Survey

Abstract concepts are to die for. Beauty, Truth, Liberty, Justice, Democracy all fit into that category, as does God, the sum of human idealism. It's possible that the intelligent agency that might be responsible for the integrated complexity of the universe could have objective reality, but in the form worshiped by humans as "God' or the Ground of Being, that, too, would have a substantial overlay of abstraction or metaphor. This does not make them less real. As a matter of fact, they may be more real, in the Buddhist and Platonic senses, than lots of tangible stuff we waste our money on. Several scientists agree that there is or was nothing, but that nothing is unstable. (Wilczek, Stenger, Kraus, Dawkins). Indeed, Stenger calculates the probability for there being something rather than nothing at over 60%.

 

atheist,

logically the presence of something specifically precludes the existence of nothing, ever.

there never has been discovered such a thing as nothing, and logic tells us that it can never have existed.

 

More of an agnostic type.
I don't believe you can have something without nothing, and vice-versa, otherwise, how could you tell which was which?
It makes just as much sense to have something, as it is to have nothing, we just happen to be experiencing the something part. When we die, it will probably be the nothing part.

 

Any more respondents to my survey?
At this point, I would have to say that there is a connection between atheism and not finding it strange that there is something instead of nothing, and being a theist and finding it strange that there is something instead of nothing.

 

don't you find it to be most odd that there is something instead of nothing? no. if entropy were all that there is that is what i would expect, but then i wouldn't be there to expect it.

Wouldn't it be more logical and simpler for there to be nothing? again only if enropy existed and no couteracting phenomina did.

Please indicate whether you are an atheist or not with your response.
Thanks

define how you mean athiest. i believe there are things we don't know. i believe this might also include non-physical beings. i believe what we pretend to know is pretending.

 

I am an atheist, and I find it completely incomprehensible that something exists instead of nothing. The problem of why something instead of nothing is so insoluble to me that for the most part I would rather not think about it. It is maddening.

 

Where is the survey?

 

I am Agnostic but my Grandpa on my mom's side was Atheist. I have encountered to many weird things to be an Atheist.

 

I am an Agnostic Theist.

 

You are the first atheist on this thread to respond to this question(s) in the way that I've detected theists(and a few agnostics) have responded to this survey here on this thread.
But perhaps you are teetering?, since you added: "rather not think about it/It is maddening".
This may imply that Something is gaining on you.

 

No I am not teetering. I find the problem of why something instead of nothing to be completely insoluble. I do not think it is possible to even begin to answer the question. I think the human brain is physically incapable of ever grasping the concepts necessary to understand why there is something.

Nothing just seems more logical right off the bat. People who are not troubled by the problem probably have not framed it in the same way that I am framing it. It is not that there should be a void, there should be no void for things to absent from. There should be no world, and no lack of a world either.

I run through this line of thought from time to time, and because I can never make any progress on it, it becomes somewhat infuriating and I move on to think of something else.

My own personal experience is that the atheists that I have met personally tend to feel my exasperation over existence, and it is the theists that I have met that tend not to view existence as a problem that needs explaining.

 

Yes, I must admit the question strikes me as on a par with "Why is the sky blue?"--a question for which the answer is intuitively obvious: It just is.

 

Your response strikes me as strange Okiefreak, more so than the question.

First the question 'Why is the sky blue?' is not at all trivial because there is a real explanation and it cannot be grasped intuitively. Also there is a particular answer in this case, and the stated phenomenon, that the sky is blue, does not necessarily have to be the case. The question of why the sky is blue is on par with any question in psychology, optics, or physics.

Also, can you really claim that to you the answer to the question 'Why is there something instead of nothing?' is really intuitive? Is it 'obvious' to you that this is so? I find it hard to believe, especially considering we have no explanation for how it is possible.

 

this is my second question also.

although i guess he meant those three questions. an essay type survey.