Products of Chance

[Minimalist]

I've heard atheists say,

“I believe that the universe was created out of nothing by chance.”

Source?

Pulled it out of his ass.

[Dumac Dwarfking]

I've heard atheists say,

“I believe that the universe was created out of nothing by chance.”

But chance can’t create anything. It’s a word that we use to describe or talk about probabilities. If I flip a coin the chances of it landing heads up if flipped (assuming it doesn’t land on its side) is 50%. But if it does land heads up, chance didn't "cause" it to flip, I did. "Chance" doesn't stand in casual relation to things.

“Chance” as the cause of the universe seems silly.

What do you guys think?

Some atheists may hypothesise that the cause of the universe was chance, fewer still might say that it originated from "nothing". Really we don't know. It's unfortunate that to most religious I don't know = God did it.

I lost my keys this morning, after much deliberation I managed to find them in my cupboard. I don't know how that got there. Maybe it was the cat? Maybe they fell out of my pocket when I was getting changed after work? I just don't know... that doesn't mean "God did it".

[Lion IRC]

I've heard atheists say,

“I believe that the universe was created out of nothing by chance.”

But chance can’t create anything. It’s a word that we use to describe or talk about probabilities. If I flip a coin the chances of it landing heads up if flipped (assuming it doesn’t land on its side) is 50%. But if it does land heads up, chance didn't "cause" it to flip, I did. "Chance" doesn't stand in casual relation to things.

“Chance” as the cause of the universe seems silly.

What do you guys think?

I never heard any atheist use the word "created'' and universe in the same sentence.

And that whole...once upon a time there was nothing and then Bang, something...idea has really gone out of fashion with atheists.

So, for crying out loud, please get with the program will YA?

The past-eternal universe has always existed in one form or another, and one thing simply follows another and if something looks fine-tuned it's not really because there are an infinite number of multiverses out there somewhere and if you get enough of them eventually one will produce monkeys with the randomly evolved IQ gene, all typing out Shakespearean Sonnets backwards on their Ipads, and theres no such thing as a problem of suffering in this absurd little uni/multi/mega/whateververse because were atheists
...and thats just how we roll

[FallentoReason]

You know what.. You have a point Lion. Maybe I should start believing Osirisdidit, or because I'm originally South American, Apocatequildidit.

[genkaus]

I've heard atheists say,

“I believe that the universe was created out of nothing by chance.”

But chance can’t create anything. It’s a word that we use to describe or talk about probabilities. If I flip a coin the chances of it landing heads up if flipped (assuming it doesn’t land on its side) is 50%. But if it does land heads up, chance didn't "cause" it to flip, I did. "Chance" doesn't stand in casual relation to things.

“Chance” as the cause of the universe seems silly.

What do you guys think?

I think you are lying. I don't think you've actually heard an atheist say that. You might've heard Christians say that atheists say that, but not atheists themselves. All my time here, I've never heard this proposition form atheists, only Christians.

[Lion IRC]

You know what.. You have a point Lion. Maybe I should start believing Osirisdidit, or because I'm originally South American, Apocatequildidit.

South America?
I thought Christianity was growing rapidly there.

[genkaus]

If we didn't have an explanation, we would look bad.

Why should we look bad?

So we invent explanations.

It's rare to see such an honest theist.

[Tobie]

We know nothing about what caused the big bang, or if there even was a cause. Claiming anything beyond that is unsupported by anything. The only thing that the mathematics suggests is that it came from a singularity, but as of now, a singularity is only a mathematical construction - we have huge amounts left to discover about the origins of our universe.

As far as science can tell, everything is contained within the universe, so it's extremely unlikely/pretty much impossible that a supreme being created the universe, without going into the realm of unsupported multiverse theories or delving into the supernatural.

[Cyberman]

I've heard atheists say,

“I believe that the universe was created out of nothing by chance.”

But chance can’t create anything. It’s a word that we use to describe or talk about probabilities. If I flip a coin the chances of it landing heads up if flipped (assuming it doesn’t land on its side) is 50%. But if it does land heads up, chance didn't "cause" it to flip, I did. "Chance" doesn't stand in casual relation to things.

“Chance” as the cause of the universe seems silly.

What do you guys think?

I think you are using a classic debating cipher from the theist playbook: the anonymous, untraceable source. Pretend-Doctor Kent (FPC Inmate #06452-017) Hovind used to do that all the time. If you wanted to start a topic about probability and how it affects the physical world, all you needed to do was open with something like "Hey, what do you guys think about..." and then present your case. There was no need to give birth to some fictional atheist strawman. If you represented your atheist sources accurately, then they and you are grossly misinformed.

The notion that chance - often combined with the word random, depending on devoutness of the speaker and the credulity of the audience - is responsible for the creation of everything is not a scientific one and is most certainly not an atheistic one. We don't know enough about the conditions at the moment of the Universe's formation to form any concrete opinions on the matter. This is not to say that all bets are off and all opinions are equally valid however. We do know something about the conditions immediately following the moment of conception and learning more all the time. There are models of how the baby Universe 'evolved' going back practically to what is known as the 1 Planck Time Era, 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang.

Chance does have a rôle to play in the formation and development of systems, but it's chance filtered by other processes, such as many generations of natural selection, not chance acting alone.

[FallentoReason]

You know what.. You have a point Lion. Maybe I should start believing Osirisdidit, or because I'm originally South American, Apocatequildidit.

South America?
I thought Christianity was growing rapidly there.

Yeah it's the dominant religion of all the countries as far as I'm concerned, predominantly the Catholic version out of the 30 000+ possible ones. It's very much a cultural thing and not a spiritual thing though. The Bible seems to have no effect on society... Crime rates are high even though e.g. 87% of Chileans (where I'm from) identify with some form of Christianity. Mass is just what you attend because your parents and grandparents go.

P.s. the god I mentioned was one of the many dreamed up by Incas.