Why is there Something and not nothing?

While I do not believe in God - your argument is by far the best I've read to make me want to change my mind.

You did not succeed, however, since those things, as you say, are beyond my understanding, I remain agnostic as to saying God exists - but atheist when it comes to religion.

But, still. It is the most mysterious thing to ponder why, ultimately, did the universe get started - or more importantly, how? An unquenchable thirst my mind will always have.

To be honest, I really don't think the universe came from nothing, it is just that we have not had the right tool yet to experience what the nothing is.

But if we were to experience what the nothing is, the nothing would be something, and we would not be experiencing nothing.

Some physicists insist before the big bang , there was no universe, no space time, no energy, If this were true then "nothing became everything"

Which physicists are these? Sources?

Just curious, as I've never seen a known physicist claim this.

Which physicists are these? Sources?

Just curious, as I've never seen a known physicist claim this.

Nothing is negation impossible to comprehend or describe .Once contemplated on this non existing negation and found I became trapped in an enigma a paradox to awful to contemplate. I became trapped in cicrcular thinking

Some physicists insist before the big bang , there was no universe, no space time, no energy, If this were true then "nothing became everything" :perplexed:

Yes, I would also be perplexed if I said that. To say that indicated to me that something has gone very wrong with our language, and therefore, with our thinking. We need to take a breath and examine what we are saying. "Philosophy is a constant battle against the bewitchment of the intellect by language". Wittgenstein.

Indeed.

For those impressed with there being something:

[INDENT]If there were nothing, why would there be nothing rather than something?[/INDENT]

Only no one would complain about it. Some people are happy only about nothing.

Nothing, by P. L. Heath

Something instead of nothing?

Why is there something instead of nothing? The interesting conclusion of this ultimate puzzle is that, we can be sure of, it that at least something exists. There is a Universe, we see people, and things, and light, and while we may debate what it means, how it came into being, and how it works, we can be sure that there is at least `something'.

Many physists search for the most elementary laws of physics, and believe that a law is more likely to be true, when it is simpler, more elementary. Some think that at some moment, humans will understand how the Universe and everything works, and, even more, that we find out why the Universe is necessarily as it is. (Ridiculous nonsense). I cannot believe that, indeed, I believe humans cannot ever give a satisfactory or final answer to this ultimate of all questions. Why is there something instead of nothing?

With nothing, I mean the un-existence of everything. No people, no earth, no milky way, no universe, no laws of nature, no space, no time a total non-existence of everything. A mind-boggling, brain-, brain-numbing and brain- twisting overwhelming concept, terrifying, frightening, too awful to contemplate and impossible think about, without going insane and totally beyond understanding of any human genius.

Making a mathematical model of nothing is actually easy. (Take an empty set, with no operations on it, and nothing else.) Nevertheless, one thing we can be sure of: this nothing is not correct: we do not have "nothing", but definite and absolutely do indeed have 'something'. This shows that the simplest model is not always the correct one. The universe is almost infinitely complex and to me this points to the simple logic that it is the creation by an infinite, intelligent power. Nothing is the very most basic of all concepts and if there were nothing, there would be no creator, of course.

Some people may argue that the universe was created in the Big Bang ( but whom and what pressed the button of the big bang in the first place, so to speak?) , and that positive matter and positive energy are actually negated by the simultaneous creation of negative matter and negative energy. However, this doesn't answer the other question, where do matter, energy and laws of physics then come from in the first place?

Does this question have an answer? If something exists because it either was a modification of something or else, Something or Somebody else created it, then what caused that to exist? It seems that our logic is unable to deal with the question; indeed, I think the question shows there is a limit to our understanding of things by the very best minds of the human race.

There are simply mysteries out there that will never ever be solved by mere mortal man. You see the universe has a strange Goldie locks condition about it, i.e., it cannot be too hot or too cold etc, etc, erc, but it has to be just absolutely correct, precise and right or life would not have come into existence and we would not be around to contemplate, debate or dialogue on this ultimate enigma. We would not exist. Life hangs on and depends on this knife- edge of harmonies conditions that have to be sustained over countless billions of years, for us to have come into existence and continue to exist.

Makes one think, does it not?
why do we have a universe? my answer is that god created the universe. however, then, one can ask, who/what created god?

I believe god was not created and this 'fact' is beyond our understanding and must be accepted on faith. god is far and beyond our understanding, everlasting, without beginning or end, eternal and ever -existing, but was (and is, and will be) always existed. he/she is indeed the very author of all existence. indeed.

God is so mighty, omni-all that he/she exists, forever, far above our reasoning and above the ultimate reaches of our logic. something we and all the vain puffed up scientist, philosophers, etc, will just have to accept in time, we will, at the end of the day have to, relent and acknowledge that somewhere out there is a awesome, colossal, mighty, great infinite intelligence that in comparison that we are as a microbe is to a human or perhaps horrors even much further remote, from the omni-all power we call god. it will indeed be a most humbling experience for us to finally realize and acknowledge, that there are things and mysteries that will; remain forever, absolutely, totally beyond human comprehension understand and reside eternally in the mind of our creator god.

It is a fact the finite will simply never ever comprehend the mind of the infinite

I like your variation on the cosmological argument, but like all the versions I've read it seems to contain a double-standard. I have difficulty understanding why it is acceptable for the theist to claim that the Big Bang is implausable ( "who pushed the button"), while then going on to claim that God, the creator (or at least, "designer") of the universe is a necessary being, needing no prior cause.

Can't the atheist simply stop at the universe, claiming it has necessary existence, and therefore needing no God to "set it off"?

I find it genuinely difficult to understand why one is acceptable - indeed it's the foundation that cosmological arguments like this are built on - but not the other.

Indeed, that is exactly Spinoza's position: that Nature or God (Deus sive Natura) is a necessary being. So he identifies God with the Universe. And God or the Universe is eternal. But Spinoza was excommunicated as an atheist for this view.

Albert Einstein said yes he believed in a God but not the God of religion he believed in the God of Spinoza, who said God created the universe and then let it run without interfering with it.

Albert Einstein said yes he believed in a God but not the God of religion he believed in the God of Spinoza, who said God created the universe and then let it run without interfering with it.

Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality,[11] namely the single substance (meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. His identification of God with nature was more fully explained in his posthumously published Ethics.[1] That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do. Spinoza has been described by one writer as an "Epicurean materialist."[11] Spinoza contends that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") is a being of infinitely many attributes, of which thought and extension are two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as one and the same. The universal substance consists of both body and mind, there being no difference between these aspects. This formulation is a historically significant solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisages a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, according to this understanding of Spinoza's system, God would be the natural world and have no personality.

Indeed.

For those impressed with there being something:

[INDENT]If there were nothing, why would there be nothing rather than something?[/INDENT]