Blog Wars! Round 1

Why is there something rather than nothing?  Mankind has never had to answer a more difficult question than this, and I have been given a space of only 1600 words in which to do it.  I am not qualified to answer this question, but I am qualified to demonstrate that a worldview which conforms to the principle of Occam’s Razor is.  My opponent and I will be debating whether theism or atheism is better suited to answer the previously stated question.   

I shall erect a case that demonstrates the existence of the universe can be explained without invoking a god and that a theistic worldview is incapable of answering the question “why is there something rather than nothing?”  I shall support this case with three arguments:

1.       A theistic worldview cannot account for many features of our universe that an atheistic worldview can account for. 

2.       There are natural explanations for why a universe would exist instead of nothing.

3.       There is no explanation for why a god would exist instead of nothing.

 A Theistic Worldview Cannot Account for Many Features of Our Universe

Let us examine the universe that we live in.  Our planet, Earth, is one of eight (get over it, Pluto lovers) orbiting a medium sized star.  That star is just one of half a trillion stars in our own galaxy.  Many of those others are suns with planets of their own.  The nearest of them are only a few years of travel-time away from us—if you are a photon that is!  Traveling at the fastest speed humans have ever gotten a vehicle up to, your ETA is closer to 2 million years.  In fact, ever physically traveling to anywhere outside of our solar system seems almost impossible, because the speeds needed to get to any other stars within a human lifetime are disallowed by certain laws of physics.  Not to mention the fact that our galaxy is just one amongst a collection of over 100 billion in the universe! 

An atheistic worldview has no trouble whatsoever accounting for a universe of this size.  The heavy elements forged in the first generations of stars after the Big Bang were formed by gravity into planets upon which complex chemistry eventually produced life on (at least) one of a hundred billion trillion planets in existence.  Life is not the goal of the universe, just a quirk of it, like the storms on Jupiter or the methane lakes on Titan.  Easy.  

The theistic worldview, however, provides no such easy answer.  The Christian claims the universe was created for the benefit of us, the creation.  So why the excess?  Why, if the universe is a gift to us, are we limited to just one of a hundred billion trillion planets?  Why is most of the universe constructed of empty space that is deadly to us?  Why are all of the planets within our reach also deadly to us, with their crushing gravity, sulfuric acid rain or freezing temperatures?  Why is everything outside our solar system kept off-limits to us by overwhelmingly vast distances and the laws of physics?  The idea of a god creating this universe for a species limited to just one planet seems like renting out all of Disney World for just one child then telling that child she can only ride the Tea Cup merry-go-round.  And nothing else. 

Genesis tells us that the stars exist so that we can mark the seasons.  Well, most stars in our own and other galaxies are not visible with the naked eye, so that can’t be it.  Maybe god was giving us something pretty to look at for when we invented telescopes?  Or perhaps god has other projects going on on distant planets, each with their own E.T. Jesus, nailed to some kind of extraterrestrial cross? 

I am being facetious, of course.  There is no good reason for the universe to be so large and so hostile if it was designed for us.  There is a very good reason for it to be this way if it was not.  When considering the universe, atheism clearly has greater explanatory power than theism. 

There Are Natural Explanations for Why a Universe Would Exist Instead of Nothing

Due to a series of recent advancements in scientific knowledge, we now have a very well-established explanation of why the universe exists and why it is the way it is.  This narrative could not possibly be further from the one given in genesis. 

We now know that the spontaneous creation of matter does actually happen; particles pop into existence for brief moments in time.  In his book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking explains how this fact converges with certain naturally emergent properties such as gravity to inevitably create a universe. 

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

A brief explanation for why the universe exists as it is as follows.

1. From the Big Bang, energy—and therefore antimatter and matter—are created. 
2. Matter and antimatter are created in unequal amounts, with more matter than antimatter; therefore our universe becomes ‘matter dominated'. 
3. Initially, most of this matter exists as hydrogen, which collects into pockets across the universe.
4. These pockets form the first generation of stars, which cook the hydrogen into heavier elements, like carbon, oxygen, and iron.
5. When the first generations of stars go supernova, they seed the universe with the heavier elements which allows future generations of stars to also create planets, upon which complex chemical reactions take place.    
6. On (at least) one of these planets, a reaction causes a molecule to become self-replicating.  Because that replication process is flawed, evolution by natural selection, given billions of years, develops the distant progeny of that molecule into complex life forms like us.  

None of this requires divine intervention—just naturally emergent properties like gravity. 

Unfortunately, due to special constraints, I cannot elaborate on this further.  Suffice it to say that these assertions have all been demonstrated by the scientific method to the satisfaction of the vast majority of the scientific community. 

There is No Explanation for Why a God Would Exist Instead of Nothing

Now I will proceed to establish the most important point in my case—that there is no reason why a god would exist instead of nothing. 

This point is important because of how the topic question for this debate is structured.  The question is decisively not “why is there a universe instead of nothing?”  Rather, it is “why is there something rather than nothing?”  This distinction is a small but significant one, because while I am proposing that only the universe exists Mr. Cook is proposing that something exists outside of the universe.  He is proposing that there is an intelligent being, capable of monitoring every movement of every particle at every point in time, capable of orchestrating the dance of 100 billion galaxies across empty space, capable of manipulating evolution in order to create one very specific species of primate, and capable of feeling human emotions like love and sadness.  Such a being requires an explanation for its existence, just as the universe does (perhaps more so.)  

If Mr. Cook cannot provide an explanation for why such a being should exist instead of nothing, then he cannot be considered the winner of this debate. 

Unfortunately for modern apologists, the ancient Hebrews neglected to write a “back-story” for Yahweh, the way the Greeks, for instance, did for their better thought out mythologies about Zeus and company.  Genesis gives no account for Yahweh prior to his creation of the Earth other than to say his spirit floated on some great body of water. 

Now, I am going to be very careful here because I am flirting with an Argumentum ad Ignorantium and I want to make sure no one can read a fallacy into this argument.  What I am not saying is that because Mr. Cook cannot explain the existence of a god, one cannot exist.  That would be fallacious.  What I am saying is that if parts of the theistic worldview require inexplicable phenomenon, a theistic worldview cannot be have greater explanatory power than an atheistic worldview.  That is a key distinction to keep in mind, least Mr. Cook charge me with constructing an Argument from Ignorance.  Remember, we are not debating whether or not a god exists—we are debating which worldview is better able to answer the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” 

Summary

In conclusion, you have heard here three good reasons to believe that an atheistic worldview is more capable than a theistic worldview of answering the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”  Those reasons are: 

1.       A theistic worldview cannot account for many features of our universe that an atheistic worldview can account for. 

2.       There are natural explanations for why a universe would exist instead of nothing.

3.       There is no explanation for why a god would exist instead of nothing.

If Mr. Cook wishes for you to believe that he has won this debate, he will have to tear down all three of these arguments and erect a case of his own in their place that establishes how a theistic worldview answers the question “why is there something rather than nothing?”  Good luck to him—he will need it.

My opponent's opening argument can be found here:  http://arguewithachristian.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-is-there-something-rather-than.html