I identify myself as an atheist but...

[Bay Boy]

...the only thing that gives me any pause is this.
I don't believe in a god because of the impossibility of the whole concept of a supernatural being creating the universe.
On the other hand the universe and everything in it came from somewhere (at the same time coming from nothing).
So what I'm saying is that all the matter in the universe (and the life that sprang from it) is impossible.
And any type of god being is impossible. But if the matter (and life) are undeniably here is there a possibility of a god being
responsible for the universe's creation?

[Neoma]

1. The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

2. Maybe, but without evidence it's just another story

To explain the unexplainable is just making stuff up. What's dangerous are the accompanying rules attached to the made up story.

I know I am here because I am here. Without evidence, I don't need to know how or why and I definitely do not have a need for a made up story to explain it.

[Mr.Bill]

3. For myself, it's simply

I don't know and I am content with that. It amazes me the lenghths people go to to try and satisfy their need to know the unknowable.

[deucemagnet]

4. Lawrence Krauss has done some fascinating work on the origins of the universe.

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing

[pokerfan]

5. If you posit a creator...

then you must ask where the creator came from. If everything must have a cause, then the creator must have a cause. An "uncaused first cause" is special pleading. If the creator can be eternal, then why can't the universe (or multiverse) be eternal? A creator hypothesis just moves the question back one level.

[Warpy]

8. It's turtles all the way down

However, today's magical thinkers magically stop their thinking at the god level. It's as taboo to go beyond that to god's creation as it is to question any of the myth.

[AlbertCat]

6. all the matter in the universe (and the life that sprang from it) is impossible.

Clearly this is not true. It's here!

[Warpy]

7. Oh, I think the Taoists are probably closest,

that the universe as a whole is alive but not self aware.

That's an important distinction that precludes the possibility of some uber-god on a cloud on a small planet around an ordinary star on the outer arm of a so-so galaxy among billions directing the whole show.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. If you have doubts about your atheism

are you really an atheist?

We are infants in our understanding of the universe and how it works. We have no idea what is possible or impossible. I suppose that anything is possible, including god. But that doesn't cause me to determine that just because it is "possible" that is it truth.

[Iggo]

10. I know for a fact that I don't believe in a god or gods.

That makes me an atheist, no buts about it. I don't know how the universe came into being, but I have no shred of belief that some sky-daddy created it, because the existence of sky-daddies is absurd on its face. That disbelief in sky-daddies makes me an atheist. And again, no buts about it.

[AlbertCat]

11. I don't how the universe came into being,

No one does.

[Gore1FL]

12. Here you go:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357151482&sr=8-1&keywords=a+universe+from+nothing

Here is a video "overview" of what is in the book. Awesome lecture--well worth watching:

[Stuckinthebush]

18. One of THE BEST videos I've seen on the subject

Thank you so much for this!

[cynatnite]

13. Maybe agnostic would be a better identifier...

if you believe it's possible a god had a hand in creating the universe.

I have seen no evidence to date asserting that and I consider myself atheist. I don't understand this notion that "everything came from something". Who is to say that this universe began with nothing?

I don't need to believe there is a god to explain the creation of the universe. Science does a much better job.

[gcomeau]

16. No.

There is no such thing as agnostic being a "better" identifier for someone than atheist or theist. They refer to separate questions.

Theist/atheist = do or do not possess the belief in the existence of a deity.
Gnostic/agnostic = do or do not possess the belief that it is *possible to know* whether or not a deity exists.

Anyone who says they aren't an atheist they're an agnostic is making as much sense as someone who says they aren't an atheist they're an accountant. They can be an agnostic... they can be an accountant... but not as an *alternative* to being an atheist. The alternative to atheist is theist. The ONLY alternative. It is a binary solution set. You do or you do not have that particular belief.

The OP does not believe a deity exists. Therefore, atheist.

[FiveGoodMen]

14. "all the matter in the universe (and the life that sprang from it) is impossible"

Impossible how?

We don't really know if there was ever a time without matter. We only know that the universe we can see was all smushed together a long time ago.

There's also an on-going argument about time (whether it exists, whether it preceded the big bang, whether any version of it is absolute, whether it can be reversed...)

When we add up all the things we don't know yet, there's no basis left to declare that matter is impossible.

You don't know how it came into being or how long it's been here or how many other states it might exist in under the right conditions.

And neither do I.

[gcomeau]

15. And why...

...could the universe not simply always have existed in some form rather than "coming from" somewhere?

[libodem]

17. I think of 'it'

As a blueprint. A mathmatical formula of numbers that only works certain way. If it doesn't stack up it fails. There is an intelligence behind the reality of what works.