this day as well).\nOn day five, He fills the water with fish (and other water-dwelling creatures), and the firmament (atomosphere) with birds (and other flying creatures)\nOn day six, He filled the land with all land-dwellers and created man in His own image to rule over the earth as the Vice-regent of God. \nOn day Seven, God rested from (stopped) the work of creation.\nNow, Genesis chapter 2 is often mis-understood to be a contradiction of Genesis 1 because of some differences in the order of creation, and some added details, so I will try to give a little understanding to this. Have you aver read a newspaper headline? Gen. 1 is the 'headline' and the main article is in Gen. 2. This is a detailed account of what happened on day 6, where God made a garden, placed the man in the garden, and then created one of each 'kind' of creation right before his eyes so the man could name them and rule them in equity. Then God created the woman to be with the man (by this time, Adam knew he needed a mate too!)\nIn the garden Adam and Eve had only ONE restriction - They were free to do ANYTHING they wanted to do with the exception of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were clearly told the penalty of this would be death.\nIn spite of this knowledge, they both ate of the tree, and as a result, death entered the world, and the perfect creation of God was ruined. Instead of killing Adam and Eve though, God provided a 'loophole' in the law, and an animal (probably a lamb) was killed instead. In this way Adam and Eve saw the result of their sin brought death into the world, but God spared their lives for the time. By clothing them in the skins of the animal killed in their stead, God was giving them a constant reminder of the result of sin, and reminding them that He accepted them through the substitution of the animal killed in their place.\nThen God makes an extraordinary promise (Gen. 3:15) That the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent who deceived her.\n\nWe now skip ahead to a time when evil has grown on the earth to the point God can no longer stand it (Gen. 6), and men have stopped caring whether or not they are in right standing with God, forsaking the sacrifice, and offending God in all their thoughts and deeds (possibly because even though Adam lived to the age of 930 years, he eventually did die). \nBut there is one man (Adam's great, great, great, great, great, great, granson) who is still seeking God, and observing the sacrifice for atonement of sin. This man's name was Noah, and God judged the entire world with a flood, but spared Noah and his family (as well as each k
518129
Man created god to explain what he did not understand,\nthrough science began to unlock the mysteries of the universe.\ngod is dead
686883
"Everything that has a beginning has to have a cause." \nWhy do you say this?  As you should know, absolute statements are frequently wrong.  Still, I can roll with this.  Okay, for the moment I'll play along and say that everything must have a beginning.\n\n"Only God is self-existing without beginning, without a cause outside Himself." \nWhat?!?!?!?  What about your statement above?  Can't you see that you totally contradict yourself?  You have just violated logic and trashed your own argument.  Sigh.  If everything needs a beginning, then so does a creator.  If you make an exception for a creator, then you could also make an exception for the universe.\n\nWhere is your evidence for either of these two statements?  Where is your evidence for a creator without beginning?  I think you are trying to avoid falling into the "Who created the creator" question, but skirting the question does not eliminate it.\n\nOccam's Razor:  which is the simpler theory?  A universe without beginning or a creator without beginning that created a universe?\n\nI hesitated answering this question because I felt that you merely asked it to find someone who agreed with you, and that you would choose that as the "best answer".  I didn't want to screw up my best answer ratio... but thought it more important to show you the flaws in your logic.\n\nGood luck in your Q&A's.
432150
It is an eternal question that we'll never know the answer to until we are dead.  I'd sit there when I was younger and think who made God and who made the being that created God and who made that being.  I think our sense of beginning and end is not in line with the big picture.  Our minds aren't ready for the truth.
1146395
The devil is trying so hard to make sure that people reject God and his ultimate story / love letter to us.  Atheism, whether folks want to admit it or not, is a religion as well.  I love your binary code there!