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A physicist's critique of the existence of a God.

Article Excerpt
In all major religions 'God' is thought of as being the creator of men and the world, that is, the creator of the universe. This god existed already before space, time, and matter were created. God was therefore capable of residing and governing in an absolute 'nothingness' according to the theologians. Great thinkers of all times have attacked and criticized this god-idea with philosophical arguments. Despite this, the god-idea is still alive. Propped up by questionable arguments and means, it still clings to life. In what follows, this idea of a creator-god is analyzed and scrutinized with the logic of a physicist.

The belief in a creator-god stands and falls with our understanding of 'nothingness'. If it can be proved that in nothingness nothing--absolutely nothing--can exist, then the god-idea is finished. If, in addition, it can be shown that this nothingness of the theologians does not exist in reality, but can exist only as a thought, as a speculative idea in our brains, then the foundation for the existence of a creator-god has vanished and this god is revealed to be only a thought of the brain--a fantasy creation of the brain that does not exist in reality outside the brain. In what follows these proofs will be presented.

It is maintained that this god already existed before he created the universe. This implies, that he was able to reside in an absolute nothingness. This nothingness is conceived as being some kind of 'super-emptiness' or 'super-vacuum' in which the creator-god resides and in which space, time and matter is located after it was created by him. However, 'nothingness' is only a synonym for 'nonexistence'. If it is maintained that this god resided in nothingness, this only means that he resided in nonexistence. In other words, as nothing yet existed, as there existed neither space, time, nor matter, we had the nonexistence of the universe. Now this 'nonexistence' expresses only a condition, namely the nonexistence of something; it does not mean that this nonexistence is a kind of vacuum, where at the time X something can...