Mr Harris? Hello. I’m Sue from the insurance company. I’ve come to value your artwork. Oh, yes, hello. Do come in. What a lovely house you have here! Is this the piece you want valued? That’s it, yes. How much did it cost? No idea. It was here when I moved in. It’s fascinating. How …
Category Archives: Origins of the universe
Atheists, why is the universe so orderly? Why is everything not just chaotic?
The universe certainly started out chaotic, with subatomic particles flying every which way at high speeds. But over time certain things happened: Particles collided. Some of them annihilated each other, some of them bounced apart at lower speeds, having lost energy in the collision, and some of them joined together. Those that joined together began …
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We’re just not very important. Sorry and all that.
There is clearly a deep-seated and widespread tendency towards megalomania in some members of the human race. Many, many people seem to desperately need to feel that they are in some sense important to the universe. The whole of religion, in fact, can be seen as an expression of the desire to be regarded as …
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Don’t both science and religion require that at some point something came from nothing?
At various times both science and some established religions have argued that the universe is cyclic, and simply goes through the same series of cosmic events over and over again. Another popular scientific theory in the past was that the universe is in a ‘steady state’, with new matter constantly being created at its core. …
You cannot understand the glories of the universe without believing there is some supreme power behind it. What does that mean?
It’s not clear what you suppose the ‘glories of the universe’ to be, or what you think it means to ‘understand’ them, but there’s no evidence to show that people who don’t believe in ‘supreme powers’ are any less savvy or well-informed about cosmology and astronomy than believers are. What it means is that yet …
Why do some people have no problem believing the universe came from nothing, but refuse to accept the possibility that it was created, when they’re both equally implausible?
Very few people have any direct personal knowledge of how the universe came into being, and under those circumstances the sensible thing for them to do is trust the experts. And the people claiming to be experts tend to fall into two groups. One group consists of people who have studied and worked in the …
Do atheists believe that our world was created only by: time + matters + chance?
As has already been stated on Quora many, many times, the only shared belief that atheists have is a belief that no gods exist. What they think about the coming into being of ‘our world’—which presumably means the universe—is entirely up to them as individuals. But most atheists are rational individuals, and if they seek information about …
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Do atheists believe that our world was created only by: time + matters + chance?
As has already been stated on Quora many, many times, the only shared belief that atheists have is a belief that no gods exist. What they think about the coming into being of ‘our world’—which presumably means the universe—is entirely up to them as individuals. But most atheists are rational individuals, and if they seek information about …
Continue reading “Do atheists believe that our world was created only by: time + matters + chance?”
If there is no God, how do you explain the creation of everything from nothing?
‘Creation’ is a loaded word. But nobody is obliged to explain how the universe came into being except those people who claim to know something about it. That would be a) theists and b) cosmologists. The people in one of those groups have spent years or decades learning about the universe, actively engaging in research …
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Can anything be created without a creator? Why do some people not believe in God?
Nothing can be created without one or more creators. But that’s just a semantic issue. What you really appear to be asking is whether something can come into existence without being created, and the answer is obviously yes; many things, including stars, galaxies and all the living organisms around us today, appear to come into being through the operation of …
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Jon's Quora content 