Argument for God: Does Nothingness Make Sense?

[Holocene]

Not trying to get into any religious debate here, but often an argument from believers is that, without a god, the universe would've had to "come from nothing".

The question is, do we have any reason at all to believe that the "natural" state of affairs should be nothing instead of something?

Seems to me that complete nothingness would be just as mysterious as a universe filled with matter.

 

[humanino]

"Argumenting" for or against "beliefs" seems self-contradictory. But let me point that

the universe would've had to "come from nothing".

Many scientists have no problem with a slight variation on that theme : the Universe can come from "nothing" (in terms of "no matter-energy and no space-time") and creating it "spontaneously" from just laws. Of course, one can then argue that such "laws" are the "thoughts of God". This point is irrelevant to the people playing seriously this game, the vast majority of them viewing that their own personal beliefs has nothing to do with science.

 

[Giles]

We exist in something, so there couldn't possibly be "nothing". And if there is something (which there is) it must be infinite (no beginning or end)... because you can't make something out of nothing. And something can’t destroy itself. It could, however, act upon itself in a positive and negative mode, but its inherent equilibrium would insist the laws cancel each other out continually (does this sound familiar? :)

As for there being a God, I don’t think one is conducive to an infinite universe, because, by its very definition, every characteristic of such a universe must simply be a different aspect of one and the same thing.

So, the real question for me is “Does the universe itself have a collective consciousness (some belief systems refer to this a God Consciousness), or is consciousness just an illusion of the individual mind?”

 

[Moonbear]

Closed for further consideration of the allowability of the topic by the mentors.