Universe from Nothing?

[Esquilax]

-Information is a self-distinguishing kind of data that usually cannot be generated by its immediate context, and which refers to or interacts with elements which lay beyond the immediate context. Information may be self-referential, have predictive value, or clearly point to an abstraction layer.

I guess my next question is, how do you distinguish what's there naturally, versus this data that can't be generated by its surrounds? How can you tell that, say, what you're seeing isn't just a consequence of your existence as a pattern recognizing animal; how much of what you're seeing is a magic external set, and how much is you noting repetitions and properties in the interactions between certain inert physical entities?

For example, the earth shakes, and we can predict that such a thing will cause a tsunami because we've learned how such things work through observation and experimentation. That same earthquake causes a landslide, and you can predict where that boulder rolling toward you will land, because you have a mind that has evolved such predictive calculation skills as a survival mechanism. We can even predict the earthquake itself, because we understand how tectonic plates work, and fault lines. All this is data that fits your description of designed information, and it came about solely because we are intelligent animals that have developed the ability to learn through successive formative generations. No god required, and I'd submit to you that all other instances of this fall into exactly the same category.

It's just us, looking out and seeing the ways in which matter interacts.

An athiest cannot believe in anything beyond the observable physical universe. That is the essence of materialism.

It's also not what atheists are obligated to believe. Sorry bud, but we'll let you know what we think, not you. The sole position that an atheist, by definition, is required to hold, is disbelief in god claims. That says nothing about what else they believe, or their opinions regarding materialism, or even their stance on the possibility that the universe was created; it's entirely possible, we just think that all the gods currently proposed weren't the ones to do it.