That theory sounds good Fluffy, but what makes it all happen?
I can keep asking this, "what makes that happen" or "what makes this happen" and an answer will never be produced, since we can never know what makes anything happen.
It's for this reason that atheism in it's own sort of confuses me... people know that you will never know the cause for things yet they believe that there isn't a higher being or some sort of higher force at play here (to make those things happen).
Again, no flaming. I just want to see other points of view.
You are referring to the problem of causation, which obviously nobody has an answer to. You're also making a mistake in assuming that atheists automatically discount the possibility of any power greater than humanity.
That's not what atheism entails. The dictionary defines it as "disbelief in a God or gods"; few atheists will claim any sort of absolute knowledge that no
higher power exists. (Those who do are stupid and not worth listening to.)
We just don't think that God as a conscious entity as described by popular religion is very plausible. We doubt very seriously that God is a conscious entity of any sort, but we can't explain the beginning of the universe and we don't claim to know that any force higher than humanity does not exist. We don't claim to have solved the problem of causation.
If "God" to you is defined as some kind of vague spiritual force with no mental consciousness or particular intentions, most atheists don't have a problem with that, because that's not what we're talking about when we say we don't believe in God. By most standards, that isn't really God anyway. But you can find "God" anywhere if you're willing to stretch the definition to fit whatever you want!
Most people who describe themselves as atheists have a particular conception of God in mind, which they are refuting. The problem lies in the myriad different definitions for the word God. What is "God", anyway? Since anyone can define God any way he wishes, in order for the terms 'atheist' and 'theist' to have any meaning, we must use some sort of standardized definition of God, and we base this on what most self-described believers in God tend to say about their deity. This typically includes:
--Conscious and self-aware entity
--Created the universe as a deliberate and conscious action for particular ends
--Answers prayers by manipulating worldly events based on requests from followers
--Has a particular moral agenda
To most atheists, if your "God" doesn't fit these criteria, for our purposes it isn't God. Yes yes, it's fine and good if you believe that God is simply the sum of forces in the universe, or the power of love, or your big toe, or whatever. We're not disputing these when we call ourselves atheists--we're only disputing the popular conceptions of God offered by mainstream religion today.
This is a very common misconception about atheism. It's just disbelief in a God or gods--we don't have it all figured out; we're just pretty sure (though clearly not absolutely certain) that modern popular conceptions of God are misguided.
