10 Factors Which Point To A Godless Universe

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July 23, 2017 at 8:27 am #159690

Tannhauser
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Like many people on Earth I have been experiencing a terrible inner emptiness which I can almost physically feel at times. It’s a hole which nothing can fill, a gaping wound which won’t heal. The self-styled gurus on You Tube say that ‘the hole’ will always be there, and that you can’t fill it. All you can do is meditate.

Well, for me, the presence of this hole has led me to the inevitable conclusion that there is no God. Here are my reasons for reaching such a conclusion:

1. The presence of neural pathways in the brain which cause cravings in humans; or the above-mentioned ‘gaping hole’ which is the source of all addiction and pain, resulting in unfulfilled, despairing creatures.

2. The extreme difficulty of the spiritual path and the nothingness it leads to. The ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ system is skewed in the exact opposite direction to spirituality. If God wanted a ‘relationship’ with his creatures, as the Christians say he does, then he has made the impossibility of such a relationship ironclad.

3. The state of the world, especially since 1945, and the subsequent global proliferation of nuclear weapons after the begetting of an atomic bomb proves categorically that there is no God or deity showing an interest in the affairs of Earth and humanity.

4. The Holocaust, the ultimate filthy stain upon humanity and therefore upon its Creator.

5. The sufferings of the animal kingdom, which had done no wrong against God because it was incapable or reason, yet was punished anyway for Adam’s crime. It is fair to say that the sufferings of the animal kingdom are much worse than that of humanity.

6. The general ignorance of poor, bewildered, suffering humanity of its raison d’etre proves beyond doubt that there is no God. There cannot be a God. There never was a God. It was something we invented ourselves, a hangover from fairy stories we told ourselves, because fairy stories always had an happy ending.

7. The fraud known as Jesus Christ, a Roman construct culled from Pagan sources.

8. One’s own suffering and pain, and that of my friend Carl. Neither of us can understand why our lives have been blighted over and over again by ill-health; it is a question which I suspect will remain unanswered.

9. God’s unwillingness to answer heartfelt prayers and petitions; his constant radio silence surely proves his non-existence more effectively than any theory or rationale could.

10. Religious wars and disagreements, even amongst people of the same faith. Even amongst people of the same denomination!

Please feel free to add your own.

Best wishes,

Tannhauser.

July 23, 2017 at 9:39 am #159708

Anonymous
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Dear Tannhauser:

What a well written thread, well thought of, so well articulated in my experience of reading it. Thank you.

Of the reasons you stated for your conclusion that there is a such a thing as a god who wants a relationship with people; such a god who shows interest in the affairs of Earth and humanity, these are the ones I agree quickly (on first reading) and with strong emotion:

” The Holocaust, the ultimate filthy stain upon humanity and therefore upon its Creator.” (what a magnificent way of stating this point, one short, very powerful sentence). Another reason: “The sufferings of the animal kingdom, which had done no wrong against God…”

Another is: “One’s own suffering and pain…” And yet another: “God’s unwillingness to answer heartfelt prayers and petitions; his constant radio silence surely proves his non-existence more effectively than any theory or rationale could.” (Again, I am enjoying your writing skill and talent in stating this).

Adding my own: the suffering of children who have done nothing wrong, the innocent. One more thing, I am continuing part of your sentences you wrote with my own writing:

There never was a God. It was something we invented ourselves, a hangover from an unsafe childhood, a wanting for a loving parent with whom one can be safe forever more.

anita

July 23, 2017 at 10:13 am #159722

Joe
Participant

Tannhauser

This is most interesting. Some valid points you raise here, thanks for sharing! I’m on the fence when it comes to the concept of god. I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian god, I don’t have all the answers to everything but sometimes I’m still open to the possibility of there being some kind of higher power just as much as I’m open to the possibility of there being no higher power. Some things I do believe in, some things I don’t believe in. I wanted to believe when I was younger and I would be hit with cognitive dissonance whenever I came across arguments against things like god, spirituality and the afterlife. I used to think that being open-minded meant fully believing and rejecting all other possibilities just because I didn’t “want there to be nothing” but that was just being close-minded instead. It took a while for me to admit that I didn’t have all the answers, I didn’t really know anything and that it was okay to not know everything.

Sometimes I see people who use their faith and the concept of god and the devil in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. When people do bad things, abuse other people and/or animals and commit horrible crimes, it’s because “the devil made them do it”. That person doesn’t have to take responsibility, they can just wave the famous yet convenient “the devil made me do it” excuse as a get out of jail card.

For some people, when things have gone their way, it’s because “god made it happen.” People believe that because they are obedient to whatever religion they follow, they are going to have good things happen to them and things are always going to go their way. I think this kind of attitude does nothing but breed self-entitlement. Sometimes I just get really irritated when I hear people say “God gave me that job” or “God gave me the new car” or “God made sure everything was okay during the operation”. So what about all of the other nice people who are genuinely doing everything they possibly can but don’t have jobs or nice things or they never get a break? So God decides to give you what you want and need but not anybody else? This whole idea of “God blessed me with such-and-such” just disgusts me sometimes, it just seems like such an insult to people who don’t have those things at all.

People believe in things like the end of times and armageddon, that god will destroy all the evil away. Human beings are responsible for war, poverty, crime, murder, abuse, overpopulation, screwing up the environment, slaughtering innocent animals, theft, discrimination, you name it – and yet some people are so entitled that they think we as humans don’t have to address those things ourselves and act towards overcoming them – “it’s okay, we don’t have to do anything because god will take care of it. We can just sit back, blame it all on the devil and absolve ourselves because God will always be there to clean up our mess.”

I mean no disrespect towards anybody who is a believer of any religion; I have met plenty of kind people who are religious and they are some of the nicest humble people a person could hope to meet, and they have never once tried to turn everything into a theological debate or patronise me with outlandish claims. I’m just speaking from personal experience of dealing with the kind of religious people who act outwardly self-righteous and self-entitled.

Although I consider myself agnostic, lately I do find myself fascinated with paganism again.

Please keep posting, this is a fascinating subject.

Joe

August 20, 2017 at 12:11 pm #164826
Humanoid
Participant
Hi very late response and first post here, but felt compelled to reply.

I’m guessing your from somewhere where orthodox Christianity is the norm and whether were concious of it or not, all through our lives were indoctrinated in a belief system which in a nutshell states God created us, runs the show on earth and were his subjects. Therefore your 10 point list is absolutely valid and many of the points effectively destroy the version of “a loving God” most Christians hold dear. The irony is, I find modern Christianity totally devoid of any spirituality and many church parishioners I know appear to focus more on hate towards people who don’t subscribe to their own particular dogma, than matters of universal love, forgiveness and peace. Another irony for me is regarding your point 7, if you take the teachings of Jesus out of the bible and read them with fresh eyes you find his true messages start to shine through…

So where does this leave “God”? Here are a few points to ponder:
1. Its established science fact that everything, yes everything that makes up the universe was actually one tiny ball of energy 13.7 million years ago and that everything, including us, is made of 92 known chemical elements. (Yes there are other theories doing the rounds than just the big bang, but it’s irrefutable everything throughout the universe is materially the same stuff). So if everything in the universe is the same as us, why do we commonly think of ourselves as separate and the universe as “out there”? Kick back, clear your head, gaze at the stars and dwell on this point – see what comes through …
2. Want proof our conciousness survives bodily death? How about the experiences of tens of thousands of people fortunate enough to have had an NDE or similar. Check out the unedited experiences of real people. https://www.nderf.org/Archives/exceptional.html Too much evidence to counter the brain shutting down argument?
3. So moving on, is it so difficult to accept the “Universe” is actually all of us and were part of it – kinda obvious really. I mean were in it, we come from it, everything is it. Even some famous spiritual teacher you might have heard of said “Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there…” (but it ruined the nice novel some guys pulled together in the 3rd century, so didn’t get included, along with some other inconvenient details)
4. So accepting we are all one – aren’t we a clever little universe. I was born, started to grow and evolve, developed Stars and exploded them to make the matter I need for my body, I organised every condition just perfect for life to evolve and voila – I can replicate and grow my conciousness! Grow, evolve, grow – life everywhere. Life like a wave out of my body – experience and grow, return to me, expand my conciousness, grow again over and over, cycle after cycle…
5. Oh, but there is suffering – terrible suffering …but it’s “my” fault. Yes just like most of us in the west who have forgotten (and are not taught from birth) about our inherent spiritual nature, we create (or pass on) a lot of our own suffering. On a collective subconscious level we (I) are doing the same. We have to evolve through this by understanding in our material existence that we are the actual universe, we are all connected, interdependent parts of the whole. What we think, do and believe, form part of the collective unconscious and ONLY when enough of us evolve spiritually, can we evolve this realm of existence towards heaven on earth.
6. So where is “God” in all this? So we are the Universe, but where did I come from…? What is outside of me? What is this all pervasive love that envelopes me, silently watching me grow and evolve – knowing that no matter what I dream that I am safe, nothing can really hurt me and i’m loved for all eternity
Peace and love thyself – yes really love thyself

H
September 10, 2017 at 3:21 pm #168172

Programmer
Participant

1. Steady State universe model

This is an old model that claims new matter is constantly being generated in the universe, but it lost its popularity now and left its place to a more popular Big Bang theory.

2. Oscillating universe

This is also not a popular model anymore. In this model, the universe begins with a Big Bang and ends with a Big Crunch. The Big Crunch causes another Big Bang and the cycle continues.

3. Stephen Hawkings’ Quantum Cosmology

This idea proposes that the universe is finite but boundless, just like the surface of a sphere. Since the spacetime is finite but boundless, there is no starting point. (Due to the warpage of spacetime).

4. Chaotic Inflation model

In this model, the universe entered a super inflation phase 10 to the -35 seconds after Big Bang. And this inflation causes another inflation, so more than one universe forms. Each universe creates other universes when they inflate, and they create their baby universes, etc. In this model, universes chaotically cause each other.

5. Quantum fluctuations in vacuum

It is known that there are quantum fluctuations in the vacuum. Particles constantly come into existence and then get annihilated.

According to this model, our universe is a quantum fluctuation that occurs in a parent universe. There are other quantum fluctuations as well, so there are other universes.

6. Unstability of vacuum energy

According to this idea, vacuum is a state where energy is unstable, and it has a tendency to create matter by spontaneous symmetry breaking, which is a known process in physics. Vacuum is a state that is ready to be broken into more stable matter and energy. In this model, since the vacuum is in a supersymmetrical structure, the breaking of this symmetry and the creation of more complex structures is almost inevitable. In this idea, the Big Bang doesn’t need to happen more than once. It may have happened only once.

7. String theory and the ‘Big Splat’

String theory, or what it turned into (M theory), is one of the most popular theories in modern physics and it is the major candidate to become the unified physics theory.

According to one explanation that originates from this theory, our universe is a 3 dimentional sub universe (4 dimentions with time) of a larger 11 dimentional universe. These pieces of the larger universe that has fewer dimensions are called ‘branes’ in this theory, and our universe is a ‘brane’.

According to this theory, Big Bang is just one brane colliding with another in the larger universe. According to calculations, this type of a brane collision can create the amount of energy that is observed in Big Bang. And these collisions can happen countless times in the larger universe. So this model also has the idea of other universes.

8. Quantum Loop Gravity Theory and the ‘Big Bounce’

According to this theory, just like the matter being modeled as discrete structures (atoms and molecules), the space and time should also be modeled by discrete units. So in this view, there are such things as ‘minimum possible distance’ and ‘shortest possible time interval’. According to this theory, when space and time are analyzed using discrete units, gravity becomes repulsive rather than attractive in very short distances. It is thought that this might explain Big Bang.

According to the cosmological theory that originates from quantum loop gravity, we shouldn’t talk about Big Bang, but we should talk about Big Bounce, since this process will repeat constantly in this model.

9. Uncaused universe

In quantum physics, it is known that there are quantum fluctuations in vacuum. So, uncaused things can happen in the quantum world. So maybe, we should change our way of thinking, what we call causality, which is something that limits our understanding and forces us to consider everything in terms or cause and effect. Maybe no cause is needed to explain the existence of the universe. This is also a possibility.

10. Timeless universe

This is also a view similar to the one above.

Famous physicist Barbour created a timeless physics. In his theory, time is not a parameter in his equations. Time is an illusion according to Barbour. This view, since it also changes the way we comprehend causality, also changes the nature of the problem. Similar to the uncaused universe explanation, this theory also eliminates the need for a cause to the universe.

Source: http://turkishatheist.net/?p=1
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