[mickeyg13]

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So if I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that you are less troubled by having a god who always existed than by a universe that always existed. Or...

By a god that sprang into being out of nowhere, than a universe which did so. Is this correct?

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Yes that is correct. I do find both positions troubling though.

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Fair enough. But why do you suppose an omnipotent, omniscient being is more likely? In other words, complicated things don't just pop into existence out of nowhere. Complicated things must evolve.

I'm genuinely curious, because just from your few posts I gather you are obviously a thinking person who is intelligent AND reasonable. You seem to accept evolution and logic in general. I'd like to know how we came to two different conclusions.

I agree first cause is a very perplexing issue and we may never know the answer. There might not even have been a first cause such as the big bang. Nevertheless, anything from a buildup of atoms, to multi-verses and extra dimensions seems much more reasonable to me than a supreme invisible being. So how did you arrive at a god is more likely, and me thinking almost anything else is more likely than a god (but only after seriously thinking about it)?

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Well first of all, I think that anyone (atheist, theist, agnostic, whatever) that spends enough time thinking about the subject should be very confused about the origin of the universe, first cause, or whatever you want to call it. I feel any answer any side provides is very inadequate and likely leads to more questions than answers. It seems so much more likely to me that nothing would exist than that something would exist. If I weren't so certain of my own existence, I would have concluded that the universe does not exist [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I think it's pretty clear that science does not yet have a satisfying answer to this. However, I believe that this is fundamentally different from the types of questions science didn't have answers to in previous centuries. It seems to me that not only does science not presently have an explanation, but it is not possible for science to ever have an answer. Now many natural phenomena that were once explained merely by God have since been explained through science. One could criticize me by saying that this is another example, and that one day it will be explained. However, as I understand the problem and the limits of science, it seems it is fundamentally outside the reach of science. Maybe that's a bit naive of me to think, and maybe you think it's no different from a "God of the Gaps" argument used hundreds of years ago by someone who couldn't explain how the sun worked, I don't know.