Atheism versus God: How did the universe begin?

You sir are dead wrong about almost everything in the article.

I am referring to this article: Atheism versus God: How did the universe begin? written by Vasko Kohlmayer in the Washington Times Communities. See the article if you wish to read the parts I truncated to maintain length.

There are those who claim that to believe in God is not only unscientific, but also absurd.

This is certainly not the case. To the contrary, it is the denial of God's existence that contradicts both science and common sense.

I'll grant you that common sense might indicate a god. But mind you, our intuitions about the actual mechanisms of the natural world has failed us many times. In fact, many scientific truths are counter-intuitive.

So, what about science? No. As far as scientific evidence is concerned, there is not a SINGLE verifiable piece of evidence indicating the existence of a deity.

The prevailing scientific consensus today is that the universe began with the Big Bang.

[Truncated -- some background on Big Bang theory]

The Big Bang theory describes the initial event as a great explosion which brought forth all the energy and matter in the universe. On this theory, the Big Bang was the beginning of all things. Prior to it, there was nothing: There were no particles, there was no matter. There was not even space or time.

Just a note: The Big Bang theory does NOT claim that there was nothing in the beginning. Please see this previous post: Something from Nothing?

Unlike some creationist retards who make the retarded claim that atheists believe "something came from nothing", that is not the author's beef. So let's move on.

Most of those who don't believe in God say that the Big Bang was a chance event. In other words, the great explosion that brought the universe into being was a cosmic fluke.

But this is an unsupportable position to take, because things just don't happen like that. Explosions – big or small – do not come about without someone or something causing them.

Here's his main beef: atheists believe that the universe/Big Bang is uncaused.

And he goes on to illustrate it,

To illustrate, consider this.

[Truncated -- the analogy]

And yet many atheists make precisely this kind of claim. They say that the greatest of all explosions just happened. On this view, the universe just popped into existence spontaneously.

But does this make sense?

Firstly, explosions, as described, have known causes and we understand the mechanisms -- unlike the Big Bang.

But more importantly, no atheist claim that the Big Bang is therefore necessarily uncaused. In fact, the atheists that I've heard of thinks that the Big Bang has a cause --- they simply don't think invoking a deity explains anything.

Common sense and experience tell us that the world does not work like this.

[Truncated -- lots of drama about a claim atheists do not make]

The problem is, however, that in all of its history science has never observed or documented a single uncaused event.

The atheistic position concerning the beginning of the universe thus goes not only against common sense and our everyday experience, but also against the axioms and observations of science.

In light of this, it is the atheist's position that has an air of absurdness about it.

Yes, the caricature of our position is very absurd. That, I don't disagree.

The huge irony here is that a majority of theists would claim that their god is an uncaused cause. So the absurdity that the author claims atheists believe sits squarely in his own court. All the drama about the absurdity of believing that something is uncaused applies to their god.

Yet, without a hint of irony, he goes on to say

It is only reasonable and logical to assume that the universe – just like everything else – had to have a cause. Judging by the staggering vastness, complexity and beauty of the universe, the cause that brought it forth must have been immensely powerful, superbly wise and exquisitely imaginative.

Such characteristics are normally associated with an entity we term God.

This reeks of stupid: "It's SO PRETTY! ...therefore, goddidit!"

To believe in God – the transcendent cause of the universe – is thus neither illogical nor absurd. Not to believe in him is both.

Unbelief will remain to be logically and scientifically untenable until it can be demonstrated that it is possible for an uncaused event to occur.

On the contrary, unbelief is the ONLY scientifically tenable position until evidence demonstrates the existence of a deity.

To believe that the existence of a god is justified by science is both illogical and absurd.