Atheists don't believe in God or gods but they have no alternative theories that make sense...

[Blackrook]

I'm not relying on faith, I'm relying on logic.

Either the universe caused itself or the universe was caused by something else.

What I'm saying is that it's a lot more likely that something else caused the universe.

That something else might as well be called God, because you can't come up with a better name for it.

I'm not asking you to have faith here.

I'm just asking you to use your brain and think.

Might as well be? So you don’t know. It might as well be Darth Vader and the Force. That is the point we don’t know. Even those with faith cannot agree.

It doesn't matter what you call the entity that caused the universe, it's still the same thing. Changing the name doesn't change the nature of what it is, the cause of the universe that is itself uncaused.

Of course it matters. How can you say it does not?

OK, if you want to call the uncaused cause of the universe "Darth Vader" you can do that. But you're not changing anything by calling it that.

Yes you are. You’re saying you don’t know and there is no proof of Adam and Eve or Mohammed, etc.

I'm not trying to prove the Biblical God, or a God of any religion believed in by any human. All I'm trying to prove is that there is something outside the universe that caused the universe. To believe otherwise is to believe the universe caused itself, which makes no sense.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

What is my shaky premise?

That the universe caused by something is "likely true" (arbitrary, you could not possibly know the truth of it). Then you proceed ONLY from the truth of it, assuming it as your first premise. From bad first premises, we can argue anything we like, with perfectly valid logic. I actually commented on this shaky premise in the very first response in this thread. And then again, a few times.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Might as well be? So you don’t know. It might as well be Darth Vader and the Force. That is the point we don’t know. Even those with faith cannot agree.

It doesn't matter what you call the entity that caused the universe, it's still the same thing. Changing the name doesn't change the nature of what it is, the cause of the universe that is itself uncaused.

Of course it matters. How can you say it does not?

OK, if you want to call the uncaused cause of the universe "Darth Vader" you can do that. But you're not changing anything by calling it that.

Yes you are. You’re saying you don’t know and there is no proof of Adam and Eve or Mohammed, etc.

I'm not trying to prove the Biblical God, or a God of any religion believed in by any human. All I'm trying to prove is that there is something outside the universe that caused the universe. To believe otherwise is to believe the universe caused itself, which makes no sense.

We agree. We don’t know.

 

[Blackrook]

What is my shaky premise?

That the universe caused by something is "likely true" (arbitrary, you could not possibly know the truth of it). Then you proceed ONLY from the truth of it, assuming it as your first premise. From bad first premises, we can argue anything we like, with perfectly valid logic.

OK, well, make the case that the universe caused itself.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You’re saying you don’t know and there is no proof of Adam and Eve or Mohammed, etc.

Right. First, you must accept the basic idea of a supreme being in your mind. Then, later, as we do the zeta scans and voodoo chants, we will tell you what he is, and you will forget all about the fact that the argument relied on the "thing" (supreme being) being unknown.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

You’re saying you don’t know and there is no proof of Adam and Eve or Mohammed, etc.

Right. First, you must accept the basic idea of a supreme being in your mind. Then, later, as we do the zeta scans and voodoo chants, we will tell you what he is, and you will forget all about the fact that the argument relied on the "thing" (supreme being) being unknown.

Bingo. I agree with you, despite you being a dumb Leftist clown.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

OK, well, make the case that the universe caused itself.

Why? I would not need to do so in order to reject as unknown and arbitrary that the opposite were "likely true". And, even if I were to accept your arbitrary insistence, what's the real difference between 51% and 49% anyway? They are both nearly equally possibly wrong. You assume one as 100%, certainly true. This is your first premise, and it is on shaky ground.

 

[Karl Rand]

What is my shaky premise?

That the universe caused by something is "likely true" (arbitrary, you could not possibly know the truth of it). Then you proceed ONLY from the truth of it, assuming it as your first premise. From bad first premises, we can argue anything we like, with perfectly valid logic.

OK, well, make the case that the universe caused itself.

Eternity requires no cause as it always was.

 

[MisterBeale]

OK, well, make the case that the universe caused itself.

Why? I would not need to do so in order to reject as unknown and arbitrary that the opposite were "likely true". And, even if I were to accept your arbitrary insistence, what's the real difference between 51% and 49% anyway? They are both nearly equally possibly wrong. You assume one as 100%, certainly true. This is your first premise, and it is on shaky ground.

Why?

Because living without real love, real faith and a nihilistic existence is a hateful one. It separates you from everyone and everything. It will only allow loneliness, selfishness and hate.

We all know you.

Join the cosmic consciousness and let go of your own damned prideful ego.

As you approach death's door it will serve you nothing but regret in the end.

Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?
A new paper argues the condition now known as “dissociative identity disorder” might help us understand the fundamental nature of reality
Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?

". . . . You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize the obvious problem with this idea: people have private, separate fields of experience. We can’t normally read your thoughts and, presumably, neither can you read ours. Moreover, we are not normally aware of what’s going on across the universe and, presumably, neither are you. So, for idealism to be tenable, one must explain—at least in principle—how one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition, each with a distinct personality and sense of identity.


And here is where dissociation comes in. We know empirically from DID that consciousness can give rise to many operationally distinct centers of concurrent experience, each with its own personality and sense of identity. Therefore, if something analogous to DID happens at a universal level, the one universal consciousness could, as a result, give rise to many alters with private inner lives like yours and ours. As such, we may all be alters—dissociated personalities—of universal consciousness.


Moreover, as we’ve seen earlier, there is something dissociative processes look like in the brain of a patient with DID. So, if some form of universal-level DID happens, the alters of universal consciousness must also have an extrinsic appearance. We posit that this appearance is life itself: metabolizing organisms are simply what universal-level dissociative processes look like.


Idealism is a tantalizing view of the nature of reality, in that it elegantly circumvents two arguably insoluble problems: the hard problem of consciousness and the combination problem. Insofar as dissociation offers a path to explaining how, under idealism, one universal consciousness can become many individual minds, we may now have at our disposal an unprecedentedly coherent and empirically grounded way of making sense of life, the universe and everything."

 

[deanrd]

...as to how the universe came to exist or how humans became aware of our own existence.

And I've tried to get answers from atheists, but none are forthcoming.

They do like to mock those of us who do believe in God or gods, as if somehow mockery can make up for lack of answers.

And I do anticipate that they will simply do that in this thread, mock and ridicule.

Why do you bring up God when you post so much lying sh!t?

It makes no sense,

 

[Karl Rand]

The bitch session being conducted here isn’t going to get anywhere given the tangle of pseudo-philosophical gibberish being dished up. Oh well, not just here but in general atheists and believers are both wasting their time entering into dialogue. In the end though it’s the desperation to be certain that amuses and then bores me. To assume on one hand we are so significant any Godlike entity would have an interest or reason to grant us immortality is simply vain. On the other hand to argue the atheist proof God doesn’t exist is equally silly. How can you claim something doesn’t exist when no meaningful definition of what it might be can be given? All a waste of time until the religious gain sufficient political power and shove their twisted notions of morality down everyone else's throats ant the point of a gun. Then the fight becomes more than an abstract discussion, it becomes a matter of survival.

 

[cnm]

The universe didn't get here by itself.

That's my proof of God.

'I don't know' = 'God'

Christer logic.

 

[edthecynic]

You cannot create matter out of nothing

Sure you can, if you create equal amounts of matter and some combination of antimatter/dark energy. Net energy zero. No conservation principle has been violated. In fact, many scienists think this may be true of our universe, with most considering it, at least, certainly possible.

You cannot "create equal amounts" of that which cannot be created!!!

 

[edthecynic]

There are two possibilities.

The universe caused itself, or

The universe didn't cause itself.

What I'm stating is that the latter is more likely true.

You can state it all you want, but that does not make it true, all you are doing is pontificating.

Now science has PROVEN with a repeatable experiment that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, therefore energy simply IS.

 

[cnm]

Despite what they say, I think nearly everyone knows intuitively that all of existence - life, the universe, the complexity, beauty, order, etc. did not create itself by dumb luck. Anyone who believes it did has a form of blindness, (spiritual blindness) plain and simple.

We keep saying "WE DON'T KNOW" but it never penetrates the holy fog.

 

[edthecynic]

Calling the cause of the universe something other than God doesn't change what it or he or she is: the uncaused cause, the necessary being.

The necessary contradiction for the unnecessary being.

 

[buttercup]

We keep saying "WE DON'T KNOW" but it never penetrates the holy fog.

Oh I heard you loud and clear.

 

[Dale Smith]

Despite what they say, I think nearly everyone knows intuitively that all of existence - life, the universe, the complexity, beauty, order, etc. did not create itself by dumb luck. Anyone who believes it did has a form of blindness, (spiritual blindness) plain and simple.

We keep saying "WE DON'T KNOW" but it never penetrates the holy fog.

CNM , you believe in "gubermint god", don't ya??????

 

[cnm]

Now science has PROVEN with a repeatable experiment that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, therefore energy simply IS.

Well, provided evidence that is the case, which has achieved consensus, until different knowledge comes along.

 

[Slade3200]

...as to how the universe came to exist or how humans became aware of our own existence.

And I've tried to get answers from atheists, but none are forthcoming.

They do like to mock those of us who do believe in God or gods, as if somehow mockery can make up for lack of answers.

And I do anticipate that they will simply do that in this thread, mock and ridicule.

Perhaps some people are ok with not having an explaination for everything. Is it better to accept that we don’t know everything or just fill in the blanks with what’s convenient?