The Ultimate Answer Is...I Dunno Know

Who has the "answer" to the ultimate question(s). What happens after death, real death not near death (and I still haven't written about my NDE here, yet, but I will, I promise) and even before that, what happens at birth, or the infamous how can something come from nothing?" I'll tell you who...no one.

First a little side trackin'. Much ado has been made about Richard "Papa Bear" Dawkins in his recent debate with, I believe it was Rowan, when he claimed the true. Papa Bear said he is not 100% atheist and there is a little tiny part of him that is open to the evidence, that is the evidence of something more than this material world and evolution thru natural selection, better and easily known as "God did it."

In the religious magazines and newspapers that I go to (daily) the believers see Papa Bear's admitting the truth, as a point for their side, a victory. "See that, militant atheists, even your very own prophet said so." Not so fast arrogant believers, not so fast.

First of all can the ultimate question ever, and I mean ever, be answered in it's entirety. I believed the most honest answer to that is a definite...no way Jose. Lemmie explain. You got your Joe average priest (molester or not) sayin' that "fo sho there is a God (now gimmie your money...and your boys...young ones)." End of argument. Hell, I dunno fo sho, but does William Lane Craig believe without a doubt that his particular and specific Christian evangelical God exists. Again I dunno fo sho, but my guess is yes. Is that honest or not (not). Ask lil' old me, Team Atheist member, and I'll say," I'm not 100% sure but history tells me that (blank blank) is true.

OK, now some God in the Gaps theory. At one time religion had all the answers: how are people born, why are there erff quakes, what happens after we die and how did the universe we live in come to be (after all it is highly improbable-and that is a truth). Well, then here comes beautiful, critical, honest and scientific...err, science. The common human birth at one time was explained with "God did it." Then scientific/medical knowledge about how reproduction really happens explained those  birds and bees that peeps keep talking about. No one doubts that now. Why do people get sick with colds and flues. Before it was an imbalance of chi, or you angered the god(s). Now...you caught a virus and simple thingies like washing your hands and not touching you face can help in the preventing of catching a virus.

Where "God did it" was the ultimate answer at one time for everything, now we have scientific knowledge that is peer reviewed and independently tested, over and over again. Each time science answers a question, the God of the Gaps gets smaller and smaller (1). One side claims to have all the answers all the time, while the better looking and sexier side claims that Gawd honest truth can change when new and better evidence appears. That is honesty.


OK back to something from nothing and Papa Bear. In his super awesome book The God Delusion, Papa Bear made a 7 point scale of atheism. If your are a 7, then you are undoubtedly, unquestionably, and infallibly, atheist. If you are a one, then the opposite. Papa Bear declared him self a 6 point something (I forgot). He left the door open for evidence (cause he is honest). What believer journalists want you/me/us to believe is that by being honest, Papa Bear is showing weakness. No, it is the exact opposite. 


The smart believers, the ones that have participated in the conversation and know the basic in's and out's of the debate, un-smartly claim that because we (Team Atheist) do not know how something can come from nothing/how the universe began, then we must be totally wrong about everything else and guess what...God did it (create the universe) so shove him in the gap. Forget that history shows that science in its very short existence has answered great question after great question, making the God in the Gaps smaller and smaller. Forget that believers full of faith at one time arrogantly proclaimed that "God did it" when attempting to explain how earthquakes happen, or how babies are born.

An honest person regardless of which side they fall on can only conclude that they/we/us do not know the answers in totality.  How did something come from nothing, or how did the universe begin. Well science said the Big Bang and after that evolution thru natural selection, but what about before the Big Bang-how did something come from nothing. Them=God, Us=I dunno...yet.

Not only do I dunno, no one knows. The difference between the two sides is that one side, the side of belief, arrogantly claims "God did it," while the better looking, sexier and smarter side claims "we do not know as of yet, but we are looking."

Who do you believe? There is one side that says they know without a doubt, but time and time again, their explanation of "God did it" makes less and less sense as peer reviewed and materialistic knowledge becomes available. Simultaneously the other side, the side of science and critical thinking skills says, "we do not know as of yet, but thru cosmology, astronomy and physics, it is our hope to find out."

Here's the breakdown. One side says fo sho they know all the answers all the time and even forever, while the other side says, honestly, we dunno, but let's find out together (and we have been correct time and time again, so trust us).

Who do you believe?


(1) When science is wrong, it corrects itself. That is the beauty of science and that is the arrogance of belief in God did it. God did it never changes, it is the answer for everything everytime throughout the three existences of time (arrogance). The non-arrogance (beauty) of science is that it corrects itself (i.e. ulcers). This honesty is perceived as a weakness to the average believer, but in reality, the ability to change and admit one was wrong at that time...is awesome sauce; while claiming to be correct all the time, but coming up short time and time again is arrogant...and wrong-ville.


* Buddhism, Cosmology and Evolution

* Richard "Papa Bear" Dawkins 


* God of the Gaps Theory

"It Came From "Something", Or Not

When I first started the six pack blog just over two years ago, I wuz all like all educational and informative-n-stuffs. This last year I moved to shorter funnier, sarcastic, angry atheist-y and more entertaining post. Today, I will attempt some brainiac-ness in that I discovered sumthin' new and eyez iz gonna try and share it because it is the ultimate question (yes, THAT ultimate question. no not if I'm single).

One of the problems with religion is that...they already have the answers-it's God. It never changes, doesn't want to, it claims to have all the answers and it is totally wrong (that's the sound of the God in the Gaps getting smaller and smaller). Beautiful and wonderful science on the other hand is endless in the seeking of answers. If a question is answered, then a million gazillion will replace that (and that is the way it should be). But what about that endeavor philosophy, the endeavor I honestly and admittedly do not know much about.

Maybe we are one bubble, that came from another bubble...in  a bubble bath with a dog into that has   cucumbers over it's eyes(?).

Robot Voice (Stephen Hawking) in his latest super awesome book said that philosophy is dead concerning the great questions and physics whomps all over it. While it is true that physics has hella answers, and I'll just say it, truths, I do not believe that it can explain everything and not only that, it is not the only vehicle to get us there. Theoretical physics IS looking into that super great question...what came before the big bang (1) and perhaps, just perhaps, philosophy can answer that.

So how do you answer the question...How does something come from nothing? At one moment there was no universe, then the next moment...universe, baby.  To say that God is the answer to that question does not explain any of the philosophy of the "hows" and "whys (the answer of God is more like a statement, not an explanation-which is what an answer is) or the mechanisms of the whole deal-eo.

The really super great The Atlantic monthly delves into this, and very well I might add. How can something come from nothing. Well, one idea is that it  didn't go down like that (there was nothing and then God made something-voila the universe and besides that...2nd law of thermodynamics, yo). Perhaps we came from a different universe, a bubble universe. Perhaps we are like those sands on a beach (this is from my teenage punk rock stoner years) and one grain of sand, produced the next. Maybe we are one bubble in a bubble bath, and we do not even see the other bubbles, or an "atom" within an "atom". Perhaps we a "something" that is within and infinite amounts of "something." Whatevah "it" is..."it" came from something, not nothing (or not).

Sort of looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, but he was tired or sumthin'...or outta paint.

Philosophy, and science for that matter, may never conclusively answer the question...but at least they are trying (as opposed to the audaciousness of religion that claims to already have the answer. Arrogant I tell ya). We live in a physical universe that has physical laws that we all adhere to (that 2nd law of thermodynamics that we keep talking about). So the answer must be within that, right, yes, no, maybe (?). Because the question was never answered, it just keeps coming back, or rather, it never went away (because God in not a good answer).

The thingy about it is, and this is the hard part for believers 1) we do not yet know how the universe came to be, 2) we do not even know what we do not know, 3) only science and philosophy acknowledges #2 and is actively seeking an answer for #1 and #2 and 4) we might never know the answer and that is OK (unless you are a believer) because it is also the journey (that is the admitting and stating the question, then looking for the answer) as well as a destination.

It's a journey to the truth and the truth is we may not eveah find the answer to the question "What happened before the big bang (first cause)", but dagnabit...if you are a carbon based life form and do not subscribe to superstition, literal mythology and are relatively normal in that you use critical thinking and reasoning skills (rather than blind, unquestioning faith), then....it is so human for us to try.

* Check out the interview with cosmology philosopher, Tim Maudlin, in that rag my dead hero used to write for, The Atlantic Monthly. We never met, bro, but I miss ya Hitch (if there is a heaven, then I hope yer up there annoying the shit outta the fraud known as Mother Teresa...and having a couple too many drinks.

* Mama-T (that's Mother Teresa) in SF Weekly.



(1) This is the biggest of biggest questions concerning the God in the Gaps. First they told us that god created everything and we believed it. Then awesome science came along and said, first there was the big bang, abiogenesis happened, then evolution thru natural selection. If this last mystery can be solved, then there will be no more gaps and here will be no more God. The question: How can something (the universe) come from *nothing*.

The young Stevo and hottie wife. OK, I guess I'll be the only weirdo that asks this, even tho everyone also thinks this one...What kinda sex are the Hawkins into. Or just like the question, what was before the big bang, what are the hows, the whys, the 'mechanisms'. I'm not talkin' shit...I was just wondering how they "do it."

Thoughts On Yesterday's Question Of The Day

OK, so I work at this place that we call the #atheistcafe. It's not really, but WTF. There are some Team Atheist members, skeptics, philosophy clubs, believers-yes, we let believers in (I will gladly take anyone's money), punk rockers, hippies and professional types. This one customer in particular, "R", proposed the question of the day yesterday. What is in vacuumless space and can you quantify it (I assume he means measure it). Can you pump the "everything" outta a space. What is left? Oh joy, I didn't know the answer (I said dark matter which wuz incorrect), soz I asked around.

I'll be first to admit that, yes I'm a skeptic, I know science-y stuffs, but I'm totally deficient in the areas of astronomy and cosmic stuffs. Funny thing, I probably know more about ass-trology, than astronomy. Go figure and try and take a way my skeptics card. Any who...

The first person I hit up is this very nice fellow who years ago he took some sort of test and Sac State gave him (because he earned it) a BS, astronomy (he had been studying on his own for years and got offered this test I never heard of. I dunno). Dude told me 1) there is no such thing as a pure vacuum and 2) there is no such thing as a pure vacuum. The most empty space, whatever empty is, will still have dust particles in it, perhaps energy of some sort-a truly nothingness cannot really exist (if I understood dude correctly).

(Immediately I thought, can nothing exists, is there such a thing as nothing and even if there was, then could we call this nothing...something. Just give it a name and actually, I thought that's what dark matter/energy was....anyways).

The difference between space and let's say this table I'm sitting at is that all the particles that make this chair are totally packed together, hella, like so many. In space, I guess whether is is vacuumless or not, the particles are totally hella far apart, they are still there, but there is not as many and once again...totallly far apart.

So what do you call that. One of my tweeps, "T" suggested that it is vacuumless energy and free space. Vacuum energy is when space has no matter, then this is what is left behind. Click the link because it is to cosmological-y for me to explain and I don't understand it anyways. I don't think this is the answer tho, because if there is energy there, then we can call it energy (we're trying to find nothingness, define it and measure it. does it exist). Free space is vacuum and we already said that there is no such thing, so there.

Which brings me to this. I'm stumped. The question, if you will recall...What is in vacuumless space and what would you call that and could you measure that. OK, here's my new answer. If we see it in micro and macro, and I might get sort of Eastern philosophy-ie so if you do wanna take away my skeptics card, then you will be justified (I have to do something I dunno the answer), then perhaps we can 'see' it.  Is the space between the stars the same thing as the space between the smallest particles in atoms. As far as I know there is no definition for that space. We have not thus far been able to see or measure this totally small something that we are calling nothing. OK, now be really patient....

Is there such a thing as nothing. Can you take something and cut it in half so much that eventually it becomes nothing. It is like infinity...is there such a thing because you can always add one. As long as time exists, then you can always add one. But there it is, time is not infinite, it is finite. The universe will end one day, right...or will it keep expanding forever and ever. Whatever...

So if time is infinite then you can always add one...doesn't that mean there is not such thing as infinite (cause you'll never reach it). Likewise, can you cut something in half forever. Can you cut something in half and then one day there will be nothing. That's not very infinite-y.

Back to the question. What is in empty space, what do you call it and can you measure it. My answer...I dunno. Maybe a theoretical physicists or a mathematician knows. Hell maybe a philosopher can answer this. Howz about a theologian, can that person answer this (NO!). Just so ya know, the dude that asked me this question didn't know the answer either.

So what do you guys think (that's code for you Troy)?

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Update later, early October-ish. On Nova. have ya heard about that show-kinda epic-n-such-any who...The Fabric of the Cosmos... is too awesome for 'lil old me to describe. Team Atheist/Skeptic you should goober out on this (and if you have "that lucky lady"...then you should cuddle...it's cold right now. Awesomeness.