Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, December 19, 2014, 18:10 (3410 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: An Atheist, however, has to disprove the existence of God AND prove that everything had to be possible WITHOUT God. 
Atheist, by definition, have to prove a negative.
DHW: If I were an atheist, I would argue that theists have to prove there IS a god! There is no default position here.
TONY: No, the Atheist must still explain away how something came from nothing. They have to replace god with something, which means disproving god by proving that something can come from nothing.-DAVID: You are right on! Atheists are left with 'chance' mechanisms which must have a first cause for the cause and effect continuum: Gould believed and advocated a lucky contingency continuum which would lead to humans and felt, to paraphrase him, if the tape of evolution were re-run we would not be here. Yet he could not describe how it all began.-No-one can describe how it all began. We can only conjecture. I join you, however, in your scepticism concerning something from nothing. We have had this discussion many times before, along the lines of what preceded the Big Bang (if the BB ever happened)? With my atheist hat on, I still reject something from nothing, and propose that the first cause may be eternal energy transmuting itself into matter. That is no more nebulous than the concept of an infinite and eternal mind that came from nowhere.-*******-I see George has also responded, and has defended the something from nothing theory. I read the summary, which finishes: “Further adjustments, elaborations, formalisms and experiments are required to formulate and support the theory.” I don't have time now to read the whole thing (though a quick glance suggests that it's way beyond my comprehension), but the above sentence doesn't sound too promising!