Reply #10: Atheist certainty.

[LAGC]

Well, I guess most of my evidence for my notion that most atheists don't have the certainty of a believer is subjective, based on atheists I know, but even most prominent atheists I've read point out that there's still a lot we don't know about the universe, and that there could be Higher Powers at work out there that we just haven't observed yet. Dawkins himself points out that its entirely plausible that alien life seeded this planet. That doesn't mean it was the work of a god, or even a more sophisticated alien race that intentionally sent out its "seed" of life, but possibly it just developed (evolved) elsewhere in the universe before happening to land on Earth and sparking life here.

I think the strongest argument from the atheist perspective is: "If there is a god, where did it come from? How did it arise?" The idea of complexity being there from the beginning (if there was ever a beginning, assuming time isn't eternal in both directions) seems to me to be more implausible than the possibility that some sort of Higher Power (higher than us, anyways) developed from humble beginnings. Its entirely possible that there exist other universes that we cannot yet (and may never be able to) observe, that also developed conscious life, to the point that that life became so developed and complex and powerful that it was able to spring our universe forth into existence through some machination. But that doesn't explain how that life there developed in the first place. You're left with the chicken and the egg paradox. Which came first?

As for why I believe its very, very unlikely that there is a god, despite my sarcastic posting about the "fine-tuning" of the constants of our universe and how it must have been set by a Higher Power, the fact is everything that scientists have observed about our universe so far leads them to believe that there is no conscious interference by some conscious Higher Power. Despite the "magic" that happened at the beginning of the universe, the rest has developed quite naturally without any unexplained divine intervention interfering with the course of things. Indeed, our universe would look a lot different if there was an active hand of divine intervention, than the way it looks now.

My only point in all this is, if there is a Higher Power (from another universe) that once existed and we cannot see, what's the point in believing in it, let alone worshiping it? You might as well act as if there was none, for all it matters in our day-to-day lives. There's almost certainly nothing that happens on Earth that isn't explainable by some natural force, even if the cause isn't apparent right way.