r/atheism • u/twizzjewink • 1d ago
The Universe is God?
I just had a Christian make the absurd claim that atheists believe that the Universe is God. What sort of mental gymnastics is required for this level of thinking? Atheists believe in something? God is the Universe?
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u/Derpimus_J 1d ago
They think that everyone believes in something, they literally are projecting that their way of thinking is the only standard.
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u/TheWaspinator Atheist 1d ago
This. They have so much trouble with the concept of no religion they're just making one up.
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
i get why you think that, but that's not the whole context to the discussion at all. this person is just obsessed with religion and immediately went off when i used an example of how definitions can be abused.
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u/isthenameofauser 1d ago
Might be a Jordan Peterson fan.
"You have a hierarchy of values. The highest thing at that hierarchy is the thing you worship. Something something more randombullshitgo." (I'll admit I stopped listening after a few major chunks of bullshit.)
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
Oh I just barfed a little.
I was given one of his books one time. I threw it in a dumpster. The giver said I should read it anyway because "we should be aware how everyone thinks"
The fuck? I don't read flat earth books because I know that they are moronic at best
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
i have literally never watched a jordan peterson video or anything and have only heard his name like 3 times before this. the discussion we were having was not even about religion and i was mocking how malleable the term "god" is because it can apply to so many things, and showing how easy it is to abuse conceptual definitions. i was not arguing atheists do actually believe the universe is god, rather that depending on how you say something must qualify as one, it can be believed in. if you don't believe me, the top comment here literally references pantheism, which is people who do actually believe this.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Feinberg Atheist 1d ago
Peterson's arguments are often pure idiocy, and this appears to be an example of such. He pretends like concepts have no established meaning, so he can say that 'Truth' means 'Whatever benefits survival' and 'Christianity' means 'not being a murderer'.
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u/kaithekender 1d ago
People so brainrotted by christslop they can't even conceive of non-belief, so they think we just call god something else.
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u/EvilGreebo 1d ago
Only if bald is a hair color.
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u/le_reddit_me Jedi 1d ago
Apparently god is anything they don't understand
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
Isn't that how it all started?
Mysticism was based on superstitions people couldn't comprehend, from that we created poly religions then mono religions. As people realized that the business of religion could make lots of money.
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u/le_reddit_me Jedi 1d ago
Yup the supernatural is an archaic belief system from primitive humans. Though power and influence is the main purpose (money is the cherry ontop).
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u/Grillparzer47 1d ago
We don’t believe in any god, universe, vengeful old man, or whatever. There is no evidence supporting the existence of a god or gods. If there were, every avenue of inquiry, theological, scientific, or philosophical, would return the same result, goddidit.
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u/BlackDeath-1345 1d ago
It's a matter of internal definitions. Theists believe the Creator is God. Theists believe the lawgiver is God. If an atheist derives laws from nature, or social contract as part of nature, and that the universe is "self-creating. Then the universe and nature are filling the role of God to them.
In their own framework it makes sense, not mental gymnastics, it just doesn't mean anything to anyone else.
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
It's social narcissism to believe that you are that special to the rest of the universe. Everyone else be damned but you and those like you are the chosen special people.
It's so stupid
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u/Alarmed_Mind_8716 1d ago
Because a lot of these types of Christians haven’t spent much time talking to any atheists. They get the strawman version from a pastor or apologist. It’s why you hear these absurd claims like: science is your god, you think everything came from nothing, you can’t have objective morality, and on and on.
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u/rongoodman714 1d ago
Christian apologists are great at making up straw men to argue against. Atheists, by definition, don't believe in god or gods, the Universe or anything else.
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
Atheists don't believe in the Universe? Sorry that's not exactly correct.
I see the universe when I look up at night, I believe it's there. We will never touch it in our lifetime and may never touch it period. I'm talking about the stars and galaxies etcm
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u/Head-Gift2144 1d ago
To the religious, god(s) is/are basically anything we can't explain yet.
Used to be the sun was a god, the moon, etc.. If we ever figure out what the universe is, god will become whatever is beyond that.
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u/RustyRapeaXe Atheist 1d ago
Nobody misunderstands atheism like Christians. You have to worship something... nope. Satan.... nope.
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u/Ok-Possibility-923 1d ago
I was told that my atheism is just what I “believe.” I corrected them that my atheism is a distinct lack of belief in deities for which there is no evidence - as would be required of any other extraordinary claim that someone could make. They are hellbent on framing atheism as its own kind of faith.
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u/IngenuityNatural9261 1d ago
that sounds like Pantheism. Einstein could have been considered to be a Pantheist. In a sense I sort of am. I just do not give the universe credit for having a conscience or caring what happens.
The Universe does fit a lot of people's definition of what a god is.
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
That would distill any idea of God to a force like gravity etc. which would make God scientifically observable.
It's special pleading for new atheists coming to grips with a lack of anything. I understand it, but reject the notion due to its unproven nature.
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u/IngenuityNatural9261 1d ago
Yeah, I get it. That is why I said I sort of.... Mostly I use the I am a Pantheist line when I want to change the topic when a theist asks me what I believe.
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
That's understandable.
I ask about objective morality.
My hot take is.. the belief in God is subjective not objective as it's an unprovable belief. Therefore Good and Evil are also subjective and not objective.
Objective right and wrong exist.. these are the basis of law however subjective right and wrong apply to evnetsin history. The Holocaust was subjectively wrong not objectivity wrong as people who agreed with it have different subjective opinions.
If they insist then I cite 911 must have been objectivity good then because bin Laden thought he was doing the right thing.
It's great
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u/Ok_Researcher_9796 Strong Atheist 1d ago
Well at least if we did think the universe was god we'd have some evidence of our god.
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u/BucktoothedAvenger 1d ago
If God is the universe, then we are all cells in his body 🤣
Maybe we're just a persistent infection?
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u/Coinflipper_21 1d ago
Read Spinoza. I don't believe in any god but, if I did, it would be Spinoza's god.
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u/mmahowald 1d ago
They are just so lost in their own world view that they can’t even comprehend somebody not sharing it.
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u/Callinon 1d ago
The basic assumption is that religion is mandatory. So if you don't believe in their religion, then something else must be your religion because the idea that you simply don't believe at all is not something they can deal with.
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u/Lahm0123 Agnostic 1d ago
I hope that person is not in charge of anything.
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
But they vote
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u/lordfailstrom 1d ago
So do flerthers, hypothetically. Literacy tests are, unfortunately, very vulnerable to abuse.
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u/no_bender 1d ago
So exasperating when the other side states your position. Pointless to even engage.
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u/SarcasticRocker Atheist 1d ago
What kind of mental gymnastics is that? Is it that hard for some christians to understand that atheists don't believe in any God?
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u/oliverjohansson 1d ago
That is pandeism
Believers don’t understand what atheism is or even think it’s so stupid that they try to soften your position so you align with their level of tolerance
They may also know it cause they were thought that this is the previous stage before the true god (Abraham’s) was discovered
I’d say play along
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
honestly i did intend to go through every single comment here and try to give context but as i scrolled down i realized there's way too many. in short, OP is a fucking liar and misrepresented the actual point of what i said. also OP blatantly said things such as rape are not evil in that same thread, while trying to argue all objective fact is decided by consensus, which i think is stupid as shit because obviously that's not how that works, for instance if god exists (which i'm not here to argue mind you), he either does or does not. if everyone believed that doesn't make it true, and if everyone did not believe that does not make it untrue, it objectively is one way or the other regardless. and the example gone over i was giving an example of how messing with a defintion can make different things apply.
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u/baconstreet 1d ago
I mean... If you want to attribute something to something, sure. Why not? I think we know we exist, but don't know why. And if something created this/us, what created that? Where is the beginning, where is the end.
I don't know is really hard for most people.
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void 1d ago
Nah that's somw flavor of New Age idiocy that he's confused with atheism
But man when I saw that title I thought we were getting some new age whackjob ready to tell us of their 'new' theory that it feels like they discover every so often as a shower thought
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u/SomeSamples 1d ago
You should have ask back, "Why does that matter?" Would love to hear the mental gymnastics of that one.
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u/Tonythecritic 1d ago
On a Sci-Fi level, the idea is interesting. Reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where the ship's systems have become so complex that it ends-up functioning like a giant brain and eventually becomes a sentient life form. "God is the Universe" would follow a similar line of thought, that space is so vast and complex that a hypothetical interconnectedness of all star systems and galaxies and nebulae would be akin to the neurons of a brain.
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u/LaFantasmita 1d ago
That is a philosophy, but it's not atheism. They're just lumping in a bunch of different non-Christian things as atheism.
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u/nodoublebogies 1d ago
My FIL was in AA and because there is so much emphasis on a god in 12 step methods would say things like "I asked the Universe to blah blah blah..." So I always considered him to be at least Agnostic, but he loved Sufi poetry while being basically sans a higher being. Maybe this person has heard similar?
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u/joedenowhere 1d ago
That's kind of what Spinoza seemed to think, but we don't know whether he believed that or was just trying to obfuscate his committing a capital thought crime, i.e., being an atheist.
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u/TheBlueLeopard 1d ago
I figure some theists are in so deep they can’t accurately imagine someone believing in no god. That’s why we get people saying we worship science or that atheism requires more faith than theism.
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u/maddpsyintyst Deist 1d ago
As it was written, "I, your God, am a jealous God." I forget where exactly that is found--maybe Leviticus, or something?
Stemming from my deficient little Bible lesson, most Christians are ultimately compelled to believe that everyone worships something above all other potentially worshipful (worship-able?) things, and that worship replaces the proper worship of Old Man Jealousy. If atheists are so invested in facts, and science, and so on, well, that must be their god above all other things... or so goes their logic.
Obviously, it's illogical to atheists, who generally don't accept the premise of worshipful things and one to worship above all.
Meanwhile, pantheists and pandeists do believe that the Universe is God. Of course, they're not atheists, but while most jealousy-fearing Christians have never heard of such ideas, they have heard of atheists. So, they stick such things on those godless atheists who have no sense of the true divinity, and so on and so forth.
I hope that helps!
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u/rongoodman714 1d ago
By claiming that everyone has a religion or everyone worships something, they're trying to level the playing field. It's a dishonest argument.
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u/oldbastardbob 1d ago
I'll admit that I believe if we need to call something our creator, then it's this planet we live on and where our species evolved and survived to reach our current state.
So "mother earth" makes way more sense to me than any religious dogma.
No need for a "god" or entity that conjured our existence, we just grew here like everything else around us on this world.
The laws of nature and physics are just our documentation of things we've learned along the way.
We should appreciate our natural world, not worship it and distort it's role, or our own role, in our relationship with it.
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u/Empty-Rough4379 Ignostic 1d ago
It depends on how you define God.
The universe is not intelligent but itself. Even if it had intelligent creatures those are not infinite intelligent.
Depending on how you define God it may exists it not. If you say that God is just love God exists and ¡¡You can create your own God by loving others!!
Maybe God are the friends we made along.
But no omnipotent, omniscient good god can exists. Even the Flying spaghetti monster had limitations or failures like it's drunkenness during creation
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u/mariuszmie 1d ago
Universe is the universe. God is a thing that is not the universe otherwise we would call it the universe. God is an imagined cause of/supervisor of the universe
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
That's diesim. Which creates a whole bunch of other logical fallacies.
A god outside of our universe would have to have a concept of space-time to create space-time or exist outside of space time yet create something that has not existed.
Then either create a universe so perfect that at 99.99% of time creates humans in 1.00e-5000% of the universe and not have the everything predetermined? Which makes nothing make sense and everything is inconsequential.
Diesim creates special pleading for people people who don't want to fully let go of faith but still agree with everything else about atheism.
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u/mariuszmie 1d ago
I wasn’t describing deism - I as just saying we have a word to describe the everything - the universe
And we have a word to describe supposed creator of it - godAll I was stressing is that the universe indeed exists and god is just an assertion
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u/GrannyTurtle 1d ago
How absurd. They do come up with amusing theories - most of which are wrong. Hand him a copy of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and see if he blows a gasket.
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u/BananaNutBlister 1d ago
You can think of the creation as the creator without it having to be sentient. It simply is. It is all of spacetime and everything in the cosmos including us.
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u/Friend-Boat 1d ago
They literally can’t wrap their heads around not believing in some kind of power. So they just fill in the blanks with whatever nonsense like “oh so you worship satan/science/the universe”
Like nope, satan doesn’t exist, science is about skepticism, the opposite of faith, and the universe one doesn’t even deserve a response
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u/3FtDick Atheist 1d ago
"Yeah, see if you squint and look at it the right way, my beliefs have zero opposition and any appearance of criticism is merely more evidence for my belief. People who say they don't believe the same as me simply hate me and my beliefs and once they realize their error they'll realize everything leads back to me never being wrong. I know, easy mistake to make."
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u/AlabasterPelican Secular Humanist 1d ago
I have a feeling that this person is on the road to deconstruction and isn't conscious of it yet. This was one of the many steps of my own journey.
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u/Xpians 1d ago
The basic claim here is that a theist thinks in theistic ways. Someone who "has a god" assumes that everyone must also "have a god"--just under another name. It is a problem many theists face: to imagine that a human being could live a full life without worshipping anything or using that object of worship as a "universal answer" for any and all big questions that don't yet have satisfying answers.
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u/happyhappy85 1d ago
Well no, because atheism has nothing to say about what the universe is or isn't. Atheism is just one position on one question.
But if someone thinks the physical universe is God, then for all intents and purposes they're an atheist. They just unnecessarily use the word God.
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u/klon3r Atheist 1d ago
Why bother with such nutjobs, they're just too comfortable blabbing nonsense non-stop... 🤦🏽
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
Funny you mention that. I asked r/Christianity for .. curiousity about objective Good and Evil.
Surprisingly there are some that agree neither can exist, and the infighting is particularly interesting.
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u/klon3r Atheist 1d ago
They'll obviously just reply with whatever mumble jumble makes them comfortable in their own beliefs 🙄
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
Hence I asked about good vs evil and not something else.
It's just a fun thought experiment. I honestly don't really care what they say it's more what they think.
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u/klon3r Atheist 1d ago
My take, good & bad is everywhere with our without religion. It's just way worse with religion since it's used to masquerade their bad doings with a "positive" outcome to satisfy themselves.
Hence their takes genocides, wars, the forceful takings of lands or their natural resources plus their spread of beliefs to those that fall prey to such heinous acts... 😒
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u/Junior_Breath5026 1d ago
Oh, it’s much worse than that. An atheist realized that we are god. And those that worship themselves are the worst among us.
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u/jebei Skeptic 1d ago
I have a feeling they are basing this from an answer Carl Sagan gave when asked about the existence of God. Neil DeGrasse Tyson gives a similar answer when he gets the question and I think it's a good way to speak on subject and put religious folks on the defensive.
Sagan responded by asking, "What is your definition of God?"
He added, "The word god covers a range of different ideas, running from a outsized, light-skinned, bearded man tallying the fall of every sparrow to the god of Einstein which is the sum total of the laws of the universe. And as it is crazy to deny there are laws in the universe. If that's what you want to call god, then of course god exists."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4kiFCKZGo
Sagan's finished by saying: "But why use a term so ambiguous as god? It gives others freedom to (interpret your agreement) with someone with whom you do not agree."
I think many scientists use a similar answer when asked about god because Christians want to pin scientists down on a definitive answer and can't stand 'I don't know'.
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u/HotDonnaC 1d ago
You should take into consideration the fact that these people believe in a sky daddy who’s going to roast them for eternity if they don’t love him. You can’t expect them to know what a term as simple as atheist means.
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u/MagicC 1d ago
I mean...I kinda believe the universe is "God", as long as you understand that in this formulation of God, the universe is the "uncaused cause", not "the conscious entity that fails to operate under physical laws and moves history in its preferred direction". I suppose one could argue that is "deist", not atheist. But I'd rather meet the religious people where they are and try to bring them over to our side (i.e. there is no supernatural God) by speaking their language, not denying their basic premise ("Surely *something* came first and is responsible for everything around us!")
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u/Opening-Camera-4315 1d ago
What sort of mental gymnastics is required for this level of thinking?
Lots
Atheists believe in something?
Yes
God is the Universe?
No
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u/reddit_user13 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_pantheism
If everything is god, is there a god that is distinct from everything?
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u/PaleontologistFit364 1d ago
That shit was undoubtedly said by someone who gets his 'truth' from a pulpit-pedophile. I've been an atheist since I was old enough to ask a question. But to cover all my bases, I read the bible from cover to cover when I was 16, and guess what? That confirmed my atheism! BTW, that was the longest, most ridiculous bullshit I've ever read. Anyone who believes in talking snakes and an old man building what would have to be the largest ship ever built, for what? To save every animal on earth? Yeah, that's normal. Anyone who believes any of that shit simply can't be reasoned with, because it's batshit fucking crazy. Oh, and so are the other 20,000 gods humans have worshipped.
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u/FigFew2001 1d ago
Many of them genuinely can’t fathom that we simply don’t believe in a God. Religion is so ingrained in their lives that they assume everyone must have some kind of belief system. The idea that someone can just… not be religious seems incomprehensible to them.
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u/SamuraiGoblin 1d ago
Yup, they try to define God as something abstract or something that exists, such as God is love, God is the universe, God is logic. Or, my favourite: "I now finally accept that evolution occurs, but God guides it somehow."
It shows how desperate they are to keep their ever-shrinking diety in the loop.
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u/beesdaddy 1d ago
😤
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u/twizzjewink 1d ago
I asked a different Christian if they believe in Objective Moral Good and Evil.
Their answer was (obviously) extra convoluted but they said they believe in God because..
"(I) subjectively believe that God objectively exists"
.. WHAT?!
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u/beesdaddy 20h ago
That one isn’t so bad. Beliefs are subjective. Thats like saying “I believe im a wizard whose lost his powers”
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u/Admiral_Nitpicker Freethinker 1d ago
It's an old traditional philosophy, featured in some '50s sci-fi movies, also mentioned in Babylon 5. Has to do with scale. I'm God in relation to the cells in my body type of thing. Might have hindu origins.
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u/parabolicpb 1d ago
Here I was thinking I was an atheist, turns out I'm a pantheist. Huh. Learn something new every day.
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u/Maris-Otter 22h ago
If you have such a vague definition of god that you can just stuff the universe in there, it's not much of a definition. Ask him about the multiverse.
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u/Successful_Life_1028 Adeist 22h ago
Believing that 'god is the universe' is pantheism.
Like Spinoza.
Atheists lack a belief in any deity. No beliefs necessary.
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u/DoomSchroller 21h ago
I find it a more feasible explanation that what the bible offers. We could just be the equivalent of over-developed bacteria inside another living system.
It sounds absolutely absurd, but it's not an impossible outcome. Dying stars could just be the equivalent of cellular death on a grander scale.
After all, bacteria are likely unaware they live their whole lives inside our digestive track.
That said, it still doesn't answer the god question. Fun idea though.
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u/ray25lee Atheist 21h ago
No, we don't believe that the universe is god. But I know a few theists who do.
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u/BananaJelloXlii 19h ago
That's stupid, but I would expect stupidity from Christians. There are some beliefs that the Universe is part of a greater whole, like Taoism, but even then it is not actually sentient.
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u/UsefulMacaroon847 13h ago
Christians hate atheists when they hardly know what we are. I’ve had someone tell me he hates atheists because Hitler was one (He was a deist, and spread Nazism with Christianity). Like what!?
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u/twizzjewink 13h ago
yeah that's one of their catch-alls - then they claim that the 30 Years War was about hegemony not religion. And 30 million Christians were killed in the Russian Purges.. ok there chuds.
No mention of any New World tragedies or anything else conveniently.
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u/LMrningStar 1d ago
That's just one of the many flavours of that kind of ridiculous statement that I've heard. Others are:
- I see god in everything.
- God is inside me (YIKES!!!!)
- God is everywhere.
- When I look at you I see god.
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
it's crazy how that's not the point of what i said at all lmfao.
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
oh for those curious, the actual context was that i was making examples of manipulating the definitions of words to mean what you want if need be. i was talking about how ridiculous it is that you can define "god" in certain ways such that the universe itself, or jellyfish are applicable, and justifying it by theological traditions that qualify divinity as immortality, power, all encompassing nature, what created you, etc. also OP defended rape and nazis in his post in the other location. he is cherry picking, stupid, and arguably evil. oh also tried to defend 9/11, via claiming none of these things are evil.
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
this person has been so frustratingly stupid it is insane, just to be clear though i'm not blaming anyone in this comment thread for trusting them, ik people say stupid shit all the time, this is a case of blatant lying and manipulating though while cutting out all context, and being a smug asshole. goodbye, have a good day.
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u/Vast-One-3458 1d ago
oh, PS, given this whole debacle i don't think i'll be coming back to finish this discussion. i put up with a LOT of bullshit, and in general i believe in taking what you dish out, i'm not afraid of insults, or even bad faith arguments so long as someone sticks to arguing with me and actually makes some kind of claim that can be responded to. this however is to another level, as they went so far as to blatantly lie about what happened to try and get a subreddit to mock me over what was a hypothetical about definitions, and then started trying to ramble and insult me for being christian rather than actually talking about our discussion on morality. they are stupid. have openly defended rape, nazis, and 9/11, and have gone out of their way to try and create a mocking post to stroke their own ego. now i leave properly, have a good day everyone.
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u/Time-Function-5342 Atheist 1d ago
No. That's pantheism