Free 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by Guy P. Harrison Page B

of a rival religion or even the god of a longextinct religion. Or maybe it was the result of an experiment conducted by technologically advanced scientists from another galaxy or
universe. There is no less evidence for this than there is for someone's
favored god doing it. Maybe our religions have it all wrong and it
really was aliens who gave our universe its start. Maybe they even
seeded the earth with life. How could we know the difference between
alien scientists and gods? I am not suggesting that we all start
believing in super-intelligent aliens as our creators. There is no evidence or convincing arguments for that either. I bring up the alien idea
only to show believers that one can fill in a mystery with pretty much
anything. It's better to simply admit that we don't know everything at
this time.

    It is important for believers to understand that there are significant
differences between "my god did it" and the big bang theory. The former
tends to be an inflexible conclusion that is based on faith and has no evidence to support it; the latter is a scientific theory that is derived from
the scientific method and open to correction. A common misconception
that many believers have about the big bang is that atheists "believe" it
in a religious sense. Some even call it a creation myth for atheists. This
is not true. While I cannot speak for all nonbelievers, of course, I am
confident that virtually no atheists "believe" in the big bang in the same
way religious people believe in their creation stories. Most Christians,
Muslims, and Jews, for example, would have a big problem letting go
of the belief that their god created the universe. However, atheists who
accept the big bang as a good explanation based on current evidence are
unlikely to become enraged or feel emotionally devastated if overwhelming evidence turns up in support of a new "Little Burp theory"
that overturns the big bang theory. It is safe to assume that atheists
would not fill the streets weeping and gnashing their teeth. No atheists
would threaten to behead the scientists who made the discovery or even
burn them in effigy. It is doubtful that private atheist schools would pop
up around the world to defiantly continue teaching the big bang theory
to children in spite of the evidence. It is more likely that atheists would
welcome the scientific advancement.
    Wait, says the believer, the big bang had to have been caused by
something. Nothing just happens. Science can't explain what caused
the big bang but there had to be a cause and that cause was my god.
This argument has been answered by atheists repeatedly for many
years but it never goes away, so I will answer it too. The assumption
that everything has to have been caused by something else might be
incorrect. How does anyone know this? Maybe some things are infinite and uncaused. But, if believers are right and "everything" requires
a cause, then that means something or someone must have "caused"
their gods as well. They can't have it both ways. If, however, they say
that there is an exception to the rule and their gods can exist without
anything having caused them, then so can the universe.

    The bottom line on how the universe began is that no one understands exactly how it happened. But our ignorance about the origins of
the universe is not proof of the existence of gods. Atheists cannot
claim that the big bang disproves the existence of gods. Believers
cannot claim that unanswered questions about the big bang disprove a
natural universe that is empty of gods. Those who side with the gods
must find another way to justify their belief because cosmology offers
them no help at this time.
CHAPTER 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
RECOMMENDED READING
    Leeming, David, with Margaret Leeming. A Dictionary of Creation Mvths.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
    Seife, Charles. Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of
the Universe. New York: Penguin Books,