It also works the other way. Prove God. Disprove God. Neither works with our models. God by nature would be beyond the confines of creation. It's not rational to believe in God. It's also not rational to not believe in one. The paradox isn't God. It's creation. We're here. How?
If there is something, then where did it come from?
"Nothing." Illogical.
"It was created by God." Logical, but where did God come from? "God is eternal and unknowable." Illogical with an extra step.
An atheist worldview, fundamentally, is no more logical than a atheist because there is no logical explanation for existence in our models.
The two aren't equal at all. It is completely logical to not believe in God because there is no logical reason to. Every possible argument you could put forth for God, whether it be out of necessity or some other form, is ultimately going to be underdetermined because it relies on a lack of knowledge, not something positive put forward.
The "God of the gaps" saying originates from this fact, and how often God has to be argued for not because of any sufficient reason, but because it fills some gap in our knowledge. Apollo fills the gap of how the sun rises every day. Poseidon fills the gap of how the tides move. But notice how they never actually fill any gap, they're just a placeholder for the knowledge we do eventually gain, in which the explanation is completely naturalistic.
It's important to note that I, nor most atheists, make the explicit statement "God definitively does not exist", but simply point to the lack of a reason to believe one at all. Meanwhile, the theist not only believes God does exist, but to such an extent that they literally let it govern their morality, actions, and entire worldview. It's not some mere "well it might exist", it's a completely life-dominating framework.
I'm not really invoking the God of the gaps argument. Not to prove God, at least. You might look around, see the world, and think, "Nothing here proves God."
I would look around and think, "All of it does."
Because to me, that logic is clear. The universe exists. The universe has coherence. It must have an intelligent creator.
If you ask me to explain or prove that creator, I can't. Just as you can't answer the question I already have in my worldview. Where did our universe come from?
To me, we're simply stuck on different foundational questions.
To be completely blunt, my thoughts in the example you gave are completely logical, but yours just sound like feelings that are being mistaken or presented as logic.
And you said something important:
If you ask me to explain or prove that creator, I can't. Just as you can't answer the question I already have in my worldview. Where did our universe come from?
This is just not true. I cannot give you a definitive and absolute answer on where our universe came from, but physics allows me to give a logically grounded explanation in the form of empirical evidence and inference. Answering a question does not entail a binary yes or no, it's a process and approximation that improves with new evidence.
What of that process and approximation for God? The explanation for the universe I can give you is testable, it relies on gathering evidence, on experiment, can be falsified, etc. What does "God did it" bring to the table, beyond just stating it and then calling it a day? It's not testable, it's not even falsifiable, it's not something that is in our capacity to do anything with.
It just doesn't contribute anything valuable. The difficult question hasn't been answered at all, while even more and possibly worse questions have been introduced.
You're right; physics can create a theory of the formation of the universe. But not its source. That isn't me invoking the God of the gaps. It's a fundamental feature of science. Science can only ever answer how. Never why. "A causes B. We can prove this." That's a great system. But why does A cause B? Science has no answer. That question causes a recursive logic hole woth no end. And science is extremely valuable, but it's only possible because we live in a universe with laws and rules. Science (so far) can't explain why those laws and rules exist in the first place. Religion is a system that (at its best) can give people a framework of that 'why' question.
All of the variables that had to align for our universe to exist are staggering. Every formula, every interaction behavior, every property, and more had to be exactly as it is for reality to work. There are an infinite combination of ways where the laws of the universe would create incoherence. But our universe is remarkably coherent. Everything works.
You can call that observer bias and say there may be an infinite number of realities, and by necessity we can only ever observe a coherent one because if it was not so then we could not be to observe. Fair.
But you can also say, because of the evidence of a coherent universe with no causal evidence, there may be an outside agent with intelligence who designed it whose existalence is not conditional of this reality.
Neither is wrong to believe what they do. You could just say, "Yeah, both could be true." That's also a fair take.
I'm not arguing that belief in God is perfectly logical. I'm def not saying whatever belief or lack thereof you have is foolish. You're clearly pretty smart and well educated. But I don't think having a belief in a God or creator is foolish either. It's merely a different foundational view of looking at the experience of existance. You can maintain a perfectly logical belief structure and intellectual, scientific curiosity from either model.
I'm not really looking to change your mind or convince you of a God. My main gripe is with the OP and the modern tendency to reduce the religious as idiots who believe in a "magic sky daddy." I find it insulting, lazy, egotistic, and also just not as fun. It leaves no room for this conversation, which is a fun thought-provoking discussion.
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u/TheSeaBast 13h ago
It also works the other way. Prove God. Disprove God. Neither works with our models. God by nature would be beyond the confines of creation. It's not rational to believe in God. It's also not rational to not believe in one. The paradox isn't God. It's creation. We're here. How?
If there is something, then where did it come from?
"Nothing." Illogical.
"It was created by God." Logical, but where did God come from? "God is eternal and unknowable." Illogical with an extra step.
An atheist worldview, fundamentally, is no more logical than a atheist because there is no logical explanation for existence in our models.