Question for Atheists?

Question:Okay so, the universe was created from the big bang, right? Then where did the particles that created the big bang come from?

If you say they were just there, please explain how that's possible.

I'm not putting athiesm down, after all you could be right, but I just wanted to know an athiest's view on this.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Okay so, the universe was created from the big bang, right? Then where did the particles that created the big bang come from?

If you say they were just there, please explain how that's possible.

I'm not putting athiesm down, after all you could be right, but I just wanted to know an athiest's view on this.

Maybe this universe is part of another universe and the atom exploded and created another universe within a universe and then we were defected from this cause and so on and so on. There had to be something there to start the chain of events.

Ahhh, its way to scary to think about my mind is now trying to break down the entire theory.

Great q.

"We don't know yet," is a perfectly good answer for both atheists and theists, I just wish people would honestly use it when it is appropriate.

The answer is at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronom...

By the way, saying an old man in the sky did it is even less plausible.

we don't know yet.

im not an atheist- but im not a creationist either. personally the big bang/evolution theory does it for me, although im not ruling out other possibilities. thats not to say a god, any god or many gods weren't involved, if there are such things. you never can tell. science doesn't preclude religion. think of it this way- science is the how- religion is the why. as an agnostic, i don't really have any prevailing theories on the religion side of things, but most of the science stuff makes sense to me, its logical, so i certainly beleive that bit. as to the other, i guess i'll find out in (hopefully) quite a few years from now.

it's anyone's guess how the universe began, the theist's version is as solid as the atheists' in this case. btw not all atheists believe in the big bang.

I didn't know Atheist meant scientist. Do you think that's what it means? We don't have to prove anything. That's the point.

Well, matter and energy are the same thing, and it's pretty well established that the initial matter in our universe came from the initial energy. Where that initial energy came from is less established, but it has been noted that the sum total of all positive energy in the universe (including matter, remember E=mc^2) appears to be almost (as near as we can determine) perfectly balanced by the sum total of all negative energy in the universe, namely gravity.

So it's possible that our entire universe could just be a kind of fluctuation, with positive and negative energy (again, including matter) balancing out to zero. For an explanation of how that fluctuation came about, the best theory we have to explain that is inflationary theory. The explanation is a bit too long and technical for this forum, though not so hard that most people shouldn't be able to understand it if they apply themselves. I recommend finding a copy of "The Inflationary Universe" by Alan Guth at your local public or university library.

I know it's not your intention to put atheism down, however, you're using what's referred to as the "god of the gaps" argument. This is where a person seeks to demonstrate the existence of a god by pointing to gaps in our knowledge that science has not (yet) been able to explain, and then claiming that it must be god that's responsible. For instance, "we don't know for sure how the universe got started, therefore, it must have been god."

The problem with the "god of the gaps" argument is that those gaps in our knowledge continue to shrink more and more as science and rational thought provide us with more and more answers, answers that can be tested and verified. Lightning was once thought to be spears thrown by Zeus, now we know it to be a weather phenomenon caused by the discharge of accumulated electrons in the air. Disease was once thought to be a form of demonic possession, now we know it's caused by viruses, bacteria, and other germs.

Going back specifically to the origin of the universe question, saying that "god did it" doesn't actually answer any questions. Because the next logical question is, where did this god come from? Who or what created it? And perhaps most importantly, how is it that the universe needs a creator (according to those who believe), but a god does not?