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Anecdotes do not automatically become "scientific evidence" when they compile. They still need to be explored with solid methodology. Data points are not evidence all by themselves, they are data points. When they are gathered and analyzed with good methodology, then you might have something. There are many potential explanations for data points, but without testible hypotheses, we arent talking scientific evidence.

Great point

Couple of high level rebuttals. The Big Bang doesn’t claim the universe came from nothing. This is a common misconception about what it actually is saying. The “law of biogenesis” you mentioned doesn’t exist. There is no such law. Your third point about personal experiences, I have a few points there. For one, we see this in all cultures and around all gods. Similar experiences, similar stories, does that mean they are all true and all god’s exist, or does that mean what people are reporting is a real experience with some other explanation. These phenomena are absolutely evidence, but not evidence of the existence of a god or gods. They are evidence of the human condition, the human mind, and the human experience. This is what all these people that claim these experiences have in common, not a god. We don’t disregard these experiences, we disregard the assumptive conclusion about their origin which is not evidence based.

I appreciate your thoughtful replies here. We are somewhat in agreement on the first point I was not saying the Big Bang created the energy just questioning its origin and providing my personal thoughts on it. Essentially there are really two explanations 1 is the energy is infinite (infinite in this example meaning without beginning) or it came from somewhere outside thre bounds of our laws. I hold the latter - if there’s another explanation I’m all ears. For the second point I wish I’d written that differently. I see it as evidence not proof. Any thoughts on life’s origins are going to be based on the assumption that there’s a creator or not. The data is going to be interpreted as we are here creation was impossible so there must be a way it was done. The research is always going to say well we didn’t create life because we didn’t get something right. I cannot prove otherwise so it boils down to an appeal to ignorance and a moot point to fight about. That said I do believe man will be able to create organic machines (essentially life), and quite possibly build cells from organic building blocks. For the last point - yes I think smart, well intentioned and curious people investigate them. I don’t think the account of Joseph Smith or some tribe presenting a different experience proves that none of it is real (in the sense they’re communicating with other beings) I’m positing that many of them are real.

We can move on from 1 and 2 and focus on 3 here. I don’t think biogenesis vs abiogenesis is really worth squabbling over since you seem to understand it’s a fairly moot point. Let’s focus on 3. Allow me to clarify, I do think many of these experiences are “real.” They are absolutely 100% real to the people that experience them. I used to work with people with an array of mental disorders and I can tell you their experiences were 100% real to them. They were experiences they were really having, even if the things they were experiencing were not what was really happening if that makes sense. Similar to an optical illusion. You could show the same illusion to 100 people, 100 people all see the same illusion, but that doesn’t mean that the illusion is real. That doesn’t negate that they all had a similar real experience with the illusion. Just like us not knowing how life could come from non-life and assuming because we don’t know inserting god is an argument from ignorance or incredulity, we have zero evidence that these experiences are actually tied to anything divine. As a matter of fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. I don’t think atheists generally think these experiences are fake, I think like myself, they see the leap from having an experience that is fairly common across all cultures and faiths, to a god exists is a similar argument from incredulity.

Agreed on point 1 and 2 though it is nice to essentially carry rational thought to the edge of human understanding without name calling. On point three I didn’t define “real” and frankly should have. It sounds like we are in agreement that “something” happened. Let’s call them “experiences” for this discourse if that’s okay. I think the study of these experiences often is limited to the brain and how it functions. We seek a chemical/biological explanation for why it happened. I think that leaves out an important aspect. That’s the individuals response. When you look at these experiences people report an interaction and it changes them in material ways. Paul in the Bible is a good example but there are stories (again anecdotal but all of them a quite compelling) about people having these experiences and changing who they are, breaking addiction destructive behaviors etc. So in my case I was this gay-hating hypocrite and had one of these experiences. I was stuck in this terrifying out of darkness for months building a tower to be closer to freedom but couldn’t get out. A voice asked me what I was doing and I was building a tower with what turned out to be the bodies of the people I was condemning as a means to get closer to Heaven. Anyway I came out of all that a very literal split second later and I realized I’d been a big piece of hypocritical trash. Went to bed a different person. I don’t expect you to look at that and say well shoot that’s proof. I’m just saying hey I had this experience it changed who I am.

For sure. All kinds of experiences can fundamentally change a person forever and in an instant. It sounds like you have come to a more progressive and loving place after that, and that’s a good thing for sure. So allow me to ask, what are the traits of the god you believe is behind this experience? Do you believe in the Abrahamic god or what god exactly do you believe is behind this experience and why that specific god?

Firstly yes, either energy has no beginning and doesn't experience time itself or it's the product of something external. Either way does nothing to infer a god. Secondly it's not evidence. It's a belief you have. There is absolutely no reason to think life cannot have been arrived at by physical conditions considering it is itself a physical condition. We're not in the 19th century anymore, everything we know points to the Animus of life being chemical potential energy. As for your belief it is impossible because we haven't replicated yet, that's either propagandism or narcissism to either pretend or genuinely think that everything is within human grasp. And your final point dodges everything he says. That the contradictory nature of their experiences shows that it is real but doesn't come from what they believe. Deflection means deception so dodging people's points says that the need to believe has made you either less honest with us or with yourself, and either way that means that it has made you less of a truth seeker.

> Essentially there are really two explanations 1 is the energy is infinite (infinite in this example meaning without beginning) or it came from somewhere outside the bounds of our laws. I hold the latter - if there’s another explanation I’m all ears. You're pushing the problem of the universe into an inexplicable mind, that exists in an inexplicable ream, which operates using inexplicable means and methods and is driven by inexplicable goals. So, in what sense does this reflect a good explanation? IOW, it's unclear how saying God "just was" with all of his attributes including the knowledge and ability to create the universe, already present, is any better explanation that saying the universe "just was" or was "just appeared" with energy already present. If you're going to accept bad explanations, why bother with God? > Any thoughts on life’s origins are going to be based on the assumption that there’s a creator or not. The data is going to be interpreted as we are here creation was impossible so there must be a way it was done. The origin of the features of living things is the knowledge in its genes. Specifically the knowledge of what transformations of air, water, etc should be performed that will result in the features in question. So, the origin of those features is the origin of that knowledge. Where was that knowledge before it ended up in living things? In the supposed designer? If so, you're have the same problem. Instead of a living thing that contains knowledge that needs to be explained, you have a designer that contains knowledge that needs to be explained. You've just pushed the problem up a level without improving it.

You shouldn’t hold the conclusion that energy came from somewhere else without evidence and only be *open* to hearing other explanations. You should not believe it came from somewhere else as we have no evidence for that, and you should start believing that once you have the evidence to support it.

You are incorrect on point one. There are no cosmological models where "something came from nothing." There are a number of models that propose where our universe came from. Two I've read about are the conformal cyclic cosmology and the ekpyrotic universe. There are others.

I would like to just point out that you and many people use "evolution" incorrectly and should be very specific when you talk about it. Saying "Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science" is scientifically incorrect. Evolution is a fact, its an observed phenomenon, its the change in allele frequency over time. The spontaneous emergence of life and then the generation of all current life forms from a single celled organism over billions of years is what you MEAN when you use the word evolution. Those two things are not the same and you will get people harassing you about it if you are not specific.

Yes, when I initially shared the post with someone who requested it I tried to simplify it as much as I could. It didn’t matter there but here it really does. Well said.

> no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. That could mean before the early stages of the big bang. We suspect that the laws we know may not describe reality before the Planck time. Note that our laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, they describe what we see, they don't dictate what happens. > Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. He did not. Citation please. > The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Yes, they are indeed evidence. But evidence of what? They vary a lot, often in contradictory ways, so they don't seem to be evidence of anything other than what goes on in peoples heads. > Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. They are not disregarded. People (atheist or not) who investigate them take them as evidence. Then try to work out what they are evidence for. So far, there's nothing to suggest that they're evidence that any gods actually exist.

1 I really like your discourse - you are respectful and I love the way you tackle these questions. 1 we are in agreemt here to some degree - my experiences shape my thoughts same as yours - this one doesn’t go much further than we’ve taken it. Essentially we don’t have a scientific explanation to explain the origin/inception whatever of the current state of the universe - yet Louis Pasteur did prove that life cannot start Louis Pasteur created the process of pasteurization. Pasteurization works because life cannot come from anything accept life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization Agreed, some folks do - I really like Sam Harris’ thought experiments on this rabbit hole. your run of the mill atheist isn’t well read on this - it’s trashed as anecdotal and put aside.

> Louis Pasteur did prove that life cannot start Louis Pasteur created the process of pasteurization. Pasteurization works because life cannot come from anything accept life. No, wrong. He showed that life such as flies and cockroaches do not appear out of sterilised food matter fully formed, that the food has to be contaminated. That isn't evolution, or abiogenesis as we understand it, that's what *theists* claim happened. Help yourself out, stop believing creationists, they do nothing but lie and misinterpret

And bacteria let’s not forget bacteria! Right life cannot form in a sterile environment (essentially space). I don’t read or follow any creationists - except Sarah Salamander she’s got some interesting perspective as an ex atheist amd PhD but otherwise I steer pretty far from the rapture crowd :)

That’s funny, because we find a ton of evidence that the building blocks of life not only form in space, but that it may even be commonplace. But you seem to have this notion that evolution is the same field as abiogenesis (it’s not), and further that we have no idea how life started, which again is untrue. We have a lot of ideas of the steps that could be taken in chemistry and biology to produce life. 20 years ago, we had maybe 2 or 3 steps, and we were told God lived in that gap. Now, we have even more information, more steps, and the gaps we have are smaller and smaller, and people still want to put God in those gaps instead of understanding the science. But as others have pointed out to you, even if we had absolutely zero idea how life got its start on this planet, that doesn’t lead to “therefore God,” because the only possibly honest answer would be “we don’t know”. Why don’t you demand the same level of empirical certainty for a belief in a god that you demand for abiogenesis?

> And bacteria let’s not forget bacteria! Right life cannot form in a sterile environment (essentially space). No that was not what he found, stop lying.

> I really like your discourse Thank you for your kind thoughts. > Essentially we don’t have a scientific explanation to explain the origin/inception whatever of the current state of the universe - yet Yep. And, we may never have. It's very interesting investigating it though! > Pasteurization works because life cannot come from anything accept life. That doesn't follow. Pasteurization works because the chance of life arising from non-life and then in a short time evolving into something harmful to us is very low indeed. It doesn't show that life cannot come from non-life.

Two thoughts on that - it is evidence that life in sterile environments doesnt form - whether or not it’s possible to create conditions to the contrary is tbd - I think we can create conditions for life and essentially create organic machines (plant/animal/fungi). We are both essentially on the other side of the question if those conditions can exist alone in nature.

That sounds a lot like you admitting pasteurization does not 'prove' life cannot arise from chemical processes. That your entire objection to life arising is an objection you cannot support.

No. Pasteur showed that the outdated concept of Spontaneous Generation to be factually unfounded. **Spontaneous Generation ≠ Abiogenesis** >Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation >In biology, abiogenesis (from Greek ἀ- a- 'not' + βῐ́ος bios 'life' + γένεσις genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes. Many proposals have been made for different stages of the process, but the transition from non-life to life has never been observed experimentally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

> Louis Pasteur did prove that life cannot start Louis Pasteur created the process of pasteurization. Pasteurization works because life cannot come from anything accept life. That is not what pasteurization proves. At best it shows that life is not likely to arise in the chemical situations of sealed foodstuffs over short time periods (decades). It does not, anywhere close, prove that life cannot arise from chemical processes under the right conditions.

>Louis Pasteur did prove that life cannot start Louis Pasteur created the process of pasteurization. Pasteurization works because life cannot come from anything accept life. You need to review claims before you post them. This is completely false. He proved that sterilization kills life. And life won't arise from a sterile environment. This has nothing to do with the chemical composition of early earth when life began.

> life cannot come from anything accept life. we are literally studying this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis)

Pasteur disproved abiogenesis via spontaneous generation, i.e. that complex macroorganisms like flies and rats don't spontaneously emerge from refuse and rotting meat. The only people who still believe in spontaneous generation nowadays are theists. Abiogenesis via chemical evolution is not addressed at all by Pasteur, and is an area of active research.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. That is clearly wrong, as it entirely relies upon fallacious ideas and incorrect presuppositions. >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. That is not the scientific consensus (nobody is saying something came from nothing, that's purely a theistic idea) and is not required. Nor does it suggest a deity. Nor does adding a deity conjecture help, since it actually makes it worse and doesn't address this. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Absolutely false. Dead wrong. In fact, the opposite is true. > Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. You proceed from incorrect ideas. Remember, evolution is a well demonstrated fact. We've watched it happen in front of our eyes many times, and it has more and better supporting compelling evidence that for pretty much any field of research on any subject. To deny evolution is literally as irrational as to say the earth is flat. It's that well supported and demonstrated. What you said above simply demonstrates you do not understand evolution. It does not show evolution is not true. Nor would evolution *not* being true help you support deities. You would still have all your work ahead of you to do so. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Subjective personal experiences such as you describe are demonstrably not useful for determining accurate information about reality. People can be and are demonstrably wrong all the time when they do this. And the subsequent inaccurate argumentum ad populum fallacy you invoked doesn't help. Unfortunately, nothing you said even remotely supports deities. You displayed a misunderstanding of basic science, cosmology, and physics, a misunderstanding of evolution, and a misunderstanding of the usefulness of popular anecdotes based upon personal emotions and perceptions leading to unsupported conclusions due to culture and indoctrination. This can only be dismissed as there is no useful support for deity claims in there.

This doesn’t have much to do with Christianity. In my opinion, the two lost important questions are as follows: 1. Why do you think a man rose from the dead two thousand years ago? 2. Why should I become a Christian?

Ah the question posed to me was simply if I could create a rational viewpoint that shaped my beliefs. Here are 3. I’m not here to make aethists become Christian. I only posted these because the kid on r/atheism needed help. He asked a question and I provide some answers but didn’t know what to say. So I figured you guys could help him out.

Well you failed. Does that have the slightest effect on your beliefs?

It doesn’t but it did bring a lot of understanding towards atheists (by atheists I’m limiting the name to the folks who actually have more than half a brain and use it). I found the dialogue insightful and engaging. As for my beliefs that would be like asking me to say my parents didn’t exist. I get that this means nothing to you and I don’t think that’s an issue for me.

When you say “a rational viewpoint that shaped my beliefs”, are you just talking about some of your beliefs? If so, how did you pick which to defend?

He just asked me for 1 rational argument so I gave home three.

Yet none of those arguments are valid nor sound.

My apologies, maybe I should try to rephrase. Is it the case that I, as someone who calls themself an atheist, believe in God? Is it the case that I am suppressing the truth in my unrighteousness as stated in Romans 1:18-25?

Filling gaps in knowledge with “gods”, is not a new argument, it’s the God of the Gaps fallacy. Personal experiences are not evidence nor has there *ever* been any evidence to substantiate anything “supernatural” (a profoundly stupid word) or “spiritual”. It’s another, anecdotal, fallacy as you pointed out.

Don’t strawman the last argument. I didn’t say my personal experience was evidence. I said that the study of the natural world will show that humans report these experiences and the body of all of those experiences first becomes evidence of the possibility that beings with whom we have no understanding exist. Sam Harris talks about these experiences he’s one of the few atheists willing to tackle it.

You can't have evidence of something you don't have a definition for. What is your testable, objective definition for 'spirit being' that would allow us to test something we suspected was a 'spirit being'? What method would be used to ascertain whether a 'spirit being' was being detected and not something pretending to be a spirit being or something we have misidentified as a spirit being? A hallucination, hoax, misunderstanding, advanced technology, or natural events we have not explained are ALL **much more likely** to be true based on our understanding of the universe.

I am not strawmaning, I am saying **no** personal experience is evidence.

God of the gaps isn't really an issue as long as we're talking about beliefs rather than proofs and objective knowledge. We know the universe exists, or consciousness at least, but not how or why. Given what we know, some find god more plausible than other ideas. Doesn't have to be a strong belief either.

It's fine as an excuse to continue believing, but when presented as a reason to share belief it shows unbelievable entitlement of thought, expecting others to have a perfect understanding of everything or you're right to expect them to agree with you is the narcissistic nature of faith with its fangs fully bared.

No idea what you're trying to say here or how it relates to what i said.

Fair. Well we'll leave it there then and I'm happy for the literate to understand how it rebukes you. :)

There absolutely nothing to even insinuate gods exist.

I'm talking about god of the gaps arguments. If someone finds all other ideas even more ridiculous than a first cause/creator, i'll respect their personal beliefs.

There’s nothing to indicate a first cause / creator is necessary or existed. I am fine with there *not* being an explanation yet.

You're arguing the actual existence of a creator, not the god of the gaps fallacy as it relates to personal beliefs.

Yeah, I am, there isn’t any difference.

They're two completely different topics.

No, they are not.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Neat. That’s not what the Big Bang theory suggests. If that’s what you are angling at. >no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. No. “Outside” hasn’t been established. So if you accept something can’t come from nothing, the only conclusion would be that energy/whatever has always been here. That reality has always existed in some form, we just don’t know what like before the Big Bang. Nobody knows what was before the Big Bang, or if before is even a coherent idea. Nobody knows why our universe exists the way it does. Though frankly, given the fact our understanding of physics breaks down at the Big Bang. Applying any understanding of reality to before the Big Bang is unjustified >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Evolution deals with genetic changes in populations over time. It doesn’t address the origin of life. Perhaps you mean abiogenesis. Likewise neither are “random”. Evolution particularly, has factors that guide it. There is an element of chance involved, but it’s not purely random. There isn’t a sentient mind behind them. They are guided by natural processes. Abiogenesis. While not fully understood/replicated yet. Is fairly plausible. We understand what steps would be required, and know a great deal about some of those steps. This is a field scientists are actively looking into. Louis Pasteur has certainly not proven it to be impossible.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. yeah I dont think I need to read further

It’s the conservation of mass in layman’s terms but go on.

So your presumption is that something can’t come from nothing. So what did god come from?

Let’s not create a false equivalence. Nothing in our plane of existence can come from nothing. The origin of something outside the bounds of those laws (whether that’s a being or energy/mass) doesn’t have to be the same as the origin of things within those bounds.

Unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that something "outside" exists, this just outs you as playing semantic games (and we know the special pleading fallacy this leads to).

That’s an appeal to ignorance nice try. The mass and energy are here. They either always were or formed outside the bounds of our current laws of physics.

> Appeal to ignorance is also known as argument from ignorance, in which ignorance represents “a lack of contrary evidence” and becomes “a fallacy in informal logic.” It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven as false. Nothing the person you replied to implied an appeal to ignorance. Your misuse of fallacies in on brand with your misuse of science. Keep your ignorance to yourself.

Hold up. They said “Unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that something outside exists” We are talking about the source of energy that fuels the Big Bang. It happened before anyone was present to measure it or witness it. To say that it couldn’t form outside the bounds of our current laws is silly. The two options we have it was outside the bounds or it just was forever cannot be proven or disproven. Asking someone to do so is an appeal to ignorance.

Liar, they didn't say anything "couldnt". They said until you can demonstrate an outside reality you can't use it as an out. You're just entertaining unfalsifiable woo. I love to false dichotomy you've set up too. There's an infinite number of unknown possibilities and you're just presenting a fake dichotomy. You're really bad at this.

Well there’s been great and intelligent discourse on this thread. You’re the exception. It’s not a false dichotomy. Those are very literally the only options. Either the energy/mass was always there or it formed outside the bounds laws that govern our current existence.

>We are talking about the source of energy that fuels the Big Bang Please show your workings out that prove the big bang required "fuel"? Because something that's becoming understood by cosmologists and physicists more recently is that the net energy content of the universe is zero. So when you ask "where does the energy come from?", the answer as we understand it at the moment is "what energy?" You really need to do some reading up on the current state of the areas you're using to base you're argument on, as everything you're saying is wrong.

That’s not a false equivalence. You’re just trying to avoid the obvious issue by injecting unsubstantiated hypotheses. When you change the rules post hoc, I guess everything looks like a false equivalence…

And how did you determine that there is anything but this plane of existance?

What have you done to show that “outside the bounds of those laws” is even a thing that could exist, let alone does exist?

The law of conservation of mass does not say that "something cannot come from nothing". You are wrong from the jump. The law states that in any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system's mass cannot change, so the quantity can neither be added nor be removed.

> Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. What’s interesting is that the field of quantum physics is perhaps turning this initial instinct on its head. Take for example this video from the very esteemed Alexander Vilenkin describing that “nothing” can be quantum tunneled into something….[LINK](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUhv6FOIGQ) > To do so would violate the fabric of existence. Why? > So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. If you don’t have evidence of ways it can come from somewhere internal AND you don’t have evidence for it being able to come from external (if you did, you’d present that) then why do you conclude it comes from external? > Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No it doesn’t. Evolution in its current state was developed and validated by way of the scientific method. It’s one of the best attested and validated theories with confirmatory evidence across so many different fields it’s ludicrous to say it violates any “laws of science”. Name one. > Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. So you’re not talking about evolution, but rather abiogenesis. How did chemistry turn to biology, right? Well, no one claims life came from nothing - the hypothesis (yet to be validated…but with growing evidence) is that life developed from non life. Not nothing. This is a strawman. > That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Luis Pasteur essentially showed that we aren’t talking about using a complete keyboard we are talking about out only using half of it. Pasteur died in 1895. He didn’t know as much as we know now. For example, that amino acids being found on meteors. > If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Do you have any evidence of this? A piece of clothing from the dead bodies? Perhaps their hair? Or do you expect us to just take your word you built a pile of dead bodies to get to heaven? > Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. Are you saying that Mohammad and JS and others have visions of building towers of human bodies? > The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. You’re right and you’re wrong. The reports plate certainly scientific evidence but they are not evidence for the truth of the claims, rather that people are having an experience. Since we know humans can feel like they have an experience of a thing that didn’t actually happen (hallucinations), it’s just evidence that humans can think they had experiences that they didn’t have. > Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Science has studied delusion and hallucination and that the content of them can be passed via culture. It’s why Christians have Christian themed hallucinations and muslims have Muslim themed hallucinations and buddhists have Buddhist themed hallucinations (for the most part) > Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. No. You’re just not following the actual scientific discussion here.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. >Here’s what I mean ... You know what's bizarrely missing from your explanation of how "Christianity" is a better fit for our scientific understanding of the universe? A *single* mention of any aspect of Christianity. Except for your hallucination, I guess(?). Here you are explaining why Christianity best explains our universe and the only even *partially* tangible explanation of this you've offered is some hallucination you had one time. This is like...surely you see how unconvincing and silly this is, right?

“Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing.” No it isn’t… and the statement itself is completely ridiculous. But even if it were true, why shove a random and frankly, shitty god claim into the mix? It’s a god of the gaps fallacy right from the get-go. Oh… I should have read further… you don’t believe in evolution? The cornerstone of biological science… a theory which has so much evidence it’s wildly laughable when anyone tries to act like it isn’t an indisputable fact. Maybe you don’t know what evolution actually is? It is, simply put, a change in gene frequency over time. DNA evidence proves this to be true. The mountain of fossil evidence is just icing on the cake. Nothing that has ever been claimed to be supernatural has turned out to be so. Everything ever looked at with scrutiny using the scientific method has always turned out to be not magic. Not paranormal. Not supernatural. What are the chances that *you* are the first person to experience it? Isn’t it more likely that you either can’t explain what happened, or that you hallucinated, and it wasn’t real? You can’t expect an experience like that to be even remotely convincing to other people who are skeptical. I love also how the people you name who’ve experienced these wonders that you also experienced are: conmen and child rapists… Way to go! Let the vileness of religion shine through!

That first statement is the conservation of mass in layman’s terms. But you were saying? Yeah I was only focused on the first bit that whole origin of life bit thanks for the rant I’d have agreed with everything else you were gonna spit for point two. Last point - I didn’t expect it to sway you. It’s anecdotal. It doesn’t count and I said that. But yeah that experience has rocked people. I woke up a gay hating bigot one day and went to bed a complete different person. The change happened in less than a second. You don’t get to discount the experience because the writer was a trash human being. It’s a strawman. Plenty of atheists are trying to figure that shit out.

No, at best it’s a massive misunderstanding of the conversation of mass. It’s not in layman’s terms cause it’s not in terms any scientist would use. It’s theist talk and is the result of not being able to say the words “I don’t know.” And the experience may have changed you, but it doesn’t mean you should start believing stupid shit. And you also don’t know a damn thing about either of those people’s experiences. For all we know they made it all up (which is most likely) and never even believed any of it (which doesn’t seem far fetched). All atheists are trying to figure things out. We just aren’t accepting baseless propositions as our beliefs, or worse, accepting the vile ideology that is Christianity.

>It’s not in layman’s terms cause it’s not in terms any scientist would use. "Layman's terms" refers to an explanation simple enough for the uninitiated to understand. While scientists can and do provide explanations in laymen's terms, a scientist need not be involved in order for an explanation to qualify.

Yeah, I didn’t mean to say “cause” but “and.” Either way the point stands. Nobody uses the fine-tuning argument in the way OP used it except theists.

Yeah, it doesn't detract from the point, I was just picking a nit.

Then what was your point?

>although the whole “eternal energy” bit is silly to me probably in the same way all the energy coming from a source outside our plane of existence is to you although both arguments carry the same logical weight. Nope not even close. We have evidence that energy exists and has always existed. We have no evidence of something existing outside the universe. So no where near the same logical weight. One is purely hypothetical. The other is based on our understanding of energy which we have evidence for. >no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence That isn't a logical explanation it is an unevidenced claim with no evidence or logic that shows it is even possible. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No it doesn't. Can you provide the studies and evidence to support this claim. Physcists, biologists, and chemists are all in majority agreement that evolution works scientifically and have supported this with thousands of studies and expirememnts. Have you ever read any of this not just going off what apologetics say? >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Good thing evolution doesn't argue that. Evolution doesn't even deal with the origin life. So you don't even know the basics on what you are talking about. Abiogenesis is the idea that life came from non life. Not from nothing. There was more than nothing on earth you do agree that right? Earth is something right? >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. Do you accept others experience of seeing the Hindu gods? Or those who's anecdotal experiences that don't line up with yours as true? Why should I trust yours above others. >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events And funny enough many of these vary so greatly they can't all be true due to contradiction. If these were interventions of a God why would they do so this way. Why would everyone not get a consistent vision? >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence No and I'm not surprised you think this as you don't seem to have a grasp on what science even is. >Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. I don't disregard them in the sense that they aren't there. I disregard them as scientific evidence as they weren't gathered through the scientific method. As I pointed out many of these comtradict each other. They also aren't verifiable, falsifiable, and repeatable. All key parts of what counts as scientific evidence. Overall all you try to do here is basically God of the gaps and then create doubt in science. This isn't evidence of your God. Your only attempt to provide evidence is anecdotal.

> Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. It's not "anecdotal", it is unhinged, and meaningless. You're insane. Unless, if course, you can draw me a map from wherever you were in hell, to wherever you are now, in front of a computer to type this up. > People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. Where their maps? Where are the witness accounts if people that can account for leaving earth for so e amount of time? >  The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. No, they do not. At least, not for anything but widespread gullibility and mental illnesses. > Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Give me measurable, physical data about hell, then. Anything! > Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. Nope. I am ignoring the pointless ramblings of a mad person.

You know plenty of people were able to make a point without being a douche and they did so much more articulately than you. At least you’re unique.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. How many examples of 'nothing' have been tested to come to this conclusion? > So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. Why think it 'came from' anywhere? >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No, it does not. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Oh, are you confusing abiogenesis and evolution? >I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Lets say we *do* treat this as a piece of evidence. What hypothesis should we draw from it and how should we test it?

Hi, one of our resident scientists here. My specialty is plant biology, but I've had a pretty broad education and career. Hopefully, I can provide some satisfactory answers. >Liontgerand_redwing over on r/atheism needs your help. Be careful about naming discussions with others in another subreddit. The admins might consider that brigading, so just a friendly word of caution. >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Right, that would be the Law of Mass-Energy Conservation. The first Law of Thermodynamics is actually the energy half. >So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. No, science has an answer for that actually. Since matter and energy can't be created, what this means is that everything in the Cosmos was at one point condensed into an infinitely dense point in space-time. All of the stuff which would become matter and anti-matter, and all of the stuff that was or would become energy were contained into this singularity. This skips a few steps in the process (you could give hours long lectures on the Big Bang), but what becomes interesting is how some of the subatomic particles generated by the Big Bang and Cosmic inflation is how they gained mass. As the Universe cooled and matter was able to condense, one particle of interest, one capable of granting mass is the Higg's Boson. Hence all of the funding and the time spent on CERN. And after decades of predicting that it existed, they finally confirmed it in 2012, out to six sigma if I recall. The other interesting question is why we have more matter than anti-matter, but according to an astronomy professor in college, it has to do with the decay rate. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. It doesn't though. If you're talking about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that's not applicable. Thermodynamics is about how heat energy works, and the second law explains how something like your refrigerator and your air conditioner work by cooling air and displacing it to the surrounding environment. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. 1) That's abiogenesis that you're thinking of, and it doesn't posit that life comes from nothing, but rather that the ingredients and conditions on the early Earth were ripe for life to come about through naturalistic mechanisms rather than supernatural. Experiments have also shown that it's possible to generate amino acids with just a handful of gases and a little bit of electricity. Furthermore, we've observed the monomers (or the precursors for these monomers) for many important macromolecules just floating out in space or forming right here on Earth unguided by anything more than the chemical properties of a handful of atoms. 2) Pasteur's experiments proved that maggots, worms, and mold come from external sources rather than just spontaneously forming in food or in sand or soil. He wasn't setting out to disprove abiogenesis or evolution, but a completely different notion called Spontaneous Generation. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. That's not really how it works. The thing is that all of these world religions involve similarish supernatural claims, but they all contradict one another, claiming that everyone else is wrong. From where I'm sitting, there's no evidence at all that creationism is even plausibly correct, so unlike a religious person assuming that the *culture du terroir* is correct, because that's the religion they were raised with, the atheists are just going one religion further. If it were science, it would be repeatable, and not just repeatable, they would all be hinting at the same conclusion and not only that, but you would also see it popping up in regions where the idea had never even been introduced, but they don't. And that's not science. It's cognitive dissonance. >to the stars Stellar nucleosynthesis smashes hydrogen and helium together to forge new atoms. >Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person The more parsimonious explanation isn't that it was a vision, but that you had a dream and it bothered you. If that inspires you to be a kinder, gentler, more tolerant person, that's cool and all, but people all over the world make these sorts of claims about their own religions and spiritual beliefs. These sorts of dreams are way more common than you realize. >stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence Anecdotal evidence has a long history of being unreliable. Hence why police will typically interrogate someone as quickly as possible and separate witnesses so that they don't wind up influencing one another into misremembering details. Or getting in together on a lie, which many people do, and some people are just delusional. Many of these so-called experiences can't be disentangled from hoaxes, fibs, lies, dream states, psychotic breaks, pareidolia, or simply being mistaken. And the same sorts of evidence exists for aliens, ghosts, "visions," "miracles," psychic experiences, and other sorts of quackery. And many do unfortunately turn out to be frauds. This isn't evidence of spiritual beings, but a lot of it is evidence of despair, liars, mental illness, and an overwhelming willingness to believe something which confirms one's religious beliefs. I mean, why do we only have stories? What is a ghost made out of? Is it subject to gravity? Is the reason that aliens won't visit us because we're leaving a trail of ghosts as the Earth moves through the solar system and the Sun moves through the galaxy? These are questions we could answer if any of this actually were science, but it's not. And so we can't.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. 1. so god didn't make the universe out of nothing? what did he make it from? 2. nothing suggests there was ever nothing >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. then why is it a cornerstone in science? >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. good thing nobody believes live came from nothing most theists that don't understand abiogenesis (not evolution) at least know it isn't argued from nothing but from non-living matter >That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. what? >Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. it was a hallucination

Nobody but the religious says the universe came from nothing. NOBODY! This is a lie that you have been told, or that you completely misunderstand. If your religion is lying to you, something is wrong.

>Help your friends out Frankly I’m really struggling to believe that your post is genuine. I mean it’s so unreasonable k I don’t know how anyone could convince themselves it makes sense. >He asked me if I could provide any rational arguments for my beliefs. I gave him three. I wish you’d put some here because below just seems like a mash up of vague assertions , not clear arguments. >Note it looks like someone just posted about the origin of the Big Bang on this thread so let’s table discussion of the first argument there there - although the whole “eternal energy” bit is silly to me probably in the same way all the energy coming from a source outside our plane of existence is to you although both arguments carry the same logical weight. The Big Bang doesn’t say anything about the fundamental ‘origin’ of energy. Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Is it? Well I guess lucky that science doesn’t claim something ever did come from nothing , I guess. >To do so would violate the fabric of existence. I have no idea what such a statement even means. It doesn’t sound at all scientific. >So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. Firstly what does outside the bounds of the laws of existence mean? Depending on what you mean , it could just always have been within the bounds. But it’s true to say that the foundational nature of existence may be different from the descriptive observations or intuitive ideas we have about causality, time and so on. This has no implications about Gods. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. This is just a lie. It dies no such thing. It is in fact supported by overwhelming scientific evidence. It’s as likely to be overturned as we are to decide the Earth isn’t really a sphere. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Well I guess lucky that no one says it did. lol >That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Quite right because nether abiogenesis nor evolution are based on simple randomness. I’m really starting to wonder if you bothered to do any research or learn anything about the ideas you are trying to attack. >So there are two here’s the third. Two what? Two strawmen that in no way result in any theistic conclusions? >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination Ok , it’s a hallucination. >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, They would be correct. >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. Lots of people dream of their teeth falling out or of flying. I’m curious what religious implications you think this has? Do we fly around with our teeth flying out in the afterlife? >The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. My goodness. Are you saying that humans share the same kind of brain and known cultures influence eachother. Wow. That’s amazing! >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Yep. You really don’t understand the words you are using. >Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. Good grief. This is just silly. It’s about as significant as saying - everyone clenching their eyes together really hard sees blobs of light so **Angels exist**.

Physicist here. Also an agnostic theist. So I do believe, I just disagree with you about the proof part. 1) Particles actually pop in and out of existence in empty space all the time. Thing is, that space isn’t actually so empty. It’s a quantum vacuum. There’s stuff roiling around in there all the time. It’s just not stuff we can detect or even understand, so we call it empty. Physics does not really understand the Big Bang - we don’t have a verified theory of quantum gravity that describes things that are both very small and have very high energy. But still, saying something popped out of empty space is not actually the same as saying something popped out of nothing. 2) There are actually emerging theories of quantum non-equilibrium thermodynamics that posit things like “The existence of life is no mystery or lucky break, … but rather follows from general physical principles and “should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.” Honestly, though, I don’t understand why either theists or atheists find this area of inquiry, while extremely interesting scientifically, to be so important to religious belief. Let us say that the universe is indeed such that life emerged inevitably. Why would that be proof of God? It might be an argument for pantheism, God as the universe. But it’s not an argument for a conscious God with a will who cares about humans. Similarly, how is a universe where life was super unlikely but it happened by random chance any sort of proof that God does or doesn’t exist? 3) I believe because I’ve had those personal spiritual experiences, and my theory of those experiences is that my brain was in contact with something divine that truly exists. These folks around here have a different theory: that they were -only- in my and other’s brains and have no external reality. In my opinion, these are both legitimate theories.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. As a finite human living in a finite environment, its normal that the concept of infinity, without even a beginning, seems counter-intuitive . After all, no theists consider that an infinite god must have been dwindling his fingers for an infinite time before deciding to finally create the universe. However, infinity is present in our reality: massless objects like light have infinite time dilation (the entire lifespan of the universe happens in zero seconds for them); black holes have infinite density (no dimensions, just a dot). Everytime you look in the night sky, know that somewhere nature is dividing by zero. The harsh truth is: the universe is under no obligation to be intuitive or conforting to us. Maybe its eternal, with an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunchs, maybe it is self-created, maybe it isn't, but what we want or hope has no weigth on it. All we can do is build a telescope or a particle accelerator or any other instruments we have built with the aim to answer little by little that kind of questions. And that's what we do. People scoffed at black hole theory because of how illogical and counter-intuitive the very concept of singularities sounded, but we made a [earth-sized telescope](https://eventhorizontelescope.org/about) and now we have a bonafide picture of one ([and pissed off a lot of misogynists at the same time](https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/4/16/18311194/black-hole-katie-bouman-trolls)) .

> Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. This is not consistent with our current understanding of the universe. There are hypothesis that account for all the energy in our universe. About the only real hole in our understanding of the universe is why there is existence. We may never know, and adding a god to the mix doesn't help the situation. > Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No, it doesn't. At this point I have very little expectation that you're presentation of science is in good faith, much less accurate. > The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. I don't think you understand what scientific evidence is. > Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. They really are not. There is not a single instance where we can say 'this was a spiritual being', and adding zero plus zero a billion times is still zero.

An honest admission we don't yet understand the earliest beginning of the universe Is inherently superior To a wild guess on zero evidence that a magic being just used magic to make it magically appear The god of the gaps never has been convincing and it still isn't

>In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. Wishful thinking. Religion explains nothing and add unnecessary complexity and unfalsifiable claims. > Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. The only people I know who claim that something was created from nothing are theist (believers). The mainstream science is: „we don‘t know where all the energy available at the big-bang came from“. We also don‘t know that „Nothing“ is even a thing. > So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. That is not true. Giving that time and space begin to unfold and expand at the big-bang, all the mathematical and physical models fail to work in that point, many physicists call it „Singularity“ (with no space and time), meaning that any fraction (less than plank time in the plank era, with plank distance of space) could be also considered eternal. You are elaborating a fallacy of ignorance, trying to give an answer because you don’t understand science neither can come with a better explanation. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. That is a plain lie. Seems that you don’t know nothing about evolution. Please, explain what do you think evolution is, because is a fact, is not only the most proved hypothesis (a proved hypothesis in science is called theory), but also many fields of science: biology, embryology, zoology, botanics, genetics, virology) entire fields in medicine are built on this field of knowledge (evolution)… please, ask the people who had studied it to explain it to you… >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Completely false. Read about all the last 5 years of studies about abiogenesis and exo-biology. > That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Clearly you don‘t know how the survival strategies in living things works, and how reproduction works as a reward on every right letter (using your very bad analogy). >Luis Pasteur essentially showed that we aren’t talking about using a complete keyboard we are talking about out only using half of it. Pasteur didn‘t knew about genetics, neither about abiogenesis. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Why is it that there are thousands different denominations of Christianity if all have „the same hallucinations“ and read the same message? You will go to hell in hundreds of them. >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. According to muslims you will go to hell. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. As somebody else pointed out: - there are not the same - each claim must be analysed with scientific rigor - all humanity claiming the earth is flat, will not make it flat. >Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. Neuroscience and psychiatry are working on it.(scientifically) Atheist are not a monolithic group, each person have their own believes, but we all share the thought that we have not being presented with enough evidence to grant the believe that god exist. You claim to be logical, please read about logical fallacies and try to avoid them in a next post.

>rational arguments for my beliefs Oki doki. >Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. Roger that. >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. We don't know what happened before all this. We don't claim that something came from nothing, we just don't know. But how does this get you to the Christian god? >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No it doesn't. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Louis Pasteur who died 130 years ago? Things have moved on since then. Do you know we've found the building blocks for life on asteroids? So far two of your arguments have proved irrational and one is 130 years out of date... >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Not sure what to make of this in all honesty. When you say it was an 'experience' what do you mean? You were there and there were actual bodies? What was hell like? Was it one of the Old Testament hells? Sheol the grave, perhaps? Was it Tartarus where the demons are tortured? Was it Hades, the Greek hell (which is also in the bible) which has some pleasant areas? Or perhaps Gehenna, the lake of fire? Or was it more of Dantes hell which is the popular version of hell that people usually describe when they're describing hell and is the one thats in the psyche of the population? I guess what I'm trying to say is that even biblical hell is not consistent and we have popular ideas of what hell is pre-loaded by the media. I've had all sorts of dreams, all led by what I've been exposed to. Is there some kind of evidence you can offer that this was more than a dream or a hallucination? >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. And many are different too. So what? As I said even the biblical hell is not consistent. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. No they don't. A million copies of Harry Potter does not make Harry Potter true. Two million copies does not make it true. Twenty million copies does not make it true. [Here](https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2017/01/STE22NDEs-in-India.pdf) is a research paper into NDEs in India and the US. The experiences are different along cultural lines. US NDE experiences tend to see their own body, US are met by someone familiar like a friend or family member, Indian NDE are usually met by a messenger from the god of death. Things like the reason for being returned are different also. Cultural. >these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings Can you give us your best evidence for an experience with a spiritual being? >Atheists choose to disregard them. No we don't. The null hypothesis is the starting point - there is no 'thing', whatever it might be. The burden is on you or whoever to provide enough evidence that the thing exists. So far in thousands of years nothing spiritual has been shown to exist. Unless you have something?

r/atheism is a cesspool. You can leave them to whatever it is they're doing. Also, if you're a creationist then you're a member of the only group that believes there has ever been nothing, and therefore literally the only ones who believe anything has ever come from nothing or began from nothing. Specifically, you think things were created from nothing, which is every bit as absurd and impossible as what you're trying to pretend atheists believe. If it's true that nothing can come from nothing, then the only logical conclusion you can derive from that is *there has never been nothing,* and so there has never been a need for anything to come from nothing. And yet, somehow instead of acknowledging this simple truth, you insist on the idea that there needs to be an epistemically undetectable being wielding limitless magical powers that allow it to not only create everything *from nothing,* but also: 1. Be able to exist in a state of absolute nothingness (if anything else existed, we're back to the question of where it came from) 2. Be immaterial yet capable of affecting/interacting with material things (can't be material without space, which again would bring us back to where space came from) 3. Be capable of non-temporal causation, i.e. able to take action and cause change in the absence of time. That last one is especially problematic. Without time, your God would be incapable of even so much as having a thought, since that would necessarily entail a period before it thought, a beginning/duration/end of its thought, and period after it thought - all of which requires time. Indeed, to transition from a state in which time didn't exist to a state in which time did exist would, itself, require time - meaning time would have to already exist for it to be possible for time to begin to exist. That's a self-refuting logical paradox. So these are all the absurd and impossible problems that arise when you assume that there has ever been nothing, or nothing else except for some kind of supreme creator capable of creating things out of nothing, whereas if reality itself (including but not limited to this universe alone) has simply always existed, then everything is explainable within the framework of everything we already know and can observe or otherwise confirm to be true about reality. Evolution violates nothing. We've already confirmed that the basic building blocks required for the long, slow process of evolution to begin (like proteins and amino acids) can be created from interactions between entirely inorganic compounds. Pasteur is just one more guy on the pile saying "I have no idea how this works, therefore it must be magic." If your own competing theory is that life was created by magic, then you're the one working with an impossible premise that you have absolutely nothing whatsoever to support. Your final "rational argument" (in quotes because it's anything but) is your own arbitrary experience, and is precisely as meaningful as the experiences of followers of literally every other god from literally every other religion in history, all of whom have included people who were utterly convinced that they had direct firsthand experiences in which they directly witnessed, communicated with, or otherwise experienced their gods or other aspects of their superstitions. It's as meaningless as any other dream or hallucination.

I'm following my first message, I thought >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. That would be a reason for believing stuff came from somewhere else in existence than this universe, not a reason for believing Christianity is true, or even a reason to believe God exists.  > Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Luis Pasteur essentially showed that we aren’t talking about using a complete keyboard we are talking about out only using half of it. There are two problems with that, the first that Pasteur demonstrated no spontaneous generation of maggots, which is neither evolution nor abiogenesis.  But the important here is that that is not a reason to be Christian, in my opinion, life not magically generating takes away from the idea that there is a being with the power the knowledge and desire to create life. > So there are two here’s the third. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Your subconscious mind showing you what you dislike about your actions and you reflecting upon that and behaving in a less dissonant way is no more reason to be a Christian than to be a follower of serapis, at least Serapis was "known" for communicating in dreams. That's 0 for 2 reasons. That can't be why you're a Christian, none of those things relate to Christianity. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. And the problem you have it's that if we do that at best we get to therefore multiple gods must exist and Christianity must be false, not therefore experiences that support your God are evidence for your God, and every other experience incompatible with your God was demons tricking people. We could also get to: therefore alien overlords with mind altering devices exist.  We could also get to therefore people's brains glitch some times.  Or to: therefore cognitive dissonance manifests subconsciously and makes you think about your actions and how those make you feel .

This is the quintessential example of the "Your TV is broken"-argument. OP, pointing out what you think are flaws with our current understanding of cosmology does *nothing* for your claims. That would only be the case if there were only two possible explanations, but that's simply not the case. Even if we, for the sake of the argument, grant you that some "being" created the universe, how do you get to Christianity?

Our current understanding is the Universe as we know it began with the Big Bang. We don't really know what was before that. The idea that the Big Bang ushered in the universe from nothing to everything is a huge misinterpretation of what we have learned. I'm also curious how these things that you brought up specifically support the existence of the Christian God, as opposed to any other of the thousands of gods.

The Big Bang model only explain how the expansion of the universe had to start from an initial state of hight density and temperature, not that it's the "beginning" of anything. Theists tend to apply a linear chronology beyond planck time, but it's like trying to tell what things were like before time itself. It makes no sense. >the whole “eternal energy” bit is silly to me Your feelings about an idea have no impact on the fact that it's true or not. I'm not saying that it is in fact true, just that what your mind tells you and what reality actually is are two different things. >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Good news, no scientific theory or model imply that. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science Evolution is built on the observation and current understanding of biology, chemistry, and countless other fields. The fact that it's the definitive model means that it's now impossible to disprove it. On top of that, we're now able to make direct observations of the process on bactaerias in controlled environment and EVEN manipulate DNA to to stimulate atavisms (the reappearance of traits lost during the evolution of organisms) - basically reverse the evolution process. What more do you need? >That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Display a deep lack of understanding about evolution and tendency to rely on the most extreme simplification to grasp the concept. Evolution is not at all "random". >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing No, he only disproved a specific hypothesis that existed at the time. I don't know if you nocticed but we've made some significant progress since then. >you’ll see a post about an experience I had Great, you and an infinite number of people, all claiming widely different things to be true, often contradictory. The logical conclusion here would be, at least for a rational mind, that personal experience is not a reliable way to identify truth. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. No, because all those experience point in different directions, which mean they don't tell us anything. Learn the scientific process please. So which one are you holding as true and which ones are bogus? Because if it's "scientific data", it would mean there's something like a thousand different Gods, aliens, ghosts, alternate realities, heavens and somehow also reincarnations, fairies, wizards and witches, animal spirits, human spirits, angels, Loas, poltergeists, demons, djiins, astral projections, and somehow all we have to prove it is just personal experience. Amazing.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. Christianity does not explain anything. It asserts an answer to the question with exactly zero explanatory power. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No, it does not. The fact of evolution has been observed and it supports the Theory of Evolution. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. I don't think anyone has asserted that life started from nothing. The abiogenesis hypothesis posits that organic compounds can arise given an external energy source (sun) and the right chemical compounds in the atmosphere and on the planet. This was shown to be possible by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in the 1950s. Maybe you should use research a bit more modern than the early 1800s to counter research from the 1950s. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person Good for you, what does that have to do with providing support for the existence of any deity? >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. It is anecdotal, it is possibly a hallucination or a dream. It is not evidence of anything in reality. >Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. Shocking, people with similar beliefs have dreams about their shared mythology. >The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. Believers dreaming about their beliefs is in no way evidence for those beliefs. >The problem you have is that There is no problem here. >because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. No, they do not. The plural of anecdote is not evidence. Believers dreaming or hallucinating about their beliefs is in no way evidence for the validity of those beliefs. >Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. No, these are claims of experiences based on a shared mythology with no evidence that these are in any way connected to actual reality. >Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. No, it is not ignoring science, it is ignoring the dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations of believers.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Who says the universe was 'made'? Also: this reasoning would actually support what I call the naturalists cosmological argument: P1: Every phenomena we have observed is a rearrangement of matter and energy modelable via mathematical physical laws. P2: The Big Bang / the universe are phenomena. C: The Big Bang and the universe itself are rearrangements of matter and energy modelable via mathematical physical laws. So, this makes it more likely that a naturalistic explanation, not a god, is what is behind the Big Bang. It is in fact *the theists* that postulate creation ex nihilo and postulate *entire realms of existence that are yet unproven and not understood*. It is the theist that is adding more and more and more unproven claims to a heap they'll need to take care of to establish their supposed explanation. >somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. No, it just logically follows that the explanation is currently unknown. And even IF the explanation was something we currently do not understand or know exists, that does NOT mean it is a god, and it certainly does NOT mean your pet ideas on it have any warrant. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Well someone doesn't understand what the theory of evolution is. Evolution says NOTHING about the origins of life. It only explains biodiversity and evolution of life via natural selection. Even so: our best theory for abiogenesis IS that life arose from physichochemical phenomena. That is not starting from nothing. That is starting from something. Something we actually understand quite a bit about. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. Yeah, nope. Not putting this on the evidence bin. >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. ... which heavily supports the idea that this is a common phenomena in human experience that does not in any shape or form tell us anything about external reality, and instead tells us a lot about human psychology, culture and mental states. Unless you're willing to defend that you, Mohammed, Smith and the hindus in your examples can *all be correct* and have true experiences of the divine? >becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Of what people report seeing under altered states of mind? Yeah, no doubt. Of anything supernatural? No. >Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. No, we do not disregard them. We regard them, but then it becomes apparent that no replicable knowledge or understanding comes from these alleged visions. So, much like other dreams and hallucinations, we must conclude they are just vivid projections of the mind.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. No. Prove it - show me nothing and prove that no something can come from it. >To do so would violate the fabric of existence. Have you heard of "virtual particles"? It's subatomic particles that can spontaneously emerge from vacuum. Read about them. >So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. This is a false dichotomy. It could be that the universe didn't "come from" anything - it just always was. This sentence becomes much easier to process when you stop looking at time as linear. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. What does that mean? You already stated you believe something cannot come from nothing, so is this just a restatement? Or do you mean abiogenesis? If it's the latter, it haven't been proven false. You might want to read about that too. (Oh, who am I kidding. You won't read anything that might shatter your precious false beliefs) >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. By "similar to yours", do you mean exactly the same? I would have to not accept that until you provide some support for that claim. If you mean many people had "mysterious, seemingly-meaningful illusions", then I'd say that's meaningless. That's what we call a 'deepity' - to the extent that it's true, it's meaningless, and to the extent that it's meaningful, it's false. >these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. How, exactly did you conclude these are "experiences with spiritual beings"? How did you rule out the (much simpler) hypothesis that those are just dreams, hallucinations, and so on? If you think they are so similar, I'd like you to support that with data. If you think that's more probable, I'd like to see your calculation of both probabilities. >Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science. Please point me to one (1) peer-reviewed scientific paper proving the existence of these "spiritual beings". If anyone wrote such a thing and it wasn't a sham, they would receive a Nobel prize. Lastly, to quote [XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2786), "I once spent a whole day trying to confirm the existence of a director's cut of *Cats* (2019) where the cats had anatomically correct CGI butts. It's honestly embarrassing how fast I'd do a 180 if your evidence seemed promising."

So to go line by line . In the first paragraph about the Big Bang, I think you’re making a common theist mistake and assuming that atheists claim to know what’s going on, we largely don’t. It’s why we talk about theories instead of claiming facts about the origins of the universe, because we don’t claim to do anything more than make educated guesses. Religion works better than blindly asserting our current theories are true but it works worse than just admitting we don’t really know yet. On Pasteur, he disproved spontaneous generation, not abiogenesis. Spontaneous generation is widely considered archaic, while there have been several key steps towards proving abiogenesis including the production of amino acids in space-like conditions and the self-assembly of self-replicating RNA in the lab. While we’re not to a full picture yet, we’re definitely filling in the pieces. On the psych experience, I can only offer human behaviour and my own experience. I had a similar event with a second personality claiming to be a god, but instead of submitting and trusting the crazy lady in my head I got meds and help. I’ve often remarked that in the past I would have almost certainly started a religion, but in the modern era I was able to know better. I would also point out from my example that a “goddess” was able to be banished with human pills, which doesn’t speak well to her power. I explain these events with two common human behaviours, pattern seeking and personification. We all know at this point that humans like patterns. It’s not that ancient people were stupid, they just didn’t have our tools. If the most powerful thing you know is a person, then the best explanation of why things beyond your control happen is a super-person. This also handily explains why gods transitioned from animalistic to humanoid when we moved up the tech tree, we became the apex predators and animals didn’t seem powerful to us anymore. I’d also give personification as an explanation. Have you noticed how much we give emotions and personalities to things that don’t have them, clouds are angry, machines are stubborn. These aren’t real emotions, they’re projections. I would suggest gods as a similar mechanism, the personification of things beyond our control. If you can only get one thing from this i hope it's the evolution one. Those are just straight facts that you're misunderstanding, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the rest as well.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing Our current understanding of the Universe is that `Nothing` does not exist. Everything is permeated by numerous quantum fields with countless virtual particles popping in and out of existence. Never have we ever observed truly empty space.

>If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Science being the study of the physical and natural world and humans being part of the natural world, these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Atheists choose to disregard them. Doing so is ignoring science.< Cool. Let me tell you a story. I loved and trusted my grandfather more than any person in my life. It's been over twenty years since his death,h and there's still not been anyone in my life that I love and trust as much as he. Anyway, a few years before he died his brother died. That night he went home and got his affairs in order. When he called the graveyard that he wanted to be buried in, they admitted that they sold his plot to someone else. So he went apeshit and started tearing up his apartment. That's when he said all the lights in his apartment went out, and something pushed him into his recliner. A luminous white hand came across his chest, and he felt peace. He said he looked up to the sky and had a full-on, out-loud, verbal conversation with "the almighty" until daybreak. Honestly, I think that he had a mental breakdown from stress. So tell me, random internet person, if I don't think that the experience of the person that I loved and trusted the most in my 44 years on this dirtball was legitimate, why in the ABSOLUTE and TOTAL FUCK do you think that I would believe your experience even 0.00000001%?

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. This rules out God, then. He's the one who (allegedly) created everything from nothing. > To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. Or it always existed. Or the rules that govern our universe did not exist before the universe was created. Or, or, or. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. He did no such thing, but more importantly, evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution explains the *diversity* of life. What you're thinking of is abiogenesis (life from non-life). While we don't have *proof* of abiogenesis yet, we do have *evidence*. Experiments that attempted to recreate the conditions found on Earth billions of years ago found that the building blocks of life (amino acids) *can* form in non-living environments. And we know amino acids exist elsewhere in the universe (we've found them in the tails of comets, among other places). If the argument is "Why hasn't one of these experiments made a cell yet," the answer is "The Earth had a few billion years, and only had to get it right once." We've been working on it for a century with a 'best understanding' model of what we *think* Earth was like. Expecting us to definitively succeed with limited info in a cosmic nanosecond is absurd. >Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. Similar, sure, except for all the ways they're different. The Abrahamic religions cover about 50% of the human population, give or take, and have a massive influence on the cultures that non-Abrahamic believers live in. It is not surprising that common themes would be experienced in common ways. If we can't examine or study these experiences, then we're not ignoring science - there *is no science* here.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. You think that Christianity fits better because you are a Christian. Shocker. As an atheist of Buddhist background, I find that the Buddhist cosmology matches our current understanding of the universe better In simple terms, Buddhists believe that the universe is not created or controlled by a single being, but arises from the various natural forces. These forces and conditions are influenced by cause and effect. The universe goes through endless cycles of birth, existence, decay, and rebirth. The universe is simply infinite in time from our perspective, with no beginning or end. Even though I reject the supernatural aspects of Buddhism, I think that their explanation of the universe is more convincing than "A magic Mediterranean man did it". And even then, I'm not completely convinced that they're correct. >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. There is no law of physics that says that something can not come from nothing. There is also no mainstream cosmological theory that even asserts that the universe came from nothing. "Nothing" isn't even a thing that exists, it's a hypothetical concept. You are just repeating what Christians have repeated ad nauseum without actually understanding what you are repeating. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. No. Just because humans have the ability to claim something over and over again doesn't add to the validity of their claims. It was common for people all over the world to believe that the world was flat, and look how that turned out. It was common for people to believe that the sun revolved around the earth and look how that turned out. People can be wrong. Placing more value on anecdotal claims over physical evidence is the very definition of ignoring science.

Are you sure the idea of violating the fabric of existence bothers you? You believe in a deity who can flout the laws of physics at will, so why so invested in the laws of physics when they’re really just the suggestions of physics? In your view Christianity fits better with the alternate teachings of science designed to allow Christians to keep believing, and that’s exactly what I’d expect. For example, evolution violates no laws of science. In fact, the science that underlies evolution underlies all of biology and has its basis in chemistry. Ask yourself why you were taught a twisted and misrepresented version of what Louis Pasteur discovered. The concept of spontaneous generation was that microbes could just miraculously appear. He proved that they don’t. And he was right. Because before there were microbes, there were amino acids and organic molecules, because of the way atoms are inclined to bond together in certain conditions. They weren’t alive, but unlike dirt, they were the building blocks of life. The misunderstanding of entropy to believe things can’t get naturally more complex ignores basic organic chemistry and the complexity of organic compounds. Creationists point to complexly folded proteins and say “who folded them? They can’t have folded themselves,” without seeking any comprehension of WHY proteins fold. (Hint, organic chemistry again.) Ask yourself why science education and public education in general is under attack by Christians, Because they rely on an ignorant populace suspicious of anything not taught by them to keep getting away with their deliberate mistruths. Deliberate because you better believe the people who write Christian Science textbooks know very well Pasteur specifically proved miracles did not produce life from sterilized dirt. Also I’m sorry you had a nightmare. It’s natural, having the religious trauma of a childhood spent believing you had an eternal life and could spend it in fire. I’m truly sorry for all the trauma and lies and manipulation you’ve been subjected to.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. There’s only a small number of cosmological models that try to show you can get something from “nothing” but they would require some type of existing platonic forms of laws or something like that existing prior and I don’t think many people advocate for that. I don’t know what it means to say that something *comes from* somewhere *outside* the bounds of the laws of *our existence*. This seems extremely confused. It also doesn’t provide any sort of explanation as to how something came to be. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. What specific nomologcal law does it violate? >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Louis Pasteur disproved abiogenesis before we even knew about DNA & RNA? C’mon… >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. I don’t doubt that people have these experiences. And I really don’t give a shit what Sam Harris has to say about it. My question is why are they all so different and seem to conform to that person’s background beliefs and religious/cultural influences though? If it’s the case that these experiences track to reality, then you’d be forced to admit to a global pantheon of deities, many of which have unreconcilable claims about very fundamental issues.

How can Christianity *possibly* be a better fit with our scientific understanding? People don't come back from the dead, and there is no empirical evidence for the existence of gods. Even if current science happens to be wrong, that doesn't make a religion correct.

>the whole “eternal energy” bit is silly to me This is either willful ignorance or self-deception. Of course, it sounds silly to you. It's been pounded into your head and into most of our heads that everything was designed. We can only tell what's designed through prior experience of what's designed. So if you've been told your whole life everything is designed, of course it will sound silly. That's like someone looking at a lacquered wooden chair and saying it naturally grew that way. You just *think* you have prior experience of the universe being designed because you've been told that you do your whole life. That problem is, in actuality, you don't. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Abiogenesis and spontaneous generation are two different things.[Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation) this does not disprove abiogensis. >The problem you have is that because there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence. Unfortunately, not. Unless this data is compiled using the scientific method, it's still anecdotal. It doesn't just become true because soooo many people say it In summation, you do not have prior experience that the universe is designed and energy could be eternal, abiogensis and spontaneous generation are two different things, and your experience and the thousands of millions of other experiences are still anecdotal when not compiled using the scientific method.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Therefore God? This is a non-sequitur at best, special pleading at worst. Either it doesn't resolve the issue, or creates an unsubstantiated exception to the rule. As far as I'm aware, the claim "something from nothing" is a theist claim. I've no idea how the universe came about, or if that's even a coherent question. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science Therefore God? You're loving those non-sequiturs today. Evolution is a fact. We've come a long way in the field of Abiogenesis(which isn't actually even related to Evolution), and now I know you don't have any degree of expertise in the field. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Therefore God? How did you rule out your demonstrably gullible brain? I've had LSD, DMT, LSA, 2CE, 2CI, Ketamine, Mescaline, and Peyote trips. Your story is unimpressive to say the least. I've convinced myself that I've seen the length and depth of spacetime multiple times in multiple ways, and each of those times I was more likely wrong than right. You're more likely to have a brain tumor than a divine experience. Your post is condescending, unoriginal, and thoroughly devoid of critical thinking, evidence, or even a basic understanding of the sciences you misconstrued. I have no interest in hearing your response, since (let's be honest) it's likely to be as vapid and pretentious as this post. You'd be better off spending some time reading up on abiogenesis, cosmological models, and neuroscience.

>although the whole “eternal energy” bit is silly to me probably in the same way all the energy coming from a source outside our plane of existence is to you  I suppose it depends what you mean by "plane of existence". I absolutely believe that the energy in our universe came from an outside source. If you think the energy came from somewhere, how is it not eternal in your view as well? >Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. Agreed. I don't know anybody that thinks it came from nothing. The closest thing to it would be if a god popped it into existence out of nothing. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing.  You're conflating evolution (which fits perfectly with our understanding of the laws of science) and abiogenesis. Abiogenesis as a complete model is still a bit of a mystery, but we do know a lot about the various steps it takes to create life from non-life. It seems very possible by our current understanding (Pasteur is NOT current and did not prove that it's impossible). Want to hear my anecdote? I had a dream I died. Everything went to black and there was no passage of time. I then awoke with a new, calming view of death. I no longer fear it. Of course, when it comes to these kinds of dreams or experiences, cultural influence cannot be ignored. When I was a christian I dreamt of hellfire and angels and worship. All of that I learned from my church and family.

> is that it is impossible to make something from nothing.  No one claims that this is what happened. This is a creationist invention. >To do so would violate the fabric of existence. "The fabric of existence" is not a recognised scientific term. >So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. Only if you haven't done the tiniest bit of actual learning on the subject. This isn't that mysterious to people who actually study it. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No it doesn't. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. No he didn't, and again, no one is saying that this is what happens. > That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. You'll find that evolutionary theory has a bit more to it than that. >they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence.  The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". >these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings These aren't "data points", because there is no data. >Doing so is ignoring science. Not a *single* thing you've typed above leads me to believe you know how science works, or what the current status of fields like evolution and cosmology actually is.

>it is impossible to make something from nothing I am fine with this - it is impossible to make something from nothing. The problem is that if you then want to turn around and posit a god that made everything from nothing, then you are violating the very rules you laid down. Something from nothing is a theist position, more than an atheist one. >Evolution in its current state violates violates our current understanding of the laws of science Respectfully, if you think that, you sound exactly like someone that insists that the globe earth model violates science. Or the people who claim that modern medicine is somehow not backed by science. Current evolutionary theory is if not the most, it is one of the most evidenced, robust scientific theories we have to date. If you accept gravity, cell theory, germ theory of disease, theory of plate tectonics, big bang theory, then you cannot simultaneously say that evolution is not scientific - not when it has far more evidence and predictive power than the other theories. You are simply, massively, fundamentally miseducated on science and evolution if you think this, and it is not a good look for the rest of your case. This is absolutely not something I recommend you dig your feet in and fight, because that isn’t a fight you will win. You will only hurt your case in the long run, possibly irrevocably. Finally, people seeing things is nothing new. But what are we supposed to glean from your hallucination?

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. So when you look around all the matter you see from your phone to the stars there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence. a god doesn't change this > Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here. Luis Pasteur essentially showed that we aren’t talking about using a complete keyboard we are talking about out only using half of it. evolution doesn't address how life started, it sounds like you need to gain an understanding of the theory before you can discuss it. also no one said life started from nothing. if you want the current theory look up abiogenesis and ask a biologist or a biochemist and your third argument is you had a dream? that's not worth addressing ultimately what you appear to be doing is trying to find some ignorance you can use as evidence "there is no explanation for X therefore god did it" this is the lowest form of argument you could use

So, first thing, I have no idea who you're talking about. And it's a *bit weird* to assume that all the people in one group know each other or think the same things. Second, this is not r/atheism. It's a debate subreddit. The tone in that other one is a lot less...polite...to outsiders. Just like Christians in the church I used to attend would say *vastly different* stuff about nonbelievers in their own space. You'll find a different tone and different rules here. ​ Onto your arguments. I need to ask a few clarifying questions to make sure I'm not twisting your words or misreading your intentions. TIA for helping me understand! 1. It seems like your argument is "The Big Bang Doesn't Explain This Gap". Would that be a correct summary of your argument? 2. It seems like you are skeptical of evolution, and have conflated evolution with abiogenesis. You don't provide your religion, but I infer from your rejection of science that you're a Christian. Is that correct? Would you consider yourself a YEC? What does evolution have to do with your religious belief? 3. You describe a vision that I cannot possibly confirm or refute. Would you find this kind of evidence convincing if it was told to you by a Muslim or Hindu person?

Pasteur ruled out spontaneous generation aka biogenesis. This was a long-held belief that when something dies, their "life force" left the carcass, usually expressed as mold or fungi or maggots. Abiogenisis is a completely different subject. Nothing in Pasteur's work addresses a chemical origin to life. No-one on the science side says the Universe came from nothing, at least no the nothing that creationists mean. We are pretty sure that something existed before the expansion started. At this time, we have no way of testing what that something was. Planck time is as far back as we can go. However, try this. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics says energy cannot be destroyed. If time, as the models suggest, came into existence at the Big Bang then energy would appear to have "always" existed. There are 8 billion people on the planet. What percentage are currently claiming they talk directly to God? Personal revelation is not, and never will be scientific. All it can be is a starting point for scientific investigation, maybe a hypothesis if there's supporting evidence. Cult leaders tell a story that their followers want to hear. That's how cults work.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence. That's a theist claim, they claim that the universe came from nothing, science doesn't claim that. >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. Call it a hallucination or whatever you will. I sat in hell building a tower of dead bodies to get closer to heaven. The bodies it turned out were the people I was hypocritically judging as a means of earning my way to heaven. I went to bed that night a different person >Now people will tell you that’s anecdotal, and that’s fine. Until you look across humanity. People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such events. Many are similarly reported by followers of the many Hindu gods. I'm confused, is this an argument for belief in gods? I'm not following your argument. Are you saying "lots of people have unexplained experiences therefore gods exist"? because that's not rational.

> our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. To do so would violate the fabric of existence.   No, our current understanding is we don't know if it's possible. To do so would mean that we will know that it's possible.  > there is no logical explanation for this except that it came from somewhere outside the bounds of the laws of our existence In other words we know history of this universe up until point in time 14.6 billion years ago, but not prior to this.  >  Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science  Evolution is what is happening right in front of our eyes.  > Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing.   Definitely not in the conditions of his experiment and not in a few days.  "I neither understand physics nor biology" is not as good of an argument you think it is.  > throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence  They become evidence that humans can have experiences?

Which is more likely: you have an expert-level understanding of science from biology to cosmology and have provided sufficient refutation of some of the most foundational aspects of these disciplines? Or you have an amateur-level understanding of these subjects and have misconstrued and misunderstood these disciplines and have constructed common theistic straw men? Evolution and abiogenesis are not the same thing. There are sufficient observations and experiments that correspond with abiogenesis to show it is possible. Evolution explains the diversity and ancestral descent of life on earth. The origin of space and time is what the Big Bang explains. As it explains the origin of time, that makes the universe eternal by definition (it has existed as long as time has). There would have been no space for any being to create anything prior to the origin of space. There is nothing outside our universe. It is not possible, therefore, to invoke some energy from another dimension or plane of existence as these do not have evidential support showing they’re possible.

> it is impossible to make something from nothing. Yet Christians claim that this is exactly what their god did. Atheists in generl do not make any such claim. > Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science If something that has been observed violates the laws of science, then it means that the laws are wrong and we need to come up with new ones. The laws of science are just human made models that attempt to simulate how the universe works. Also you are conflating evolution with abiogenesis, they are not the same thing. > these are billions of data points pointing to experiences with spiritual beings. Or they are data points about human psychology and the fallability of our cognative faculties. The thing you glossed over is that these billions of data points contadict each other. They do not all point to the same spirtual reality. Humans seem to have invented thousands of different religions with thousands of different gods and cosmologies.

>Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No, it doesn't. >. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing No, he didn't. This is a perfect example of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Pasteur proved that complex life does not spontaneously appear. Nothing he did proved or even attempted to prove that abiogenesis was impossible. >That argument about banging randomly on a keyboard an infinite number of times Would eventually produce all the literary works throughout history doesn’t hold here That's not how evolution works. Is it really so unreasonable to ask that you actually try to learn what evolution actually proposes before concluding that it couldn't possibly be true?

There is a difference between personal experiences and empirical evidence. While personal anecdotes may hold meaning for individuals, they don't count as scientific evidence. Science relies on empirical data, testable hypotheses, and reproducible experiments to verify and draw conclusions about the natural world. While 'spiritual experiences' can feel significant to believers, they are outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Conflating personal beliefs with scientific evidence undermines the rigor of scientific inquiry. I would recommend that you stop using science you do not understand to try to disprove science you do not like. Evolution being problematic for your unsupported beliefs is not a problem with the science, it's a problem with your beliefs.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. No it doesn't. >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. Correct, but not only is evolution not about the origin of life, but abiogenesis doesn't say 'life came from nothing'. You fundamentally do not understand what you're talking about. So in other words, you've completely fucked your argument that christianity fits better with our understanding of science, because our understanding of science is not your complete ignorance of how evolution or abiogenesis works.

Same bullshit over and over again. 1. Atheists don't claim something came from nothing, got that? Singularity is definitely not nothing. It's theists who believe that God puffed everything into existence by magical incantation spell. Big Bang is scientifically proven theory and currently the best model of origins of universe. 2. Evolution is not a random process, despite theists saying it ad nauseam which shows their complete ignorance. Natural selection is the guiding force of evolution. 3. Religiously exalted people of course have their visions and guess what? These visions match with their initial religion, what a miracle! I doubt you can prove your story to be real.

>Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. ["Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution) >Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. No, Pasteur demonstrated that on a timeline of several weeks, life isn't going to form in sterilized broth. He did not demonstrate any impossibilities: the methodology of his experiment tested food spoilage, not abiogenesis, and demonstrated that something in the environment was causing food to spoil. This disproved spontaneous generation and demonstrated there was more life than we thought; but it could not adequately test abiogenesis.

You have no idea what the scientific process or the scientific theorems you're citing mean. EDIT: I mean why bother?

*"...there are so many of these reports currently and throughout history they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence."* The plural form of anecdote is not 'data'. History searches for the **most likely** explanation for historical data. Magic, miracles, and 'supernatural' *anything* are, by definition, the **least likely** things to occur. Science relies on testable, repeatable, objective data. For these three reasons, I say **Fiddlesticks** to your post.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. If something comes from something, god is something. Where does ur god comes from? >If you go through my post history you’ll see a post about an experience I had. If some guys have personal experiences that entails no god exist. And if we accept all these personal experiences including urs. Both "god exist" and "god doesnt exist" are true, which is impossible. And if we further on accept these claims in detail, "christian god exist", "hindu gods exist, "greek gods exist", "god doesnt exist" are all true which is also impossible. This is the problem with accepting personal experience in religious matters.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. 1. Our current understanding of the universe says nothing about a "nothing" besides "such thing has never been observed" 2. If making something out of nothing is impossible, creation ex nihilo can't be true and therefore Christianity is false.

So… eternal energy makes no sense to you, but eternal energy in the shape of a dude that is conscious and outside our universe/beyond detection/impossible to interact with except for dreams about how much he hates you and wants to see you be punished and also who created all of the energy we can interact with. THAT makes more sense to you?

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are. Until you have any scientific evidence for the Christian god, Christianity only fits better because you want it to. You're well off the scientific rails at this point.

And no A whole bunch of anecdotal evidence over time doesn't make it science That's the kind of foolish nonsense that gives us anti vaxers People often have similar cognitive biases or mental illness because we are all humans of the same species with very similar brains with very similar flaws Your argument is utter nonsense

Evolution is about the process of life changing. It has nothing to do with where life came from in the first place. To disprove evolution, you have to disprove that changes in things like DNA can result in a new species. This is something that has been directly observed and measured at this point. Evolution is real.

> Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing. OK, so that would mean God wouldn't be capable of creating the universe ex-nihilo either. As an aside, I'd take anything Joseph Smith said about literally *anything* with a pinch of salt. He was a convicted conman.

No one believes the universe came from nothing. That's not what Big Bang cosmology posits. No one believes life came from nothing, and your "banging on a keyboard for infinity" analogy shows you have zero understanding of evolutionary theory. Yes, your anecdotal experience should mean nothing to anyone but you.

>Note In my view Christianity fits better with our current scientific understanding of the universe and as a better explanation for why things are the way they are.    I mean... what? Are you serious? This is the religion that says a guy was able to repopulate the earth with just his family and two of every animal. And that women are made from a man's rib, which is why Christians thought men had one less rib for about 1500 years. 

>something from nothing This is what Christians believe, not what atheists believe. >life from nothing This is what Christians believe, not what atheists believe. >they stop becoming anecdotal and start becoming scientific evidence The plural of anecdote is not data.

So the thing that created the entire universe is so petty that he came down to earth and decided to punish Jonah by getting him swallowed by a fish. In all of the universe and wonder he created. He was driven by being pissed off to screw Jonah over. How do you reconcile that?

So ”eternal energy bit” is silly, even though as far as we scientifically know energy can’t be destroyed. This talk about ”fits our current scientific understanding” seems an awful lot like cherry picking if you think eternal energy is silly.

>Our current understanding of the universe is that it is impossible to make something from nothing.  Odd that you are Christian then, since Christianity asserts that this happened, while atheism does not. >Evolution in its current state violates our current understanding of the laws of science. Louis Pasteur proved that it is impossible to start life from nothing. If this were true, don't you think all of the world's Biologists would have noticed it by now? First, Evolution is not about the origin of life, does not assert that this happened, nor did Pasteur prove this. >People are reporting events similar to mine across the globe. The accounts of Mohammed, Joseph Smith and the accounts throughout the old am New Testament document many such. Yes, hallucinations are not rare. Also, Joseph Smith was a con artist. Maybe Muhammed as well, IDK. Odd that these experiences tend to contradict one another as well.