RE: Is Atheism a religion?

What foundation do you have to support anything but this? The most reasonable definition of universe is that it contains everything. So, if God exists, then it must exist within the universe. Now, there is speculation about things that may exist outside of our universe (rendering the above definition incomplete), but how would one go about accessing that? As far as we know, we are confined to the universe, so that would be difficult at best.

You’re right that question is unresolved, and it may be unresolvable. There is evidence of what happened in the first moments of the universe, but we are not sure we will ever be able to see back to the beginning, or beyond. So, I understand the need to fill that unresolved question. But, the simplest answer is not God because it begs the question of who (or what) created God. That just leads to an infinite regression. The simplest answer is that we are the byproducts of a random fluctuation in the vacuum, which of course begs very similar questions to the ones about God. (Now, a creator could have caused the fluctuation that brought us about, but it runs into that whole infinite regression thing, again.) However, it does not require the direct involvement of some entity. Of course, the hypotheses of us being a random fluctuation is ultimately testable (we should see some evidence of it), but the God hypotheses most likely is not testable. In this case, we have different hypotheses that give the same consequence, so show me a test that can differentiate between the two.

You are correct. We have only speculation at this point. But, speculation done in the correct manner can lead to experimental observations which would allow us to rule out differing scenarios.

Sorry, no. Even if God is the simpler hypotheses, and I don’t think it is, Occam’s Razor merely states that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. However, the more complex explanation may be true. It provides you with a direction to start looking for an answer, but not with the answer itself.

Most people think the universe is a complicated place run by complicated rules, and that is just not true. The complexity that we see is due to the relative size of the universe (i.e. 12 grams of graphite contains 10 ²³ carbon atoms), so of course we see these complicated behaviors. But, the underlying rules are not complex at all. In fact, in my field I can write down the governing equation that includes all of the relevant interactions, but I can’t solve the damn thing with more than 10 – 100 particles involved (and beyond 2 it’s all done numerically). The simplest protein in our body has approx. 20 atoms, so it is already into the more difficult region of what we’re capable of. To reiterate, the universe is complicated only because of size.

Because it would be false. There are plausible, though unproven, scenarios that describe how the universe, as we see it, could have come about without any gods. Your claim would require a refutation of all such scenarios.

How fortunate for us, then, that that’s not what scientists are claiming.

By itself, Ockham’s Razor favors neither the claim that a god exists, nor the claim that it doesn’t. However, the predictive success of scientific models (general relativity and quantum theory) give a great deal of strength to those models. Since they don’t require the existence of a god, their success tilt’s Ockham in their favor — postulating the existence of a god is an unnecessary embellishment.

“After all, just saying “Nature did it” does not explain anything, predict anything, nor does it resolve the question of How it was accomplished.”

Anonymous, are you not able to see that the statement “God did it” equally “does not explain anything, predict anything, nor does it resolve the question of How it was accomplished.”
You just shift the explanation problem from the visible world, to this huge invisible creator entity about whom there are any number of questions:

Where did God come from?
Did he just pop out of nowhere or was he always there?
What’s he made of?
What’s he up to?
How did He make all this?
What from?
What will he do next?
Where is he?
Why can’t we see him?

And that’s all before you even start on the usual questions like why does he allow evil?

You just end up with a pile of additional – and unanswerable – questions, on top of the existing ones about Nature.
Much easier to stick with Nature – at least we can see that.

Paul Harrison
World Pantheism
http://www.pantheism.net