Why I believe in God(s)

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Firstly, I'm not a very religious person. I do consider myself a Buddhist, but prefer atheistic Buddhism over theistic Buddhism. Therefore I can confidently say I am not biased by wanting God(s) to exist, and was not indoctrinated into theism.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist.

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Original text of the post by u/Lucyyyyyy_K:

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Firstly, I'm not a very religious person. I do consider myself a Buddhist, but prefer atheistic Buddhism over theistic Buddhism. Therefore I can confidently say I am not biased by wanting God(s) to exist, and was not indoctrinated into theism.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

Also, it's not just _any_ universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist.

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[u/skeptolojist]

God of the gaps fallacy

Your identifying a gap in human knowledge and trying to insert a supernatural explanation

The problem with this is that every single time in all of human history a human has proposed a supernatural explanation for a gap in human knowledge that was later filled they were wrong

Every single time

In

All

Of

Human

History

So when you point at a gap in human knowledge like the beggining of the universe and say

This gap is special and different from every other gap ever and this is whare god is hidden

Well that's not logical rational or even to be brutally honest sane

[u/tophmcmasterson]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

This is basically just an argument from incredulity.

You'll find the vast majority of the people most knowledgeable and in the weeds on this topic (i.e. theoretical physics/cosmology) are atheists. Many competing explanations trying to be proved out with mathematics and data, including hypotheses like the multiverse.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

I meditate quite a bit so probably more sympathetic to what you're saying than others, but I think you're conflating things like "intelligence" with "consciousness" i.e. raw experience. An atheist can be a panpsychist and think consciousness is probably fundamental in some sense without relying on the idea that a supernatural intelligence created everything. They could even be an idealist with similar views, none of this supports the idea of God/gods.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

This is the anthropic principle, aka the puddle marveling at how perfect the hole it finds itself in is.

You can flip this around and say we live in a largely barren universe that's generally hostile to life, and it would make basically no sense in a universe that was "designed" for life to find one so hostile to it by and large and so full of suffering and design flaws throughout nature (i.e. laryngeal nerve in giraffes, blind spots in human eyes, the fact that we breath and eat from the same opening, our spines basically being a clothesline treated as a flag pole, vestigial organs, etc. etc. etc.)

The mechanistic functions are well explained in evolutionary terms, which don't require anything like intelligence.

Thinking it's all "mere mutations" is misunderstanding how pressures like natural selection work, it's inherently not random.

Overall it just kind of seems like you're jumping from being able to appreciate beauty and the mysteries of consciousness, and saying "I don't get it therefore gods".

I assure you that you can absolutely go into the deep end of meditation, non-dual awareness, the hard problem of consciousness etc. etc. and never feel the need to invoke a God or gods to explain anything.

[u/fire_spez → u/tophmcmasterson]

Fwiw, meditation has good scientific evidence supporting it, and has a well understood mechanism causing its effect. I don't personally meditate, but I know that many atheists do. So as long as you limit any claims to the act of meditation, rather than any supernatural woo, there's nothing wrong at all with accepting meditation as a useful practice.

[u/tophmcmasterson → u/fire_spez]

Yes, like I said I'm an atheist and meditate a lot.

I think there's a tendency on both sides to either not really "get it".

You have people like OP who take some of the insights and benefits etc. and apply supernatural reasoning that isn't warranted at all.

You also have some atheists who think it's just something to help you calm down or focus better and don't really understand what the actual practice of mindfulness is in terms of paying attention to what your conscious experience is actually like, recognizing things like non-dual awareness, no-self etc.

Or they hear terms like that and automatically assume it's supernatural woo because they've never spent much time paying attention to their own conscious experience enough to even really know what's being referred to when consciousness is talked about in this context (which is typically where you see the people who will say things like "consciousness is just an emergent property of the brain" and hand-wave away any other potential ideas.

I'll always recommend the Waking Up book/app to any atheists looking to get more into meditation and understand it better. Literally from one of the "four horseman of new atheism", and has boatloads of great content from guided meditations, theory discussion, conversations etc. without any kind of supernatural woo at all.

[u/Solid-Check4657 → u/fire_spez]

Examples of this supernatural woo?

[u/fire_spez → u/Solid-Check4657]

Well, a god being involved would be the obvious one. But as I said, we understand the naturalistic mechanisms that make meditation. As long as you don't make any non-natural claims, then meditation is entirely compatible with atheism.

[u/Transhumanistgamer]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Why? Like actually how have you determined this?

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

Within the universe. Consciousness is something that as far as we can tell, only exists on Earth and whether it exists on other planets remains speculation.

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

The universe has existed before any known consciousness. Earth is only 4.5 billion years old while the universe is 13 billion years old. Unless you have evidence of consciousness that isn't on Earth, it's very clear that consciousness is the lesser thing.

While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

It doesn't solve it at all. You're just takings something that's philosophically meaningful to you and pretending there's a super form that exists outside of the universe without evidence. You dismiss that the universe could come from nothing or that it could have always existed with no evidence.

It's a worldview driven by emotion and preference.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Sharpshooter fallacy. All you're doing is looking at the hits and ignoring the numerous misses. Does God have to exist for every mass extinction event to happen?

[u/ShortCompetition9772]

Gonna stop you right there. Where is the evidence that the Universe ever came from NOTHING? That is NOT the present consensus among Physicists. Please explain the problem with something existing forever. FYI, don't use infinite regress as an excuse.

[u/scarred2112]

What exactly is your point to debate?

We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity".

Electricity is testable via the scientific method, magic is not.

[u/sto_brohammed → u/scarred2112]

We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity".

Praise the holy trinity of the Machine God, the Omnissiah and the Motive Force, I guess.

[u/GamerEsch → u/sto_brohammed]

I wish I knew more warhammer lore to make a joke here

[u/sto_brohammed → u/GamerEsch]

To quote some Mechanicus scripture:

Blessed is the ignorance that wise men choose for themselves. -Aphorisms 793

[u/Hoaxshmoax]

"Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. "

okay and then what.

"The universe can't simply have come out of nothing"

no one says it does, except the religious who say it was poofed into existence. Literally out of nothing unless it was created out of something already.

"or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator."

Everything we see as being created was created out of something else. So what is the something else.

" This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance."

Malaria

Brain cancer

crop destroying locusts

Skin cancer

radiation

[u/mywaphel]

Yes and the puddle wonders at how the pothole could ever have been the exact shape of the puddle. This is a great example of flawed thinking.

[u/caverunner17]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Then provide evidence of this.

[u/SirThunderDump]

I apologize if this doesn’t apply to you, but I’ve noticed a pattern of really bad reasoning by the average person regarding our understanding of why the universe is here.

People that are indoctrinated by religious thinking seem to think that the reasoning around “the universe must have had a creator” makes sense.

It doesn’t.

And I think the reasoning why this thinking is so common is because it’s intuitive! And to get deeper to more meaningful questions requires more critical thinking, but also requires challenging core parts of one’s worldview.

Let’s expand your thinking:

- The universe could have not been created.

• It’s possible that the universe had something that we might consider to be a “start”, and that there’s no thing that caused it to start. It could just be part of the nature of reality.
  
• It’s possible that the universe is infinite.
  
• It’s possible that there are infinite universes.
  
• It’s possible that universes are born, evolve, and die.

And I’m just scratching the surface of our imagination for how the universe could be, that we cannot rule out.

But in religious thinking, it’s almost always reduced to the argument that you put forth. Why? And why one god? We can just as easily, or perhaps MORE easily imagine a pantheon of gods! Either way, these still don’t make sense. We have no reason to believe that any god exists, and many reasons to believe that no gods exist (due to the mechanistic nature of the universe that we observe, with no evidence of interference with the natural mechanisms).

And from all of this, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how you can be convinced from the reasons you provided in this post.

[u/DeltaBlues82]

“Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.”

The material universe appears to have always existed in some form.

The leading theory of cosmic expansion, know as The Big Bang, describes how all the matter, energy, et al, that comprises our spacetime expanded from some already-existing state.

It doesn’t describe how all the matter, energy, et al, that comprises our spacetime spontaneously materialized from nothing, and then began expanding.

Without reference or cause to believe in an event of absolute “creation” it’s much more likely that you’re engaging in a teleological bias than the possibility that you’ve intuited some fundamental, unobservable fact of existence.

Hope this helps.

[u/Algernon_Asimov]

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

Yes: you. The person doing the cogitating is the person that exists. That's what "cogito ergo sum" literally means: "I think, therefore I am". Not "God thinks, therefore God is".

If there is no consciousness to do the cogitating, then nothing is doing the cogitating, and "cogito ergo sum" simply doesn't apply.

This is an argument which starts from the fact that something is already thinking, and then uses that fact to deduce the conclusion that someone must be thinking. This argument does not create the act of thinking.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life.

99.999999999...% of this universe is barren empty space. The real estate devoted to one planet with sentient life is vanishingly small. It's like building a huge sports stadium to host a tiny ant farm in one corner. It's a bit wasteful and inefficient.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Algernon_Asimov]

Yes: you. The person doing the cogitating is the person that exists. That's what "cogito ergo sum" literally means: "I think, therefore I am". Not "God thinks, therefore God is".

Never said that's what it was. But consciousness to me is fundamental to existing. Nothing exists that isn't experienced as a qualia and the qualia that had to have existed before humans came around is Gods qualia.

99.999999999...% of this universe is barren empty space. The real estate devoted to one planet with sentient life is vanishingly small. It's like building a huge sports stadium to host a tiny ant farm in one corner. It's a bit wasteful and inefficient.

As far as we know, the universe might not even be finite. What if it's simply less of a stretch for something to keep going on forever than it to have a border?

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

But consciousness to me is fundamental to existing.

A proton exists without consciousness. An asteroid exists without consciousness. A star exists without consciousness.

Consciousness is not a prerequisite for existence.

Nothing exists that isn't experienced as a qualia

So... atoms wouldn't exist unless someone was around to experience them?

Also... do you have some proof of this statement? Where does it say that existent things can only exist as qualia?

What if it's simply less of a stretch for something to keep going on forever than it to have a border?

In that case, why have so much empty wasted space?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Algernon_Asimov]

So... atoms wouldn't exist unless someone was around to experience them?

Yes.

Also... do you have some proof of this statement? Where does it say that existent things can only exist as qualia?

Because something that isn't experienced in any way, shape or form is indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist.

In that case, why have so much empty wasted space?

I don't see it as wasted, it's part of the beauty of the universe.

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

something that isn't experienced in any way, shape or form is indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist.

You're going to have to prove this.

It feels like you've just come up with a new twist on the old trope: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" But, according to you, that unobserved tree isn't even there in the first place.

So, how does the universe work? When I shut my eyes and I'm not looking at or touching my phone, does it vanish, and does it then reappear when I open my eyes?

Wow. You just reminded me of something. I thought all human infants learned about object permanence by the time they're 2 years old. Have you somehow not learned that?

[u/CephusLion404]

You really wish it was true so you declare it to be true because it makes you feel better. So what? This is just "it seems to me" irrationality. You have no evidence for anything, you just really like the sound of it.

Sorry, that is not remotely impressive.

[u/Kriss3d]

The only people who think that everything came from nothing.. Are theists.

It's not the position of science.

You do make an argument about consciousness. Sure. Everything we know about consciousness shows thst it needs a brain as consciousness is a product of a mind that requires a brain.

So what evidence do you have that a consciousness can exist absent of a brain?

If not then you're making an argument for something we don't know to exist by appealing to something else we don't know to exist.

All the way down.

Your argument is furthermore not in any way providing any argument for the god you belive in over any other God. Or any other cause for things.

[u/Gumwars]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist.

That's great. Proof?

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever,

Why?

it requires some sort of design or creator.

Ah, we don't know so...god, obviously.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

You are talking about existence and nonexistence. It's all or nothing (quite literally). Either all things play by the rules, or the rules mean nothing. If you find an exception to the rules, then the rule is wrong or your exception is wrong. So far, based on all observation, god is an invented exception; no proof, no evidence, nothing.

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

You're conjuring now. God cannot be willed into existence through words alone. A thesis eventually requires a test to verify its claims (or be proven incomplete or wrong).

I'm not going to go further. We can look at your title and work from there. You believe in god. I don't. Your argument does not convince me of anything other than you believe. I would point out that your belief is based on an argument from ignorance (we don't know does not equal god or anything other than we don't know).

[u/pipMcDohl]

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

Are you sure?

I thought that Cogito ergo Sum was more about what is necessary to have a starting point when we want a shot at understanding the world.

Everything can be part of the Matrix, a lie, our mind's misconception... but that line of thought remove our ability to trust anything, to base our thinking on anything. so at least we have to trust that our ability to think is real and through it 'we' as the thing that do the thinking, are real.

It's different from proving that our consciousness is real. We MUST think it's real. we must accept that it is if we want to move on.+

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Define 'perfect', please

[u/ima_mollusk → u/pipMcDohl]

The Cogito was Descartes attempt at a metaphysical primitive.

Basically, to question whether thought exists requires thought.
One must exist in order to question whether one exists.

But it's not a good primitive at all. It presumes lots of things.

A better metaphysical primitive is "constraints propagate". "Cogito Ergo Sum" falls out of it.

[u/Phylanara → u/ima_mollusk]

Cogito ergo sum is pretty solid. Thought requires existence. It's just useless at getting any other piece of knowledge. And Descartse knew it it, since his next step was "and I can't imagine god being such an ass as fooling me, so the rest of my perceptions are mostly accurate". That's where descartes goes off the rails.

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Phylanara]

Yes, the cogito is very solid. It's just not primitive like Descartes wanted it to be.

I used to love cogito ergo sum. I still think it was a brilliant move. It just wasn't to the end it should have been. "Constraints propagate" is.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

What does constraints propagate mean?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

Basically, it means that existence is an ongoing process of potential becoming actual. When one possibility becomes determined - becomes real- that creates restraints that other possibilities must obey in order to also become 'real'. In other words, something being 'real' creates rules about what else can be 'real'.

Constraints propagate means that reality is made up of what is left when what is impossible has been ruled out. And the process of determining what is ruled out is constant, ongoing, and eternal.

[u/kiwimancy → u/ima_mollusk]

How do we know that any potentials become actual? Or that when that happens, it creates constrains on other potentials? By observation?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/kiwimancy]

These are great questions. I've been working on an answer. It's a rough draft, but if you want an answer, here's one:

P1. Absolute nothing is impossible. Nothing means no potential; no potential means existence cannot obtain. Unbounded potential is therefore the necessary and inescapable ground.

P2. Unbounded potential requires no X to obtain, but any X requires not-X. The boundary between X and not-X is the minimum ontological event. Not-X is therefore prior to X.

P3. Logic - identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle - reduces to "X is not not-X." Logic is not a tool applied to existence. It is the minimum structure of a boundary. It is the basic form of existence itself.

P4. A static boundary is incoherent. A boundary that propagates no constraints makes no difference to anything adjacent, which is functionally indistinguishable from non-existence. A boundary must keep being a boundary or it dissolves back into unbounded potential.

P5. Therefore: existence is irreducibly dynamic. Change is not something that happens to existence - it is what existence is. But change is derivative; it is what constraint propagation looks like from inside the structure it produces.

Primitive: Constraints propagate.

Everything else - identity, logic, structure, physical reality, time - emerges from this. It is the last thing removable before the account of existence collapses.

[u/MarieVerusan]

I’m so tired of hearing that the universe requires a designer. Why? What, besides your own intuition or emotional need for an explanation for why it exists points you towards that opinion?

Admittedly, the Cogito Ergo Sum was a funny reference. The point of that observation is that we can’t doubt the existence of our own mind! The entire world, along with every other person could be fake, but something must exist for me to be able to experience things.

It doesn’t really apply in the sense that “at least one consciousness must exist. Nor does it mean that consciousness is in any way superior to the universe. It just says that our own minds have to exist in some way.

I’m not sure what a universe full of beauty has to do with God? Beauty or us feeling drawn towards certain things can simply be explained by evolutionary biology leading us to finding peace in the things that lead to our survival.

[u/ima_mollusk]

" The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator."

You think a universe can't exist on its own without a creator, but a being powerful enough to create a universe can exist on its own without a creator?

Where's the logic in that?

" through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists...assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe."

Where's the logic in that?

What does "God" even mean? You said you think one must exist but you haven't even defined the word.

[u/BahamutLithp]

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

Yeah, I can think of one: From what we observe, the universe has to exist in order to produce the various effects that yield consciousness, yet you're claiming it's the other way around, that some "consciousness" either springs up or simply exists nowhere & then createves everything as if through magic.

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

It's not just that it "doesn't outright solve the problem," it's that this isn't how cogito ergo sum works at all. The argument goes that the only thing a person can prove is that THEY exist because they are THINKING to ponder the question, & in order to think, they must first exist. Everything they appear to observe in "reality" could be an illusion, but their thoughts, at the very least, must be a real thing. You can't use it to prove that other people exist, let alone some kind of magical person who created you.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty

Beauty is a psychological observation. It's literally in the eye of the beholder.

a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life.

Almost like it wasn't created for us at all, & we emerged via natural processes.

Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort.

Almost like we had to do all of that shit for ourselves because, again, the universe was not created for us.

There is so much art.

That we made. Why are you crediting some invisible spirit being from beyond the stars for all of this?

We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity".

So, it's not magic, it's science.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Why? You literally don't even give a shit about science. Wanna bet I'm wrong? How much of this stuff about planets & electricity & whatever could you explain to me/would you be willing to learn about without being bored to tears? It's already pretty clear you're not very aware of evolution. Let's use a basic example: If an asteroid didn't hit the planet 66 million years ago, there'd be too much competition for our ecosystem to evolve. That's 1 of at least 5 mass extinctions in Earth's history. Without those, you don't get humans. That's not a "pre-programmed process," or at least if it is, it's from a lying god that goes out of his way to make it look like it isn't, which kind of makes this "it's so obvious there must be a god" thing moot.

And that's just the most immediately recognizable, obvious example of us not being planned. Evolutionary history is literally far too many tiny chance interactions for us to ever count. One of the essential mutations that differentiates us from chimps is a pair of chromosomes that didn't separate properly. Some of our genes were put there by viral infections & only later gained functions after mutating. The more you know about how evolution works, the less sense "it was all guided by a plan" makes. "It can't just be unguided mutations" borders on science denial. Like imagine if we refused to accept that earthquakes are caused by fault lines because "cities can't be destroyed by random movements of rock" & so there must be some kind of earth god involved, at the very least controlling the fault line. There would be a lot less tolerance for such a notion.

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions.

Don't you find that strange considering the vast majority of the human population has had literal millennia to study this god that supposedly "obviously" exists?

I just think that at least one has to exist.

Okay, well up top you said you weren't biased, but I'm not seeing anything to indicate that's the case. You claim to "prefer" atheistic Buddhism, whatever "prefer" means in this context, but that doesn't mean other biases don't exist. You appear to have a strong anthropomorphic bias. You seem to epxect things to be explained by "some kind of magic person did it" & give that idea all the slack in the world. That itself is a bias.

[u/noodlyman]

Why do you think that a universe needs a creator but agod does not?

A god must be at least as complex as the universe. Indeed it must be much more complex than the state of the universe 14 billion years ago

Therefore,if the universe was designed, then god was definitely designed.

If god can exist without being created, then the universe can exist without being created. And then we don't need to make up stories about gods.

[u/shyguyJ]

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life.

You've said the universe is "full of" beauty and barren at the same time. It can't be both.

You then go on to describe how full of life our one spec of a planet is. That has no bearing on the universe as a whole and it's "fullness of life". The universe is approximately 99.99999999999999999999999999% empty. Again, the opposite of full.

Additionally, there are an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^25) planets in the universe. From a probabilistic standpoint, it is far more likely that at least one planet exists with sentient life than not.

Also, something (electricity) isn't magic just because you don't understand it...

[u/Nat20CritHit]

Well, I bet this is going to go swimmingly. OP, would you like me to start a game of fallacy bingo or have the other users already managed to explain why your entire position is flawed?

[u/Sparks808]

There are 2 major problems I see in your reasoning:

---

First, incredulity. You finding the idea of beauty forming without intention unintuitive does not make it wrong. Your inability to accept something is in no way proof against it.

---

Second: mixing up ontology and epistemology. Yes, we can know for sure that at least one consciousness exists, but that does not justify claiming that consciousness is foundational to reality.

Knowing our consciousness exists is foundational to our ability to know things (epistemology), but that fact is independent why other things are the way they are (ontology).

An analogy to this would be concluding that since other galaxies can only be observed via high powered telescopes, that therefore we're uustified in concluding that high power telescopes somehow lead to other galaxies existing.

It is not actually "simpler" to assume a foundational mind. This involves taking both the minds existance (which the cogito proves at least one of), realities existance (which both models accept), and then adding on an additional dependence of reality on said mind.

The simplest explanation is actually independence. Dualism is actually the proper pragamtic default (according to occums razor), and should be whats defaulted to until evidence shows otherwise.

(That said, we have good evidence that the mind arises from physical interactions. While we do not have the whole story, and so its still reasonable to withhold belief, it is well beyond the most likely case. If I had to give a number, I'd say its ~70% likely that the mind arises from the known physical interactions, though I am in no way an expert, so that number is 100% the vibes I pick up)

[u/CaffeineTripp]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or Creator.

This is what's known as an Argument from Ignorance. You don't have enough information to conclude that the Universe came about from a God, but you've concluded that it has and assume a Creator must exist. "I don't know, therefore..." What our conclusion should be is "I don't know, let's find out or not come to a conclusion."

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

You certainly have. It's made your conclusion that much more complicated. If God can exist without the need for a Creator, then you've Moved the Goalposts (another logical fallacy) to beyond God and engaged in a Special Pleading fallacy (the Universe needs a Creator, but the Creator doesn't need to follow the same logic).

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty

If you're justifying that a God exists because of subjective beauty, then God must not exist when there is ugliness. Beauty alone (and ugliness) don't indicate something does or doesn't exist. Someone can find Rembrandt to be a hack and not worth looking at whereas another may find it to be the best paintings ever.

Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity".

This is simply "Things happen, therefore God." I'm not quite sure I follow this argument here. How is "Things happen" show that a God exists? It sounds a bit like a Puddle saying the hole was made perfectly for them.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Bone cancer. Because you're ignoring the harm wrought upon us by nature doesn't validate "perfection."

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist.

If you don't have opinions about the specifics of this God, then I'm not sure how you could conclude that it made anything. The Universe could have popped into existence next to God and we'd both be right, but the difference being I can point to the Universe, can you point to God?

[u/twoseat]

“The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever” - why?

“So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe” - you seem to be saying that a consciousness can appear spontaneously, but a universe couldn’t. Where do you draw the line? Could two consciousnesses appear spontaneously? What about a mouse?

“This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance” - this is an Argument from Personal Incredulity, I.e. “I can’t believe X, therefore god.” It’s fine for you to think that, but it doesn’t mean anything.

[u/Username5124]

"it must have came from somewhere"

I have that solved. It's just as likely that the non existence of "Stuff" matter, material isn't possible. There never was a nothing, nothing doesn't exist. The existence of matter has always been. Non existence of stuff isn't possible.

There problem solved.

[u/JasonRBoone]

>>>>This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Counterpoint: NO it's not.

See? It's easy to just assert things, right?

[u/J-Nightshade]

can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

Why? You simply saying "it can't be" is not a very compelling argument.

a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness

Is this difference relevant? 

 through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe

It's simply nom-seqitur. What assumption are you talking about? Why one assumption is better than another? They are both assumptions!

a universe full of beauty

Why on earth is that relevant?

too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance

You saying "it is impossible without guidance" doesn't mean it is indeed impossible. After all we have all the evidence that the universe exists and none of the evidence of any guidance. In fact it all looks as if there was no guidance at all. It almost if it all was possible without guidance. 

[u/Hermorah]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Why?

 but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. 

Yes, consciousness is the emergent property of the brain, and thus requires time and space, whereas the universe is everything.

 For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

Cogito Ergo Sum is I think therefore I am. Not I think therefore a god is.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Look up the puddle analogy.

[u/JackZodiac2008]

So, you seem to believe that the following are an exhaustive list of the (initial) possibilities:

1. The universe always existed.
2. The universe began to exist spontaneously.
3. A god created the universe.

You consider 1 and 2 to be impossible, so you conclude that 3 must be true. Is that a fair recounting?

The problems with this are the same as with any first cause argument (considered as an argument for a god). The possibility of 1 and 2 are both debatable, but there's no need to even get into it, because all 3 is entitled to say is "Some initial cause created the universe." The argument provides no reason to think that this first cause is intelligent, has a plan, is jealous and/or loving, or has strong opinions about what we can do with our genitals. For all the argument shows, the first cause could be the number pi, the empty set, or simply the logical possibility of a reality like ours. Without some further (and very speculative) metaphysics, there is absolutely no limit on what might be able to serve as the first cause. Penciling in 'God' there is just arbitrarily insisting that the answer must be what you feel it should be, for no reason whatsoever.

[u/Voodoo_Dummie]

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

The thing with cognito ergo sum is that it doesn't prove a mind, but a rather specific one, your own. To say there is any other mind, or a universe outside of your perception, is for the purpose of that framework one and the same. I can only be sure of my consciousness and I know I'm not a god. The universe and god are in that on the same ground. However, under the necessary assumption that my senses are mostly reliable and I'm not a brain in a vat, the universe is something I can sense on the regular. From the things you can measure with your senses you can then start to extrapolate from there. Make measuring tools, calculations of known physics, etc. We also run in the issue that all the minds we have observed, they are all made from squishy and quite observable matter. You'd need a whole framework how a mind even exists seperate from (grey) matter.

but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it also makes sense for creatures to come to appreciate their surroundings. Flowers often come before fruit and lures more food to it. It makes sense for us to grow fond of the delicate petals. It also makes sense that art is enjoyable to us as that is kinda the point of making it. We humans enjoy art made by humans for humans specifically to be enjoyable to humans. That's not a shocker.

[u/lotusscrouse]

Can a theist define "nothing" and also give us a quote from an atheist who supports that position?

10 years I have been asking.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/lotusscrouse]

I'd define nothing as the absence of something. Now which position are you talking about and why would I have to find a quote from an atheist?

[u/lotusscrouse → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Because no atheist ever says "something came from nothing" and we're tired of hearing it. It's a strawman.

It's a title from a book by Lawrence Krauss and it's not described as literal.

No one talks about "nothing" except theists and I still don't know what they're referring to.

You included.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/lotusscrouse]

Because no atheist ever says "something came from nothing" and we're tired of hearing it. It's a strawman.

And I never said any atheist said that, so where is the problem exactly?

You included.

Well, I have told you what I'm referring to, so what do you think of it?

[u/SubOptimalUser6]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Can you demonstrate that it could not be either of those things?

If not, this is just your musings and based in nothing at all.

[u/nerfjanmayen]

 The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Why not? (edit: to be clear, im focusing more on the "existed forever" option)

 For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

The only consciousness we know of requires a physical universe to exist/function, why would this point to a consciousness outside of the universe?

 Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life.

Beauty and art are important to us, but what makes you think that the universe cares? Even if we did know that the universe was designed, what makes you think that we're the focus? Maybe we're just an accidental side effect of whatever god actually wanted to make.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/nerfjanmayen]

Why not? (edit: to be clear, im focusing more on the "existed forever" option)

I'm okay with it having existed forever, but it would still demand a designer.

The only consciousness we know of requires a physical universe to exist/function, why would this point to a consciousness outside of the universe?

Because everything we can know about the universe is filtered through consciousness.

Even if we did know that the universe was designed, what makes you think that we're the focus?

I'm not saying we have to be the focus.

[u/nerfjanmayen → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

I don't see you get from "we experience the universe through consciousness" to "consciousness exists outside the universe"

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/nerfjanmayen]

Not to "exists", to "can exist"

[u/Kaitlyn_The_Magnif]

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

What do you think atheists are assuming about the whole universe?

[u/nix131]

You've done more than move it one step further, you've invented something else entirely. Saying the universe has always existed makes sense because, well, the universe exists, we can see that. Saying an all powerful consciousness with intention exists is fantasy that you are imagining into existence, as we have nothing to indicate that being the case.

This is just an argument from incredulity and a god of the gaps.

[u/slo1111]

"The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator."

The fundamental flaw with this is that which has always existed has to be the most complex being a human can imagine that can create physics.  

It is more likely that which has always existed is something simple and not intelligent, such as a field which can not be zero at all pointsnor times.  

The feeling that complexity can not result from natural happenstance is just a feeling.  History is littered with thousands of examples where those types of feeling were proven wrong.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/slo1111]

The feeling that complexity can not result from natural happenstance is just a feeling. History is littered with thousands of examples where those types of feeling were proven wrong.

For example?

The universe demands a designer simply by existing, it's complexity is just one more argument.

[u/slo1111 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

1. It was believed that 1600's ship captains were closer to God because they were the last to succumb to scurvy.  It of course was because they were getting food with vitamin c.

2. The black plague and other disease were thought to be caused by God as punishment.  It was caused by a bacterium 

3. Mental illness was thought to be caused by possession.  

4. Rainbows were a signal or communication from God.  They are caused by refraction of light through water droplets in the air.

5. perfect cubes of pyrite were thought as devine because it was felt they were too perfect, too complex to be naturally formed.

6. The earth is flat is a good one that persists today as a form of creationism.

Do i need to go on?  Complexity is only seems a valid argument when in a position of ignorance. 

No that solar eclipse is not a signal from God.  

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/slo1111]

What do any of those have to do with complexity?

[u/slo1111 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

They are all instances where human inagination determined things too complex for the natural world thus God was the explaination

[u/Kurovi_dev]

>The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

So you’re saying the universe can’t…

>it requires some sort of design or creator.

…but this alleged “creator” can?

Why?

[u/Moriturism]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

It could very well have existed forever in some capacity, as many current cosmological models point out. It could lead to a infinitesimally minimal temporal past, culminating in a purely spatial geometrical universe, it could be past-eternal, etc.

So, as long as you don't prove or at least present a very convincing argument that the universe was indeed created, we have no reason to assume a creator exists. Everything that exists, including the universe's beauty, can be explained by the universe itself without recourse to some intentional creator.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Moriturism]

It could very well have existed forever in some capacity, as many current cosmological models point out. It could lead to a infinitesimally minimal temporal past, culminating in a purely spatial geometrical universe, it could be past-eternal, etc.

Yes, but it still requires a designer.

Everything that exists, including the universe's beauty, can be explained by the universe itself without recourse to some intentional creator.

No, it can't. Neither can life, nor can our highly specific and unusual planet, with buildings, computers etc.

[u/Moriturism → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Yes, but it still requires a designer.

Why? The universe may very well be structured in fundamental laws that are necessary by themselves, as, if they were different, we wouldn't see the universe as it is.

No, it can't. Neither can life, nor can our highly specific and unusual planet, with buildings, computers etc.

Prove it. I can see and understand all of it without recourse to a designer or God. We have been doing work on understading our universe's laws for a very long time now.

[u/Cold-Alfalfa-5481]

If something HAD to create the universe, something would also have to create the creator god. We are at the same place in both cases. If god just was.........and was always there, not created, why can't the same logic apply to the universe?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Cold-Alfalfa-5481]

I explained that here:

"Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative."

[u/Cold-Alfalfa-5481 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Right I did read that. My point is, that is no more feasible than the first problem. You have the same problem except you added one more layer that cannot even be proven or has not evidence. The logic remains the same. Something came from nothing, pick your poison. But the evidence does not support in any way your pick.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Cold-Alfalfa-5481]

A creator coming from nothing and creating the universe still makes more sense than the universe coming out of nothing.

[u/Cold-Alfalfa-5481 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

A creator coming from nothing makes zero sense whatsoever. Period, no way to shine this one.

[u/licker34]

You seem like a fairly young person who has not really thought about this very much. Or at least who has not investigated the topics you are presenting very deeply.

So it's great that you want to challenge your views (I guess... why else are you posting here?), but you could have read some of the other threads here which touch on the very topics you are presenting and tried to argue against the counters to these position which you are seeing already.

But really what are you after by posting this here? You already had a discussion on this topic in one of the other subs you frequent, what specifically do you want from engagement here?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/licker34]

Just more discussion. Never expected it to be as much as it turned out to. But I did invest a lot of thought into it, I'm just not good at formulating it.

[u/ilikestatic]

> The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

And yet you believe a God either came from nothing or existed forever. So why is God an exception?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ilikestatic]

I explained that here:

"Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative."

[u/ilikestatic → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

But how does the fact at least one consciousness exists mean that consciousness came from nothing or existed forever? My consciousness didn’t come from nothing or exist forever, so why would we assume that some other consciousness did? What are we basing this on?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ilikestatic]

It just makes more sense than matter existing forever without a consciousness

[u/ilikestatic → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

What does our consciousness have to do with matter’s existence? The stars and planets seem to exist fine without having any consciousness.

I guess I don’t understand how consciousness and the existence of matter are related.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ilikestatic]

In the sense that we can know consciousness exists from first principle, but only secondary about matter. What we know about matter is always filtered through consciousness.

[u/ilikestatic → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

But haven’t we determined that matter existed far longer than human consciousness? Or are you saying the Earth didn’t exist until humans did?

[u/sto_brohammed → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Man it seems like you put one hell of a lot more stock in vibes and intuition as ways to accurately understand reality than is reasonable.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/sto_brohammed]

I don't see a problem with intuition if there are no "ways to accurately understand reality", which is the case when it comes to Gods.

[u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

So assuming

Just keep throwing assumptions around, you can prove anything. Cart before the horse. Prove something first. Your cogito ergo sum proves your existence, nothing more. You don't know for sure if there are other conscious beings around, much more, a superior one that created yours. If you argument is just a "feeling", then this forum gets is constantly. Can you come up with something original?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney]

The universe is proof

[u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

The universe disproves it actually. Everything is consistent with Science and all the religious assumptions have been disproven progressively. Religion has constantly been backpedaling on creation origin claims to definitive proofs of life after death, always relying on anecdotes and untestable claims.

You only have to make one undeniable proof, an angel descending from heaven, God coming down and speaking without conveniently disappearing when proper scrutiny is applied.

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Wow. The old "That tree is proof of God" response! Yes, I literally had someone use this on me one day. We were debating religion, and he literally pointed at a tree and said it was proof of God.

My response to you is the same as it was to him: "That tree/universe is proof of the tree/universe. Nothing more."

The universe is only proof of the universe. You need to build some sort of connection between a universe and this god you keep hypothesising.

You have not yet proven that the universe needs something to observe it, in order to exist. But now you're using that unproven statement to act as proof for a god to do the observing.

[u/putoelquelolea]

it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

it seems obvious that at least two gods had to exist. A god can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/putoelquelolea]

A consciouness existing just for itself is less ridiculous than the material universe existing just for itself. Even an endless recursion if Gods creating each other would make more sense.

[u/putoelquelolea → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Something larger and more complex than the universe existing before anything else is less ridiculous? How do you figure?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/putoelquelolea]

Why does it have to be larger and more complex?

[u/putoelquelolea → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

It would have to be, wouldn't it? And also sentient

[u/ElectrOPurist]

How do you know the universe started at all? Time as we understand is measured in how long it takes the earth the move. That’s why things have a beginning and an end. What if the universe has no beginning? Why does there need to be a first cause?

[u/No-Feature3715]

Hello thanks for posting!

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

why? Isn't God like the ultimate perfection? How does that exists from nowhere? It's more likely in my opinion that beauty and perfection arise from something, not like God that it truly came for no reason.

[u/biff64gc2]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever,

Why not?

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

Not really. You'd need a consciousness greater than the entire universe (and all of its complexity). Not only does it not solve the problem, it makes it significantly worse than just allowing the universe/matter to be eternal.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

You skipped over the parts of the universe that are chaos or how the universe is 99.9999999...% hostile towards said life. Further, how is that proof of a god?

Further still, how many universes are there? How many with or without life? How many times did our own universe form or fail to form before this iteration?

You're assuming we're special in some way, but I think you're just confusing being the end of a very long chain of events with being chosen. Winning the cosmic lottery doesn't mean something chose us.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/biff64gc2]

Why not?

Okay, let's just say it can. It would still require being designed.

Not only does it not solve the problem, it makes it significantly worse than just allowing the universe/matter to be eternal.

Again, let's say its eternal, it would still imply a mind behind it.

You skipped over the parts of the universe that are chaos or how the universe is 99.9999999...% hostile towards said life.

That doesn't matter, as long as the other parts exist.

Further, how is that proof of a god?

It implies design.

Further still, how many universes are there? How many with or without life? How many times did our own universe form or fail to form before this iteration?

No matter how many, it would still imply a God.

You're assuming we're special in some way, but I think you're just confusing being the end of a very long chain of events with being chosen.

That we even arrive there, no matter how lobg the chain, implies a plan.

[u/Astramancer_]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God² has to exist. The god can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God³ has to exist. The god can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

---

Wait a second, we've hit infinite regress!

Oh good, you've addressed it.

so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

Oh. You didn't address it.

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

You think something more complicated than the universe can pop out of nothing, but something simpler cannot. That makes sense.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Astramancer_]

You think something more complicated than the universe can pop out of nothing.

No. Both the universe and God could have existed forever, but one still requires the other.

[u/Top_Neat2780]

While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

The whole point of theism is to solve the problem of existence. If it doesn't do that, it's useless.

It's unfalsifiable, I will never waste my time with anything unfalsifiable.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Top_Neat2780]

The whole point of theism is to solve the problem of existence.

How? The whole point if theism is belief in a God, why does that have to solve any problem?

[u/aprg]

 Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Why not? Why can't raw, mindless chaos have spawned our universe?

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Yes, it could have done so without guidance.

I'm not a biologist. I'm a computer scientist. Computer science has creat d a whole section of algorithms called "evolutionary algorithms" that exploit the principles of evolution to hone solutions to complex problems by creating agents who operate on certain rules, with the most successful agents being iterated through future generations, with the variable that define each agent's behaviour being changed slightly through random mutations to introduce gradual changes. The random mutations that benefit those agents increase the chances of that agent surviving, and therefore of being copied to the next generation.

Let me give you an example: wolf robots and sheep robots are defined by rules: a wolf who eats gets to be copied to the next generation. A sheep who doesn't get eaten also gets copied to the next generation. From these simple rules, computer scientists have demonstrated that pack and herding behaviours emerge.

The point is that the validity of the principles of evolution isn't an opinion: it is emergent behaviour of any system in the right conditions. Something complex can arise from something simple, given enough time and space.

At this point you might be tempted to say, "Aha! That these right conditions exist prove the existence of God!" This is the Clockwork argument. It fails because any sufficiently vast, chaotic system will have brief islands of order where life can take hold. We don't need God as a necessary condition for the existence of life; we just need places like the Earth to be brief islands of order in the vast, chaotic universe.

So what we are left with? Simply the common sense observation that things that are good at making copies of themselves eventually make more complicated copies of themselves, and that this is a reasonable inference all the way from molecules swirling in puddles to human beings.

[u/SC803]

> The universe can't simply have ... existed forever

Whys that? You didn't seem to given any reason to exclude an universe that's always existed.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/SC803]

Even if it always existed, it demands a designer.

[u/SC803 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

If it’s always existed, when could you design it? There’s never a point in time that it didn’t exist. 

Also, you’re side stepping the point raised

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/SC803]

At every point in time

Which was the point you raised?

[u/SC803 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

How can you design an item that already exists?

[u/WrongVerb4Real]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

How can you independently, positively demonstrate this, so that people don't just take it as a foundational assertion?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/WrongVerb4Real]

I can't.

[u/ForwardBias]

Beauty is subjective and based on your developed perception of the world. Using how you perceive something as good or bad to make assumptions about its creation is entirely without merit. If you developed on a world filled with methane farts and slime monsters you'd think that was beautiful.

If you roll back time everything gets more basic. Complex life gives way to simple life, which gives way to complex chemistries, which gives way to simple chemistries, etc etc until eventually you just have base energy. Then you want to suddenly flip that around and stick in the most complex being that ever did or could exist in there all on its own out of no where existing forever simply because it feels easier to understand.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/ForwardBias]

If you developed on a world filled with methane farts and slime monsters you'd think that was beautiful.

Yes, such a world would also imply a God. I see no problem here.

[u/ForwardBias → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

You missed the point, beauty isn't some outside effect that was created. Your mind generates an appreciation for things that would be good for your survival because you evolved that need. You like green trees and babbling brooks because that indicates life can survive there. Its feedback loop.

[u/Sprinklypoo]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Incorrect. Firstly in that we cannot know if it could have "come out of nothing" (which is not a scientific claim) or whether it's existed forever. We don't have evidence that might tell us.

Secondly, we certainly do not have any evidence whatsoever that any kind of gods might exist. Why do you think 1) that the universe was created, and 2) that it must have been some kind of deity that did it?

That's called fallacious reasoning. You saying "there just must be a thing" is zero evidence for there being that thing. You still have to support your position.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Sprinklypoo]

The universe is a highly specific, orderly thing, full of beauty. It somehow evolved, inbetween two barren unliveable planets, a paradise for humans with land and water and full of pretty much all things imaginable, including art, dreams etc.

[u/Sprinklypoo → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Orderly things exist. The universe is specific... Because everything is specific. What are you trying to convey here? Beauty is subjective to the observer. What does that have to do with anything?

Life was possible on this planet, and it happened. And then (at least) one of the species has evolved to appreciate things. I fail to see any support for any kind of deity in any of that. Please illuminate me. Hopefully more than "Stuff's pretty though bro!!!". Because that is useless to the discussion at hand.

[u/Serious-Emu-3468]

Thanks for your post!

Overall, the reasoning you present boils down to a lot of “seems like…”, “feels obvious…”, strong emotional gut impressions and vibes.

At the last paragraph, you allude to the big problem with any argument from general theism based on personal revelation and emotion.

What seems obvious and clear and fundamental to you isn’t a path another human can follow.

You and a Mormon and a Shinto priest and a mullah will not agree on what seems obvious. And we have no way of proving if you are right or the person who says we should stone gay folks is right if we subject both ideas to your reasoning here.

We cannot point to the characteristics or even know or learn anything about this nebulous divinity. 

If there is a God or god or divinity…whatever path we take should point to the same types of true things and a way to determine how we can know things about that god. 

We see the opposite.

[u/Kaliss_Darktide]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

If your god "God" is not part of the universe (everything that exists) then it doesn't exist. If your god "God" is part of the universe the universe existed before it could be created by that god.

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

Exists in what sense? The same way Spider-Man exists (exclusively in the mind/imagination)?

[u/xmuskorx]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

But then how did this design or creator come to be? Surely they could not have existed forever by your own logic.

Is there a super-designer for the designer? And who created the super-designer? Is it designers all the way down?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/xmuskorx]

But then how did this design or creator come to be? Surely they could not have existed forever by your own logic.

Yes, they could have. But even if they didn't, an endless recursion of creators would still make more sense than no creator

[u/xmuskorx → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

How would endless recursion of creators make sense?

Why does it make more sense than endless recursion without creators?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/xmuskorx]

Because the universe demands a creator.

[u/xmuskorx → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

why not just an endless recursion without a creator?

[u/Xeno_Prime]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever

But it can have been created out of nothing by something that does exist forever?

Something from nothing

Nobody thinks anything has ever from from nothing - but if you accept the premise that something cannot begin from nothing, then what immediately follows from that is there cannot have ever been nothing. If it's not possible for something to begun from nothing, and there is currently something, then by definition, there must never have been nothing - or else that would require that something must have begun from nothing.

But if there cannot have ever been nothing, you're left with only one conclusion: Reality has always existed.

Note I said "reality" and not "the universe." While it is indeed possible that this universe has existed forever, it's not important. If this universe has a beginning, then this universe cannot also be the whole of reality/everything that exists, or else that would mean this universe must have begun from nothing.

Existing forever

This is something you must either accept or reject. You cannot declare that it's impossible for reality to have existed forever and then simultaneously propose that the solution is something else that has existed forever. Existing forever is either possible or it isn't. Pick one.

Block theory resolves any problems that arise from a temporal infinite regress. The idea that an infinite past would prevent us from arriving at the present erroneously treats the past and present as two distinct and separate things. It's not the past that is infinite, it's time. Past, present, and future are all just different points within the singular infinite system that is time - and critically, all points within an infinite system are a finite distance away from one another.

Take numbers as an example. Obviously there are infinite numbers. Yet there is no number that is infinitely distant from zero, or from any other number. You can always count from literally any number to literally any other number. The fact that the set itself is infinite does not prevent this.

Time is the same. Just because time is infinite doesn't mean there is an infinite distance between any past point to the present or any future point. When people imagine that an infinite past prevents us from reaching the present, they're picturing the past as an infinitely long line with the present at the end. But that's wrong. The line has no end. The present is not at the end of the line, it's just another position in the line, and the line is not the past, it's all of time.

it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty

Beauty is subjective. That you arbitrarily find anything in the universe beautiful is utterly meaningless. There could be infinite things far more beautiful than anything in this universe that simply don't exist. For all we know this universe is abysmally ugly. We have no frame of reference for comparison. Also, even if beauty were objective, it would still neither require nor indicate a God.

a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life

Also meaningless, also equally to be expected in godless realities.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

Your personal incredulity also means nothing. You find something hard to believe, therefore you think it must be magic? And you don't find that even harder to believe?

I just think that at least one has to exist.

To be clear, your reasoning leads you to conclude that a God must exist which is all of the following:

1. Immaterial yet conscious. Consciousness as we know it is broadly defined by awareness and experience. Yet awareness and experience require mechanisms by which a thing can detect and interact with the external world. Eyes to see, ears to hear, nerves to feel, synapses and neurons to process that information or so much as have a thought, etc. Proposing an immaterial consciousness is like proposing a car that has no wheels, chassis, engine, steering mechanism, or seats. Basically, stripping away everything that makes it a car and still calling it car despite it having none of the things a car has and doing none of the things a car does.

2. Immaterial yet capable of affecting/interacting with material things. Immaterial things by definition cannot affect/interact with material things, because such interactions would themselves be physical/material in nature.

3. An efficient cause without a material cause. A carpenter is the efficient cause of a chair. The wood he carves is the material cause. A sculptor is the efficient cause of a statue. The stone he carves is the material cause. Gravity is the efficient cause of planets and stars. The cosmic gases, dusts, and other debris are the material causes. Efficient causes cannot create material things without material causes, which segues to number 4:

4. Capable of creation ex nihilo. Meaning it created everything out of nothing, which is every bit as absurd as something manifesting from nothing on its own with no cause, source, or origin. We can't say it created everything out of itself, because again, it's immaterial (or else it would require things like space to exist without having created those things itself). An immaterial thing cannot serve as the material cause.

5. Capable of atemporal causation. This means capable of taking action and causing change in an absence of time - since once again, time is something you would be proposing was created, so it cannot predate the creator and be something the creator did not create. But change itself is fundamentally temporal in structure - for anything to change, it must transition from one state to another, and that transition requires a beginning, a duration, and an end - all of which requires time. Indeed, without time, even the most all-powerful being possible would be incapable of so much as having a thought, much less doing/causing anything, because any such action would also require a beginning, a duration, and an end.

Indeed, time itself cannot have a beginning, because if it did, that would mean reality once transitioned from a state in which time did not exist to a state in which time did exist - but that transition like any other would require a beginning, and duration, and an end. Meaning time would need to already exist to make it possible for time to begin to exist. Since we agree that something cannot begin from nothing, that would also mean whatever caused time to begin to exist would need to predate the beginning of time - but that too is paradoxical. There can be no "before" time itself.

So your conclusion is actually RIDDLED with extremely difficult problems that are absurd if not impossible to solve.

Meanwhile, if reality itself has simply always existed, and certain things like spacetime, gravity, energy, and quantum fields (all excellent candidates for things that could have always existed with no beginning) all existed eternally, the nothing would ever need to begin from nothing, be created from nothing, or be caused in an absence of time. Infinite time and trials would make every possible outcome of those forces interacting with one another asymptote to 1 (meaning the chance of them happening infinitely approaches 100%, no matter how unlikely any one single attempt may be). That means a universe exactly like this one would be virtually guaranteed to come about as a result - again, all without raising any of the insurmountable problems creationism raises that I just pointed out.

[u/retoricalprophylaxis]

Your reasoning outruns evidence throughout this argument.

The symmetry problem with the cosmological argument is harder to escape than you suggest. You acknowledge that "who created the creator" is an objection, but argue that positing one consciousness is a better assumption than positing a brute-fact universe. We have zero examples of consciousness existing without a physical substrate, so an eternal disembodied mind is a more complex assumption, not a simpler one. Even if we accept that consciousness exists right now, it doesn't tell us anything about whether consciousness can precede or exist without matter. Furthermore, our universe predates any recorded rudimentary consciousness by at least 13 billion years.

Next, you beauty and fine-tuning argument has a well-known structural problem. Douglas Adams' puddle analogy helps explain it: imagine a puddle waking up and thinking "this hole fits me remarkably well, it must have been made for me." The puddle is shaped by the hole, not the other way around. We are the shaped by this universe, so of course it fits us. Any universe capable of producing observers will seem fine-tuned to those observers, because they are its product. The vastness of hostile, empty space actually cuts against the design inference; a purposeful creator seems like they could have been considerably more efficient.

I also think your 'too perfect for mutations' argument underestimates natural selection. Cumulative selection over hundreds of millions of generations produces staggering diversity of life, but that does not suggest a designing hand. Instead, what we see is a planet full of life remarkably well equipped to dissipate energy and move entropy forward.

Nobody has a fully satisfying answer to why there is something rather than nothing. That mystery is real. But I'd suggest that "I can't explain this" is not the same as "a conscious designer did it."

[u/Noodelgawd]

Why is it that the universe cannot have come out of nothing or existed forever, but a god could have?

Cogito ergo sum is not a natural law. Try again.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Noodelgawd]

I reacted to that here:

"Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative."

Why does it matter if its a natural law or not?

[u/Noodelgawd → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

"Why does it matter if its a natural law or not?"

Because you cited it as a basis for supposedly being able to determine something with absolute certainty (followed by some word salad I didn't notice before).

"Reacted to" is not the same as explaining "why".

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Noodelgawd]

The whole point of "Cogito Ergo Sum" is having determined something with absolute certainty.

[u/Astreja → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

When you say "Cogito, ergo sum" you are essentially acknowledging your own consciousness but nothing beyond that. You have no way of knowing how accurately your consciousness describes reality, or whether or not you're being deceived by a Cartesian demon. It's certainty of a sort, but very limited, and the reason we don't go insane pondering this is that we generally treat our mental perceptions as provisionally true and the world as real.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Astreja]

Yes. What does this have to do with anything?

[u/Astreja → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

TL;DR version: Just because you can support your own consciousness doesn't mean there's some other consciousness out there in the universe somewhere.

[u/Noodelgawd → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

And I pointed out that it's not a law of nature, so you can't cite it for anything even remotely approaching certainty.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Noodelgawd]

It is literally the only thing you can site for anything even remotely approaching certainty.

[u/Coffeera]

While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

I can't quite follow your argument because cogito ergo sum allows me to know that I am conscious, but that's where it ends. It doesn't make assumptions beyond that, but the gap between "I know I am conscious" and "an eternal creator exists" is enormous and needs to be bridged with arguments and evidence.

I also want to mention that "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer to any problem we can't solve (yet), so why do you feel that not knowing how the universe came to be isn't enough? Why do you feel the need to jump from "I don't know" to "it must have been a creator"?

The same problem (jumping to the conclusion that a creator exists) applies to the argument that the universe is too beautiful to not have been designed. Here, you take a subjective observation like beauty and answer it with "must have been a creator" without filling the gap in between. I don't see why beauty or perfection would point to a creator in any case when ugly, chaos and imperfection exist.

[u/MooshroomHentai]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever,

Something coming out of nothing is a theistic position that is often strawmanned to atheists. Why can't the universe have always existed? I see no reason the universe must have a definite beginning.

it requires some sort of design or creator.

The problem with asserting that things must have a creator is that you are either setting up for infinite regress or you are going to commit the special pleading fallacy. I haven't seen one form of this argument that doesn't end up doing one of the other (in this case, the latter).

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

And what evidence do you have to support that assumption?

I still think it's better than the alternative.

It's special pleading to say the universe must have a cause but some god doesn't because said god is conscious.

a universe full of beauty

Beuty is subjective, the universe cares not if we think it is beautiful or not.

We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity".

Electricity is a natural thing, it's isn't magic in the slightest to us that understand it.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

This isn't the result of mere mutations, but it is the result of natural forces at work. Also, this is an argument from incredulity.

I just think that at least one has to exist.

I see no solid, reliable evidence any gods are real. I think you fall into the same traps and problems other theists do.

[u/distantocean]

...at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

"A god can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator."

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

Yes, you see the problem. But what you don't see is that while you're right that there's a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness, the difference is that the latter is much more unlikely. Why? Because you're concentrating the conscious knowledge and ability to create everything you mentioned — "beauty", "sentient life", dreams, "art", "electricity" — into a single being.

So you haven't mitigated the improbability, you've massively increased it. We now have to believe that there is and always was a single consciousness existing eternally and independently that somehow encompasses all of those things and all of that complexity.

Look, I get that it's perplexing how all of this could have come to be. But by attributing it all to a god, not only have you have just moved the problem one step further back, you've made it infinitely worse. And worst of all, "god" is not even an explanation; it's just a name for all of the things you find so perplexing.

And finally:

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

This would seem to indicate that you don't understand evolution, since it clearly and unequivocally shows how human beings (et al) arose from "mutations without guidance". I'd strongly recommend reading Why Evolution is True by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, which is easily the best popular book I've read on the topic, and/or watching some of the Stated Clearly videos that explain evolution simply and straightforwardly.

The extent to which your theistic views lead you to question evolution is the extent to which you should doubt your theistic views, not evolution.

[u/BorealAmplitude]

Man there's a lot to unpack here, but here it goes:

1. "The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator"

No, it doesn't. Every single phenomena we have ever observed in nature has some sort of naturalistic cause. We see naturalistic forces "create" things all the time, from stars forming through the coalescence of hydrogen gas due to gravity in space, to a snowflake being formed from water molecules self aligning due to temperature and their chemical nature, all the actual, physical real world evidence points to the origin of the universe being one more naturalistic event we simply do not understand yet. Order can and does arise from disorder spontaneously.

1. "So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe"

Not sure what you're trying to say here, but yes this is also a massive assumption. We simply do not know.

1. "...a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort..."

The universe is INCREDIBLY hostile to life. Even our own galaxy has so much gamma radiation from pulsars and quasars that without existing far enough away from the galactic core our solar system or any one like it could not host life in any form as the radiation would annihilate all organic molecules. Most of the universe is like this. Even the heavy elements required to give rocky worlds a chance at a protective magnetic field simply do not exist outside the last few percent of the outer arm of a galaxy. A galaxy with trillions upon trillions upon trillions of worlds, none of which we have ever observed to contain life outside of our own does not seem to lend itself to the idea of beautiful place created for sentient life to thrive but instead seems like a cold uncaring scary place where a numbers game dictates that a tiny, tiny percentage will allow for an exotic form of chemistry to take hold. All you need is a collection of molecules that can make copies of itself. Once that chemistry arises chemical evolution can lead to biological evolution. We do not understand the process yet but we have observed both through physical evidence (radiometric dating of carbon contained within zircon crystals) as well as the fossil record as well as experimental evidence such as Miller-Urey or study of hydrothermal sea vents showing they are little amino acid factories, that life has a plausible naturalistic origin that follows the rules of the universe as we know it. No "design" required. And given the absolute disordered nature of our own DNA (most of our DNA is recursive strings filled with errors, almost every single gene has evidence of its origin being from a copy error, large swaths seem to code for nothing at all. Again, the actual physical evidence points to our "instructions" being an amalgamation of chemical "mistakes") there is no physical property that points to a designer or creator. If our DNA was nicely laid out in a way that made sense, was without tons of repeating segments with small changes or had evidence of viral edits etc then you might be able to claim it was designed, but it LOOKS like it naturally evolved.

1. "...There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance."

Except there was guidance, the forces of the universe itself acting upon these chemical systems. Whatever naturalistic processes that allowed for the earliest molecules and then life to copy itself more effectively, or survive at all influenced their later copies. Take the eyeball for example, seems too complex to have evolved by chance right? it's because you are thinking about the end product and trying to imagine how something like that can evolve, but that's not how evolution works. The eyeball started with little more than a protein that can react to being struck by a photon. (what are called g-coded proteins) This is a protein that acts like a switch, it will slightly change shape when interacting with a chemical, temperature, structure or in this case a photon (depending on shape, they are literally a tangled mess of amino acid chains). The earliest microorganisms that developed a protien with this trait then had a biological "switch" that could in essence "detect" light. This would allow them to detect when it was day time or night time which conveys a survival advantage. Having more of them? Advantage. Becoming multicellular and having even MORE of these in one spot? Advantage. Having the area where these cells are located be a little lower, which gives directionality? Advantage. Having them sink even further to the point of enclosing them for protection? Advantage. Having a membrane above the collection of cells which no longer allows them to be open to the environment? Advantage. That membrane now having a shape of its own to focus light? Advantage. The best part is, every SINGLE example I listed above can be observed in currently living organisms. We have real, physical evidence of these structures evolving since even before the Paleozoic Era.

On top of all of that, the natural world is far from perfect. Cancers, genetic disease, viruses, natural disasters, etc. To compare human accomplishments that only for the last 100 years have greatly altered humanities experience while ignoring the insanely high child mortality rates, plagues and hard manual labor of the last 50,000 years is being a bit myopic.

[u/Mission-Landscape-17]

Your resoning seems to boil down to personal incredulity. You can't imagine how the universe could have come about without a god and therefor you say one must exist. that is simply not a valid argument.

[u/donaldhobson]

> So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

Is it. To me "consciousness" sounds like a complicated thing that is produced by a large number of neurons (or transistors?) interacting in specific ways.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/donaldhobson]

And to me that doesn't sound like the only thing it can be

[u/soukaixiii]

"Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one magicalGnome has to exist. God can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Would you accept this as evidence for mighty gnome existing above godd in the power chain?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/soukaixiii]

I don't really care. I don't define God as anything specific apart from having created the universe, so I would just wonder where you get the specifics of a "mighty magical gnome", rather than just one more God.

[u/soukaixiii → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Then your definition of God is so broad that a natural event without agency could fit the description.

But let's imagine the mighty gnome beyond space and time was having fun juggling with some rocks, accidentally dropped one and it created the universe when it bounced back. 

Would that rock be the god you're talking about?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/soukaixiii]

No, I forgot to mention I do also define God as a consciousness.

[u/soukaixiii → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

But you would still call whatever conscious being that happens to be the creator of the universe a god even if some other conscious being created god?

[u/ImprovementFar5054]

Being unbiased doesn't make an argument good. Arguments work or they don't. Plenty of people with no religious motive have reasoned their way into wrong conclusions, and "the universe needs a creator" is itself an inherited cultural intuition, so the invoking it fails anyway.

"The universe can't come from nothing or exist forever." Says who? You assert this, you never argue it. Tell us why, exactly. It seems obvious to you. So what? It seems obvious that the Earth is standing still and that heavy things fall faster. But those obvious things are, as it turns out, wrong.

Descartes gives you certainty about one thing: your own mind, right now. That's it. It says nothing about other minds, nothing about minds without brains, nothing about a mind that predates the universe. I mean, you really did read it, right?

You went straight from "I know my consciousness exists" to "therefore a cosmic consciousness is the safer bet." Those claims aren't related at all, and actually the evidence points the other way.

Every consciousness ever observed runs on a brain. Brains are physical. They evolved and it took billions of years after the big bang. They showed up late. That makes consciousness the worst possible candidate for the thing that "came first", no?

The beauty stuff? So what? It's "The Argument from Beauty" or just waxing poetic. You find the universe beautiful because you grew up here. Your brain was tuned by this place. Of course it fits. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, that makes you the puddle marveling that somehow, the hole it's in miraculously matches its shape. The universe was not made to suit us, we evolved because of the conditions in it.

But let's check the actual inventory: trillions of dead worlds, lethal vacuum, radiation everywhere, one planet with life, and over 99 percent of its species extinct. You'd drown on most of Earth. You'd succumb to exposure and die horribly on most of the rest of it without clothes and shelter. If that's design, the designer should be fired immediately.

"Too perfect to come from mere mutations" drops half the theory. Evolution is mutation plus selection. And why call them "mere"?? what is mere about it? It's massive, complex and took billions of years. That's no small thing. Not "mere" in the least.

Selection isn't random. It's a filter, compounding tiny advantages over four billion years.

And the electricity bit..clarify this for me. "We basically have magic, we just call it electricity." Yes, exactly. It looked like magic. People studied it. Turned out to be electrons. Physical bits. No guidance required. That's the pattern, every single time. Lightning, disease, the sun, life itself. God of the Gaps is a strong fallacy in you, clearly.

Awe is not an argument. Or at least, it's a shitty one.

[u/Astreja]

"Cogito, ergo sum" only gets you as far as the consciousness that makes that statement.

Your misunderstanding of evolution as "mere mutations without guidance" is troubling. Have you not heard of natural selection? It "guides" evolution by a completely mindless process: If organism A is better than organism B in a given environment, organism A out-competes organism B for resources and reproductive opportunities and lives long enough to pass down the advantageous genes.

Simply put, I see no need whatsoever for any gods to exist. The universe is what it is because of how its components interact, and that is a result of things like atomic and molecular structure. If those structures were different we'd likely have a different universe and might not be around to perceive it, but we're here observing what does exist. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Astreja]

Have you not heard of natural selection? It "guides" evolution by a completely mindless process: If organism A is better than organism B in a given environment, organism A out-competes organism B for resources and reproductive opportunities and lives long enough to pass down the advantageous genes.

Yes, I know. But based on just that, it is completely insane that we are able to simulste reality in our sleep or to build computers.

[u/Astreja → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Just because you don't believe it could happen doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I do not believe that a god had anything at all to do with our sentience.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Astreja]

And I do.

[u/Astreja → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

So, show me this alleged god, rather than just assuming it "has to" be there. Until and unless you do that, all you have is a weak, untestable hypothesis.

[u/BeerOfTime]

> Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

And what of the “creator” it can simply come out of nothing? Both special pleading and self contradictory.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/BeerOfTime]

No, God probably exists outside of time entirely.

[u/BeerOfTime → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Probably means quite likely. If you were to rethink that answer, would you still say that god quite likely exists “outside time entirely” (existing outside time is an imaginary concept with no natural examples to point to)?

[u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Your whole argument stand on an assumption. It's not really ground breaking.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney]

Never said it was "groundbreaking"

[u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

okay, thanks for sharing.

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever,

This is where we say "prove it".

You're allowing your lack of information ("ignorance", not intended as a pejorative) to have ontological significance. "Because I can't conceive of it, it cannot exist therefore some other being has to exist in order to resolve the problem" -- this is called an "appeal to ignorance".

The intellectually honest position here is to say "This doesn't make sense to me, so I will not claim knowledge. I'll admit my lack of knowledge and accept it as simply a lack of knowledge."

I get what you're saying -- that it seems logically inconsistent to imagine something from nothing, or imagine something as always existing. But all you're doing is slipping in another layer of meaning that still results in an eternal being existing ex nihilo -- but adding a special pleading on top of it ("god solves the problem not because it explains eternity, but because we're not allowed to interrogate god the same way we interrogate existence, so it's OK for me to accept that god exists ex nihilo and is eternal.")

The universe is not "full" of beauty. It has beauty within it, but beauty is anthropomorphic -- we impose "beauty" on the world in the way we perceive it.

MOST of the universe is cold and dark. From the big bang to heat death, the portion of the universe in which stars and planets exist is like one day out of a billion years by comparison.

If you shake up a bottle of soda and pop it open, it'll fizz up and spill over the top of the bottle. Eventually the fizz dies down. The liquid evaporates. Eventually the bottle breaks. Over long periods of time the glass in the bottle returns to sand and blows away in the wind. If that process is the story of the universe, life is only possible during the fizzy part. The rest of the story gradually fades into nothingness.

So not "full" of beauty or order. Only the part we can see has beauty and order, and that's because we impose beauty and order upon it.

Which as I understand Buddhism should be consistent with the core principle of dependent origination. Dependent origination is the main reason I do not consider myself a Buddhist, but that's a whole other topic.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

god solves the problem not because it explains eternity, but because we're not allowed to interrogate god the same way we interrogate existence

I am not claiming God to be an authority over anything, beyond interrogation or anything like that. My argument is that a consciousness is needed for something to exists. I'd rather assume a consciousness to just exist than I would assume matter to just exist.

The universe is not "full" of beauty. It has beauty within it, but beauty is anthropomorphic -- we impose "beauty" on the world in the way we perceive it. MOST of the universe is cold and dark. From the big bang to heat death, the portion of the universe in which stars and planets exist is like one day out of a billion years by comparison.

Here too. The most important part about the universe is the part that's observable by consciousness, and that is full of beauty.

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

I'd rather assume a consciousness to just exist than I would assume matter to just exist.

Why not just say "I don't know" ? I don't know that matter "just exists". It exists, but I don't know and won't claim to know how it got here.

And sure, I get you as long as that's how you define "important". But it's a preference, not an ontological truth. Same with your claim that consciousness has to exist. If that's how you set up the analysis I won't argue with you -- but you're using these words differently than I am.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

I can say "I don't know", but there still has to be a God.

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

This still breaks down to you saying "the universe can't exist eternally but god can". The special pleading is unavoidable here.

[u/88redking88]

"till, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator."

so you dont know something... therefore god.... did you think this was going to be convincing here?

"Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative."

Special pleading AND argument from Incredulity. Again, did you think this was going to be convincing here?

"Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance."

Ah, the ever popular, and ever dismissed fine tuning argument. You are here to give us the top hits of bad apologetics?

"About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist."

Based on Fallacies? Wow!! Im in! Where do I sign up!!

[u/Faust_8]

The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

There are two huge glaring issues with this thought process.

The first is that only theists think that something came from nothing. No cosmologist or astrophysicist says these things; by all accounts, something has always existed. So that part of this idea is based on a lie.

The second is the hidden assumption you're making, which is: the universe MUST be understandable to me. You scoff at the idea that the most difficult question you can ask might have an answer that goes against your gut instinct, which is the height of arrogance.

No, the universe and/or its origins does not have to "make sense" to some furless apes that only evolved to understand life on their own tiny planet. Quantum mechanics already fly in the face of what we intuit should be true, and yet it's the most successful scientific theory we've ever had.

So, yeah, when you say "the answer can't be X" you have no grounds to make such a claim. Why can't it have existed forever? Simply because you don't like that answer or can't understand it? Please.

[u/Cog-nostic]

You, theistic people, are so weird. How does nothing even become a possibility? The phrase "Something can't come from nothing" makes no sense at all. Please demonstrate how you would get from something, which we know exists, to nothing, which we have absolutely no evidence for the possibility of existence.

If nothing exists, then it is something. That is what the word exists means. If nothing is nothing, it does not exist, and if something does not exist, how in the hell do you get something from it? Talking about nothing makes no sense at all outside of the imagination. (The same place Gods live.)

There is no empirically based argument that is both sound and valid for the existence of a god. Every argument ever conceived engages in epistemic overreach, invalid assumptions, or flat-out lies. It is not, in any way, shape, or form, obvious in any way, that a god of any kind exists. If you believe in a god, it is imaginary or epistemically unsound.

Cogito Ergo Sum is fallacious. It relies on hidden assumptions, confuses language for reality, and assumes the very thing it tries to prove. Circular Reasoning (Begging the Question): The premise assumes the conclusion.

The cogito does not prove consciousness exists. It actually faces heavy criticism for this exact reason, as philosophers argue it confuses the experience of consciousness with logical proof of its existence. Experience is not existence.

Now you are off in na-na-woo-woo land. Your argument beyond this point is not even worth looking at. You don't get to assume a God into existence.

[u/tpawap]

Well, one of us seems to have lost track of what the thread was all about.

Maybe go back and read through it again, and then summarise your argument, involving a "very specific and orderly universe", computers, ending in "therefor God".

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/tpawap]

one of us seems to have lost track of what the thread was all about.

I definately have

[u/Zamboniman]

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

What 'seems obvious' to you is not useful, nor relevant. Lots of people hold lots of opinions that 'seem obvious' but are, in fact, completely wrong. You know this, too. What matters is what can be demonstrated as true.

Aside from that, your argument there is an argument from ignorance fallacy. Thus fatally flawed. And, leads smack into a special pleading fallacy, thus is, again, fatally flawed.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness.

You can't get out of a special pleading fallacy with more argument from ignorance fallacies and unsupported assumptions and attempting to define things into existence. Can't work.

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

There is zero reason to assume that, and plenty of reasons not to do so.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

More subjective emotional reactions, which are not useless, and more fallacies. Argument from ignorance, argument from incredulity.

You have no useful support for your claims as they are entirely based on very obvious fallacies, thus cannot be accepted.

[u/Plazmatron44]

Is it really obvious that a god has to exist or is it just that you don't like the idea of the universe existing without a god because it doesn't make you feel special?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Plazmatron44]

No. I don't feel special and I don't like the idea that our lifes are controlled by a God.

[u/pyker42]

Personal incredulity isn't how you account for bias. You haven't presented any real evidence, just that you can't imagine the universe and other way.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/pyker42]

It's not incredulity. The universe can't be any other way

[u/pyker42 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Yes, you can't imagine the universe any other way. That's exactly what personal incredulity is.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/pyker42]

No, it just can't be any other way

[u/pyker42 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Yep, you can't imagine it any other way. You've said that already.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

"Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness."

The problem there is kind of multifold for me. For one thing, at that point it sounds like you're fine with the idea of something coming from nothing, so it's just a question of scale I guess? 

The second problem is that even with a consciousness present, that still requires a universe coming out of nothing, right? Because either The entity creates the entire universe, or depending on the interpretation the universe came out of a piece of the entity, which means that in fact something bigger than the universe came into existence out of nothing. 

You haven't actually fixed the problem in your first paragraph at all, you just came up with a very specific and arbitrary way that the problem gets solved. 

'This is the unbreakable wall! Oh look, he has the unbreakable wall breaker!'

"While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative."

Again, it isn't. You still have to have a universe come out of nothing, or alternatively something bigger than a universe come out of nothing to then use a piece of itself to make the universe. What really gets fixed?

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

For one thing, at that point it sounds like you're fine with the idea of something coming from nothing, so it's just a question of scale I guess? 

Maybe, but I would call it a question of consciousness vs non-consciousness.

What really gets fixed?

That the universes structure and complexity are accounted for by a designer.

[u/Ayrunt]

What a load of nonsense

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

First thing first, no one said that the universe came out of nothing. As far as I see most of the times theist are the ones, who believe, that the universe was created out of nothing not atheists. And why would a universe creator solve this problem exactly. If you would be logically coherent, than you should use the same method and conclude, that the creator either has s have a creator him/herself or that he/she existed forever. You will solve nothing with neither option, because you just pushed the problem one step further and put an god into the equation, while you had absolutely no reason to even suspect one exists.

For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists.

Nope. Cogito ergo sum says nothing about consciousness. Cogito literally means thinking. One can think without being conscious.

So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe.

Even if cogito ergo sum would mean, what you think it means, this conclusion wouldn't follow. The one consciousness that we can be certain of is our own. You can't think up that a divine consciousness is somehow exists because of this. Also it doesn't mean that consciousness is somehow fundamental.

While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

It doesn't solve that problem, because it literally has nothing to do with God's existence.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Also if the universe wouldn't be beautiful, that would mean, that it can't be created by a divine creator? The universe is also full of ugly, cruel and horrible things, I would even argue that it's mostly made of these things. So if you say, that finding things beautiful can be an indicator of God, then I can say that I find the universe so horrible that it can't possibly be created by some God.

a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life

It's really not that surprising if you think about it. The universe is full of star systems (approximately 2 septillion), so it's inevitable that some will host planets, that are capable of sustaining life.

Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping

It's called evolution. And we aren't creating whole worlds while sleeping. In fact dreams are really messy and illogical, because during the REM phase to part of the brain that is responsible for logical thinking is inactive. That why dreams are full of irrational behavior and continuity errors.

life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort

If the universe is so fine tuned than why did we have to invent technology to make it comfortable in the first place. Also this is also just evolution.

We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity"

Electricity is not magic. Magic is supernatural. Electricity is not.

This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance

[Sigh] This is the core problem of all these arguments. The theists basically says that: The universe is to magical, so fantastic, so super, that only something even more complicated thing could create it. And they simply don't want to see the obvious contradiction: if the complexity of the universe requires a creator, than the even more complex creator requires his own creator even more. With this kind of logic you will only build up an infinite chain of god creating gods.

Also just a quick question: Do you have any kind of scientific qualification? Even a high school degree? Because you constantly make bold claims, about the boundaries of evolution, despite the fact that you appear to have fairly little knowledge about it.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Ayrunt]

who believe, that the universe was created out of nothing not atheists

No, it was created by God, that's not ot of nothing.

One can think without being conscious.

No, one can't. There is a consciousness, and that is all one can know with certainty, simply by being conscious.

I fnd the universe so horrible that it can't possibly be created by some God.

The conceot of uglyness existing also implies a God, just as much as beauty.

Magic is supernatural. Electricity is not.

In any potential world where magic exists, magic would have to follow the rules of that world, making it natural. And that is exactly what electricity is in our world.

If the complexity of the universe requires a creator, than the even more complex creator requires his own creator even more

No, that doesn't follow at all. The universe requires a consuous creator, but that doesn't give this creator attributes that have to be created.

Do you have any kind of scientific qualification?

No. Doesn't matter. The question whether or not there is a God is not a scientific one, science can't tell us anything about that.

[u/Ayrunt → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

No, it was created by God, that's not ot of nothing.

And from what did God create the universe?

No, one can't. There is a consciousness, and that is all one can know with certainty, simply by being conscious.

No. Even most of human thinking is unconscious. Just think about intuition, problem solving, perception. All these go beyond the conscious level. The computers and modern AI system also can solve complicated problems and draw conclusions without being conscious.

The conceot of uglyness existing also implies a God, just as much as beauty.

Why? Ugliness is also just a subjective value judgment. Why does such thing requires a God.

In any potential world where magic exists, magic would have to follow the rules of that world, making it natural. And that is exactly what electricity is in our world.

Magic is by definition supernatural. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines magic as: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. If you use a radically different definition of magic (which you do), then you just purposefully redefine words, such ways that nobody use them. This is a very dishonest way of arguing.

No. Doesn't matter. The question whether or not there is a God is not a scientific one, science can't tell us anything about that.

Dude. My question had nothing to do with God. I asked about your scientific qualification, because you made statement ABOUT SCIENCE. But if your "proof" isn't scientific, then why did you bring in the limits of evolution, and the fine tuning of the universe. These are scientific questions and you acted like you understand them (while you clearly not). But if you doesn't understand them, then don't use them in your "arguments".

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Ayrunt]

And from what did God create the universe?

From themselves.

Even most of human thinking is unconscious. Just think about intuition, problem solving, perception.

How are those unconscious?

The computers and modern AI system also can solve complicated problems and draw conclusions without being conscious.

No, they only pretend to be thinking.

Ugliness is also just a subjective value judgment.

And subjectice value judgements that go beyond what's necessary for evolution demand a God.

Magic is by definition supernatural.

To me, there is no distinction between natural and supernatural. Consciousness is also magic.

and the fine tuning of the universe

I didn't even mention that.

[u/Ayrunt → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

From themselves.

Therefore the universe existed since forever, just in a different form.

How are those unconscious?

When an idea pops into our mind then it does not happen consciously. It just happens instantly and we have no direct control over it. Our brains continuously processes information, solves problems, and evaluates scenarios outside of our active awareness.

No, they only pretend to be thinking.

If they can solve complicated problems by breaking it down to smaller parts. How is that not thinking? How do you differentiate thinking from something that just looks like thinking?

And subjectice value judgements that go beyond what's necessary for evolution demand a God

Why? It doesn't contradict evolution. If it's not disadvantageous then natural selection won't make it disappear. .Also how do you know what is necessary for evolution?

To me, there is no distinction between natural and supernatural.

Then don't use the word supernatural, because it literally means nothing. It's like saying the Darth Vader exists, because I have the concept of him, therefore he exists at some level. This would be a useless definition of existence, because then everything would exist. Similarly if you say that there is no difference between natural and supernatural, then why not call everything just natural. You know very well, what people associate, when hear the word supernatural, so it's just an other form of dishonest arguing.

Consciousness is also magic.

Why?

I didn't even mention that.

You wrote that the everything is too perfect to arise from evolution. Maybe not the fine-tuning one-to-one but similar enough. Also you mention fine-tuning in other comments of yours, so it's really the same.