The difference between an athiest veiw of how things came into being and a creationist veiw is virtually nil, because they both agree on one thing - that something came from nothing, be that either God or the Universe. Therefore both things are impossible.
The whole world is IMPOSSIBLE!!
Jon4th4n,
although both types of people do sometimes fall into the trap of believing that something came from nothing, as do people in general, but I think it a far reaching conclusion that both types of people must agree that something came from nothing. I was wondering on what basis do you draw this conclusion. I also wish to give you an example, an astrophysicist can quite easily fail to believe in God while at the same time believe that the universe continually expands and collapses in on itself as one big burst of energy that creates a plethora of objects and circumstances based on astronomically huge patterns, ranges, and coincedences of energy mixture. Now this scientist is both an athiest and a believer that something cannot come from nothing.
What’s your take?
i think i used the word ‘therefore’ where i shouldn’t.
So to summarize, what i meant was that believing God created the Universe or that it created itself are both absurd because put simply your beleiving that something created itself, be that God or the Universe.
Personally I find the concept of God coming into being ‘somehow’ slightly more plausible than the Universe.
However they both seem absurd. Perhaps God is absurd, impossible yet He probably exists - the original miracle.
Do I know you Jon? The Australian reference (Jelena Dokic), the “|337” name, the atheism/creationism angle? Just a thought, you seem a lot like someone I know (and who I’m pretty sure I referred to this site at one stage). 
Anyway, to your question, I’d simply want to understand this: you seem to have a problem conceiving how the universe “came from nothing” yet you see no problem with approaching God from this angle. If you say God created the universe, then you must ask where God came from. If you argue that he is an uncaused cause, then why can’t a significantly less complex and more tangible entity like the universe be an uncaused cause as well/instead? Why not minimalise pluralities (as per Occam’s Razor), eliminate God, and see it as sufficient to say that the universe is the uncaused cause that defies explanation (even though I reject that it does defy explanation in this sense)?
Perhaps read about Hume’s theories of causality and “grand design” and see how both can quite easily be shown to be distinctly anthropic concepts in some ways. Perhaps you’ll get a better grasp of this atheistic position when you learn how to reduce the anthropocentirc filtering we are all susceptible to.
hey JP - I don’t think I know you - I live in Britain, so it would probably be unlikely!
OK I know it may sound simplistic - I’m relatively new to serious philosophy even though I’ve been interested in it all my life but basically this is what I have trouble with -
A creationist wants me to believe that God created the universe from nothing, whilst an athiest wants me to believe that nothing created the universe from nothing.
IF God exists (yes I know, thats a big IF) then that goes some way to explaining himself.
But really, I don’t think there’s any way of proving God exists or not, and IF he exists there never will be - after all God asks for belief, and when proof is introduced then there is no need for faith, faith dissapears.
But anyway, this is beside the point.
PS. That Jelena Dokic reference - I’m not austrailian but I do really like her I think she’s great 
, but I only get to see her once a year here when she plays in Wimbledon!
j0n4th4n if you are interested in the absurd then you should read some existentialist literature, if you haven’t already.
I share a similar problem to you - either way you have to have faith in something - on one hand in a God or on the other in a self-creating universe. I think you can only reconcile this by saying that God is the name to whatever allowed somthing to be created from nothing. It is possible therefore that God is the universe and in fact that isn’t that different from some monotheistic belief which literally argues that all in the universe is God, his essence.
The problem can now be reconciled so one can say (if we genuinely believe that something cannot be created from nothing under natural circumstances):
God exists and is capable of existing without a cause. God then caused the universe to exist.
OR
Nothing existed until the universe created itself from nothing. But then the universe is God because only God can be his own cause.
The difference then arises in what we should do about it. In the first instance, we should perhaps worship this divinity for giving us life and thank it. In the second case, we are part of the divinty and therefore do not need to worship anything.
p.s. this is a separate issue from whether God is an interventionist. Even if the first scenario is true, God need no longer intervene in the universe’s goings-on.
It is interesting that u touch upon the issue of faith. Having given the question what is faith and what does it mean to us ? some reflection. Below is a rough structural definition of the lived expereince of faith. it is by no means exhaustive or definitive.
Faith endows one with the fortitude to transcend the existential ‘givens’ of life and the anxiety and fear they engender.
The existential givens of existence allude to man’s conscious reflective awareness of his own inescapable throwness, loneliness, isolation, meaninglessness, freedom, facticity, and finite existence. These themes are the “ultimate concerns” of man’s existence in the world made manifest through personal reflection and experience of one’s situation in the world. It is the conscious recognition of the responsibility we have towards ourselves as totally free beings or as Sartre describes it "man is freedom”, that produces within us intense existential anxiety. This truth of mans inescapable freedom, like other existential truths, is defended or guarded against; it is ultimately hidden from us, thereby producing our denial of life’s choices and the self-responsibility that accompanies it. The body is a physical manifestation of this existential reality an aspect of our being-in-the-world. In this context faith can be seen as an exorcism of man’s existential demons. Faith can be seen as a retreat into a spiritual determinism that offers sanctuary and peace of mind.
The transcendental characteristics of faith have long been documented by many eastern and several western religious traditions. They describe instances where individuals have appeared to transcend self-inflicted pain while experiencing a state of “grace” through an in intense experiential contact with their faith. What I seek to explicate here is that aspect of faith, which cocoons us from emotional trauma. It comforts and shields us; it puts distance between ourselves and an existential reality that we would prefer not to deal with. It orientates us to look beyond ourselves, to transcend our present mundane existence to a myriad of other possible realities.
Faith is an unconditional commitment that emanates from the very core of one’s being, to a sincere belief in, or a total allegiance to, the notion of a non-corporeal and temporal reality and the existence of an ultimate supreme being or beings. This is a description of mass faith, appertaining to both polytheistic and monotheistic faith across culture and time. The notion of a death defying non-corporeal and temporal reality coupled with a belief in the existence of a Supreme Being or Beings is indicative of all mass faiths such as Christianity and its many offshoots, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. It is the foundational belief from which all other spiritual beliefs unfold and it has been with us in one form or another since the dawn of man. The devotees of these various faiths pledge their unconditional commitment to their particular beliefs or meaning structures, remaining loyal to them throughout their entire lives. They permeate all levels of their respective societies they are the building blocks of cultural identity and define societal norms. Heidegger believes that one of the most basic experiences that constitute human existence is our creation of, and simultaneous creation by, the specific worlds in which we inhabit.
Faith is a willing dependence on a sense of knowing, without references to objective reality for prove of its validity, a self-validating bodily knowing.
This aspect of faith takes the form of intuitive insight, which appears to have no perceived or known antecedents, and emerges into reflective consciousness as complete meanings for us and is perceived as revelational in nature.
Faith is a source of motivational and transformative energy, tempered by experience, it can fuel behaviour for moment or a lifetime, stronger than the biological imperatives such as hunger or sex; It has the potential to shape or determine one’s whole lifescape or lifeworld, it is a foundational structure underpinning one’s whole purpose and reason for being.
This concerns the capacity of one’s faith to motivate one’s entire being. Its accompanying beliefs inform the whole of one’s existence, with their philosophical, or metaphysical assumptions and conclusions concerning the nature of reality, meaning, existence, and the world and our relation to it. One’s core beliefs can generate an intense desire to mould oneself in response to them, to change or amend one’s life direction and worldview in accordance with their tenets and edicts. Over time faith becomes a supportive structure of the ego.
Faith manifests in one’s self-assured confidence in the certainty, and truthfulness of ones perspective.
It determines the underlying process by which we experience and interpret the meaning events that constitute the lifeworld. (It determines the noetic character of experience) It endows us with a sense of heightened awareness and inner clarity, a self-assured confidence in the absolute validity of one’s chosen perspective and the marginalisation or rejection of other competing philosophies
Faith is the origin of that inner resolve and determination that nurtures hope in the face of despair and seeming hopelessness, that things will change and that everything will eventually be ok
A simplistic, naïve, aspect of faith in a cosmic sense of eternal justice where right ultimately prevails over wrong. Where faith is perceived as a source of emotional strength and resolve which gives rise to feelings of hope, when faced by seemingly impossible odds. It’s the refusal to resign oneself to what appears as an inevitable conclusion. It is the enduring human spirit of tenacious endeavour. It symbolises our struggle to overcome the natural forces aligned against us and the meaninglessness and indifference of the world in which we find ourselves.
Faith is the insight, which confers extraordinary meaningfulness to transpersonal and spiritual experience, leading to a transintentional merging or dissolving into a oneness of self with its object.
Transcendent faith determines the meaning of transcendent experience or spiritual experience it confers a sense of otherness upon them.
Faith is neither belief, or knowledge alone, our personal and collectively inspired myths and symbols are meaningful expressions of faith, they are the enduring and universal language or currency of faith, they are the means by which we communicate our faith to others, they are found within every act of faith, they are the medium by which we internalise and reconfirm our faith.
Faith here is experienced as universal horizon of human understanding symbolic and mythical in form and content. Its representation has proved inspirational to generations of priests, poets, and artists. Indeed a number of the greatest works of western literature and art can be seen as articulations of man’s belief in and need for faith. Its many forms transcend their historical and cultural contexts. Icons impart a sense comfort and a security of faith that transcends their monetary value. They are timeless examples of man’s search for meaning in his world and in his life.
When faith is misplaced, or misguided we experience a sense of profound disillusionment and distress which permeates our entire being-in-the-world. The lifeworld one knew appears hostile, alien and confusing, as past assurances are lost, one’s ability to navigate the lifeworld with conviction and certitude diminishes, transposed into an awareness of ones intense anguish and desperate vulnerability.
This is the faith, which we confer upon a significant other in our lives. A complex faith of ones shared values, of love, trust, loyalty, honesty, and commitment Through our faith in another we invest significant aspects of our being, one’s learned defences are abandoned as the other becomes the centre of one’s world, the reason for one’s existence. In this mode of being we may surrender our individuality to experience the sense of oneness with the object of our faith. When this interpersonal faith is shattered. We lose more that the relationship we forged. The aspects of our self we attached to that structure begin to come apart and unravel. Cynicism replaces faith and through our pain we become embittered with life itself. Others become objectified as a means to an end devoid of humanity. New relationships are perceived as transitory and conditional affairs, a protection against our own vulnerabilities.
DS
The beginning of this thread is based on a misconception: an atheist insofar as he or she agrees with the scientific world view doesn’t think that the world, the universe,and everything comes from nothing, an atheist has nothing to say about it (the beginning of the beginning is left undescribed) except that whatever happened it wasn’t God. He or she may completely agree that our current space/time universe initiated with a Big Bang or some other theory but that doesn’t necessarily preclude something else existing “before” that happened (before is in quotes because we generally imagine this before in Aristotelian time, not Einsteinian time). Honestly, I don’t see much value in conflating God with everything or the trigger of whatever; it seems to sidestep the issue of intention.
But David’s comment is interesting:
I don’t really have any problems up to this point. I’m not sure why you have to put such a negative spin on this point but it rings true, more or less, to my ear.
I’m not sure Heidegger would agree with you here. Faith (this may be the wrong word; perhaps commitment is more appropriate) as a sanctuary would seem to contradict many of his points concerning dasein, no doubt it can be a sanctuary for das Man, but dasein’s place would be to avoid sanctuary – I think.
But this goes against Heidegger’s comment made somewhere that says, “Not Buddhism, the exact opposite”. It would seem that a cocoon is not what he’s talking about but an engagement in the world, not a disengagement. This would also fit with his Romantic leanings, don’t you think? It may be unfair to read this as a gloss on Heidegger as that’s probably not what you’re doing, David, but I think it’s important to address possible alternatives to your points if only to show that Heidegger’s ideas are thoroughly in-the-world and the requisite dangers (and opportunities) that follow from this faith/commitment. Heidegger’s nazism being just one example.
It’s certainly an unconditioned commitment (conditioned unconditional commitment actually) but it in no way follows that it must lead to a supreme being or beings.
I have no idea what you mean by “offshoots” here. It’s the weakest point in an otherwise fascinating account (even if I disagree with much).
Yes, worlding is important, but not everyone can world if I understand Heidegger correctly – and it’s anybody’s guess whether anybody understands Heidegger 
.
I have to stop here for now, but I’ll try to address some of the rest of your stuff later.
Thanks,
Brad
What I proposed was not based on Heideggers hermeneutical phenomenology. But rather on a broader perspective including elements of both Husserlian and existential philosophies. The actual themes were the end result of a series intensive interviews conducted with a number of participants who described their own lived experiences of faith. The methodology was phenomenologically based on the works of various american phenomenologists such as Ron Valle. The use of Heidegger was used to emphasise man’s relatedness with the world nothing more… not to explicate an interpretational phenomenology of faith.
does this help ?
DS
I do not want to disparage anyone’s belief’s here. That is the first point I want to make ok. As for as for the remark “its many offshoots” I was only aluding to the many denominations that compose the wider Christian community. such as baptists, mormons, catholics, etc. Similarly in the phenomenology of faith I tried to take a broad approach in the use of differing existential outlooks. Yes as a first draft it may contain certain inconsistences. It still needs some attention.
DS
Fair enough. I misread it (Thank God for that. ). Still, since all of the religions mentioned have sects or denominations, it might be better to place offshoots at the end of the list.
I understand that you’re not attempting a Heideggarian approach here, but what I want to do is offer an alternative that is based on Heidegger. At least by my reading, you can come to some pretty different conclusions.
Continuing:
On this point, I can only redescribe what you’ve just said. It is indeed a ‘bodily knowing’ but references to objective reality take on a different meaning. This commitment becomes objective reality and the references are to that reality, not to another higher or transcendent one. If one believes in a supreme being in this sense, they ‘see’ it in everyday life, it’s all around them and so obvious that one must struggle to see anything differently. A different kind of faith, the faith of das Man is one of common sense platitudes, not of feeling. Science is in no way a threat to this way of thinking – Heidegger’s complaints concerning technology are of a quite different kind.
I would say that it becomes a ‘sight’ rather than an intuitive insight and that the antecedents are there for anyone to see. It’s not a sudden break with history but an embracing of a certain kind of history (that is, the antecedents are still there.), it’s not a complete meaning per se but a meaningful meaning. I suppose it can be revelational but I’m not sure it has to be. Here, I might be accused of demystifying Heidegger when he shouldn’t be demystified but it’s at least one way of squaring what he says with this quote:
“One essential way in which truth establishes itself in the beings it has opened up is truth setting itself into work. Another way in which truth occurs is the act that founds a political state. Still another way in which truth comes to shine forth is the nearness of that which is not simply a being, but the being that is most of all. Still another way in which truth grounds itself is the essential sacrifice. Still another way in which truth becomes is the thinker’s questioning, which, as the thinking of being, names being in its question-worthiness.” (Poetry, Language, Thought, pp 61-61).
Obviously, truth means something quite differently from it’s usual meaning.
Yep. 
Yep.
Not a rejection, which can too easily be interpreted as narrow-mindedness, but a different way of seeing those philosophies. True, however, to say that all philosophies aren’t equal but at the same time it creates the ability to see any philosophy at all.
I think it’s better to see this inner resolve as existing regardless of the outcome.
This is in direct conflict with Heidegger’s ‘letting things be’ but in order to ‘let things be’ we have to make this commitment and take this responsibility. Without it we see nothing and meaningless and indifference are the result. Where I think you and I basically differ is that you see faith as a cocoon against indifference and I see indifference as a cocoon against commitment and responsibility. Faith involves risk, indifference, sincere indifference, involves neither.
Yep.
I don’t see the need to go this far in explaining faith or commitment or faith/commitment. I think this only comes into play under a certain kind of faith, faith in a supreme being.
I’m going to skip a bit here because I think it involves a different question.
On this point, I think we come to our basic point of difference again. You think the faith described here is a faith misplaced but I would say that it is an inauthentic faith, a faith determined by fear of risk rather than the embrace of risk. I don’t see faith/commitment/responsibility as a way that cocoons us but as a way of living. This would mean that any particular outcome wouldn’t disillusion the commitment to another in the same way that science is never a true threat to the true believer. A betrayal by one individual wouldn’t or shouldn’t shatter one’s faith in these ideas for that would mean you haven’t accepted being-in-the-world yet, that you or I hadn’t realized the possibility of betrayal, to know this possibility, and still, knowing this, to make the decision, the commitment.
In this sense, the move to disillusionment or apathy is simply the same thing as the faith you describe, a fear of life rather than an embrace of life.
Well, there it is. I hope it triggered some thoughts but if not, it was fun trying.
Brad
the faith misplaced section was the result of a young woman’s lived expereince of betrayal. for her the faith she placed in this person was completely authentic. it was real for she experienced it and lived it. it is not an explanation of faith. rather it is just informs us of another manifestion of faith. I tried to explore the themes of faith from a religious, ideological and interpersonal levels hoping to broaden our understanding of what faith means to us through the lived experiences of others.
DS
I like what you say about faith being misplaced, David. I think that’s one reason place faith in God and religion, because religion is eternal, and for the most part the Doctrine’s and dogma’s don’t change. As with faith in God, people place faith in Him because He isn’t going anywhere (in their minds). That, of course isn’t the only reason people have faith in God, but for many people find solace in something that doesn’t have moods, emotions, or deception; something that will be there through good and bad.
Well, I certainly wasn’t questioning her sincerity, but ‘lived experience’ is only lived through one’s world, no? So, to argue that it was ‘real’ doesn’t carry much weight, does it? Don’t confuse love with faith by the way.
By inauthentic, I meant that she hasn’t really seen her decision, her commitment, her faith as something in-the-world but as a way out. In this respect, her disillusionment with people is natural as her goal was to be out of the world. Your argument that it was misplaced assumes that the correct faith is one that can’t be betrayed but that would mean faith means very little because there is no ‘out’. It’s like the spirituality versus religion argument (Have you heard those?).
“I’m a spiritual person but I don’t believe in religion.”
Sure you don’t. If you did, your beliefs might actually matter, you might actually have to do something.
I don’t know, if your goal is to persuade people that faith is a kind of safety net maybe you should drop the existential references altogether.
the point I/m trying to make is that lived-experience is pre-reflected experience. Its immediate. It is not debated in reflective awareness. when we enter into a relationship with another we do so through our emotions, our feelings our intiution. the termed misplaced was a term that the participant had used in her initial interview and it was she who wanted it to remain within the text. Faith in one respect could be described as a safety net. but it also encompasses many other facets of human experience. Again by including the terms inauthentic and authentic modes of being u again invoke the the thoughts and insights of Heideggarian phenomenology. My goal in conducting this research was twofold. firstly it was an exploration in to the validity of an existential phenomenological methodology for pursuing psychological research. secondly the choice of Faith as a subject matter was chosen because the experience of faith is only one of many human experiences that have been left unanswered by mainstream traditional psychology. One reason for this situation seems to be that in its drive to become a natural science traditional psychology has had to reject as the natural sciences have traditionally done anything, which appears to have been contaminated or polluted by notions of subjectivity preferring to concentrate on psychophysiology and pathological behaviour. Investigative concerns within the natural attitude are dominated by our need to measure, to quantify to reduce aspects of our humanity to statistical quanta. But if 100 yrs of psychological investigation into many aspects of what it is to be human being should have taught us. It is that human beings are far to complex to be reduced to simple mathematical or statistical models or to be perceived as organically determined machines.
Any deviation from the strictly defined experimental methodological approach was and still is in some quarters viewed as heretical. Psychology throughout much of the 20th century has firmly placed its faith in the methodology of the natural sciences and directed its gaze on what it saw as the problematic of the human psyche and in doing so delineated the realm of an acceptable subject matter. The recognition that the natural science methodology adopted by traditional psychology has failed to adequately and comprehensively investigate the rich and highly meaningful realm of man’s conscious existence has led a number of psychologists and philosophers throughout this period to develop other alternative approaches. As for dropping the existential references I see no need to follow ur advice on this matter. The existential perspective with its emphasis on the ontological themes of life and death appear eminantly suited to the explication and exporation of the lived expereince of faithand the importance of faith in its many guises in the daily lives of the co-researchers.
DS
Bit of a quickie from me, not really read everything (bit rude, but most of it’s about faith, which I’m personally not interested in, so sorry) but I didn’t notice anyone mention Stephen Hawking’s contention in a brief history of time that the universe had no beginnig or end. He postulated that it might by the 4-dimensional equivalent of a sphere, that is finite in surface are but having no boundary conditions, with the big bang and the big crunch as the ‘poles’. I don’t know how up to date this theory is, or if had been abandoned, but in it you don’t actually have to have a creation point, the universe just is, there is no beginning or an end (like there is no beginning or an end to a sphere). If you’re not comfortable with that idea it’s because we’re conditioned to the phenomenon of cause and effect, but that’s just because of the way everything moves to disorder. at big bang/big crunch convential thinking goes out the window, no real time, etc. so we don’t know what happens.
Also I didn’t see anyone mention the other scientific theory I’ve heard bandied about at the moment, that nothingness has a potential (it marks a revival of Einstein’s “greatest mistake” the cosmological constant). This potential has enough energy to spontaneously create a big bang according to some estimates (note that I said nothingness and not vacuum). It’s all way past my basic maths/physics knowledge, but it does answer j0n4th4n question, which is saying that atheist have no explanation for the beginning, which we do. We can either say:
-
Time is meanigless when you approach the big bang and so is irrelevant
-
There is no boundry condition of a start to the universe, it just is (sounds like a cop out, but it’s not)
or
- Nothingness COULD create a big bang because of the cosmologial constant.
As I said, I’m not on too firm footing scientifically there, but the people who came up with those ideas are!!!
So, the question for the atheist is answered, but the question for the believer still is, if god created us, who created God??? And no, you can’t rely on the arguments above, cause then there is no need of god at all 
Yes, but if the univerese is a four-dimensional sphere or not, it would be much easier for it not to exist.
Why do you say that?
As I said above, there’s the other theory that nothingness has a certain potential will automatically create a big bang. And it’s not, as far as I know, a crack pot theory, but one presently being discussed.
I believe that it’s no longer the question of why the universe is here, but why the particular settings we have for all the atom interactons, force attractions, etc. that is the vexing puzzle. Some assume that the unified theory of everything will solve this as it will tell us why the constants are set to what they are (in other words, they had to be that number). Others belive that it’s because the particular set of constants that will be uncovered but if changed could have changed the whole make up of the universe are as they are because if they wern’t, we wouldn’t be around to see the result (comparable to the why are my keys always in the last place I look question, because if the constants were different, something else would be observing the universe. Or there would be nothing to observe it at all).
I have heard it said that the problem with modern science is that because it’s advancing so quickly philosophers can’t keep up, so they use outdated theories or bad knowledge to ask questions about the universe. In fact Wittgenstein said something along the lines of that Language was the last puzzle for philosophy to solve. Such is always the way with tortured geniuses however, and I guess philosophy will still have a part to play in the future.
Ok then, lets assume that nothing CAN create something.
If you throw a coin it CAN land on its side…
My point is that YES, nothing may be able to make something (a notion which I find highly illogocal), but that doesn`t mean it HAS to.