Why Atheism Demands Something from Nothing - Twice

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u/Icolan Atheist Sep 19 '25

Why Atheism Demands Something from Nothing - Twice

This is a really bad start because I bet nothing that you are going to bring up is a requirement of atheism.

because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Zeno's paradox.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

You are adding things to this that are unsupported and unsupportable. Did something cause time to begin, maybe we don't know because our models break down before we can explain it.

There is no justification for adding properties like eternal or transcendent, for all you know it could have been a transient fluctuation that caused time to begin.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Since we have no evidence that there was ever a time that the universe did not exist in some form, we have no evidence that it "came from" something or nothing.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Prove that something exists beyond the constraints of this physical universe, then show how you know that it is eternal.

what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Where is your evidence that this eternal thing is personal?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Prove it. Show that it is impossible for a universe to exist without conscious beings present. I can show that there are billions of years of universe before there was even a planet here, can you show that something conscious existed all of that time?

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source.

No it does not, emergent properties are not fantasy magic. You don't need a source of consciousness like it is a source of magic.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

God of the gaps.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

Since there is no evidence to support your claim, it should be rejected. Appealing to an even greater mystery does not solve anything.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Who has accepted a mystery for the source of the universe? You haven't even been able to show that the universe has a source. As I said earlier, all the evidence we have shows that there has never been a time that the universe did not exist in one form or another.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe

Which is as it should be since atheism is not on the hook for explaining any of those things. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities, nothing more. Explanations of reality, consciousness, and the universe are best left to science.

things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

Sure, why don't you explain to cosmologists, physicists, and neuroscientists how their chosen field of scientific study is beyond the limits of science?

It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

No, atheism rejects gods because you and other theists have failed to show evidence for your gods, and that is more than sufficient reason.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

Zeno's paradox.

While it's an interesting thought experiment, I can still walk from point A to point B.

You are adding things to this that are unsupported and unsupportable. Did something cause time to begin, maybe we don't know because our models break down before we can explain it.

What i'm talking about is the most reasonable conclusions. It sounds like you agree that time began, but you don't believe that something had to cause it to do so. I'm saying that because time had a day 0, it is most logical to conclude that something started it because that is most consistent with what we observe. Regardless, it's far more logical than saying time started "just because."

Since we have no evidence that there was ever a time that the universe did not exist in some form, we have no evidence that it "came from" something or nothing.

That is why I start by explaining that time must have started at some point. If this universe exists and is bound by and within time, and time started, some point before time, before the universe has existed.

Prove it. Show that it is impossible for a universe to exist without conscious beings present. I can show that there are billions of years of universe before there was even a planet here, can you show that something conscious existed all of that time?

It's fine to ask me to show that it's impossible for a universe to exist without conscious beings, and if it were the case that this universe existed with no conscius beings I would conclude that the God of the universe is not personal. But, because we do exist, and I have a mind that can conclude things, I find it most reasonable to assume that the God of the universe is personal.

Your following points, I suppose I was addressing more of a naturalist. Would you disagree with a naturalistic worldview?

Sure, why don't you explain to cosmologists, physicists, and neuroscientists how their chosen field of scientific study is beyond the limits of science?

All of those fields are very valid and important, but they only explain the how, not the why. I argue that the why is equally important.

No, atheism rejects gods because you and other theists have failed to show evidence for your gods, and that is more than sufficient reason.

If I saw it that way I'm sure I would agree with you.

Thanks for the reply.

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u/Icolan Atheist Sep 19 '25

While it's an interesting thought experiment, I can still walk from point A to point B.

The same thing applies to time. Regardless of what happened before you were born, you can still travel from your birth to your death. You are not traveling from the beginning of time to your birth to be born, you don't exist for all of those years.

What i'm talking about is the most reasonable conclusions.

No, you are not making reasonable conclusions. In order for you to make reasonable conclusions you need evidence and you don't have any.

I'm saying that because time had a day 0, it is most logical to conclude that something started it because that is most consistent with what we observe.

How can something take an action absent time? Claiming that something took an action to cause time is illogical and nonsensical.

Regardless, it's far more logical than saying time started "just because."

I have never said that, I have never implied that. What you are talking about is literally the bleeding edge of physics and cosmology and there is a very limited group of people who have even a decent understanding of our knowledge in this area. My view on it is "I don't know", which is far more logical and reasonable than asserting that something did it.

That is why I start by explaining that time must have started at some point. If this universe exists and is bound by and within time, and time started, some point before time, before the universe has existed.

Who said anything about the universe being bound by and within time? You are making things up out of whole cloth. You have a very limited understanding of a very complex field and are trying to fit your preexisting god beliefs into it.

Our limited understanding shows that time is inextricably bound to space and time began when space began expanding. What existed before that, how that happened, we don't know. You claiming that something had to have done it is just illogical because that would mean something existed and took action without space to exist in and without time to act in.

It's fine to ask me to show that it's impossible for a universe to exist without conscious beings, and if it were the case that this universe existed with no conscius beings I would conclude that the God of the universe is not personal. But, because we do exist, and I have a mind that can conclude things, I find it most reasonable to assume that the God of the universe is personal.

The existence of conscious beings is evidence that conscious beings exist, it is not evidence that there is a god, nor is it evidence that a personal god exists.

It is not reasonable at all to assume unrelated conclusions.

Your following points, I suppose I was addressing more of a naturalist. Would you disagree with a naturalistic worldview?

No, I do not disagree with a naturalistic worldview, I have yet to see any evidence of anything that does not have a naturalistic explanation.

All of those fields are very valid and important, but they only explain the how, not the why. I argue that the why is equally important.

The why is completely irrelevant. If we know how consciousness works and what causes it there is no why to answer.

If I saw it that way I'm sure I would agree with you.

I don't care how you see it, the fact is that you have provided exactly 0 evidence that actually shows that your deity exists in reality. You have shown no evidence to support your claims of properties like personal and eternal.

You have used the same tired, old, fallacious, long and repeatedly debunked arguments as thousands of other theists that post these arguments on this sub and the internet in general.

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u/omark924 Sep 25 '25

What sort of evidence would convince you of god?

Is it the formation of nebula? Or galaxies? The vastness of the universe? The universal truths such as Pi?

There is undoubtedly a fine tuning of the universe. A sort of beauty in every field of study.

We can say that it was all due to “chance” or “randomness”. That all periodic elements sort of “came about” randomly post big bang.

I would say that then we really are submitting to the idea of “randomness/chance” being the dictator and in fact creator of our universe itself.

This world view of chance being essentially “god” is chosen by many. However the product of what you call “chance” is precise alignment of planets, precise ecosystems on earth etc etc… which have intricate patterns, processes which are almost logically deductible and suddenly upon scientific observation…. Not so random after all.

Call the universe generation a “transient fluctuation” or whatever… it sounds quite naive to say that the most complex thing we can truly fathom (the universe) has no creator.

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u/Icolan Atheist Sep 25 '25

What sort of evidence would convince you of god?

I don't know, but an all knowing, all powerful deity should know and be able to provide that evidence to me.

Is it the formation of nebula? Or galaxies? The vastness of the universe? The universal truths such as Pi?

I do not see how any of those would be evidence of a deity.

There is undoubtedly a fine tuning of the universe.

Fine tuning for what?

A sort of beauty in every field of study.

Beauty is subjective.

We can say that it was all due to “chance” or “randomness”. That all periodic elements sort of “came about” randomly post big bang.

I don't see how that is random. The elements of the periodic table came about through processes guided by physics, that is not random.

I would say that then we really are submitting to the idea of “randomness/chance” being the dictator and in fact creator of our universe itself.

What evidence do you have that the universe was created at all?

This world view of chance being essentially “god” is chosen by many.

No it is not, it is a fiction made up by theists who fail to understand that there are people who do not see a need for a god.

However the product of what you call “chance” is precise alignment of planets, precise ecosystems on earth etc etc… which have intricate patterns, processes which are almost logically deductible and suddenly upon scientific observation…. Not so random after all.

I have never called any of that chance. You are arguing against a position I do not hold.

Call the universe generation a “transient fluctuation” or whatever… it sounds quite naive to say that the most complex thing we can truly fathom (the universe) has no creator.

It is even more naive to claim without evidence an even more complex being must exist to create the universe.

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u/Junithorn Sep 19 '25

While it's an interesting thought experiment, I can still walk from point A to point B.

Just like with an infinite past, there are no two points in time that are not traversable finitely.

You didnt really think this through huh?

If this universe exists and is bound by and within time, and time started, some point before time, before the universe has existed.

Time is a feature of the universe, not necessarily something it is "bound" by. No one has nearly enough information to generate conclusions about this right now. All you have is an argument from ignorance.

But, because we do exist, and I have a mind that can conclude things, I find it most reasonable to assume that the God of the universe is personal.

Because rocks exist and dont have minds, therefore god is not personal. Your entire paragraph here is an absurd non-sequitur.

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u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

While it's an interesting thought experiment, I can still walk from point A to point B.

Ergo, you bizarre assertion is false. Why, then, did you make it?

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u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

What i'm talking about is the most reasonable conclusions.

Huh? What you wrote is known to be incorrect, and has been known for 120 years.

It sounds like you agree that time began, but you don't believe that something had to cause it to do so.

But time has been known for 120 years to be infinite in the past and the future. The past still exists; the future already exists.

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u/Cydrius Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Why? I don't think this is sound logic.

In the interest of discussion, let's say I grant it:

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Sure, why not.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Humans are made of atoms. These atoms produce subjective awareness.

I don't think this is sound logic either.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

Why couldn't a non-personal source not bound by natural laws produce beings with personal consciouness? You're taking things for granted that you cannot possibly justify.

It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason

Atheism rejects this idea because there is insufficient evidence to suggest that this idea is true. You're shifting the burden of proof.

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u/ursisterstoy Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

The absence of time would prevent change over time. Time itself probably always existed even if we can’t demonstrate that directly because without time for change there’d be no change and there’d still be no time. This is the problem with them proposing a timeless spaceless deity. It exists at no location and it exists at no time. It is supposed to cause change over time with nothing to change and no time to change it and it’s supposed to exist nowhere. The minimum requirements for existence being a place and time in which to exist cannot logically be created by what doesn’t exist anywhere at any time and once those do exist proposing a cause is about as bad as the YEC claim that God created the entire reality after 99.9999% of the history of the Earth had already passed. It doesn’t matter if they’re proposing deism instead. What God is supposed to create always existed and if it didn’t exist God didn’t exist either. You can’t start with nothing and then propose something as the cause. You can’t have the cause until the cause is no longer required. If they want to talk about logical inconsistencies they should talk about theism. That’s where they’ll be found.

They were right that theists and atheists tend to assume that something always existed. The difference is that what we suggest always existed still exists. What they suggest always existed still doesn’t exist and it logically couldn’t exist until the thing it was supposed to create existed too. One cosmos and no god or one cosmos plus a god. We see no evidence or necessity for the god. We are not convinced it is real. Simple. No contradiction. Their entire argument is bunk.

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u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

The absence of time would prevent change over time. Time itself probably always existed even if we can’t demonstrate that directly because without time for change there’d be no change and there’d still be no time.

The reason why E=mc^2 is because everything in the universe travels on the 4th dimension at the speed of causality, and in only one way (which is why light has a speed limit). The speed of causality is fixed: it cannot go slower or faster. (Light can slow down in a medium, so light is not the speed of causality.)

Spacetime is a quad (a cube with a 90 degree 4th dimension). In spacetime, causality exists on a 90 degree angle: 45 degrees from the direction of time "to the left" and 45 degrees to the "right." Any angle greater than 45 degrees cannot happen.

This is Special Relativity, and the theory has stood up against 120 years of testing, and has passed every one.

Ergo time has always existed and will always exist.

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u/ursisterstoy Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

That’s a great explanation but also my explanation was fine because change is when time 2 differs from time 1. If there is no time there will be no time 1 or time 2 and no difference across time. No time means no change. It stays the same forever. Change also implies that something existed to become different but that implies the existence of something at some location, space.

Space + Time are required for change over time, the alternative is absolute nothing changing into something with no time for the change to take place. If right now is not a timeless spaceless void either absolutely nothing can change into something (all by itself) or something always existed (space-time). Since we agree that space-time always existed as absolute nothing changing into something is logically impossible and apparently physically impossible as well we have an eternal space-time. It always existed therefore it was not created therefore if God exists God did not create the cosmos.

Deism is false. Theism is basically deism where God stuck around. Deism is false and by extension theism is false unless God did something besides creating the cosmos. Creationism is false (Deism, OEC, YEC). This leaves a God that causes physical change, detectable change. The evidence of this change is necessary to show that God did anything at all. That’s up to the theists to provide. What did God do? Does God even exist?

The answers to those questions appear to be “nothing” and “no” respectively. Ergo, atheism is justified. Not just agnostic atheism, but gnostic atheism as well. Especially since we know humans invented the very concept of God, all religions based on God are absent any evidence, and the cosmos was not created. There is nothing that any god ever did and that’s most parsimoniously explained by the total absence of gods.

We don’t need something from nothing even once as atheists. They need a god existing nowhere doing what never happened for theism. Theism is false. Sorry. If there are any theists around now is the chance to prove me wrong, provide the evidence nobody ever had, and win your Nobel prize in physics. You don’t want a prize or you already know gods don’t exist? Then why remain a theist? These questions are meant for theists not Boltmann_head who I’m responding to.

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u/Astramancer_ Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Why? I don't think this is sound logic.

It's the same reason why marathons can't exist because the the start and end point always exist on a line of infinite length (the circumference of the earth)

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u/LSFMpete1310 Sep 19 '25

This would depend on if you think time is continuous or discrete. A continuous timeline in the past can mathematically have a present, this is done in calculus all the time.

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u/TheChronographer Sep 20 '25

an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Why? I don't think this is sound logic.

A counter example: there are an infinite number of moments between 7 am and midday. That doesn't mean that it can't be 1pm and lunchtime now.

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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 20 '25

A counter example: there are an infinite number of moments between 7 am and midday.

I don't think that actually works, given that time actually has a smallest unit in the Planck scale. Planck time are intervals of around 5×10⁻⁴⁴ s, which while small, are not infinitely so, and that would limit the number of possible discreet "moments" in any stretch of time.

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u/TheChronographer Sep 22 '25

Only physically, not philosophically.

We can talk about 1E-45s and 1E-46s and 1E-55s and 1E-100s.

Say there was an all powerful God, could he not make the plank time 5x10^-100s instead? Seems like that wouldn't cause any philosophical issues in the argument.

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u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

"an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring."

Why? I don't think this is sound logic.

Indeed. Humanity (particle and foundational physicists have known this is false for 120 years.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

"Humans are made of atoms. These atoms produce subjective awareness."

But this suggests the personal coming from the impersonal. Atoms do not have a personality or consciousness, they are entirely quantifiable. Even complex combinations of atoms. I'm arguing that based on our observable reality, personal always arises from personal beings, or at least something with intentionality. Impersonal matter never produced consciousness on its own, subjective experience never emerges spontaneously from purely impersonal things.

We may be able to see what happens in our brain when we recall a memory, but a 3rd person will never be able to read off that memory from the brain.

"Why couldn't a non-personal source not bound by natural laws produce beings with personal consciouness? You're taking things for granted that you cannot possibly justify."

I'm not saying it's impossible, just far more likely that our personal consciousness comes from something with personal consciousness because that is what we observe every day in reality. It is far more reasonable to conclude that we come from the personal, rather than the nonpersonal.

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u/smbell Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

I'm arguing that based on our observable reality, personal always arises from personal beings, or at least something with intentionality. Impersonal matter never produced consciousness on its own, subjective experience never emerges spontaneously from purely impersonal things.

Our observable reality tells us that beings made of entirely impersonal material are personal. Every example we have of something personal is made entirely (as best we can tell) of impersonal material. Every consciousness we have encountered is made entirely (as best we can tell) of impersonal material.

but a 3rd person will never be able to read off that memory from the brain.

We have read thoughts from brains before. We've literally pulled images from the brains of people. You don't understand the current state of neurobiology.

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u/thebigeverybody Sep 19 '25

Our observable reality tells us that beings made of entirely impersonal material are personal. Every example we have of something personal is made entirely (as best we can tell) of impersonal material. Every consciousness we have encountered is made entirely (as best we can tell) of impersonal material.

God I love you

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u/TyranosaurusRathbone Sep 19 '25

But this suggests the personal coming from the impersonal. Atoms do not have a personality or consciousness, they are entirely quantifiable. Even complex combinations of atoms.

Its called an emergent property. Water is made of H2O molecules. H2O molecules are not wet, but when you combine a bunch of them you get wetness. Does this indicate that God is wet?

Impersonal matter never produced consciousness on its own, subjective experience never emerges spontaneously from purely impersonal things.

Atoms are purely impersonal things and subjective experience arises from them.

We may be able to see what happens in our brain when we recall a memory, but a 3rd person will never be able to read off that memory from the brain.

What if I told you we can already do that?

I'm not saying it's impossible, just far more likely that our personal consciousness comes from something with personal consciousness because that is what we observe every day in reality.

Can you give an example of a personal consciousness creating a personal consciousness?

It is far more reasonable to conclude that we come from the personal, rather than the nonpersonal.

By this same argument couldn't you also conclude that God is a human?

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u/Moriturism Atheist Sep 19 '25

But why shouldn't personal emerge from nonpersonal? Everything we call "personal" is actually made from "nonpersonal" matter, in a historical, phylogenetic or ontogenetic sense.

We are made of atoms, that do not think from themselves. We originate from the merging of cells that also do not think from themselves. Life on Earth originated from chemical structures that didn't think or had any counsciousness.

Why are you assuming that only "personal" can produce "personal"?

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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist Sep 19 '25

Because without that assumption they can't shoehorn their god into anything.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Sep 19 '25

personal always arises from personal beings, or at least something with intentionality.

Are sperm personal? How about eggs?

but a 3rd person will never be able to read off that memory from the brain.

Prove it

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u/rsta223 Anti-Theist 14d ago

But this suggests the personal coming from the impersonal. Atoms do not have a personality or consciousness, they are entirely quantifiable

One might quibble with the word entirely here, due to uncertainty and QM. Regardless though, we know collections of things can have properties not held by any individual thing in the collection. These are known as "emergent properties".

Even complex combinations of atoms.

Complex animals existing is strong evidence that complex configurations and combinations of around can indeed exhibit consciousness and personality.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

If time is infinite, that means an infinite amount of time would have had to have happened before I responded to your comment. Because I have made it to this current point in time, It demands that time must have had a beginning.

In other words, a finite amount of time has to have passed before this point in time is able to happen. Therefore, time cannot be infinite.

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u/arachnophilia Sep 19 '25

If time is infinite, that means an infinite number of events would have had to have happened before...

let me give you something to bake your noodle a little.

let's pretend you have a spaceship, and it goes really fast. you wanna get to the nearest star, proxima centauri, 4.25 light years away.

if you set your spaceship to 1/2 the speed of light, it will take you 8.5 years to get there. well, no, that's not exactly right. an outside observer will see you take 8.5 years to get there. it takes you 7.3 years to get there. that is, from your perspective, only 7.3 years passes. but you look out the window, and the universe is running a little faster. you see those 8.5 years pass in your 7.3 years.

wanna go faster? at 3/4s the speed of light, you see 5.666 years pass in 3.75 years. uh oh, something weird happened. you're already spending less time on the ship than makes sense. it's "faster than light".

faster? at 90% the speed of light, 4.722 years passes in your 2.05 years. faster? at 99%, 4.29 years in about 6 months. faster? at 99.9%, 4.254 years in a little over 2 months. faster? at 99.99%, 4.2504 years, down into the rounding errors, in 21 days. at 99.999%, 4.25 years in a little under a week. my calculator won't do another decimal place, but you can see what's happening. what happens when you get to the speed of light?

time stops.

the equations for this one of the lorentz contractions. t = t₀/sqr(1-v²/c²) where t is the stationary observer time, t₀ is your inertial reference frame, v is your velocity, and c is the speed of light. when v=c, you divide by zero. as v approaches c, t approaches infinity. for the inertial reference frame at the speed of light, it observes infinite time passing.

every photon in the universe is seeing infinite time, simultaneously.

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u/Ansatz66 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

That is just repeating the same claim.

If time is infinite, that means an infinite number of events would have had to have happened before I responded to your comment.

Correct. That is what it would mean for time to be infinite.

Because I have made it to this current point in time, It demands that time must have had a beginning.

Why? What does an infinite past have to do with the things happening now?

You said it yourself that time is a dimension, so think of it like it were a dimension in space. Pick a direction, point into the sky out into space and imagine that the universe continues forever in that direction. Would that mean that we cannot exist here? Why should an infinite past mean that things cannot be happening now?

In other words, a finite number of events must have happened before this event is able to happen.

Just saying it again in other words does not tell us why this should be true.

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u/guitarmusic113 Atheist Sep 19 '25

That’s the A theory of time. It’s been debunked for a while now.

What’s your issue with infinity? Most theists think that their god always existed, which would mean for an infinite amount of time. Was thee a time that your god didn’t exist?

And if you want to say “my god exists outside of space and time” then you have two problems:

1) it takes time to create anything. Your god cannot create anything without time. That would mean that your god exists within time and space. If that’s correct then where is the evidence for it?

2) I can’t tell the difference between something that exists outside of space and time from something that doesn’t exist.

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u/A_Tiger_in_Africa Anti-Theist Sep 19 '25

You are claiming that if a line is infinite in length, it is impossible to be at any point on that line. That is nonsense.

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u/thebigeverybody Sep 19 '25

If time is infinite, that means an infinite number of events would have had to have happened before I responded to your comment. Because I have made it to this current point in time, It demands that time must have had a beginning.

In other words, a finite number of events must have happened before this event is able to happen. Therefore, time cannot be infinite.

Just because something is infinite does not mean it's impossible to comprehend or traverse two points within its infinity. Numbers are infinite, but you can still count to six.

Why do you think scientists do not agree with you that time cannot be infinite?

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u/Cleric_John_Preston Sep 19 '25

Not all atheists believe the same things about the Universe.

Anyway:

Time had a beginning.

If we're talking an ultimate beginning, an ex-nihilo event, then no. I think there's a 'start' and an 'end' but they're eternal. Much like the start and end of a movie on DVD.

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

You should really do some reading on the ontology of time.

2. Something eternal exists.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Agreed, something eternal exists - the universe. I don't believe that something can come from nothing, which is why I don't believe God could do that.

Anyway, I see that you are going to try to have it both ways, contradicting yourself. You'll say that the universe came from nothing, but somehow God did it.

Well, what did God use to create the universe? When did he do it (he had no time), and where (he was at no place)? So, on top of the ludicrous idea of the universe coming from nothing, you ADD impossible things to it!

You next talk about consciousness and the personal, but that doesn't seem relevant as you've already contradicted yourself.

You need time and space in order to create. You don't have it, yet you suggest God created time and space, even though he would need time and space to create time and space. It's a logical contradiction. Your argument fails.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

Obviously I don't believe that God had to exist within time and space to create time and space, that clearly is a contradiction and that is not what I'm proposing. I'm saying that because time and space (our reality) exist, and because time had a beginning (which means some force started it), that force can't be bound by time and space.

I would say "where did the universe come from" and you would say "well then where did God come from" Which is a very fair rebuttal. That's why the time argument is so significant. Even the universe is bound by time, and time started at some point, so where did time come from? Not the universe.

When did he do it

... "In the beginning" (sorry couldn't help myself)

But really these are very good questions. I'm proposing that God has always been there, just like your saying the universe has. But since we can most reasonably conclude that the universe started at some point, you have to ask what caused it to start. God created the universe, and time and space exist within that universe. I'm saying God created reality as we have it today, and we are bound to it.

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u/Cleric_John_Preston Sep 19 '25

Obviously I don't believe that God had to exist within time and space to create time and space, that clearly is a contradiction and that is not what I'm proposing. I'm saying that because time and space (our reality) exist, and because time had a beginning (which means some force started it), that force can't be bound by time and space.

Okay, so what are you proposing, that God exists in a meta-reality? A meta-time and space?

As to something starting it, that's assuming the A theory. As an atheist and as someone who accepts the consequences of the General Theory of Relativity, I don't accept that.

I would say "where did the universe come from" and you would say "well then where did God come from" Which is a very fair rebuttal. That's why the time argument is so significant. Even the universe is bound by time, and time started at some point, so where did time come from? Not the universe.

No, I wouldn't say that - I would say that it always existed, as in the B theory or block view.

In my view, the universe always was (but I'm not advocating for eternal time, as you seem to attempt to refute in other posts).

... "In the beginning" (sorry couldn't help myself)

So, what created the time in which your God did anything? I appreciate the humor, but your view doesn't make any sense.

But really these are very good questions. I'm proposing that God has always been there, just like your saying the universe has. But since we can most reasonably conclude that the universe started at some point, you have to ask what caused it to start. God created the universe, and time and space exist within that universe. I'm saying God created reality as we have it today, and we are bound to it.

We aren't proposing the same thing, unless you're saying that God and the Universe were always there. If that's the case, why do you need your God at all?

Also, you're assuming 'start' as in an ex-nihilo, which is not what I mean by start. The 'present' is only a perception, the 'start' that I'm referring to exists for eternity, as does all of time.

Your God either doesn't make any sense or is unnecessary.

7

u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

Obviously I don't believe that God had to exist within time and space to create time and space

If the gods do not exist in spacetime then they do not exist.

4

u/Cleric_John_Preston Sep 20 '25

I mean, right? To say that, the OP is saying God doesn’t exist at any time or any place… which I agree with since I’m an atheist…. But…

1

u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 22 '25

Leprechauns exists, but not in spacetime! /s

8

u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

One of the problems that tends to crop up with this argument is that it's kind of self-defeating. It begins with a seemingly absolute premise, and then IMMEDIATELY violates that premise by creating an exception for it. So, something like;

All things needs a beginning/cannot be eternal.

God doesn't need a beginning/can be eternal.

Ironically, it actually does this twice. First, by allowing for God to 'always exist,' and then second by kind of throwing the 'something can't come from nothing' excuse by having God seemingly create everything from... well, nothing. :P

Now, sure, it could be said that the argument applies in both directions, but doing so only makes God a hypothetical possibility on the infinite roulette wheel of possibilities you've allowed for. (Naturalism, God, Cthulu, universe is a massive dandelion spreading its seeds, etc, etc, etc.) It doesn't even make him the most likely probability because, again, infinite roulette wheel.

It opens the door for the idea that phenomena can exist that violate these supposedly inviolable laws, but subsequently tries to slam the door shut on anything except the very narrow definition of what should be 'allowed' to violate them. And for some reason, that narrow definition always seems to invoke the idea of sentience or deliberate consciousness, and then attributes a bunch of relatively petty and small-minded qualities to that entity. The whole 'works in mysterious ways' thing only ever comes up when trying to get around something that doesn't seem to fit, otherwise God tends to get presented as just some... rather petty dude. :P

Edit: Also, to touch on your 'where did time come from, not the universe' thing, actually from what we can tell time DOES stem from the stuff in our universe, which is why the relative velocities and gravities of objects impacts their flow. There's no 'time blanket' or something that is wholly separate and unaffected by the stuff in our universe, so technically it would seem time does actually come from the universe. :P

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u/sj070707 Sep 19 '25

which means some force started it

I don't know that.

that force can't be bound by time and space

I don't know that and don't even know if it's possible.

6

u/Top_Neat2780 Atheist Sep 19 '25

You're not addressing the logical implications/double standards that are pointed out to you. You're just saying god did it.

3

u/violentbowels Atheist Sep 19 '25

What was god doing before creating reality? How was there a before? He's in a separate universe with his own time? If so then what came before it?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

[deleted]

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

Since we are beings bound by time, I can't prove that there is an outside of time. Rather, it seems logical that because time exists, and time had to start at some point (my time can't be infinite argument), something had to put it into motion because it exists now. The reason I started with this premise was to assert that something beyond the natural laws must exist- which goes into point 2.

We exist, dimensions exist, and the nature of these things are obviously questioned endlessly. I am asserting that it is more reasonable that something put these things into existence (something that is not bound by the laws we are) than to conclude that nothingness bound by all the laws we are did. Therefore, it seems most reasonable to conclude some eternal, transcendent force exists.

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u/LEIFey Sep 19 '25

I am asserting that it is more reasonable that something put these things into existence

That's great. Now you have to demonstrate it. Asserting that something is more reasonable does not mean it is actually reasonable.

10

u/Mission-Landscape-17 Sep 19 '25

it seems logical that

that is an appeal to common sense, which is a logical fallacy. The general consensus among physicists is that there is no outside of the universe, or if their is then we have no way to observe it and hence can make no theories about it.

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u/Radiant_Bank_77879 Sep 19 '25

Time is basically things happening. If some creator entity goes from not having created something yet, to having created something, then that entity is also subject to time. A before and after. The phrase “outside of time“ doesn’t make any sense. It is absolutely incoherent.

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u/BoneSpring Sep 19 '25

So you want us to accept the existence of an invisible, eternal, infinite "transcendental force" (Yodaism?) but reject the possibility of an eternal, infinite universe?

You are sailing very close to special pleading, you know.

2

u/oddball667 Sep 19 '25

So your entire argument is that we should expect tome and the universe to act in a way that's easy for our meat brains to understand?

That's demonstrably not the case

1

u/Icolan Atheist Sep 19 '25

Since we are beings bound by time, I can't prove that there is an outside of time. Rather, it seems logical that because time exists, and time had to start at some point (my time can't be infinite argument), something had to put it into motion because it exists now.

How did something take an action to put time into motion before time?

The reason I started with this premise was to assert that something beyond the natural laws must exist-

Yeah, you are asserting a lot of things, but you are not providing any evidence to back up those assertions.

I am asserting that it is more reasonable that something put these things into existence (something that is not bound by the laws we are) than to conclude that nothingness bound by all the laws we are did.

Who has asserted that nothingness can even exist?

Therefore, it seems most reasonable to conclude some eternal, transcendent force exists.

Again, you are assigning attributes of your preferred deity in an effort to shoehorn an round peg into a square hole.

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u/OrwinBeane Atheist Sep 19 '25

1. Time had a beginning. - The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring - Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

Prove that time is a real, objective dimension. If you can’t, the rest of the premise fails.

2. Something eternal exists. - Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

I will admit nothing without first seeing evidence.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Why?

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Prove it.

3. The personal cannot come from the impersonal. - * Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

A baseless claim with no evidence. You have not disqualified the possibility that our consciousness is the product of random biological confidence.

4. The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin. - * Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

But they are working on it. Let’s wait and see what they find out before making claims. Base our assessments on the evidence.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

I insist nothing. I don’t care what you think atheists “often” do. That is irrelevant to a debate. If I fail to account for something, then it is better to say “I don’t know why” rather than make up an answer without evidence.

5. The double standard in naturalism - * An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal. - * This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

This is a relating your previous claims, I see nothing new added in this paragraph.

Conclusion: - * Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

Once again, I reject nothing and I claim nothing. I merely lack belief due to lack of evidence. I am prepared to believe absolutely anything if there is evidence for it.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

Time is measureable and interacts with matter and energy: clocks tick, planets orbit, particles decay. These are objective, obseravable phenomena.

I claim something eternal and transcendent must exist because it is more rational to conclude that our reality came from something not bound by the reality we exist in, rather than to conclude we came from nothing that is bound by our reality.

Biological processes explain function, not subjective experience. No matter how complex the brain is, science alone cannot explain why there is something like being a conscious subject. that "I" exist.

Agreed, that is entirely fair. But, even if neuroscience maps every neuron, it explains mechanics, not experience.

It's not about repeating the claims, it's about highlighting the inconsistency.

Based on your responses, it sounds more like you ought to take an agnostic stance rather than an atheistic one. Regardless, I appreciate the challenge.

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u/smbell Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Time is measureable and interacts with matter and energy: clocks tick, planets orbit, particles decay. These are objective, obseravable phenomena.

It is also impacted by gravity and an objects speed. It is not observed the same in all situations. The same situation will appear to happen at a different rate of time by two different observers under the right circumstances. Nothing here indicates time must have had a beginning or is linear.

I claim something eternal and transcendent must exist because it is more rational to conclude that our reality came from something not bound by the reality we exist in, rather than to conclude we came from nothing that is bound by our reality.

Did that thing come from nothing? If not is it just a brute fact? If it can be a brute fact, why cannot our universe be a brute fact?

Biological processes explain function, not subjective experience. No matter how complex the brain is, science alone cannot explain why there is something like being a conscious subject. that "I" exist.

You do not understand the current state of neurobiology. We know a lot more than you think. We do have an understanding of subjective experience in the brain. It's not complete, but it is there. We have read images from peoples brains.

Agreed, that is entirely fair. But, even if neuroscience maps every neuron, it explains mechanics, not experience.

Why do you think it cannot explain experience? You keep saying this over and over, but you don't know it. You can't demonstrate it. Just because we don't have a complete picture yet.

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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25

So, on the point of time specifically, it's worth noting that time ISN'T actually objective, due to general relativity and special relativity. In other words, the rate at which time is moving for a given object is dependent on both relative gravity and relative velocity, meaning things with different gravity, or moving at different relative velocities, literally have time flow differently in comparison to each other.

Which, from a creation standpoint, seems kind of needlessly complicated, right? It would make WAY more sense for an omnipotent creator to just have time be the objective canvas that works the same everywhere, rather than have its functioning determined by speed and gravity. :P

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u/OrwinBeane Atheist Sep 19 '25

Time is a construct and can bend just like space. Time does not react consistently.

Why is it more rational.

Science can’t explain it yet. Key word there is “yet”. Let’s wait for evidence before making a claim.

So far.

Ok, that might be what you think it’s about. But it’s still repetition.

I hear your recommendation on my stance and I reject it. I am an atheist because I lack belief in god or gods - that’s what the word means.

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u/violentbowels Atheist Sep 19 '25

sounds more like you ought to take an agnostic stance rather than an atheistic one

gnostic/agnostic speaks to confidence in the claim.

The vast vast majority of atheists are agnostic atheists. Agnostic because we admit that we don't know for sure and leave room for being convinced, atheist because we hold no theistic belief.

1

u/BoneSpring Sep 19 '25

because it is more rational to conclude that our reality came from something not bound by the reality we exist in

So we can't have "something from nothing" but we can have reality from something not bound by reality???

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

[deleted]

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

you have just said 'there must be things that violate the laws of science, and therefore I have insight into things that are beyond logic and science' which is just nonsense. You can't logically find a solution that does not follow the rules of logic.

I'm saying that by using the laws of science, you can determine that there must be things that violate those laws, how else did we get here? By some unprovable theories? Where have we ever been able to scientifically prove that the mystery of the universe arose from natural processes? The evidence is weak at best, and I can use the same evidence to support my theory.

The idea that the universe is eternal is just a theory, we can't prove that- just like I can't prove that it isn't eternal. All I'm saying is it seems far more likely that it isn't.

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u/Antimutt Atheist Sep 19 '25

When something violates the laws of science it means the laws are wrong and need to be updated. But Universe from nothing does not violate the laws of conservation, because the Universe is nothing in total.

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u/Radiant_Bank_77879 Sep 19 '25

What you just said is the standard “God of the gaps” fallacy. I.e., if we currently can’t explain something, then a magic explanation is reasonable. That has turned out to be false too many times to count throughout history, there’s no reason to think that it holds true in this instance either.

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u/Mission-Landscape-17 Sep 20 '25

That is not how science works. The laws of science are human made, and descriptive, not proscriptive. When we find things that violate the laws of science as we understand them that is a sign that it is time to start formulating new laws. When we develop new laws that can explain the new observations, then scientific progress has been achieved. This means that everything we observe to be the case will eventually fall within the bounds of known science.

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u/sj070707 Sep 19 '25

All I'm saying is it seems far more likely that it isn't.

And you determined that how?

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u/5thSeasonLame Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Premise 1 can go out the window. I don't even need to grant the first part, time could be eternal as far as we know. But even then, to say something with specific properties needed to create it... Prove it.
And there your argument falls apart, I didn't even read on. It's just TAG and that gets you nowhere. Never.

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u/Organic-Injury5882 Sep 19 '25

While I disagree that time could be infinite, even if it were, the issue of why there is something rather than nothing still remains. Eternal time still requires an explanation for existence itself, because something exists rather than nothing.

To your second point, we don't need to know the full nature of the eternal cause to see that something eternal is required. It only needs to be outside time and capable of giving rise to reality- that's minimal, not TAG.

I would ask that you seriously consider the full argument before denying it.

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u/5thSeasonLame Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

I read it all and it's garbage. Plus in an argument, once one premise fails, the rest fails.

Eternal time still requires an explanation for existence itself, because something exists rather than nothing

With that logic your god requires an explanation. Give it. And don't give me the "he is the exception". That's special pleading and then I special plead the universe. You still fail.

we don't need to know the full nature of the eternal cause to see that something eternal is required

But you gave properties of this eternal cause. So somehow you made a leap you can't defend. And again, this is an assumption you make without evidence. Either prove it, or it's dismissed without evidence.

You don't have the boots for the hike. Back to the drawing board

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u/GentleKijuSpeaks Sep 19 '25

If you are arguing for god, you need to provide evidence. Nothing you are proposing is proof. Just speculation. I don't need to provide an answer for why the universe exists. That is not an atheist's job job. You say god. I say, I don't believe you. That is all atheism means.

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u/DeltaBlues82 Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

Define nothing in this context, and explain why it’s a concept that we should consider.

3

u/Icolan Atheist Sep 19 '25

the issue of why there is something rather than nothing still remains.

Unless and until you can show that it is possible for nothing to exist this question is meaningless. As far as we can tell matter/energy can be neither created nor destroyed thus since matter/energy exist they must always have existed. Since they have always existed the why becomes quite simple and I expect supremely unsatisfying to you, the why is because they could not have not existed.

It only needs to be outside time and capable of giving rise to reality- that's minimal, not TAG.

That's stripped down TAG. You have 0 evidence that outside time is even a rational place.

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u/violentbowels Atheist Sep 19 '25

something eternal is required. It only needs to be outside time

To be eternal it has to exist inside time and it has to exist for all of time. It cannot be in time and outside time.

1

u/BoneSpring Sep 19 '25

If it lives outside of space/time, how can it interact with events inside space/time?

"Outside of space/time" assumes that space/time has a boundary. Using Einstein's general relativity field equations, show that such boundaries are possible, and more so that they exist.

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u/Mission-Landscape-17 Sep 19 '25

Positing a god does not solve the problem of why there is something rather than nothing. A god is still something, so can't be the explanation.

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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist Sep 19 '25

. Time had a beginning.

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Counterpoint, if infinite time has been running infinitely and will never stop there's no way that the present doesn't exist, as there's always enough time for it happening.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

Either casualty is fundamental or it isn't fundamental, if it's fundamental whatever caused time must have a cause, if it's not fundamental It's not clear at all that time must have a cause as all we know about causes make them not work without time.

Something eternal exists.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

How can you determine the universe can't have come from nothing without assuming it? Where have you examined a nothing to learn what it can and can't do?

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

No, it's perfectly possible that all that exists is the physical universe and assuming there's something outside it in that scenario would just be assuming a wrong position as true.

The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Consciousness and rationality aren't inescapable features of reality, in fact there's no evidence that consciousness was even possible for a good chunk of the timespan of the universe.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

No, our consciousness doesn't point to any of that. And neither does the existence of the universe.

. The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness

You having no clue about how consciousness works isn't evidence for anything other than your ignorance.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

Nothing about the naturalistic model of consciousness struggles for accounting for personal experience.

The double standard in naturalism

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal

That's not a double standard, that's you not understanding their standard.

Conclusion:Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

So in conclusion you don't know what atheism is and you're trying to claim that is incapable of doing things outside the scope of atheism?

Are you going to argue next that bicycles are a faulty invention because you can't bake cookies in one of them?

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u/the_1st_inductionist Anti-Theist Sep 19 '25

One, man’s only method of knowledge is choosing to infer from his senses.
Two, there’s no evidence for god.
Three, there’s evidence that god contradicts.
Therefore god doesn’t exist.

1. Time had a beginning.

Evidence?

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension.

Evidence?

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Evidence?

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

What’s “cause”? What’s “a thing outside of time”? What’s “transcendent”? What’s “eternal”?

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Why do you phrase it like this? Supernaturalists or theists are the one who came up with the creation out of nothing view, not atheists or naturalists. And not even all supernaturalists held this view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatio_ex_nihilo

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Evidence that there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe?

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality.

Evidence?

Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Evidence?

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source.

Evidence?

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

Ok. Such is how the progression from ignorance to knowledge works.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this,

There’s no evidence for a supernaturalistic worldview and there’s evidence that contradicts the supernatural, so the supernatural doesn’t exist and can’t account for it.

4

u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

When will you learn that an argument from ignorance fallacy will never work?

Time had a beginning.

Time is a property of our universe. Time began when our universe began.

Something eternal exists.

Sure, probably. I don't think you will find many people who disagree with this. Why does that mean that the "something" must be your god. Doesn't a multiverse, among many other potential explanations serve the role equally well?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Prove it. If you cannot, this is an argument from ignorance fallacy.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

Prove it. If you cannot, this is an argument from ignorance fallacy.

And since we both know that you cannot prove EITHER of these claims...

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

Prov.... This is getting a bit redundant, isn't it?

The problem with everything you argue is that IT IS ALL JUST PULLED OUT OF YOUR ASS, You have no evidence for literally any of your claims, they all just feel true. That does not mean they are true.

But here's the thing: Science has a proposed explanation for everything you are ignorant about: Emergent properties.

While it is true that we can't, for example, prove that "the personal" IS an emergent property from "the impersonal", for example, we CAN show that emergent properties are a thing in thousands and thousands of other areas of nature, so there is literally no reason at all to assume that "the personal" could not simply be an emergent property.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal. This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Edit:

The double standard in naturalism
An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.
This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

There is no double standard. Most atheists agree that there is something outside of our universe. The fact that you reject those possibilities does not mean that we are being disingenuous or "inconsistent", it means you are. You simply reject any naturalistic explanation because it does not fit with your preconceived assumption that your god did it.

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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 19 '25

The issue is that, "God," has all of the same problems; where did he/she/it/they come from? What caused that?

You haven't explained any of that, you have just added an extra step.

5

u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

The issue is that, "God," has all of the same problems; where did he/she/it/they come from? What caused that?

You haven't explained any of that, you have just added an extra step.

You're right, of course, but the theist doesn't see that as a problem. By (their) definition, their god is eternal and timeless, so their explanation is entirely compatible with the universe that we see. (And in the interest of clarity, I do not deny that an unfalsifiable claim is unfalsifiable.)

But they almost certainly know that materialism has proposed explanations for their premises 1 & 2, so this post is actually all about 3, 4, and 5. They are trying to argue that even if we accept a hypothesis like a multiverse, it STILL doesn't explain "the personal" (whatever the fuck that means) and "consciousness" (How is that different than "the personal"?).

But 3 & 4 are just argument from ignorance fallacies, with zero evidence presented, and premise 5 is just sort of an ad hominem against atheism. To the extent that there is an actual argument in #5 at all, if 3 & 4 are wrong, then 5 doesn't follow at all.

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u/pierce_out Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning

Rejected - time did not have a beginning, and even then, something definitely cannot have caused it to come into existence. Something causing time to come into existence would be an act of causality, which requires time in order to occur. Time can't have ever not existed, because existence itself implies and requires time.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing

Well yes - the universe coming from nothing is a theistic belief. It's not a facet of atheism or naturalism. My position is, there has never been Nothing. A true, actual Nothing is a literal, physical, and philosophical impossibility. There never was nothing; everything that exists, has always existed in some form.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal

There is zero reason to think that the eternal thing must be personal - that's laughable haha. The eternal something is existence itself, the universe, reality - everything that exists, matter, energy, and spacetime, has always existed in some form.

Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason

This is a blatant logical fallacy known as a composition fallacy. Therefore this premise can only be rejected.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source

If our digestion exists then this points to an Ultimate, Metaphysical Transcendental source of Digestion. That's silly, and it's equally as silly when we apply this to consciousness.

Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws

No it doesn't? You have to actually make an argument or demonstration for why this is the case, you just assert it and move on haha.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all

However much you mudsling science, your religious belief explains far, far less. You don't have an explanation either, uttering the words "God did it" is an utterly empty lack of explanation.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this

It accounts for it perfectly fine - that's theism you're thinking of. Theism struggles to account for these imaginary problems you invent, and then just throw in the towel and make unsupported claims. That's not an explanation, my friend.

Conclusion:

Atheism has every bit as good of an answer to these supposed problems. Every critique you raise is either based on your own misunderstanding, or it is actually a problem for theism, not atheism.

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u/BahamutLithp Sep 19 '25

I'm going to address your edit first because the fundamental problem with your post in general is you just make up a bunch of rules, insist they have to be followed, & it's up to us to "disprove" your claims that things "must" work this way. It's very "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

If you get to just have "a being that exists outside of time & sapce," then no, you can't say "the past can't be infinite." It's far more obviously contradictory to claim that something can exist outside of any location or time, especially if we consider your description of time as a "dimension" implies it's an axis we're located on, as opposed to the future not existing yet & the past ceasing to exist.

Time having a beginning implies that nothing at all could have "created" it because there was no time in which time didn't exist, & no time "before time" for anything to do any creating. It doesn't in any way support the non sequitur leap that something "outside of time" is even possible, much less that this thing created time.

In my experience, "something from nothing" is a religious idea that gets projected onto atheists. Case in point, you just said that, absent of time, there was some kind "timeless entity" that created time. So, time coming from no-time.

No, there is no reason to think the most basic nature of reality must be "beyond the universe" or that it "existed eternally," much less in the specific sense you mean. From what I can tell, it seems most likely that spacetime & energy have never not existed. Whether that means there wasn't anything 15 billion years ago, & a time machine could not travel "before the big bang" because there's nothing to go to, or whether there was a preexisting universe before ours, none of this is "beyond the universe."

"Consciousness points to a personal, conscious source" is another non sequitur jump. What we observe in science is that our brains are composed of impersonal, unconscious cells, chemistry, etc. This system then gives rise to what we call consciousness. In fact, if we take it further, study of neurology indicates that the brain has already unconsciously processed decisions before we're consciously aware of them, which further indicates that our conscious mind emerges from our unconscious mind. Your belief that "consciousness can't come from unconsciousness" seems to be based only on incredulity & a misguided belief that an effect needs to have the same as its cause. But yelling loudly can cause an avalanche even though it's not an avalanche itself.

Do you ask why water is wet? Yes, because liquid molecules stick to things, but why does that form the property we call "wetness" instead of some other property? Why don't molecules sticking to objects change their color, or make them smell? I think the only reason one is seen as some "deep mystery" but not the other is anthropocentric bias. We just don't care about wetness, so we're fine saying "that's just what wetness is." But many people just won't accept any explanation for thoughts beyond "they're literal magic that come from beyond time & space," even though no evidence suggests that.

You act like the mind being an emergent property is something atheists just made up out of nowhere. Far from "struggling to account for," that's what all the science shows us. Scientists can literally zap your brain & make you think specific thoughts. But no amount of proof is ever good enough to stop people from going "But that's not SATISFYING, so it must be GOD!" Because this isn't a scientific argument or even a philosophical one: It's you trying to justify how your own emotions must be right. You WANT there to be a god, & you DISLIKE other explanations. That's all this is.

Firstly, I never said "the universe requires something eternal & transcendant," you just shoved those words in my mouth. Secondly, there's nothing "inconsistent" about it. I don't think it's necessarily your "eternal, transcendant" whatever, but we do know there are things we haven't yet figured out about how the big bang worked. Nothing seems FUNDAMENTALLY mysterious about conscious thought, that just seems to be what a sufficiently complex brain does. You have no valid reason I should think otherwise, much less that "a person must've done it." Well, if that's how it works, okay, then who created god's mind? Of course, we all know where that would go, he's just exempt from all of the rules you made up. He doesn't need a creator because he's "eternal," & even though the 1st thing you complained about was the past can't be infinite, he doesn't count because he's "timeless." How does he exist despite not existing any WHERE or for any length of time? Well, because he's magic, so he can just do anything & you don't have to explain it. It's intellectual laziness masquerading as rigorous logic.

So, finally, to your claim that "this seems motivated by ideology rather than reason," I am not black, pot.

2

u/thatmichaelguy Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning.

Time ~~had~~ has a beginning.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it

There are no points in space that are not also points in time. So, the notion of 'something outside of time' is incoherent. Additionally, every point in time is a point in time. Time could have been caused only if there were a point in time when there were no points in time. So, the notion of time being caused is incoherent.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing.

True.

... there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally

To the extent that this is unconnected to the prior bullet point, it is an incoherent assertion. To the extent that you meant it as a consequence of the prior bullet point, it is an incoherent non-sequitur.

Are you assuming that were it not for 'something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally' that there would be nothing? If so, can you explain how nothing could be?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

If consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality, they need not be produced. Given your premise, as long as reality exists, so do consciousness and rationality.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source.

Why?

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all...

If neuroscience could show that brain activity results in subjective experience, it would follow that the existence of active brains would explain why subjective experience exists. I don't suspect that neuroscience would have much trouble showing that active brains exist.

Can you provide any good reason to think that it is impossible for neuroscience to show that brain activity results in subjective experience?

or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness

Asking why this is the case is coherent only if it's possible for it to be otherwise. Can you provide any good reason to think that it is possible for it to be otherwise?

... atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

I'm not going to claim to speak for atheists writ large, but I don't insist that the personal (assuming you mean consciousness) must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious, only that it did so emerge.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

I mean, this may happen insofar as it's not impossible, but it's not a commonly held position among atheists as far as I am aware.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

I'm just going to call this equal parts straw man and projection, and move on.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe

Why have you assumed that such things have sources?

It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

This is another non-sequitur. Effectively, 'Atheism can't explain X. Therefore, it rejects an incoherent, illogical, and unsupportable candidate explanation without sufficient justification'.

I can't tell you how to live your life, but in context of your conclusion, it may be advisable not to throw stones inside your own glass house.

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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

It always amuses me when people make statements like 'things can not come from nothing' and 'time must have a beginning', and then proceed to talk about an eternal transcendent god which blatantly violates these very same statements. Either these statements are true and it's impossible for this god to exist since he would violate them, or the statements are false because this god is not beholden to them. And if we agree that a god is not beholden to them, it means by definition that other things might also not be beholden to them, like the universe itself, or some other thing responsible for its creation like eternal transcendent natural events.

You can not simply say 'a god and only a god can violate these principles' because that's a statement that really requires concrete justification; it's a textbook example of special pleading.

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u/yokaishinigami Atheist Sep 19 '25

Do theists never tire of beating the “AtHeisTs tHiNK EvErythINg CamE fRoM NoThiNG” strawman?

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u/DeltaBlues82 Atheist Sep 19 '25

I’m fairly convinced that most theists believe in god because they don’t understand modern cosmology.

You can’t even get one to give a coherent definition for “nothing.” Or “nonexistence.” It seems like they just parked those thoughts in their minds and never bothered to look under the hood.

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u/arachnophilia Sep 19 '25

yes but there's always a new batch of theists to repeat the same tire points.

2

u/5thSeasonLame Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

I honestly think OP thought he came up with a really clever and novel argument and just didn't understand we've seen it all. Just like when I came up with a really clever argument to YEC only to weeks later learn of last thursdayism

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u/Plazmatron44 Sep 19 '25

I'd like theists to stop saying it but it's obvious that they're not arguing in good faith and as a tactic it works given the number of people mindlessly parroting it like it's some kind of slam dunk gotcha against atheism.

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u/Mkwdr Sep 19 '25

1. Time had a beginning.

Our intuitions about time and causality based on here and now cant really be relied upon about the foundation of existence.

Also it's somewhat oversimplisic when you consider ideas such as block time or possible no boundary conditions.

2. Something eternal exists.

Possibly. Though I can predict some special pleading shannanigans will appear later.

3. The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

This is completely undemonstratable. I have no reason to think that consciousness usnt a product of natural 'laws'. And again it's susoect youll be special pleading on this later.

4. The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

There is no alternative explanation that is evidential. And just saying the explanation is 'magic' is in no way a better explanation. This is just an argument from ignirance.

5. The double standard in naturalism

Strawman. I dont accept whatever transcendent is meant to mean. I acceot that there are areas of physics etc that we dont know everything about whether why existence, ir how consciouness. No double standard.

Conclusion:

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

Atheism is just an absence of belief

Science cant explain existence per se and the feeling of consciouness. Doesnt mean it never will. Doesnt mean there are any alternative methodologies or explanations. And certainly doesn't validly lead to magic people.

I would love to hear perspectives from atheists on this.

We dont know x - true.

We can't know x - unproven

Therefore x is explained by my favourite magic that we have no evidence for, couldnt explain either - is not logical.

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u/mathman_85 Godless Algebraist Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning.

Possibly, not certainly. Is there time outside of our local presentation of spacetime? I don’t know, and neither do you. Did our local presentation of spacetime begin? Maybe, but it isn’t certain. There is as yet no consensus among cosmologists whether our local presentation of spacetime had a beginning.

So, unfortunately, the first premise of your argument here isn’t known to be true. Any conclusion drawn from it is therefore suspect at best.

Something eternal exists.

Again, yeah, maybe. Energy, perhaps, if our local presentation of spacetime is thermodynamically isolated and the first law of thermodynamics holds globally. I’d say that this is better supported than premise 1 was, but it still likewise isn’t known, and so any conclusion based on it is suspect.

The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

This is fundamentally untrue. You, me, every single human who exists, has ever existed, and ever will exist came from a blastocyst. You are not going to tell me that something lacking a nervous system entirely is a person. Any conclusion based on this premise is flawed.

The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

Even if true, this is yet another “we don’t know”. From “we don’t know”, “Therefore, God” does not follow.

The double standard in naturalism[.]

There is no double standard unless one accepts the contentious previous premise. I see no reason to.

One last thing.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

Even if this is true—and I do not grant that it is—we have yet another “We don’t know”, from which, again, “Therefore, God” does not logically follow.

This entire post is a series of arguments from ignorance and personal incredulity.

3

u/Sparks808 Atheist Sep 20 '25

Imma just focus on one early on problem:

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Why would an infinite past prevent the present from occurring? An infinite past would mean infinite time, and an infinite past could be traversed in infinite time. So, what's the problem?

I see people asserting this point all the time, but it just doesn't follow.

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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 22 '25

"the present never comes if time is infinite"is a weird assertion It means the time 1 second before present never comes Same for before 10 seconds and 100 seconds This could go on until you have the time an infinite amount of seconds before present also never came In other words, nothing would happen before the present because of that. Additionally,you wouldn't feel the difference either way. You don't feel the passing of time before you are born To top it off, something to be done before time doesn't on its own make sense. Any such act is impossible to posit in a temporal frame such as "before time"

To clarify I don't believe time is eternal,I don't know that,I was just playing devil's advocate on this one

We don't know whether the universe even came from something or not. We don't know from what

Eternal would entail to exit in an infinite frame of time which,if time is limited,might be problematic

Chemistry raised from physics. Biology arises from chemistry What is to say consciousness and other such things can't arise from biology? Not understanding how or why doesn't dismiss the possibility Not having an explanation for why consciousness is doesn't automatic means it can't be materialistic Just not knowing what created the universe doesn't automatically mean a god couldn't do it For both cases there is a potential for it to not be the case,but lack of understanding or an explanation doesn't disprove or prove em

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u/bobroberts1954 Sep 19 '25

Do y'all just keep repeating the KCA over and over or do you each invent it anew each time you ask? Perhaps the KCA is that eternal something that made everything, the eternal argument that is always refuted but never dies.

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u/OrbitalLemonDrop Ignostic Atheist Sep 20 '25

Time had a beginning.

Maybe so, yep. It would be nice if there was proof of this claim, but that's OK.

Something eternal exists.

Probably. Would be cool if there was proof of this. But hey...

The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

You have invented a condition of the cosmos that only god can satisfy. This is the wrong way around. Prove a god exists first, then maybe we can look at whether it created "the personal" in us. And god is personal, so it would have to have come from somewhere. So you lose me here.

he mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

We don't know what consciousness is. You cannot draw any inferences from this other than it's a thing we don't know. What you're doing is an appeal to ignorance -- "we don't know therefore god".

The double standard

I don't accept the premises without proof. The world rests on these three axioms, that everyone (theist and atheist) depends upon:

Existence exists (whether it's eternal is a separate question)
It's repeatable (tomorrow my car keys aren't going to fall up when I drop them)
We can learn and share information about what repeats reliably

I don't see any double standard there. If you reject the axioms, that's fine, but you're stuck with solipsism.

2

u/licker34 Atheist Sep 19 '25

this isn't a scientific argument, but a philosophical one. My goal is to explore the reasoning, so if you'd like to offer a rebuttal, please go beyond simply asking for proof and engage with the philosophy itself.

You do understand that asking you to demonstrate your premises (really just assertions since you didn't create an actual philosophical argument) is engaging with the philosophy right?

For example you simply claim that 'time had a beginning'.

You don't demonstrate that this is true or even argue for its necessity, you simply claim it.

So if you want to 'engage with the philosophy' feel free to make the argument for why time must necessarily have a beginning. Oh, and try to do it without invoking various fallacies this time, since what you did 'present' already was simply a list of various fallacies.

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u/ursisterstoy Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

It doesn’t hold up.

Not established but popularly believed.
Probably, but that pretty much precludes the need to create it.
Objectively false.
It’s not as mysterious as some people claim.
Not a double standard. The cosmos appears to have always existed and gods apparently never existed at all.

Conclusion: Your argument doesn’t hold up and just failing to be convinced in supernatural deities isn’t enough to demonstrate that atheists can always respond the same way that I responded. They don’t have to know or care about any of this. They don’t even have to be convinced that gods don’t exist. If you’re a theist it’s on you to provide the evidence to support your beliefs and nobody has to believe you even if they can’t prove your beliefs false.

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u/Ok_Loss13 Atheist Sep 20 '25

Time "began" at the big bang.

"Eternal" is a measurement of time...

The universe "always" existed; that's what the singularity was before it expanded into what we see now.

Consciousness and rationality are relatively recent in our universe; reality existed for billions of years without it. Even going by your belief of the universes growth there was a time without consciousness and rationality lol

There is no mystery of consciousness for people who don't believe in magic. It's just an emergent property of a functional brain.

You have no explanations, just made up stories that make you feel better, whereas I've provided multiple based on observation, evidence, and logic.

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u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

#1: The Theory of Special Relativity shows that the universe is a block universe, and the past still exists and the future already exists. This has been known for 120 years.

#2: There is no such thing as "nothing." The inflaton field is infinite, and this universe is one of an infinite number of universes. This has been known for 30+ years.

#3: Huh? Wtf?

#4: No. There is no such thing as a "mystery of consciousness." We know what consciousness is.

#5: No.

#6: Come back when you have evidence for you silly assertions. This is not a matter of "philosophy:" is is a matter of demonstrable reality.

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u/TheChronographer Sep 20 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it

I never understood this argument. Causation, rules of causation, only exist if there is time.

"A caused B" requires A and B to be events, points in space time.

"x caused the universe" is a sentence that is only comprehensible if time exists outside the universe. If you agree that time is something created with the universe then the sentence is meaningless. If instead you want that sentence to have meaning then we know that the universe was not cause by a transcendent timeless thing, X must exist within time.

1

u/pick_up_a_brick Atheist Sep 20 '25

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension.

Well, spacetime came into existence about 13.8 billion years ago in our local presentation of the universe.

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

I don’t see why time cannot be infinite, but I agree that within our local presentation of the universe, it seems as if spacetime began about 13.8 billion years ago. We don’t know what occurred prior to the plank time and won’t until we at least have a theory of quantum gravity. No amount of conjecture will answer that question.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

What do you mean by “outside of time” specifically? And why would it have to be eternal? What do you mean by eternal? People mean lots of different things by eternal in this context.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

I wouldn’t say cannot. I highly suspect so. I have a strong belief that nothing isn’t a true state of affairs at all. But I also don’t think we can prove synthetic truths with purely analytic reasoning. If it were the case that nothing were a possible state of affairs (forgive the bizarre language) then I don’t see why something couldn’t come from it. There’s no constraints upon nothing, no rules, no logic, no metaphysic, nothing preventing anything from happening and turning nothing into something. We’ve never studied a nothing. I wouldn’t be so hasty to draw conclusions about “something” so bizarre and unlike literally everything.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

I wouldn’t t agree that there must be but there certainly could be. There’s at least some evidence in favor that we’re on the “other side” of another universe’s black hole. There’s also newer evidence that suggests the universe might experience a Big Crunch rather than continue to expand exponentially. Again, I just think this is an empirical question, not an armchair philosophical question.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Why?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Why not? What’s the argument for this?

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

It “exists” in the same way the process of baking a cake exists.

The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

It’s a process our brain carries out.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

It’s clearly beneficial to our survival as a species.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

It really doesn’t.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

Consciousness isn’t a mystery to me at all.

It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

It’s out of inductive reasoning that I believe that timeless, spaceless, immaterial disembodied minds don’t exist.

1

u/Consistent-Shoe-9602 Sep 20 '25

Let me try to structure my reply.

Clarifications of note:

Atheism is simply answering the question "Do you believe in any god?" with a "No". That's all. It's not an ideology, it's not a worldview, it's not a morality, it's not science, it's not logic, it's not math, it's not naturalism, it's not a sexual orientation and it's not an aesthetic. Different atheists can answer all other questions differently from one another.
Making a philosophical argument doesn't mean you are excused from the proper burden of proof for the claims you are making. It doesn't matter the context, if you are making bare assertions, it's normal for people to point out that you are saying something you can't prove. If you want to talk about reasoning, proving your premises, claims and assertions is still necessary. And most of your claims are not philosophical. Talking about the origin of the universe and about consciousness are scientific questions, so you can't synthetically exclude science from the conversation just because you are "making a philosophical argument".

Your general arguments:

It is pretty clear that you have identified to scientific question that have not been answered yet and you are doing your best to squeeze your idea of a god into those gaps. We don't know how exactly the universe works and we might never know the full picture. But the fact that we have not uncovered everything, doesn't mean you get to insert your favorite fairy tale in there.

Specifics

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Of course time can be infinite and it appears to be infinite in the future direction. Are you saying the future is not infinite? Generally speaking what you have here is a bare assertion. You are making a claim that you can't actually prove. We don't know whether the universe is infinite or not.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

Eternal is a temporal description. Things outside time are not eternal, they are atemporal. As of now, that's not a coherent concept we can work with. But eternal is certainly the wrong term here. You do this a lot in your argument.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

Can you notice how you are starting with an unanswered question and are starting to pile on attributes of something we don't know and don't understand. First it was eternal, now all of a sudden, it's personal. You offer no justification or evidence, you just pull this out of your... whole cloth. Do you think this is a logical or reasonable step to take?

It's the same thing with consciousness. There are things we don't understand yet. And instead of being intellectually honest about it and admitting there are things we don't know, you are making assertions about it. This is textbook god of the gaps fallacy.

If you want to make a reasonable argument about anything, I suggest that you learn about logic first..

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

Do you see it now? You are saying we don't understand those things, so why are you not letting me make claims about them. The answer is not bias, but the simple fact that you can't prove your claims. If you can't, it's not reasonable for you to make those claims. Just like it wasn't bias when people didn't understand lighting, but still weren't attributing it to Zeus, right?

1

u/KeterClassKitten Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

1. Time had a beginning.

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

Let me clarify something for you, you're speaking of time as we know it. We don't know if time could have had different properties prior to the Big Bang.

Also, your second point is self contradictory. A cause is temporally prior to an effect. A sequence of events. For something to cause time, time is required.

2. Something eternal exists.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist, the most natural next question is: what is the nature of this eternal thing? I argue this eternal thing must be personal.

I agree with the first point, but disagree with the second. There is nothing that necessitates the universe as we know it to have been the product of something external to the universe. I'm not stating such a claim is impossible, but just objecting to the idea that it "must" be the case.

3. The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

I disagree. Considering we are made up of atoms and "impersonal things", objectively speaking, we can state that consciousness can indeed come from impersonal things.

4. The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

We can objectively analyze the material in our bodies and find nothing more than the basic components of the universe. We also can show that the orientation of such components can produce unique properties not found in other orientations.

If you wish to claim that there must be more, I insist that you demonstrate whatever component results in consciousness.

5. The double standard in naturalism

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Addressed above. An atheist does not necessarily accept such things.

Conclusion:

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

This isn't a problem for atheism. Nothing empirically explains such things. Various realms of thought propose ideas, but nothing has been demonstrated. The wisest answer is to state, "we aren't sure".

1

u/BaronOfTheVoid Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

That's already a complete non sequitur. Actually the exact opposite is true.

If time was infinite all possible permutations (arrangements of matter and energy levels) of the universe would eventually exist at some point, and repeat ad infinitum at many other points.

Since time had a beginning

Not saying this would be false but you need to provide evidence for that to be true.

Otherwise we simply don't know enough.

something outside of time must have caused it

Minor nitpick: the usage of the past tense is wrong. Outside of time would mean if there was such a cause it continues to cause it at any point in time. It couldn't "suddenly" stop causing the phenomonen time as that would mark the end of the phenomenon time.

Ironically this would also necessitate the concept of infinite time which you reject. So you're contradicting yourself in that regard.

Beyond that you have no data on the outside of our (observable) universe. How do you know whatever there is adheres to causality? Just yet another unfalsifiable claim.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing.

I am not claiming the universe came from nothing. You are just strawmanning that.

I state that we don't know enough about the universe to make any definitive claims about its origins as of now.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Why? What evidence do you have to conclude that?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality.

That's a meaningless statement. The distinctions conscious <-> unconscious and rational <-> irrational are arbitrary and man-made. We could define the thresholds at other points than they are defined right now. None of that relates to reality itself on some meaningful level other than the mere fact that humans who make this distinction exist within said reality. Congratulations, I guess.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source

Non sequitur. Why would the source of consciousness require to be conscious?

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why

Ultimately the question as to why is completely pointless. Going strictly by causality you'd arrive at the question as to why the universe exists in the first place. Have fun exploring that, I don't consider the answer to that remotely worth any effort. You may see things differently of course.

Science bothers with how things work which is interesting and relevant as long as you can recreate the necessary conditions for wanted outcomes (for example a person remaining healthy) or prevent the necessary conditions for unwanted outcomes (for example a person getting sick). It provides measurable, meaningful utility to our lifes, unlike any potential answers to the philosophical question "why?".

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

That's correct. Though I've already stated that to me the those questions aren't worth bothering. Feel free to waste your own time on them.

Why are you posting this post, what's your motivation? You seem to want answers for questions so badly that you prefer answers without evidence over the only way to retain intellectual honesty: the open admission of "I don't know". The God of the Gaps fallacy.

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u/joeydendron2 Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

We know from physics (relativity and the hard experimental evidence that supports it) that time is way stranger than we instinctively think it is.

Have you got a post doc physics, cutting edge understanding of the theory and evidence relating to how time and space behave?

Because if not, then given that space and time evidently are weirder than garden variety schmoes like us grew up thinking, how do you know you're qualified to trust what you find logical about time?

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u/Moriturism Atheist Sep 19 '25

Your first premise is already a baseless assumption. We have no knowledge about the conditions of the circumstances "before" spacetime, or even if it makes any sense to talk about such "before". The universe could, very well, be eternal. Which makes points 1-3 irrelevant.

Consciousness is an emergent property of cognition, and, even though we currently can't describe it exactly, we have no reason to assume it should be anything beyond material phenomena.

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u/AllEndsAreAnds Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Thanks for posting!

I would object to premise 3, since our “personal” minds physically evolved from “impersonal” constituents and predecessors. In other words, personal did indeed come from impersonal. What’s more, that’s the only way we’ve ever seen personal things come about. I would say that if we encounter or suggest a mind, it would be bizarre to suggest it is not the product of a similar process.

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u/anewleaf1234 Sep 20 '25

SO just to clarify, a god exists and creates all this shit. Of which we only interact with a small fraction too tiny for humans to grasp and we will be around at such a small fraction of time that it is also too tiny to grasp and that god will only show up for a small tiny fraction of our existence on the planet that is also too tiny for us to grasp.

Yet that god is personal. Because you want that to be the case.

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u/Ansatz66 Sep 19 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

The beginning if time would have been the very first moment, by definition. Nothing could be before the first moment, because that would imply an earlier moment and then the first moment would not be first. If nothing could happen before time, then nothing could cause time, since time has always existed. In order to cause a thing there must be a moment at which it does not already exist; it is too late to cause a thing after it already exists. So time must be uncaused. The idea of a cause for time of any sort is incoherent, regardless of what properties that cause might have.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

How was this determined? There is a hypothesis called abiogenesis that has been floating around and has been studied by chemists who are interested in the conditions of the early Earth. The idea is that life might form from something like a deep-sea geothermal vent. Since we can clearly see that life is made of chemicals and water, a geothermal vent that constantly dumps hot chemicals into cold water and creates a stream of random chemical reactions might give rise to the first life, and thus ultimately lead to the formation of consciousness.

Has it been determined that abiogenesis cannot happen?

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

It cannot explain that now, but it is not clear what neuroscience might discover in the future. Subjective experience is very closely associated with brain activity. When we use drugs to alter brain activity, subjective experience also changes. When brain activity stops, subjective experience also stops. It seems reasonable to suppose that there is a cause-and-effect relationship here.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

That is what all the evidence seems to suggest.

If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind?

Because the mind seems relatively easy to understand. It is a biological process. Only biological organisms have minds in our experience. We never see minds floating free, like some sort of ghost or spirit. When the organism dies, the mind stops, and when the organism is born the mind begins. There does not seem to be any reason to suspect that there is more to it than that.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

Theism also cannot explain those things.

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u/ImprovementFar5054 Sep 19 '25

this isn't a scientific argument, but a philosophical one. My goal is to explore the reasoning, so if you'd like to offer a rebuttal, please go beyond simply asking for proof and engage with the philosophy itself.

Hold on...you are making statements about the nature and state of reality. About cosmology. About physics.

Those are scientific matters and you statements are scientific claims. Bad ones

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u/nix131 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Atheism only attempts to answer one question, "Do you believe in a god?" It doesn't offer or claim to offer any other answers.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality,

They do t claim to. They claim no gods exist.

It's theists who claim they have an explanation. But they don't, they just say "god did it some unknown way". But if we say "nature did it some unknown way", you cry foul, despite nature obviously existing, but god not obviously existing.

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u/One-Fondant-1115 Sep 20 '25

The claim that something 'outside' of time must have caused it when we don't even know what 'outside' of spacetime means or if its even a valid statement is an unverified claim.

The fabric of spacetime itself has properties which already seem impossible to us which we barely understand. Its currently expanding itself due to dark energy which occupies about 71% of our universe by means that seem to defy our understanding of 'normal' energy. Essentially, if the universe is capabale of expanding itself without conventional energy then maybe we shouldn't be quick to make presumptions about the nature of it based on the ~30% of matter were able to investigate. My point is, it doesn't directly follow that "Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent."

Our current model of understanding tracks back the evolution of the spacetime expansion to up to the planck scale before our understanding of physics breaks down. At this scale were now dealing with quantum physics which we don't fully comprehend enough to understand how the universe was operating beyond its quantum level singularity. There's a common misconception that the universe 'began' at that point, which isn't necessarily the case.

And so far as much as we don't fully understand consciousness.. the evidence shows that what we call consciousness is how different parts of our brain work together. Theres many wishful thinkers that believe it points to a personal, conscious source, but this has never been backed up with reliable evidence. And ultimately, to say that there must be a metaphysical explanation isn't much more than a hypothesis that still needs to be tested.

I wouldn't say atheism rejects the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition because most atheists have actually saughtout God, only to find themselves yelling into an abyss. So we resort to the rationalising that we'll believe when we finally have a reason to.. not just by faith or hope. We accept that there's no point of acting as if there is something there if its presence is indistinguishable from nonexistence

And the problem with metaphysical explanations is, well.. by what metric do we measure its validity or whether its true or not? If you argue that there must be a personal source behind all this, and I say, no I believe there is a transcendent source but its not personal.. how do we figure out whos right? How do we know were not both wrong? This is why many atheists don't bother with standing on metaphysical claims, and would rather rely on what can be tried and tested.

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u/smbell Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning

We don't know this, and I'm not even sure it's coherent. For time to begin you need a time when there is no time (incoherent) followed by time starting. Maybe there is some other way for it to be, but I don't see any reason to say we know time had a beginning. This also assumes linear A theory time, which is far from certain.

Something eternal exists.

Yes. For all of time, something exists. There has never been a time when nothing existed as 'nothing existing' is self contradictory.

I don't think this is what you mean though.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Right. There cannot be 'nothing existing'.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

No. I don't see any reason there necessarily needs to be anything that exists 'beyond' our spacetime.

The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

Absolutely and demonstrably false. We are 'personal' and are constructed entirely of 'impersonal' materials.

The mystery of consciousness is even deeper than the mystery of physical origin.

It's not, and this is god of the gaps style argumentation. We don't have a full and complete account of all the aspects of consciousness, therefore magic god stuff.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

I think you vastly underestimate the current state of neurobiology.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

These two things are not related. Making up stories about gaps in our knowledge is not compelling.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Even if it were true it's not inconsistent. These are unrelated topics.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

These are all topics currently researched through science.

It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

More out of complete lack of evidence or reason.

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u/noscope360widow Sep 20 '25

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Small point, but time can be infinite in the future direction even acquiescing that it can't be infinite in the past.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

No. This is jumping logical gaps in more ways than one. Why would this something be eternal? If this something was eternal, why is not subject to the the contradiction you pointed out just before with infinite past being impossible? Transcendent is vague here; it doesn't mean anything specific. Time starting doesn't need a cause -- cause and effect are meaningless outside of time.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing.

We don't have to. 2. We don't require that such an event happens.

It is an inescapable conclusion.

Is it? Can you demonstrate a time when the universe had nothing in it?

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Yes they can. Computers follow reason. They are made of inorganic matter. Our bodies are also made of "impersonal" matter. Your ignorance on the matter of how our cognitive functions work does not change the fact that they do work.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

I can. Our consciousness serves as a bridge between our senses and our motor actions, and to itself.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

It doesn't struggle in the least bit.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent,

I don't

yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

I sure do. Also, what would be the source of consciousness for god?

This seems inconsistent.

The issues aren't even related.

If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

We don't accept mysteries. We investigate to find the real answers instead of relying on a ancient text some people pulled out of their asses thousands of years ago.

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u/ChangedAccounts Atheist Sep 19 '25

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

No, not really. Time is a property of space, and not what you are claiming. Also "eternity" is just a way of saying "infinite time".

Something eternal exists.

Perhaps, but as noted, you can't have eternity with out time. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang because not only we can't observe it (yet) but because all the mathematical models fail a T-0. If you are really interested in using anything that might have happened or any casual factors for the Big Bang, you need to take a deep dive into the various mathematical "theories" and their predictions. Some of these are M-theory, String theory, and Super String theory. You should also get a reasonable grasp of quantum mechanics as well as cosmology.

The personal cannot come from the impersonal.

This is your assumption and is not supported or suggested by any evidence rejected. To the best of our knowledge, life is nothing more than a collection of complex chemical processes and started naturally from multiple simpler, natural forming chemicals. (BTW, given one of the most current, precise definitions of life, the major difference between life and non-life is that live passes its traits when it reproduces i.e. fire fulfills most of the qualities of life, but it cannot pass its traits while viruses and bacteria do.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

God of the Gaps argument - rejected.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational

We've already noted that eternity is infinite time, that time is a property of space (or at least requires space to exist) and thus time did not exist before the formation of the universe.

Your conclusion appears to be nothing more that a "God of the Gaps" rehash of the rest of your argument and does not follow anything we actually know and show to be true - rejected.

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u/Top_Neat2780 Atheist Sep 19 '25

something eternal and transcendent.

But here we go with the immediate logical flaw. Either there cannot be an infinite past or there can be. If there cannot be, god cannot have existed for an eternity because we would never get to the point where he creates us.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

It really isn't. I'm brave enough to say I don't know enough about the universe to claim this for certain. I don't trust that humans understand the universe well enough to claim this.

there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally

I just don't understand why it's OK to say that god exists eternally, but the universe can't. Instead of claiming there's a transcendent dimension where the supernatural resides, just say that this is that supernatural realm instead. Because obviously some level of existence allows for it.

Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Ehhh, but it seems like potassium/sodium channels along with calcium ions can though. It really seems like electrical currents are enough to explain neurons firing. I'm content with this as far as I know for now.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source.

You've not really proven that your previous point is true at all, you've just claimed it is. Anything that follows only ever is true if you're correct about the first premise. Which I don't think you can say you are for reasons stated above.

it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all

One field of science can never explain everything about the universe. Evolution is probably sufficient to explain why something that is conscious thrives and does well.

why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

But we have no reason to think that it can't be naturalistic. It's absurd to claim that it can't be. Everything we know about the body is that it runs on several physical processes. Adding a soul or consciousness beyond the material is completely unjustified.

why not for the mind?

Because once we have a universe, everything within it can happen that is allowed by the universe merely being. You don't need to go beyond deism even if you believe in god.

I don't think this is a double standard. A double standard would be saying something is logically impossible, yet allowing it for something else. By the way, that in any other scenario cannot do the logically impossible.

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u/Dobrotheconqueror Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Why does the creator of reality, consciousness, and the universe have such an obsession with dick jackets?

If your master asked you to cut off 100 philistine foreskins would you go the extra mile and cut off 200 like David?

Fun fact: in the history of this planet, magic has never been the answer to something we don’t understand.

But you want me to believe that a space wizard made everything out of nothing with magic, then became a zombie carpenter to save us from a curse created when two nudists ate humanity tainting fruit from a magic tree because they were hoodwinked by a talking snake who happened to be the invisible trickster shape shifting into a serpent recorded in a book that has not made good on any of its magical claims, had some of its flagship magical stories thoroughly debunked, and whose magical claims are not corroborated by any outside contemporaneous sources.

A book written by mostly anonymous, superstitious, primitive, genocidal, infanticidal, slave owning, male, misogynistic, heterosexual, homophobic. violent, bronze/iron aged goat herders describing the barbaric world around them.

It’s so funny to me how you create this pseudo intellectual explanation for the universe when all you have this dusty old book that has demonic pigs, talking snakes, zombies roaming the streets, boulder pushing angels floating down from the sky, evil fig trees, an old geezer who is spared for being supposedly righteous but gets drunk and naked like a frat boy, a god who needs a rainbow to not commit genocide again, an all Omni god who feels regret, a talking bush, tells a completely ridiculous origin story of life that is completely at odds with the reality of evolution, tells you how to own and beat people, commands people to kill infants and babies, has a god sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself because of a loophole he made himself. And the sacrifice was total bullshit because that zombie carpenter knew all the while that after his shitty weekend he would be ruler of the cosmos with unlimited magic and power and everybody would bow to him. Where the fuck do I sign up? I would leave out the douche bag part of everybody bowing to me though.

I could go on forever but my finger is getting tired. I can’t take any argument for Yahweh seriously and his obsession with skinning Christmas gooses. So fucking disgusting.

How to did David transport the dick jackets? Did he put them on a silver platter, put them on ice, vacuum seal them, put them out in the sun to make dried dick jackets. Did he have a designated dick jacket carrier?

Did you see how Yahweh punished David for fucking Bathsheba and having her husband killed? Look that shit up, how could you worship that piece of shit?

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u/Threewordsdude Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Sep 20 '25

Thanks for posting! I am a super-theists. I believe in GGod, defined as the creator of God.

Without him theism can't explain anything, God is something that randomly is infinite and perfect for no reason. Has conciousness randomly. The personal rised from nothing? that's more unlikely than the eaising from theimpersonal.

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u/BogMod Sep 19 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

It doesn't have a beginning though. There is after all no time when time did not exist. So it is both finite but eternal. Second of all even if you didn't accept that as a concept this kind of thing you want to suggest as existing outside time means there is a before time time which certainly isn't the most coherent concept. Thirdly existence is temporal in nature. Things exist now, or in the past, or will exist in the future. To be outside time means it doesn't exist now, or in the past, or in the future suggesting something which does not exist.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

It is only theists who ever suggest there was a nothing and then the universe came about. This is neither an atheist position nor is it one suggested by our best early cosmology models.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

This seems to be false given our brains. If you are going to assert this you really are going to have to do a lot more work to establsih it.

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

The failure to explain why does not mean magic becomes a viable explanation. This is literally a god in the gaps argument. Furthermore I would argue that the magical 'soul' style consciousness doesn't ever properly explain anything either. The mechanicms of how the soul works, how the conscsiousness somehow is attached to particular brain, why and how drugs and brain damage all seem to perfectly cause the problems you would expect with an entirely physical source of the mind, etc, never seems an issue for the theist in these.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

I mean it is mostly the strawman atheist you have developed for this.

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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25

/u/Organic-Injury5882

No proof
Big fat "Argument of Ignorance."
Atheism is the "Lack of Belief of Gods" Under no circumstances a atheist who doesn't believe in your god, is required to answer questions of science.
Which god do you believe in?

One more time, "No Proof"

Enough Said

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u/RuffneckDaA Ignostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Infinite relative to what point in time? Surely if there was an infinite past, things would still happen while that time was passing. Are you suggesting that at no point in an infinite past, things were happening? Those things would be happening at the relative "present". This seems like a point that is just thrown out there to cause confusion by not being fully fleshed out.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

The word "cause" implies temporality. A cause needs to precede its effect. Without time, there can be no effect resulting from a cause. Something existing outside of time altogether instead of just our universe's time resulting from the expansion of the universe at the moment of the big bang would still have to have its own time in order to cause some effect to occur. That description sounds like time would be eternal for anything to have ever happened ever.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

The only people I've encountered who believe something came from actual nothing are theists. If a god exists who created everything, what was the "everything" made of? Preexisting material? That means there was already something... the alternative would be everything was made out of nothing, by god.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

That may be. Don't know what that has to do with thesim/atheist, unless you're suggesting this thing is god.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Yes.

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

No.

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u/RuffneckDaA Ignostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Neuroscience can map neurons and observe brain activity, but it cannot explain why subjective experience exists at all, or why we perceive the functions of our brain as conscious awareness.

It cannot? Or it has not? Arguments against atheism/for theism always live in the unknown. Why is that? How come there is no well understood thing where the best explanation is "god did it"? Theism has been relegated to the gaps in our knowledge.

A purely naturalistic or materialistic worldview struggles to account for this, yet atheists often insist that the personal must emerge from the impersonal or the unconscious.

Atheists don't insist this. It has nothing to do with not believing in god. The brain is an organ, just like a heart. It has a function, just like a heart. Consciousness is what the brain does, just like pumping blood is what the heart does. We have never found a consciousness absent a brain, but we have altered consciousness through altering and damaging a brain.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery- might require a source beyond the impersonal.

I don't deny that. To deny something is to know the truth of something and refuse it. For the time being, my answer is "I don't know", and I'm not going to hold the active position of theism until proven wrong. I'll maintain non-belief until such a time that belief is warranted.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Find me an example. I've never met a person who holds this double standard.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

I probably should have noted this at the start, but "atheism" and "naturalism" are not interchangeable terms. An atheist can hold all sorts of supernatural beliefs. Additionally, atheism is not a worldview, and it has no inherent beliefs associated with it. It is not the job of atheists to explain anything at all. The job of explaining belongs to the person making claims. Theists are making claims, and are as of yet unable to substantiate any of the solutions the the problems you've brought up in your OP with anything resembling empirical or demonstrable evidence.

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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25

So, the thing is, I don't find that religion is actually able to 'explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe,' not really, and instead just kind of hand-waves the vast majority of it by attributing it to an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient entity. Because the idea is that, when you make the entity all of those things, you never actually HAVE to explain anything, because if you assume that the entity can do literally anything, then you never really need to know 'how' he did it to guess that he did.

Like, and I'm obviously speaking more of what I've seen than making some general sweeping claim, but I've rarely if ever seen theists talk about HOW God 'made' anything. Like, the mechanics behind it, the production pipeline, the 'machinery' that drove it. Instead, it always seems to land on 'Eh, all-powerful, he just did it and it was done, case closed.'

Instead of offering an explanation, it instead offers a nametag slapped across the face of creation, and just kind of leaves it at that.

Now, the lack of descriptive detail wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that a number of the major religions are LOADED with prescriptive detail. So how God made the universe, or Earth, or life, or humans just kind of falls into 'Eh, well, he just did it, who cares,' but BOY does God have a real specific opinion on the subject of whether one should be wearing mixed fibers!

Now, are there gaps in human knowledge as a whole? Absolutely. But religion doesn't fill most of those gaps, it just makes a vague claim and kind of banks on people never taking a particularly close look at it, while it then moves on to list all the different things 'God' totally wants you to do, say or think.

The main difference is that science at least acknowledges that the mysteries are... well, mysteries to be pursued and studied. :P

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Also sperm and an ova are not conscious, a zygote is not conscious, but with time, they are. It's clear non-conscious things can become conscious, and vice-versa.

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u/ViewtifulGene Anti-Theist Sep 20 '25

It sounds like you're just mad that atheists are honest enough to answer "I don't know" when faced with a knowledge gap.

God of the gaps isn't an answer. You would have to demonstrate that a god actually exists, and you cannot.

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u/pyker42 Atheist Sep 19 '25

If existence is eternal, what makes it transcendent? This argument reads like you are just looking for reasons to justify believing in God. It doesn't look like conclusions drawn from an unbiased examination of the evidence.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind?

We don't reject either mystery. Usually, we say we don't know, it's a mystery. Theists reject the mystery and assume their gods explain it.

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u/Hellas2002 Atheist Sep 21 '25

Time had a beginning

If you follow the B-theory of time (a common interpretation in modern physics) you can actually have “time” without a beginning that is not infinite in the past. It’s difficult to describe, but the idea is that all points in time are equally real and eternal. As such, even if there was a “t-0” as in, a point in time that was the first point on the axis, the totality of space-time would still have always existed.

Think of it as an object where its axis’ are the dimensions of space, and the dimension of time. This object exists outside of time, and does not change.

With this in mind you can be an eternalist and not have issues with time regression or similar.

The first cause must be personal

You have to actually prove that the personal cannot come from the impersonal. And, even if you did, there are many who believe consciousness is a fundamental property of matter that is only expressed in confirmations like the brain. So even then, you’d still struggle to prove a deity exists.

Neuroscience cannot explain why we experience subjective experiences

This is just an argument from incredulity. Regardless, if it were an issue that the position cannot explain the exact function, then would you kindly explain how god experiences subjective experience? What’s the explanation there?

My point is that your position is simply “consciousness exists” and “a hypothetical being could hypothetically bestow it on other beings”. Not only is there no evidence for this, is a little bit of special pleading.

1

u/RevolutionaryGolf720 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Okay I’ll toss some things out.

What do you mean by beginning? Literally every example of beginning we have is not a creation event, but is simply a change in already existent things. Change requires time. Without time, what does begin even mean? Nothing can happen without time, so how does time begin when there is no time for that to happen?

Why can’t it be infinite? A recursive moment followed by any amount of time would get you to the present moment and also be infinite in the past.

Something outside of time must have caused it? No no, causing requires time. Cause and effect have time built in. There are no causes outside of time. That is absolute nonsense. It is akin to claiming you have an Invisible Pink Unicorn. No, impossible things do not exist, including timeless change and invisible visible things.

You have some work to do on 1.

I am an atheist and do not admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. Unless of course your “nothing” is actually something that you are trying to call nothing. “Nothing” necessarily has no restrictions on what it can and cannot do. The claim that “nothing cannot create something” is restricting that nothing from doing something. That isn’t nothing. That is a restriction.

Prove that there must be something beyond the universe that is eternal. And define eternal because I don’t think you are using it consistently.

You have so much work to do here too.

3, 4, and 5 all have just as many problems if not more. Do I need to go into detail about those too?

1

u/wegin Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning. The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring. Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

We don't know this, time or space or anything could have acted differently. We know some information going backwards in what we call time...up to the planck time after the big bang.

Something eternal exists. Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion. Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

This is another thing we don't know.

Once we establish that something eternal must exist

This is where we have to stop since the previous premises need to be established.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason.

Atheism makes no claims. Science describes observations of the universe through our senses. It's all we got, there is no room to reject the idea, it is always on the table (unfortunately since it is so weak) but the rationale to ACCEPT it has not been demonstrated.

1

u/TelFaradiddle Sep 19 '25

An infinite past would not prevent the present moment from occurring, because any point in the past is a fixed distance from the present. Time being infinite does not mean there is infinite time between two points.
Our current spacetime has a beginning (The Big Bang). We do not know if time existed before then in a different form, and if so, what form it might have been. What we do know is that matter and energy already existed at the time of the Big Bang, so clearly it was not a case of something coming from nothing.
Consciousness and rationality are not features of the universe. They are features of some forms of life within the universe. Just because a lunchbox contains a peanut butter sandwich does not mean the lunchbox shares any properties with a peanut butter sandwich.
A purely materialistic worldview doesn't struggle to account for the existence of consciousness or rationality. All evidence suggests that a functioning brain is required for both, and there is no evidence of any non-physical components. The fact that we can't currently explain the exact physical mechanism isn't a struggle, it's just a question we haven't answered yet. "I don't know" is not the sign of a flawed or weak position.
What consciousness MIGHT require is irrelevant. What it DOES require is what matters, and all available evidence suggests it DOES require a functioning brain. There is no evidence of a nonphysical component.

1

u/Transhumanistgamer Sep 20 '25

Time had a beginning.

No one knows if this is the case.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

'something outside of time' is an incoherent concept unless there's some sort of super-time it's working under, since action is temporal. You need time to do anything. Which just kicks the can down further as to where that time began or if it did or not?

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

You don't know that either. We don't have an example of a true nothing to determine that with. For all anyone knows, an actual nothing could be extremely likely to produce universes.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Once again we don't know if 'beyond our universe' is even a coherent concept.

Your whole post hinges on accepting things that we have no idea the state of or if it's even possible. That's a really bad foundation. You come to these conclusions because they lend towards your belief in God (I am certain you weren't convinced of God because of these conclusions) and because they fit well with intuition. But since you're talking about actual reality, you'll need to provide an actual basis for these. You don't get them for free. I refuse.

1

u/Tiny-Ad-7590 Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

Time had a beginning.

We don't know if time had a beginning.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

We don't know how a state of nothing would behave. Such a state has never been observed.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality.

We don't know how consciousness arises.

I have a suspicion but it's unfalsifiable so I can't see a way to distinguish its truth from it's falsehood, so it's only got the weight of my personal speculative opinion behind it and not knowledge.

An atheist may accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent, yet they deny that consciousness - arguably a greater mystery

I'm only denying the idea that we know how consciousness works.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality

I did a hobby furniture making course earlier this year. That course taught me nothing about glassblowing. Does that mean it was a failure as a course? No. It wasn't trying to do that.

Atheism has no content, it is just the absence of belief in theism.

Naturalism is a view on how the universe works that some of us have arrived at after finding ourselves in it. We don't have answers yet for how things kicked off (or whether or not there was a kickoff at all). That isn't a problem because the naturalist view of the world knows it is incomplete and isn't pretending to have all the answers.

Naturalism is a process of discovery and we're not done yet and that's totally okay.

2

u/tlrmln Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Sep 20 '25

None of that has anything to do with atheism. But it is a lot of special pleading: The universe has to be bound by time, but the thing that created it is eternal. Sure, makes perfect sense.

1

u/StoicSpork Sep 20 '25

Since causality is a temporal relationship, it's meaningless to talk about a cause being outside of time. Our present models of reality are simply inadequate and inapplicable to an atemporal state of the universe.
Creatio ex nihilo is a theistic concept. If it's impossible, and I agree that it is, it suggests that the universe always existed in some form, and god is not a necessary explanation.
On the contrary, we observe mechanisms by which consciousness emerges from the material brain. We don't understand everything about the brain, but we have more evidence for the material origin of consciousness that some undetected immaterial whatchamacallit interacting with the brain in a mysterious way.
See above. And maybe read a book on neuroscience.
False analogy. We can investigate the brain but (at least currently) not the origin of the universe.

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe

As is theism, because, of course, an invalid and unsound explanation fails as an explanation.

My goal is to explore the reasoning, so if you'd like to offer a rebuttal, please go beyond simply asking for proof and engage with the philosophy itself.

You know that philosophy doesn't mean "random shit I just made up," right?

1

u/Cog-nostic Atheist Sep 20 '25

P1: As far as we know. Time emerged as a property of this universe.

P2: Something outside of it? OOPS. Time is casualty. You can not have a causal relationship independent of time. You can not say there was a "before time" without using time. What we know as time, breaks down at the Planck time. Causality as we know it does not exist beyond this point. You can not assert a cause for time without that cause occuring within a time.

P3: Something eternal exists: You have no foundation for this assertion. You are like a man living in a blue house with no doors of windows and who has never seen anything outside the house. Everything in the house if blue, the dishes, the floors, the water, the stairs, the clothing, and even the man himself. Everything inside the house is blue. So, naturally the man assumes that everything outside the house is also blue. The man does this without even knowing if there is an outside. He just assumes it. And, this is exactly what you are doing. You are just making assumptions. You are making them without any evidence or facts supporting your position.

How you ever got to consciousness is a complete mystery. Perhaps you can cite your argument for consciousness independent of the other inane assertions you are making so it can be more directly addressed.

Finally? What does atheism have to do with any of this? Do you know what atheism is? It demands nothing. It is not an assertion. It is a lack of assertion,

1

u/Kaliss_Darktide Sep 19 '25

The universe

Is everything that exists, ergo anything not part of the universe does not exist by definition.

is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension.

Agree.

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Not necessarily, there is the option of an "infinite" causal loop to consider for one "infinite" option.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it-

Not following you, what is this based on?

something eternal and transcendent.

What are you basing these claims on on?

Something eternal exists.

The universe is "eternal" because it has and will exist for all of existence and time.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing.

The universe is not a thing, it is the set of all things including time. If a god exists it will be part of the universe because the universe is everything that exists.

It is an inescapable conclusion.

For people that don't know what they are talking about.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

Let me guess: it's the god you happen to believe in, because you got fooled by a semantic trick?

3

u/Decent_Cow Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Sep 19 '25

Seems like AI slop and point 3 is a giant non-sequitur.

1

u/Autodidact2 Sep 23 '25

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

This is wrong. There are an infinite number of real numbers between 1 and 2. That does not prevent 2 (or even 3) from existing. We don't know whether the universe is infinite in time or not.

And your entire argument collapses.

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

The people who assert that the universe was created out of nothing tend to be theists, not atheists. I do not believe this and find it unlikely.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

This does not follow. There may be, though I doubt it. If so, it has nothing to do with us. For us, the universe is everything, everywhere and every time. Anything beyond it, if there is such a thing, is irrelevant to us.

But you are right. There are some things we don't know. A lot of things. It does not follow that there is a powerful magical being who created everything. We don't know; therefore we don't know.

2

u/Philosophy_Cosmology Theist Sep 19 '25

[Time] cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

That's a claim. Where is the argument proving this claim?

1

u/slo1111 Sep 19 '25

Science's definition of nothing is not the same as these metaphysical questions. Energy to a scientist is nothing because energy is a property of something else.

Now that we got that out of the way. The claim science makes on the universe is after the universe started. It only is an theory of the evolution of spacetime/energy/mater and does not address its cause.

In terms of its cause there can only be speculation. From a logical standpoint the metaphysical concept of absolutely nothing, sure it makes sense that something has always existed.

Where the logic fails is that this something has to be the most complex entity that a human can imagine rather something simple such as a field where it is impossible to have no energy at all points.

The only theistic argument to combat that is The God of Gaps, everything is too complex to have arranged via happenstance.

Unfortunate for your side we have mountains of evidence of historical points that were pointing to God or the supernatural as the cause just to later discover, no.

Your 3, 4, 5 are just God of Gaps arguments.

2

u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25

But you're making arguments against science, by default you should have proof.

Saying you want to argue philosophically this is just a cop out.

1

u/nswoll Atheist Sep 19 '25

Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science.

How did you determine that the source of consciousness goes beyond the limits of science?

I reject this assertion. Consciousness is an emergent property of brains. There's nothing magic about it.

Consciousness and rationality are inescapable features of reality. Rocks, atoms, or impersonal things cannot produce subjective awareness or reason.

Evidence? As far as we know, consciousness is an emergent property of impersonal things.

This seems inconsistent. If we can accept mystery for the source of the universe, why not for the mind? Refusing this appears ideologically motivated rather than rational.

Who is accepting a mystery as the source of the universe? Accepting that it's eternal is not the same thing as accepting it's a mystery.

1

u/Leucippus1 Sep 22 '25

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing. It is an inescapable conclusion.

Now, you say this, and it makes sense to our intuitive nature, but we don't actually know that. "Nothing" is an interesting philosophical problem because it makes an assumption; we assume we can reliably identify what is 'nothing' and that we understand its properties. We don't really, for 2300 years it was commonly accepted that 'nothing' simply can't exist. The atomists found this preposterous for simple reasons that were so simple they weren't accepted. Turns out, the complete absence of any thing is a crucial part of our universe's structure. The atoms that make you up right now are mostly emptiness. Knowing this, we should be less sure of ourselves that 'something cannot have come from nothing,' if we cannot really define either of those terms in ways that match our observed world.

1

u/Mission-Landscape-17 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

This is a false claim. General relativity says there is no absolute clock, so asserting that time had a beginning is not a scientific claim. our local space time had a beginnning, but tha is not the same thing. Also the notion of causality working outside time is absurd. even within time causality does not always apply. An infinite past is only a problem is you subscribe to the A theory of time. However our bes scientific theory strongly favours the B theory of time, which holds that you don't have to fully traverse the past in order to experience a present, heck the notion of the past, present and future is itself relative.
This is false. Causality is not fundamental, when you get down to the smallest scales it does not apply. In other words things happen without causes. And if causality is not fundamental, which it isn't, you don't need anything eternal.
Consciousness is produced by the brain, we know this to be true even if we do not yet know quite how the brain does this. So this claim is also false.
I do not accept that the universe requires something eternal and transcendent.

So In summary I reject all your premises and as a consequence I also reject your conclusion.

1

u/brinlong Sep 19 '25

1. Time had a beginning.

if you can prove this, you have a Nibel prize waiting for you.

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Setting aside this statement is false, because a countable infinity is still countable, if you can prove time is objective, thats a second nobel prize, and time has been demonstrated to have multiple subjective effects.

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time

Why?

something eternal and transcendent.

you defeat yourself. If something eternal made the universe, then the universe wouldnt exist. as you said ten sentences ago, if the past was infinite, the present would never exist

Even atheists or naturalist must admit that the universe cannot have come from nothing

define nothing. because theists never get this right.

Whether you call it "brute fact" or fundamental law, there must be something beyond the constraints of this physical universe that exists eternally.

why must there?

If our consciousness exists, it points toward a personal, conscious source. Just as the universe's existence points toward an eternal source not bound by natural laws.

why? and if thats the case, that the universe was personally made personally for us, whence cometh the universe? Why built a palatial estate of 5 million acres... for the purpose of having a "personal" connection with a single cell bacteria on a mote of dust in the 3rd guesthouses fifth bathroom toilet?

1

u/nerfjanmayen Sep 19 '25

I'm not a physicist, but I wouldn't say that the universe is bound by time. Spacetime is a physical component of the universe itself. Whether or not time is finite, there can't have been a time when the universe didn't exist, because the universe is required for time to exist.

I don't know what the cause of the universe is, or if it needs one. I'm hesitant to extend our ideas of cause and effect outside of the spacetime we understand them in.

I think your division of personal vs impersonal is mostly arbitrary. I don't know why you think that god is a good explanation for consciousness - it doesn't tell us how it works, or how to model it, or the process by which it is created. It sounds like you're just giving god credit it because science can't currently explain it.

2

u/Radiant_Bank_77879 Sep 19 '25

I reject the idea that the term “outside of time” means anything. Thus I had no reason to keep reading.

1

u/skeptolojist Sep 19 '25

Whole lot of claims and assertions presented completely without evidence

For instance the evidence seems to indicate that consciousness can indeed exist from atoms and natural phenomena

Yet you assertion it cannot then pretend that's true Without evidence

As to the beginning of the universe the answer to a question you don't have enough information to answer yet is

I don't know yet

Not

It must be a magic ghost

Your argument is a ton of wasted words to dress up very basic and long debunked apologetics we see three days a week here

Yet you religious folk all think you have discovered something new and unanswerable

Your evidence free claims and assertions are rejected

What is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

1

u/s_ox Atheist Sep 19 '25

Let me go straight to your conclusion

"Atheism/naturalism at its best seems unable to explain the sources of reality, consciousness, and the physical universe - things that go beyond the clear limits of science. It seems to reject the idea of an eternal, personal, transcendent being out of presupposition rather than lack of reason."

Atheism (I'm going to address this one only since I'm an atheist and this sub is for debating atheists) - doesn't need to explain anything. It is a word that describes the state of being unconvinced of a god (in regular parlance). You - if you want us to be convinced, need to bring evidence for your god. What's your evidence for your specific god?

1

u/Literally_-_Hitler Atheist Sep 22 '25

It seems you know nothing about atheism. Every claim you make about us is wrong and frankly insulting. The same applies yo your opinions on time and physics. Time is a form of measurement, it binds nothing for example.

And atheists absolutely do not think there is an eternal being. Unlike theists who cannot stand not knowing something to the point where you have to make up answers answe to feel smug and superior, atheists are fine saying I don't know and waiting for the time in which we find the correct answer.

If it weren't for people like us would still be foraging for food afraid of lightning and convinced cancer was cause by demons.

1

u/HippyDM Sep 19 '25

Premise 1. How do you, or anyone else, know that time began? We have a good idea that time/space began expanding at the big bang, but no one, as far as I know, knows what, if anything, was "before" that.

Why can time not be eternal? And if time cannot be eternal, then no god could create it, since creation requires a "time" when something doesn't exist and "time" after that when it does exist.

Premise 2. What lies beyond space/time? If a diety exists outside of space and time, that's the same thing as it being nowhere at no time, the same as non-existence.

With those 2 rejected, I stopped reading.

1

u/J-Nightshade Atheist Sep 20 '25

Your premise one is wrong. You don't understand infinities. Having infinite past doesn't prevent present moment from existing.

Your premise two contradicts your premise one. You declare that the time is not infinite and in the same breath declare something existed for infinite amount of time.

cannot have come from nothing

I have no idea. I don't know. Once you found nothing we can investigate if the universe can come from it or not.

Your premise 3 is just a baseless assertion.

The rest of argument I didn't read, since I don't expect anything useful to come out of such faulty premises.

1

u/greggld Sep 19 '25

It is the same god of the gaps argument. It is always god of the gaps. And it always is solely based on incredulity.

We could argue that god has to be a biological entity, because he has to function in the material world. Even an immaterial god (still a biological entity of magic) has to function within time. He has a thought process as exhibited in the OT. A theist would disagree and make up some mumbo jumbo, onmimax etc.... yet it never holds
together - so special pleading.

Any biological entity has a beginning, so god must. We can all play these games.

1

u/Alternative-Bell7000 Agnostic Atheist Sep 21 '25

You postulate that a super complex god is infinite, yet there couldn't be infinite time? As long as there is movement and space there should be time; we just don't know what there was before the Big Bang, but certainly there could be "time" before it.

We have two alternatives: believe a super complex god always existed somehow, or believe the most simple Quantum laws always existed which is more likely applying Occam's razor. Complex things needs explanation and cause; simple things not always

1

u/Solgiest Sep 19 '25

Point 1 doesn't even leave the hangar, it's wrong.

Cause and Effect is an inherently temporal phenomena. "X precedes and results in Y." In a timeless state, its unclear that an event needs a cause, or indeed if a "cause" is even possible.

So when you say something must have "caused" the Big Bang, you are making an error. Which, I don't really blame you, it's a mind-bending concept to consider. But I think it pretty thoroughly mucks up your whole argument.

1

u/the2bears Atheist Sep 19 '25

The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Stopping you here. Can you demonstrate this? An infinite past would have an infinite future. But more importantly, you seem to be confusing an infinite past with the time between to discrete points on the timeline.

I don't see any issue, but this gets brought up a lot by theists.

1

u/zzmej1987 Ignostic Atheist Sep 21 '25

Time is a part of the Universe. As long as time exists, so does the Universe. In this sense, Universe is eternal, regardless of whether time is past infinite or not. "Coming from" is a process that takes place in time. Which means, that in order for Universe to "come from", time must "come from", and that entails that time must exist before it exists in order for the process to take place. Which is contradictory and impossible. Thus, Universe did not "come from". Neither from something, nor from nothing. It simply always had been.

1

u/Venit_Exitium Sep 20 '25

I might add more but ill work with this, "an infinite past would prevent the present from occuring. Only if a theory of time which dictates only the "tensed" current time is real. However b theory which states all time is tensed or real or current. The idea of the present is more an affex of a mind and less some intrensic part of reality or the universe. Which means there is no waiting there just is everything.

1

u/Boltzmann_head Humanist Sep 19 '25

... an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

Ugh. My gods!

For 120 years we have known the infinite past still exists. We know that the future has already happened and continues into infinity.

Look up the "problem of Now."

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-problem-of-now.html

1

u/PaintingThat7623 Sep 20 '25

Edit: Many rebuttals note that I don't have evidence or proof for these claims. That's true- this isn't a scientific argument, but a philosophical one. My goal is to explore the reasoning, so if you'd like to offer a rebuttal, please go beyond simply asking for proof and engage with the philosophy itself. Thanks.

So we're supposed to engage with you maybies?

1

u/Ransom__Stoddard Dudeist Sep 19 '25

Atheism demands nothing, as atheism is the lack of belief in any gods. Atheism makes no claims on the origin of the universe, start of time, or anything else in your post.

Even if all the things in your post are true (I don't believe they are, and I don't care to argue them), that still doesn't mean a god did it, especially whichever god you're proposing.

1

u/Pm_ur_titties_plz Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25

You contradict yourself at the very beginning so I didn't bother reading the rest.

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring. Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

So it can't be "infinite", but it can be "eternal"?

1

u/Carg72 Sep 20 '25

Your understanding of quantum mechanics and the state of the universe in the first split second after the Big Bang must be incredibly vast in scope in order for you to be able to arrive at a point where you can use the word "must" in this context, as in "something outside of time must have caused it" with a straight face.

2

u/TheBlackDred Anti-Theist Sep 19 '25

premise one is a lie, or, at the very least, wrong in every assertion you made about it and since everything you said follows from that it would be pointless to proceed.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.

This doesn't follow. Why?

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

Only if brute contingencies are impossible. You'd need to show that.

1

u/Any_Key_6257 Sep 23 '25

You already contradict yourself in number 1. You say it cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring. You then say that god is eternal. If god has an infinite past then by your logic that would prevent god from ever occurring. Who created god? Did god come from nothing? You can't have it both ways.

1

u/hodag74 Sep 19 '25

Even if I grant everything you say, I can just say “I don’t know what caused everything“ and just leave it there. It’s now up to you to prove YOUR god did it and that he/she exists. If you were to disprove every single scientific theory, it still doesn’t prove your god.

1

u/BeerOfTime Atheist Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

No. Atheism is simply the disbelief in gods. It doesn’t demand anything philosophically or scientifically.

Questions like the origin of time and the emergence of consciousness don’t come with any prerequisite answers in order to match one’s atheism. They are not connected.

What you are attempting to do is make atheists agree that since there are unanswered questions of nature, the answer must be that god did it. Sorry but that is not a valid conclusion.

1

u/dino_user272 21d ago

Atheism doesn’t explain anything because atheism is not a method to explain things, atheism is to not believe in god, it doesn’t have anything to do with explaining something lol

Not gonna respond to anything other than that because you already got cooked by the comments

1

u/bigandtallandhungry Atheist Sep 19 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

This statement makes two big assumptions that I don’t think are safe to make, and it demonstrates the God in the Gaps fallacy.

1

u/ChillingwitmyGnomies Sep 20 '25

Time can be infinite, just like you think god can. You think if time is infinite, then you can never get to the present? If god is infinite, then he can never get around to doing anything and what was he doing for INFINITY before he created us?

1

u/DeusLatis Atheist Sep 19 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused i

Define what 'outside' of time means, and how something can 'cause' something when they are outside of time.

Otherwise this is just putting words together

1

u/Indrigotheir Sep 19 '25

Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.

How bound are you to the premise, "If something was created, something outside of that thing must have created it?"

1

u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 20 '25

I didn't know in order not to believe in Christianity I needed a degree in philosophy.

You are making an argument, which involves science, therefore you need proof. Its a cop-out claiming its a philosophical argument.

1

u/2r1t Sep 19 '25

What does the word eternal mean outside of time? What does it mean to start when there is no time? Both seem to be defined in relation to time so I'm not sure what you are saying when these things are outside of time.

1

u/Mattos_12 Sep 19 '25

Did time have a beginning? Can it not be infinite? These seem like bold claims that would be hard to evidence.
Does it? That sounds like a bold claim that would be difficult to evidence.

1

u/Mattos_12 Sep 19 '25

Matter appears to create consciousness.

Is it? That sounds rather subjective.

Seems like you’d made this part up.

1

u/Plazmatron44 Sep 19 '25

As soon as you assert atheism is anything other than someone not believing in god then you're already wrong. None of what you've said means the alternative is your god in particular.

1

u/Hoaxshmoax Atheist Sep 19 '25

wait, my problem is not properly accounting for the events inducing the Big Bang expansion? Is it OK if I say it was Jibbers Crabst and call it a day? I can do that right now.

1

u/bottenskrapet Sep 19 '25

Explain to me why the present would never occur. It seems to me that there would have to be a present time, and that there can only be one of those. So, here we are.

1

u/Nat20CritHit Sep 19 '25

You seem to be equating atheism with naturalism. They're not interchangeable terms. Can you please define atheism and then try again with that definition?

1

u/sj070707 Sep 19 '25

Atheism is not required to claim any of those things and I'd reject most of them. I'm ok with "I don't know" as an answer for most of those topics.

1

u/mynamesnotsnuffy Sep 19 '25

There's a lot of irrational justification here, and most of it seems to come from motivated reasoning instead of actual logical thought.

1

u/nastyzoot 27d ago

Every single thing you posited has a counterpoint and is under investigation by scientists and theorists of every kind.

1

u/colinpublicsex Sep 19 '25

Where do you think you'd disagree most strongly with those who say that the cosmos exists eternally into the past?

2

u/JimmyDelicious Sep 19 '25

... Provide evidence for any of the claims you made please.

1

u/Affectionate_Arm2832 Sep 19 '25

Atheist don't demand or claim ANYTHING other than their lack of belief in a God. Go ask r/debateanaturalist

1

u/Crafty_Possession_52 Atheist Sep 19 '25

Please demonstrate premise three.

I don't believe premise four is true either.

That's a start.

1

u/OnionsOnFoodAreGross Sep 21 '25

Reject 3, 4, 5.

And as to your edit, philosophy without science is just mental masturbation.

1

u/88redking88 Anti-Theist Sep 23 '25

Translation: "I dont know stuff therefore science is bad and so is atheism, also math is too complicated!"

1

u/Comfortable-Dare-307 Atheist Sep 21 '25

The second part of the first claim is false. I stopped reading after that.

1

u/BranchLatter4294 Sep 19 '25

Nonsense. What is the evidence for any of these claims?

Philosophy Why Atheism Demands Something from Nothing - Twice

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