"WHY SOMETHING NOT NOTHING?" BEYOND THE SCOPE OF SCIENCE?

Religion lies that the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is beyond the tools of science.

The atmosphere is that people want religion and science to function in different realms. Religion knows it will make a fool of itself if it starts talking science. So we get the manipulative notion that science and religion are both true even if they cannot be linked.

The question, "Why is there anything when there might have been nothing at all?" seems to make you want to answer, "God the creator is the answer." But it in fact is a lookalike answer. It is saying something to give the misleading impression that there is an answer. It is a trick. You don't really know what God is. The idea of something that makes things where there was nothing and which listens to prayers does not say much about what it means.

Notice religion is telling science it must agree that the question is none its business. That is not separating science and religion. Science never tells religion what to preach on faith and morals. It merely tells you that you must let the evidence speak. So you see then which camp you should trust and it is not the religion one.

The simplest explanation is the most likely one

Occam's Razor urges that we must never multiply possible explanations unnecessarily. In testing, the most straightforward explanation is most likely to be the right one. The principle is central to science and philosophy and logic.

Logic is best seen as a tool for seeing what is or is not real and to weed out contradictions. God is logic as God is love. That is the Christian position. So God is Occam’s Razor and should represent it. God logic makes it top consideration. So anything that contradicts the Razor is against God.

So if science cannot find God that means we must in the light of the Razor dismiss the concept. It has no explanatory force.

Underlying assumption in favour of God

We are asked to respect the question of why something and not nothing? But why not ask, “Why does this prolific murderer exist instead of nothing?” If you want to know about a loving God then the question that matters most is why evil people exist instead of nothing and THEN ask why everything else exists instead of nothing. The question is divorced from moral God underpinnings and is really a science question. It is science to ask if some being made all things. The question if a loving being made all things is different for science is not about love but explanation.

God is the avoidance of any answer, also any scientific answer
 
Richard Dawkins knows and says that God is an avoidance of an explanation for the existence of the universe though he is called an explanation for life and the universe.
 
Keith Ward says in his book Why There is Almost Certainly a God that it is not avoidance. The reason he gives for denying it is avoidance is that belief in God spurs us on to investigate and understand the universe/creation better with our god-given powers of investigation and reason. That is an odd thing to say for people investigate and they have no belief in a God. Also God sounds so abstract that even paint drying is more exciting for at least it has colour and texture. Those who think God gave them their powers to think are happy that they have the universe not him to study. Reality that science finds the universe interesting not God.

And what if you say, "I don't need to investigate with science. Life is learning anyway. Just living will do. God wants me to care about that only"? And why do most believers have little or no interest in science? It is avoidance for there is nothing about God belief that encourages you to get the microscope and telescope out.
 
The argument that God is the explanation which is why we investigate the universe is frankly bizarre. It is like saying that you can explain who took your wallet and that is why you keep investigating. Explaining and investigating do not necessarily go together.
 
Ward insinuates that an atheist scientist is not a scientist at all and is not to be trusted. If somebody claims to experiment and investigate without a motive then you cannot trust or believe that person.
 
God or not we still have to try and understand the universe. God is irrelevant.
 
And where in the Bible are we commanded to engage in science and understand the universe? If God gives you the desire to investigate and to understand, it does not follow that you need to believe in him to exercise these qualities. In fact you would not need to believe. And what God given powers of investigation and reason did cavemen have? If God really wants us to reason, why do so few of us seem capable of it? And reasoning is one thing but reasoning as a scientist is another. Even fewer of us want to think that way. A God who honoured science would give a huge part of the population a thirst for checking things out like scientists. Anybody can be a scientist and it doesn't have to be about machines and laboratories.

No matter how absurd a claim is you can use miracle to stop disproof

God is meant to answer the something and nothing question but remember God is seen as the great miracle and the worker of the miracle of creation. You can claim what you want and say it is a miracle there is no proof that you are wrong. Miracles are not merely outside the realm of scientific study. They undermine the very need for science. Science dies if it does experiments and discovers something that could fit the theory, "There is some demon or force is tampering secretly and in some undetectable magic way with the results." For example, a living mouse breathes and if a mouse has not been breathing though it is not dead for a length of time what else could a scientist think? Everything says the mouse should breathe.

Science would have to eliminate the work of the interference before it could trust its results and it cannot eliminate that. Science is based on the assumption that magic, and the top magic is getting nothing to turn into something, does not happen.

If a spirit with a tiny bit of power of mind over matter can wreck science imagine what a super-spirit, God can do. Worse, the experimenter cannot risk bias. Assuming something might tamper with science or just change its course with a miracle is bad for the experimenter and for those who trust them.

The question is questions

The question is a way of asking, "Why did God make those natural laws and not others?" When you see that you see how the question is a trick. There had to be something - period. The question, "Why did God make those natural laws and not others?" is really an infinity of, "Why did God make this specific natural law at this specific time and not another one??" You will get very few answers to such questions! The question is a trick and disguises the endless complexity of the subject.

We must remember that natural law is a description of how everything has to randomly fall into some order. Chaos has its limits but it is not controlled by laws. So natural law is not a law made by a God or anybody but more a descriptive thing. We say the sun must shine tomorrow but we are not talking law but description.

Approaching nature this way means God or any kind of magical designer is out.

The simplicity disguise
 
The question, ”Why is there something rather than nothing?” is deceptive in its simplicity. In fact it raises an infinity of other questions.

"Why is there a sun a billion light years away instead of no sun?"

"Why is our suns light yellow and not white?"

"Why is there a grain of dirt on such and such an exact spot countless light years away?"

"Why is the universe full of dead matter with barely any life?"

"Why does nature make breastmilk good for babies for a while and then insufficient as if it does not know how long a baby needs it?"

"Why is my hair red and not black?"

"Why do cats kill rabbits when they could have been programmed not to?"

"Why is there life when there might have been no life?"

"Why is this grain of sand on my floor when it might not exist here at all but somewhere else?"

That takes away its force. Does it feel as impressive now? The more whys the more you see some intelligent God who loves us is not the answer. Religion condenses the question into one to hide the clear indications that God is not the answer.

Why life when there may have been no life?

Take the question, "Why life when there could be no life?" This question is more important than asking why there is something rather than nothing. Why is there life now when once there was none?" is another good one.

Imagine there is no life.  The hypothetical is a good way to test to see if things make sense.  Asking why there is something rather than nothing if there is no life and never will be certainly shows there is no loving creator God.  Some say that goes too far.  Then what if it may or may not show there is no loving creator God?  That means the question does nothing to get us away from agnosticism to God.

A creator of things is not as good or much of a creator as one who makes things out of love.  It is ridiculous to argue that merely existing calls for a loving creator.  Suppose it calls for a creator.  Then it calls for one that is not about life but existence.  Existence and life are different things for life implies you are given life for you are valued.  He is not love.  Thus it follows that human existence in itself might indicate a God but does not prove it.  Human existence would just be another existing thing.  Asking, "Why life?" matters more than "Why anything?"

Religionists presuppose that life is not just treated by God like a thing.  That guess is lying behind their evidences for God and makes them useless.  They cannot pretend to be thinking their way to finding there is probably a God for that is not thinking but cheating.

There would be no life unless things existed to be made into living things.  But life is life no matter if it is made without using things that are not alive or if it is.

A claim that cannot be tested is no good for it can be denied or ignored as easily as it can be endorsed!

We all know that many claims need testing. You cannot just assume you have only a year to live.  It is up to the evidence and the best experts to decide that.  A claim that cannot be tested is no good for it can be denied or ignored as easily as it can be endorsed!  What cannot be tested to see if it is true or probably true is no good.  Such a test implies you are testing to see if it is false or probably false.  To test to see if something is true is also to test to see if it is false.

There is no way of testing that God made anything.  Or even that he MAY have made anything.  Believers cannot be serious when they say God made all things for if there is no test for or against then nobody has any reason to listen to them.  That is why a statement needs reasonable verification or refutation.  To deserve thinking about a claim must be able to be assessed by evidence one way or the other.  The evidence may make it believable or it may make it stupid to believe it.  There must be evidence for or against.  The bigger the claim the more important the evidence for or against is.  The more important the explanation the more important it is for it to be open to verification and therefore falsification or vice versa. 

Wondering how the universe came to be and answering “God did it” is useless if the answer cannot be falsified.  That makes it useless.  And it poses as the biggest explanation of all and the theory of everything so if anything needs to be testable it does. 

What if you think the creator is just a power not a proper God?  Believers in a proper God insist that it could be the explanation but is not.  They cannot just say that.  But they do.  What they are doing is admitting there is a menu of explanations and many that we have not and cannot think of and they dare to put one of them out there as if it were the sole candidate!!  You cannot just cherry-pick - you need to back up and support the best explanation with good evidence.  They cannot do that.

Finally

Science opposes assuming what you want to prove.  You assume nothing but just let the evidence speak.  God, and by extension its devotees, is definitely anti-science.