Is atheism self-contradictory ?

[Edwardo Piet]

Thanks for the video share, Hammy.  I think I agree with Rickles if I'm understanding him correctly.  To me, (a laymen on this, and most subjects) the question, "why is there something rather than nothing" is completely malformed and illogical.  It's an absurd proposition.  You're basically asking, "how come non-existence doesn't exist?"  I might as well ask, "Why does the purple smell hot?"  

YES! Exactly! Oh my gosh I'm so glad you get it! (Love ya LFC! ) Because you'll be surprised how many seemingly intelligent people are mentally blocked and can't grasp this for some reason! So many people, including philosophers, think that this is the ultimate question or even ultimately unanswerable. But the alternative is simply logically impossible!

As he explains in the video... many philosophers understand how silly the question is but many don't actually understand why it's silly they just categorize it as a non-question that isn't true or false when the reality is that there is a true or false answer and it's that the truth of there being at least something existent is a necessity and the falsehood of it is an impossibility!

There is an answer... it's just not as mysterious as a lot of people want it to be. It really is logically impossible for reality to not exist. This particular reality may not have occurred, but some sort of reality must... even if it were a reality experienced by no one or a simulated reality that we considered 'unreal'. And if the concept of an unreal reality is considered a contradiction then an equivocation has been made because I am meaning reality merely in the sense of the totality of existence itself... regardless of how real or unreal that existence is.

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I think the human-constructed concept of absolute nothingness is completely irrational at its core.  'Non-being' cannot be a thing.

Yep. When people ask "Why is there something rather than nothing?" they may as well be asking "Why are squares four sided instead of circular?" "Or why are bachelors unmarried instead of married?"  or "Why is X not X?" or in other words: "Why is something itself rather than something else?"... like when people ask "Why am I me?" so they're asking a question regarding particulars and asking for its cause... but they're then also trying to apply it to the universal totality of existence itself which isn't a particular!

The question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" therefore, can only make sense if it refers to a particular something, or in other words, and in this case, a particular universe. So if the question means to ask "Why does this particular universe exist?" or even "Why do any universes begin to exist (i.e. why to Big Bangs happen) rather than stay existent in a vacuum-like state that is almost entirely empty?" (i.e. any sort of quantum state isn't complete emptiness or it wouldn't be a quantum state... it wouldn't be.... anything)..... but asking why anything exists at all as opposed to absolute nothingness makes zero sense. Because absolute nothingness is indeed impossible because it by definition doesn't refer to the possibility of anything at all!