Tired of hearing the words "Nothing Can't Create Everything"

[Captain_Shinzo]

Have you ever TRIED to have an intelligent chat with someone who is religious, and when you are actually getting them good, they try to pull the
"Nothing Can't Create Everything" card.

I don't understand this concept at all and it seems silly to the highest of power...
I remember that Christian poster I found.

That would be a more complex explanation to what I have been hearing.

Really now, how is that different from saying
" A higher being, who was created from nothing, created everything out of nothing, and apparently took a long-a** power nap. "

Then have you ever have someone try to pull this off by saying
" God is divine. He has existed forever. "
I will cut short, I bet you already have a list for why that sentence is wrong but I will just give a few of my own.
Why is there no beginning? Why can't the universe not have a beginning?


It just seems silly...


Discuss-
Religious Arguments
Arguments itself
Topic above
a** hairs
Anything else I was too lazy to list.  

[Lethkhar]

Yeah, I don't think there ever was "nothing". At most everything was just at a singularity a long time ago.  

[Imperfect_Elegance]

I agree I tried to have a good conversation about religion with my teacher and class mates then they gave me the Christian card and blew it in my face. Gosh thats the last time I try having a discussion with people  

[BlackAngelDust]

Mizz_Sexy_Bunny66

I agree I tried to have a good conversation about religion with my teacher and class mates then they gave me the Christian card and blew it in my face. Gosh thats the last time I try having a discussion with people

Tell me about it. They launch themselves at you like a bunch of wolves if you say that you don't believe in God.  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

About the 'everything can't be created by nothing' argument... that is wrong, both factually and logically.

Let us look at Hegel, who looks at the subject of nothing and being in thought:

A Being
§ 132
Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an other; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

B Nothing
§ 133
Nothing, pure nothing: it is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content — undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuition and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being.

C Becoming
1. Unity of Being and Nothing
§ 134
Pure Being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being — does not pass over but has passed over — into nothing, and nothing into being. But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet that they are unseparated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is therefore, this movement of the immediate vanishing of the one into the other: becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself.


Now Hegel here was talking about thought. Thinking of nothing and being as logical concepts, and here he shows that pure being and pure nothing are, in fact, one and the same, but not. Hence existence. This is proven to be a fact of reality when one looks at quantum physics and the fact that nothing, that is, empty space, is actually pure energy coming into being and passing away, i.e., nothing is constantly becoming.

Not only is nothing capable of creating everthing by a slow accumulation of energy into matter, but even more, quantum fluctuations resulting in the freakishly, absurdly infrequent creation of giant amounts of matter... i.e., the universal seed that promptly exploded.

So we have, 100 years before quantum theory, an idealist philosopher proving the logical necessity of existence.  

[MemoriesThatKill]

That is precisely how the "Creation of the Universe" part of debates always ends up cyclical. Religious folk will continually say "It can't come from nowhere." which is responded to by us saying "Well who/what ceated god?" It never really goes anywhere. Also, I notice a lot of people think that our universe is the only one that exists. Oddly enough I really find that surprising.

But at any rate, I find Atheists are more honest. We know that we don't have the answers to everything, but we are confident that we might figure it out as time progresses. Religious people fool themselves into believeing they have the answers, then arrogently tell everyone else that they "know" this that and the other thing.  

[[-Erik-]]

I've always wanted to know how christians know that god has FOREVER existed.

It's too damn illogical anyway, EVERYTHING has a begininng.

 

[MiniSiets]

Ironically that image not only has nothing to do with atheism, but it's not even an accurate representation of the science that it's attempting to defame.

But yeah, it's pretty much the most intellectually bankrupt argument that a theist can make. Atheists usually don't make any claims about how the universe was created, if it even was created, while the theist making this argument doesn't even recognize that his/her own belief is the one actually saying that something comes from nothing.  

[dl1371]

i would actually like to know how most of you think the world was created. i have an explanation myself, but it is usually accompanied with a long lecture on particle physics  

[Lethkhar]

dl1371

i would actually like to know how most of you think the world was created. i have an explanation myself, but it is usually accompanied with a long lecture on particle physics

I don't think there's an answer to that question, at least not that we know of. Even science's explanations of "creation" (Big Bang, etc.) don't really mean "creation" in the sense of "nothing into something", or at least it depends on who you talk to.  

[dl1371]

Lethkhar

dl1371

i would actually like to know how most of you think the world was created. i have an explanation myself, but it is usually accompanied with a long lecture on particle physics

I don't think there's an answer to that question, at least not that we know of. Even science's explanations of "creation" (Big Bang, etc.) don't really mean "creation" in the sense of "nothing into something", or at least it depends on who you talk to.

well, i've got my own theories...  

[Labtech Soosh]

Lethkhar

dl1371

i would actually like to know how most of you think the world was created. i have an explanation myself, but it is usually accompanied with a long lecture on particle physics

I don't think there's an answer to that question, at least not that we know of. Even science's explanations of "creation" (Big Bang, etc.) don't really mean "creation" in the sense of "nothing into something", or at least it depends on who you talk to.

He said the world, not the universe.
wink whee
Asteroids and commets would be a suitable answer.

 

[Lethkhar]

Pirate Captain Sushi

Lethkhar

dl1371

i would actually like to know how most of you think the world was created. i have an explanation myself, but it is usually accompanied with a long lecture on particle physics

I don't think there's an answer to that question, at least not that we know of. Even science's explanations of "creation" (Big Bang, etc.) don't really mean "creation" in the sense of "nothing into something", or at least it depends on who you talk to.

He said the world, not the universe.
wink whee
Asteroids and commets would be a suitable answer.

Thank you, Noam Chomsky. stare  

[BlackAngelDust]

No to be mean or anything, but why does it matter if we know how the world was created? Even if we did know, I doubt that there would be much use for the information.  

[Captain_Shinzo]

BlackAngelDust

No to be mean or anything, but why does it matter if we know how the world was created? Even if we did know, I doubt that there would be much use for the information.

Imagine knowing how as a...treasure I guess. It's currency made by our own. Someone back in the past pondered how we came and it became an interesting question as others began to wonder and even see if they could prove their theories.
Pretty much, the idea is know for three reasons.
1.) It is a cool idea to learn how we came to be.
2.) It may, somehow, be beneficial for others.
3.) If your beliefs were correct all long, you have permission to gloat. =D