If one believes that the only role a "Creator" played

[MineralMan]

was to strike a spark to begin everything, what's the point of belief? How is that different from the Universe just beginning on its own?

A one-flick deity doesn't seem to me to be enough on which to base a religion.

Here, watch me flick my Bic! There's a spark.

[underpants]

1. I thought God rubbed two sticks together

but then God would have to have created sticks...trees.....nevermind it was probably Mother Nature with lightning.

[MineralMan]

3. I'm pretty sure it was sparkier than that, really.

The Big Bang was, well, big. Real big.

[dvduval]

2. The love of men

Because it makes it personal. Now there is man-God you are beholden to serving, and is good training for you serving men in general, especially powerful men.

[MineralMan]

4. Well, as they say, "You've gotta serve somebody."

Who invented that saying, I wonder?

[dvduval]

5. Might as well be a powerful male

Sounds in league with “better to be safe than sorry”. Powerful logic, yet faulty and prone to manipulation.

[marylandblue]

8. Probably has to do with our primate roots

We must have decended from apes led by a dominant male.

[dvduval]

7. Trump then

“Trump knows how to do things, and you have to serve someone. He is a Christian man and God is behind him so better to be safe than sorry.”

That is twisted logic that many Christians in America believe right now.

[Lordquinton]

6. It's like Sagan said

Why not skip a step, and say the universe has always existed?

[dvduval]

10. There is little or no contrary evidence

Sure, and the word “always” is strange inside a Black Hole where time may stand still in relation to us. There’s a multitude of “always” taking place right now. And we also cannot disprove infinite distances.

[Lordquinton]

13. It was in response to the claim

That God has always existed.

[qazplm135]

9. while I am agnostic

and tend to believe it unlikely that there is any "God" in the religious sense...I suppose it's possible, if you believe the theory that the entire universe is basically the inside of a black hole (or some other theory of universe creation that might involve a "parent" universe) that a sufficiently advanced intellect in said parent universe could have "created" our universe.

But even if that were so, it's almost impossible that said entity could in any way interact with our universe anymore than we can interact with other universes.

My point is, if universe creation is a repeatable, natural process, then it can be created by a sufficiently intelligent intellect. If it's a one-time event (ignoring that time may not have existed prior to the creation of the universe) then yeah not so much.

[dvduval]

11. Create God

The obvious question that follows is:
How did God come to exist?

[aeromanKC]

12. By someone asking "why?"

And then a lot of begetting happened.

[Igel]

14. Same diff.

"Our universe is a bubble in a larger universe. That's where our universe came from."

"So, where did that other universe come from?"

"It's always been there, and before our universe existed time has no meaning, anyway," is one smug(gish) answer.

I consider it appropriate that doctoral robes look like clerical garments.

[marylandblue]

16. Why are those answers smuggish?

They aren't even real answers, they are mere hypotheses. The current non-smuggish scientific answer is "we don't know."

[qazplm135]

19. a hypothesis

is a possible answer waiting for evidence.

It's probably something that will never get past the hypothesis stage because testing it would require either going outside of our own universe, finding a way to travel back to before our universe "started" or some sort of evidence that would link other universes to our own.

Since the first two are impossible, and the third one is possible but highly unlikely, our best "answers" are probably going to be hypothesis at best.

[qazplm135]

17. I mean yes and no

I'm not proposing a deity, just the possibility of higher universes or parent universes, two things well within mainstream scientific theory.
If for example creating a black hole in a universe actually creates a new baby universe, then it would only require the ability to create a black hole.

Point being, doesn't require a deity, but could just require a being of sufficient intelligence...and said being could be mortal themselves and likely unaware of what they've created or with no ability to affect what they've created.

What created them? Could be universes creating universes ad infinitum, some natural, some created.

[edhopper]

15. It's Turtles

all the way down.

[Permanut]

18. ..As quoted by Hawking..

in "a Brief History of Time". You beat me to it, edhopper, that was the first thought I had as well.

[Act_of_Reparation]

20. Perhaps more importantly...

...even if it's true, and the universe was created by a god who thereafter has steadfastly refused to interact with its creation in any way, why worship him?

Seriously. The guy made asshole cancer and then promptly took off without leaving a customer service number. If he's real, he can get fucked for all I care.

[MineralMan]

21. Beats me...and yet...

folks still do.

[marylandblue]

24. I suspect that there are few people who worship an absentee God

Most worshippers believe God continues to interact with the Universe in some mysterious fashion. There is only one worshipper I am aware who worships an absentee God, and it's not even clear that he believes in such a God.

[MineralMan]

25. I'm quite sure there are billions who worship just such absentee gods.

They just don't admit that detail. In fact, they deny it.

[Major Nikon]

22. That was pretty much the whole idea of deism

It was embraced by those who wanted to reject theism without the stigma of rejecting a higher power.

[MineralMan]

23. Punting is always an option...

[JenniferJuniper]

26. Time

Time is the key. We don't understand it now, probably never well.

The notion of a linear creation by a single creator- whether one believes in the fundie Christian 6,000 years nonsense or imagines a deity created this sole universe billions of years ago - has never made any sense to me.

The odds of anyone who is reading this existing at this moment in this time and space are practically nil. But here we are. How is it possible?

[uriel1972]

28. All things are possible, but not everything is probable...

We don't know things for sure and perhaps never will. However, the question that no theist has ever answered to my satisfaction is 'Where did God come from?'

The 'always existed' answer, strikes me as a panicked cop out