A simple challenge for atheists

[Brakeman]

Imagine an alternate universe which contains a single hydrogen atom. (Lets not include dark matter or other forces in the discussion for the purpose of simplicity.) You could replace the atom with a proton, a neutron, a sub-atomic particle, or a string. The point is, it's real. It can be measured.

Now where did this hydrogen atom come from?
Was it just always there?
Did it spontaneously appear, ie. magically?
Did someone create it?

How did it come into being?

Without time it didn't come from anywhere and nothing was before it. Mass begets time so it only came from it's beginning point.

Of course to you a magic fairy god sprinkled sparklely poof dust to create the universe, made a square flat planet set on pillars, grabbed about 180 lbs of mud and made a mud man and blew a magic life sneeze up it's nose to create mankind. He then snatched a bone from the man and made a female so they could reproduce. When they made a big population, magic sky daddy drowned almost all of them by opening a secret door in the sky that allowed a hidden sky ocean to splash down and drown the people because they didn't kiss sky daddy ass with enough affection.

Yeah, tell us about modern science.. I'm sure you know ALL about it.

[Alex K]

I admit using the word "challenge" was pretty arrogant. I should have used the word question. I'm just wondering how people can believe it possible that "something" came from "nothing" or "was always just there".

Hey

I'd answer in more detail but I'm on the phone.

Several things: you probably want to use this question as support for belief in God of some sort. But if you carefully think about it, you'll find that it doesn't support that view at all. Whether you put God in the equation or not doesn't change a thing about your question.

That being said, we don't currently know what happened arbitrarily close to the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. It's not clear that time extends infinitely into the past. The definition of time itself becomes fuzzy and your notion of something having to come from something, is not necessarily meaningful. Causality is a statistical property of physics in our universe which you know and derive from everyday experiences. You can't even expect that anything like it is applicable to the universe as a whole.

[Simon Moon]

Imagine an alternate universe which contains a single hydrogen atom. (Lets not include dark matter or other forces in the discussion for the purpose of simplicity.) You could replace the atom with a proton, a neutron, a sub-atomic particle, or a string. The point is, it's real. It can be measured.

Now where did this hydrogen atom come from?
Was it just always there?
Did it spontaneously appear, ie. magically?
Did someone create it?

How did it come into being?

Given the parameters of your hypothetical, there is no way to know.

But here's a question for you. And you can use this to refer to our universe.

If we don't currently have the answer, does that give any credence to claiming a god or gods were responsible?

[Neo-Scholastic]

One possible response is to say that the single hydrogen atom always was, a brute fact. Not a good answer but an answer none the less.

[Simon Moon]

One possible response is to say that the single hydrogen atom always was, a brute fact. Not a good answer but an answer none the less.

A much better answer than claiming it was magic.

Like some being 'swam' the universe into existence. Or was it 'spoke' it into existence?

Same ridiculous claim either way.

[abaris]

Or was it 'spoke' it into existence?

Spoke it in what? The godmosphere? There needs to be some medium to carry sound.

[KUSA]

How did it come into being?

If you can answer this question about God then I'll tell you.

[Mudhammam]

I've struggled with issues of faith on and off over the years.

Maybe part of your brain is trying to tell the other parts something?

[ManMachine]

Imagine an alternate universe which contains a single hydrogen atom. (Lets not include dark matter or other forces in the discussion for the purpose of simplicity.) You could replace the atom with a proton, a neutron, a sub-atomic particle, or a string. The point is, it's real. It can be measured.

Now where did this hydrogen atom come from?
Was it just always there?
Did it spontaneously appear, ie. magically?
Did someone create it?

How did it come into being?

It's very simple.

Firstly we all know Einstein's famous equation



This very clearly shows us that all matter in the universe is essentially energy since

energy = mass (times the speed of light squared)

So, we can comfortably get to the concept that all 'matter' in the universe is actually just a form of energy. (If you'd like to really get into this part then you need to read up on the Standard Model).

Now the only question you have to answer is where does energy come from?

You could adopt the position similar to that put forward by Lawrence Krauss (as most physicists who have expressed an opinion in this area do), which is entirely predicated on the notion of quantum vacuums, which, he points out, are inherently unstable. This gives us the idea of a universe from nothing, all be it a very qualified idea of a universe from nothing. But a QV is not 'nothing', it is teaming with quanta popping in and out of existence (as we know it). So, in effect all Krauss has really done is provide us with a new, slightly more scientific definition of 'nothing'.

More recently two physicists, Jonas Mureika and Dejan Stojovic, have proposed a more radical rethink of the early universe and proposed that rather than the super dense matter at the beginning, the Universe actually began with fewer dimensions, namely one. It then acquired another to make two and then another to make three, and so on. If this is correct then theories of spacetime as an emergent property of sub atomic systems makes more sense, and that spacetime geometry (and hence space and time) are also intrinsically linked to energy, so we don't even have to have 'time' or any kind of 'expansion' at the beginning of our Universe to make it work, just an increase in potential energy.

This would also explain why we must have the seemingly arbitrary 'speed of light', as it would be the maximum potential energy in a 3 dimensional space-time geometry. Change any of these factors and the equation is broken and the energy passes out of our perceived universe (dimensionally), leaving us with the perception that nothing travels faster than the speed of light.

It would also explain why the speed of light is part of the mass/energy equation in our 3d universe and why it appears in Einstein's equation (no, time is not a dimension before anybody mentions it).

Bingo!

All matter is potential energy. Therefore nothing is required to get the Universe started, especially not some kind of god.

MM

[bob96]

Do you believe that God 'was always just there'?
Boru

Yes, of course. God is immaterial. Though the question is, how can "some thing", ie. a material object in our universe come from nowhere?