Why is there something instead of nothing?

The short answer: because there is something.

The long answer: I don't give a shit.

I love the irony of some self-assured asshole coming at me with a big "bet you don't know, your atheism can't explain this" argument not realizing he's shooting his own fucking feet off. I don't disbelieve in god because the atheistic worldview provides me with answers.

I disbelieve in god because there isn't one.

That much should be obvious. Religions make truth-claims about the natural world. Those truth claims are not supported by evidence. In fact, they're often contradicted. Thus, if Religion A claims some dude rose from the dead, or that demonic possession is a real phenomena, or that a piece of cracker is magically transformed into the connective tissue of an unemployed Bronze Age carpenter, and those claims are unsupported by any physical evidence, direct or indirect, it is completely reasonable to reject all of Religion A's truth claims.

The apologist says "maybe some of Religion A's tenets are not meant to be taken literally, but what about the ultimate question? Maybe Religion A truly provides some insight?" Am I throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Yes. I am. Especially when the baby is totally indistinguishable from the bathwater.

Basically, my conclusion is that for the Abrahamic faiths, the largest of the world's religions, the question is not whether or not god exists. That 'ultimate question' seems to be rather buried under theological scat-sculpting and moral authoritarianism. I could give the lie to the idea that there is some omniscient intelligence guiding the physical universe and still have nothing to do with Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. The fact is, for those religions, their real focus is on all the crap that they argue stems from their supposed relationships with the one true god. Their baby is the fucking bathwater.

It's not god who takes center stage, it's Mohamed and Jesus and Moses and all the stories, scriptures, apocryphal tales, canonical beliefs, and faith-defining tenets. And none of that stuff is true. It's all bogus. Christianity can't even get the story straight on the life of their founding sociopath.

And when you throw out all of those scriptures and tales and beliefs, what are you left with?

You're left with maybe there's an omniscient creator, maybe there's not, and where did this notion that there should be one even come from in the first place?

You're not even left with the same fucking question that our smug religious apologist came at me with in the first place, "why is there stuff?"

Just strip away the superficial narrow-mindedness of that question, and its failure of perspective is revealed: Why is it so important that if stuff exists, that something or someone created it? Is that really the only explanation that can be fathomed by some people? Or is it that if we're forced to explore other possibilities, the apologists have to admit that 'god done it' is only one of many answers (and likely not counted among the plausible ones) and the privileged position they have come to expect from their membership in a kooky semi-literate deathcult is no longer a guarantee?

Atheism doesn't provide me with answers. It is just a rejection of the answers that have been given to me by pretend know-it-alls. It's a rejection of notions that are unsupported by evidence and a rejection of the notion that it's virtuous to believe ridiculous truth-claims without supporting evidence. It is not a set of answers.

Anything that provides you with a set of answers about the whole universe is a religion. Anything that provides you with facts, theories, questions, and the tools to seek more facts, test those theories, generate new ones, and directly or indirectly get answers to questions--that's thinking. Maybe it also sounds an awful lot like science.

Probably not a coincidence.

One other objection, though. Agnostic apologists will often whine that while atheism may be valid in addressing organized religion, it can't address more personal beliefs or notions about the universe. I might be able to deny the existence of Jehovah or Allah, but I can't say anything about the personal god of Thomas Jefferson.

Problem is, stripped of all the rule-mongering and praying and truth-claims that make an organized religion, those personal beliefs are rather worthless to argue over. Sure, I can't say anything about your very very personal conception of an omniscient creator, but...you can't really say anything valuable about him/her/it either.

If it has to abide by the laws of the physical universe as we understand them, if your god or anyone else's has to fit the facts as we so far know them, if he cannot cause miracles or respond to prayer or suck your soul out of your body, then all we have is a god of the gaps--a do-nothing god.

I don't think any special consideration needs to be given to human flights of fancy about what we don't know. Sure, you can fill in the gaps in our knowledge with wishful thinking and garbage, but that doesn't mean I have to give a fuck.

Further, there is no special privilege that a divine creator deserves over any other supernatural crap that a person can invent. The idea of a giant anthropomorphic ruler of the universe itself is a human invention, and when considering things that 'could exist but we have no evidence for' that particular human concept is no more valid than fairies, unicorns, He-Man, or the Predator.

My point is, I don't have to disprove every ridiculous truth-claim made about the universe. Anyone can have a personal belief in a beneficent omniscient universal intelligence that loves them personally but has no actual effects on the world--I don't have to address their claims with my atheism because it's perfectly reasonable to withhold provisional assent to such ideas.

I can make-believe about a fungus that turns people into zombies. That doesn't mean my fictional notion fits into our cosmic understanding somewhere, or should even be considered.

Too many agnostics shy away from atheism because of its certainty. They get all huffy because they think that we think that we have the all answers.

I'm not an atheist because I have all the answers. I am an atheist because religion has none of the answers and doesn't even know the real questions. I am an atheist because your personal belief in an all-knowing creator is still unintelligible at the end of the day, no matter how beautiful it sounds and how reassured it makes you feel.

Maybe I am also an atheist because I don't think it really matters whether we find answers or not. It's cool to just look.