First to vote :D

I was reborn into a shark once, now I'm a Badger. Good times.

Not to be a dick, but that assumption that we spawned from another universe is just as big a guess as God creating the universe. It's not "proof" as much as it is just another guess (not theory). Also, though every atheist scientist hates to hear it, but it (again) fails to answer where that first universe came from. Cosmological argument anyone?

Secondly, I'm unsure as to why Stephen Hawking assumes that a deity would have to follow human rules such as time. That seems rather absurd - time is simply a measurement. If a deity is supposed to be eternal, how can you measure it? Sounds like he needs to read an actual religious doctrine before he goes out of his way to make "just-as-ludicrous" guesses and shoot down other beliefs.

Lastly, as far as human purpose is concerned. Being a Christian myself, I suppose my "Christian" answer would be to spread to as many people the good news. My honest, personal answer is that I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Half of me thinks that my purpose in life is to work with Jr. Highers and help them progress through that stage of their life. The other half thinks that a purpose will plop down on me in the future. I'm still young, so I don't worry too much about the matter.

One of the main reasons I don't have enough faith to be an atheist is because life seems pretty pointless without a God, in my opinion. Prior to my choice of acceptance, I had the thought that life was about making money. That's clearly wrong, but makes sense living in America. Anyways, I could never pinpoint something useful (if we are here to reproduce, then what's the usefulness of reproducing?). Eventually nothing made sense, except that something else was in control.

[EDIT: In addition, humans (and all living creatures) do things that are not exactly explainable. If our purpose is to reproduce, then we are horrible human beings for being monogamous. Yet, atheist or not, a vast majority of people believe in marriage, and I'm sure most of us know that marriage isn't just about the sex. Likewise, why do we have moral values? The only moral law I can see useful to our purpose is perhaps to not murder and to not steal (and to not steal only in the case of the robbed possession's inflicting harm to one's life). Why do we even like things? If our purpose is to reproduce, we should only like sex, and nothing more. You see, we were created for more than just reproduction, but as an atheist I couldn't figure out what. My convert provided my a solution. (so you guys know, I completely respect your belief's - this is just my personal reason in regards to purpose.]

LASTLY -

"If there isn't a God and only one Universe but multiple.... basically, infinite number of variations of the same universe, then is it possible that there isn't an end? That we keep recycling over and over again until there are no humans left? Kinda like some religious beliefs that you are reborn into a shark when you die or some other animal/human?"

I would really look into the Cosmological Argument. If I can find it, I wrote a paper as to why this is impossible, at least with current science. Basically, my argument was as follows.

The only way for this to occur (infinite supply of the same universe) is for not only there to be a Big Bang, but also a Big Collapse. This is a scientifically unsound argument and due to Occam's Razor should not be scientifically considered because there is no scientific support for such a claim at all. The issues with the idea of a Big Collapse are the following. 1 - In layman's terms, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that the energy of the universe will essentially become less useful over time. Because energy conversions are not 100% efficient, while energy cannot be created or destroyed (another question to combat your initial question), it will not be as re-usable as it was before. That would mean we would have to be the very first occurrence of this "infinitely-looped" universe, and that's impossible to say we are because there would be an infinite amount of occurrences of this same universe before us as well. There would essentially be no useful energy for us to ever use.

2 - Dark energy, the energy that has little known about it except that it's pressure is negative and it is found at the origin of the Big Bang, suggests that it's impossible for the universe to collapse backwards, because not only is Dark Energy pushing the universe outwards, but the universe is actually accelerating outwards. Therefore, the further it moves out, the faster it moves. This has been scientifically proven, and we also know that due to this, a Big Collapse (at least under today's sciences) is impossible. Think of it this way:

A car is accelerating at 1 mph each second, away from you. Would you really expect it to come directly back at you, as it is accelerating away? If it did that, then I'd probably still believe in God solely because then the laws of physics are completely shattered.

Hope I helped, and I can clarify on items you might not understand.

The only reason why I am confused is because... the amount of people and factual information against the existance of a God/suppourting theories such as the Big Bang are much larger and more complicated than I can argue against.

I'm reading the Cosmological Arguement right now, thank you Caution.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

WE MUST REACH NIRVANA

They were such a mediocre band though.

I believe in God. But I don't let religion decide the rules. Why? Because the followers don't fully understand. Your reason for disbelieving is because we can't prove everything about God. If we could, then everyone would be believer. But I guess it's a silly thought to think that everyone can be saved. A silly thought to think I would get any non-religious arguements from posting this on Byond.

Well Boxcar, you know I have no intention of disrespecting you from our previous conversations.

So many atheists forget that it's a faith. Kind of like Stephen Hawking makes a faith-based leap that we spawned from an alternate universe that requires no explanation for where it came from, I maintain a faith-based leap that a God created us.

I technically can't say that the Cosmological Argument is definitive proof (because technically science is not yet advanced enough), but this is a scientific claim to go along with why religious people don't use any scientific data to draw their claims. The teleological argument is another argument which obviously has no merit and is completely bogus. </sarcasm>

Hawkings also used an archetype of perhaps a human God. Perhaps if he's trying to dismiss Scientology he is in the clear, but he auto-assumes that all religious deities are the same, and then tries to dismiss each one with a guess that has less scientific evidence than God himself.

But remember, science has never disproved Christianity.

I'll give you that one. +1 to you, good sir. However, I do have one thing to say - science has, over time, supported claims of the Bible. For example, scientists are so bent on abiogenesis, which, though I think is a load of bullshit, is a DIRECT replica of what the book of Genesis says in regards to how man was created.

I wish I had the reference to the video, but some scientists also provided solutions as to why Noah's Ark was entirely possible and can't be disproved by science.

Abio-genesis is still in its early stages, but I cant see how it proves genesis. That sounds like some sort of metaphor twist or reconciliation attempt for creationist to me.

Ah, possible, but probable? Id like to see those videos. Noah's Ark would be a very difficult story to prove. Gathering every type of animal and putting it on a boat? And all done by one man? Not to mention how he got food for all of them, and prevented them from murdering each other. Id really like to see how these guys try to prove it.