It's been a while since I've touched on the subject, of which I am a full participant (as much as you can participate in atheism at any rate). I would like to delve back into my old arguments and try to make my position as clear as possible.
The following statement is some four years in the making and so far as I can now tell, it is complete -- proof that atheism is the one true belief (or is it non-belief...).
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Time and space are inextricably linked, both mathematically and logically. Einstein and his followers have delved into this field deeply and all knowledge points at present to a dualism of time and space. Physicists use space-time and the curvature thereof to explain many things, but I will use space-time (which is proven to exist) as an argument against the necessity of a "creator god(s)".
If matter exists, time will exist if or when there is a change in that matter. If time does not exist, matter will go on unchanged in every sense forever. Clearly, in the universe, time exists, as things change. A basic explanation of time is that it is simply that if two or more phases of matter exist - that by definition a change must occur - then there was a TIME when it was one thing and a TIME when it was another. Likewise, there is (by human perception) a quantitative number of TIMES in between phase 1 and phase 2.
For example... Take a rock and place it in an empty room. Remember that there was a point BEFORE the rock was in the room, a point DURING the process by which you put the rock in the room, and a period AFTER you had stopped putting it in place.
The movement from Stage 1 to Stage 2 is TIME. It is progression from one clear point to another clear point - from no rock to a rock. In a linear universe, one in which everything has a beginning and an end, "god" is resembled by you putting the rock in place. The problem is that the universe is NOT LINEAR. It does not have a beginning and an end. It is cyclical. We have cycles on Earth that we can observe. The carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and dozens of others whereby the build up of one form triggers an action which transforms some of that build up back into the original form. Stage 1 causes Stage 2 which in turn causes Stage 1 again, and so on.
For example... Water vapor builds up in the sky, forming clouds, and when heavy enough - the build-up becomes massive enough if you will - it condenses and falls to Earth as rain. An imbalance between Stage 1 and Stage 2 triggers the transmission of some Stage 1 into Stage 2. Then, even in absence of sun or heat of any kind, water will evaporate and turn back into vapor if the air becomes dry enough to create an imbalance again, this time heavy towards Stage 2 causing a transmission of H2O to Stage 1.
This very same process works within the universe when it comes to energy and mass. In the universe as we see it - though we do not see the whole picture - everything experiences entropy. That is, mass is continuously turning into energy, but as far as we can tell, not that much if any back in the opposite direction. We are decidedly in stage two as there appears to be much more "dark matter" or as I will call it dormant energy than there is matter in the universe.
The nearly infinitesimally small instant in which the Big Bang occurs is the turn from Stage 2's completion (from mostly or all "dark matter" / "dormant energy") back to where most of the universe is made up of matter. We are moving from that point to another point in our future where entropy will turn all (or most) matter back into dormant energy. There will be a coalescence of that dormant energy culminating in another Big Bang. And everything starts again. (Remember the laws of Conservation of Energy; nothing leaves the universe.)
Thus the universe is cyclical and nothing ever enters or leaves it. The rock does not get placed in the room by "god" because it is self-fulfilling that a rockless room will tend towards rockiness in the same manner that dry air tends towards evaporating liquid water or sublimating solid water.
Now why does this matter when we talk about "god"? It means that there is no linear beginning or ending of the universe. It is cyclical and as nothing ever needs to enter or leave it is fully self sustaining. God is simply not necessary in the process. It didn't begin at any point and won't end at any point. It will continue moving perpetually forever.
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In the end, the idea of "god" or "gods" is simply a placeholder for a lack of understanding. When mankind does not understand something, it is "god" or "the gods" who do it. Eclipses, volcanism, earthquakes, death, birth, fire, existence, and an unknown number of other things too. They are all done by "god(s)" because mankind cannot (yet) understand what really causes them. Of course, we know now that eclipses involve the alignment of the sun, Earth, and moon, that volcanism involves internal processes of the subterranean mantle of the Earth, etc. etc. I've described now for you that the universe is not linear (timewise) and therefore put logic in place of god in knowledge of that topic.
In doing so, I can further restrict the metaphorical existence of "god(s)" further as I shine a light deeper into the darkness that is the knowledge unknown by mankind. In short, "god(s)" equal nothing more than ignorance.
There remains yet one place that I can banish "god(s)" or otherwise named "ignorance" from life:
Slow down time. It is as I said the progression from one phase or "Stage" to another and back again when need be. How does something go from not doing something to clearly doing something? It is simple. Well, theoretically simple. The universe is made up of something, some tiny little thing that all life is made up of, smaller than atoms. Many scientists today call these basic forms "strings" and they are the basis of String Theory.
I propose that these strings interact continuously and that the interactions that they make have only one function: "YES" Compare them to a computer which has 0 and 1, or YES and NO. At any rate, they will always do something, either yes or no, 0 or 1. They can't do nothing or they cease to exist at all. If there isn't a 0 or a 1 in computer code then there is no code. Strings, the basic building block of mass, can only do YES. Otherwise they do nothing. NOTHING isn't NO (1) it is a lack of doing, like a empty program waiting for code. Strings can wait until they find another string or strings that they can work with in a YES function. The first one(s) that they find will occur as there is no "NO" and therefore they do not have a choice. Two YESes cannot present themselves at the same time because a string can only do one YES and therefore no two things can happen at exactly the same time.
This micro-microscopic process creates the illusion of randomness because we cannot observe it happening. As anything else that seems random, it is impossible to observe it and have it remain "random". Yet so long as we don't observe it - or in this case cannot - it will always seem random.
So how does this apply back to the DURING that I mentioned earlier? It explains it. DURING happens because of complex processes between strings that cannot not do something when something can be done. In this way, the universe is ALWAYS moving between energy and mass. The H2O cycle is always moving between vapor and liquid and solid. And so on. DURING must happen because if it doesn't happen it doesn't exist. Since it exists it must be happening.
And thus, god/ignorance is moved back again and replaced by knowledge and understanding. Of course, "god(s)" are just an understanding for people who don't want proof and don't want to think of logic. That is why there are so many versions - exactly one for each believer in fact - because each person knows and doesn't know different things and needs their god to placehold for that knowledge that they don't yet have.
Knowledge is the end of deism and deism is the end of knowledge. It too is a cycle.
