There hsa been something bugging me all day so I am just going to ask

[learning]

Non-believers do you have an answer as to how the world/universe was created. What about nature? Where did that come from? Who created us? I could go on but would love to hear your opinions

[DominiConnor]

Non-believers do you have an answer as to how the world/universe was created.

You can assume a God, but all they buys you is "where did God come from".
Actually there is a deeper question, which is "where does 'where does X come from' com from". That syntactic mess asks where the "rule" that things must come from somewhere itself come from ?

What about nature?
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The set of things we see in the "natural world", are on the real time scale very short lived transitory phenomena.
Who created us?
We evolved, the evidence for this is enormously compelling. We can actually watch evolution these days.
But as for "us", to a significant extent, we created "us". A good % of the development of the brain was an arms race between humans. A lot of modern human behaviour cannot be explained by evolution, but can be modelled (to an extent) by looking at the interactions of humans. Humans do things that reduce their ability to survive and pass on their genes.

Some people have tried with a bit of success to model these behaviours as organisms themselves.
This has ideas as "memes". Religions look remarkably like viruses, both the computer and biological kind.
Some like Dawkins (Blind Watchmaker) see religions as a form of contagious mental illness, and you can use classical epidemological techniques to model it's spread and adaption to new populations.

Some like Steve Jones
www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/12/jones_creationism_talk/
have a softer view, that religion is fine for it's own area but gets quite silly once you get outside it's core competence.

[clerkKent]

Big-bang, theory of evolution. These are both theories, and in time a better theory may come along, but scientists don't have any better ideas for now.

Fred Hoyle (a famous astronomer) denied the big-bang; his theory was that there was no beginning, but that view has been discredited now.

My parents created me .

There is another theory:
"I believe the world was created by a giant dog who licked everthing to shape out of custard, which he then microwaved with a special cling film over it to make it solid. ", and that has some support on MN

[Pruni]

I instinctively feel it's an odd question.

[lucy5]

To me this sounds like the opening question that JW's ask.

[harpsichordcarrier]

I think it is interesting to consider the way in which you frame the question. You (and the rest of us) have been heavily influenced by our culture (I was going to say "brainwashed" but that sounded a little strong) to view things from a particular standpoint. In my case (and in your case I suspect) that there is Someone In Charge i.e God. I suspect (though I haven't studied this, so I am speculating) that this is also to do with the way our brains were developed prehistorically i.e. we were successful at dealing with things in detail in our immediate area and bringing it under our control. We are not evolved to deal with the big questions - about long periods of time, about huge expanses of space. It literally blows our prehistoric minds - we are only adapted to deal with this valley or plain. And so we create a story to deal with it and so we become a story telling culture.

The "story" that I was told as a child was the one in the Christian bible. The Judaeo Christian standpoint underpins the way my brain works (and yours too). And that is why you pose the question you do. Which, in fact, makes no sense at all unless you are trying to make it into a story. Even the atheists/doubters are defined by the prevalent story - i.e. you believe in God, I don't believe in God. But who mentioned God? Why did someone have to have created us, or had an idea? It is a skewed, humanocentric (??) view of the world.

[FrannyandZooey]

Agree, LOL at "bugging me all day" - wow, like, the whole day?

[Twiglett]

why does someone have to 'decide'

things pop in and out of existence all the time .. look at your little toe ... see how small it is .. that's because humans are evolving to a point where the useless little toe will just cease to exist ... so in millions of years, if we don't destroy everything of course, we'll all be 4 toed

sometimes things just happen by accident .. by glorious wonderful accident .. so can you imagine back in the dim and dark recesses of nothingness in this area of the galaxy it just happened .. like

some think some all-poweful creator, who just happens to be exactly like centuries of man have decided he is, created it all .. personally I believe god didn't create man .. but man created god (and I say man knowingly) .. look at all the forms of gods throughout history .. they exist out of man's need to understand

big bang .. small bang .. but definitely no big pointy finger going 'let there be' ..

god is the spirit that is inside us all .. god is what we all are.. it is not external to us .. and it is not described in the bible

well that's my take on it anyway ..

[jabberwocky]

Fabulous physics!

[Hattie05]

A universe was created - cultures and diversities grew within.

Some for the better and some for the worse.

[Pruni]

The cultures, diversity etc didn't come directly from that one point, though, they evolved. I mean, we're talking evolution over billions of years to get to the point that we see things at today, with billions more to go, probably. It's in constant flux.

[Pruni]

'How' is a good question but there just isn't any 'who'.
At least, not for me.
So I can't answer that one.

[learning]

My school going years were over many, many moons ago. Sorry if I am on the dense side

[learning]

What I mean is, who decided that a single atom, or whatever would create a universe, with so many different cultures, diversities etc...

[starlover]

learning... how can you not have heard of it? it's taught in school!

[Pruni]

To invent science?
Or to invent the Big Bang?

[learning]

CD, no I hadn't heard of the Big Bang. So answer me this, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but how did the whole "Science" thing start. Who decided to invent it?

[CountessDracula]

Alternatively there is the Eric Idle explanation.............

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth

[pucca]

I believe in the Big Bang Theory, science all the way for me, i certainly don't think there is some superior being called God sat on a fluffy cloud who created the universe.

[Pruni]

Mind-blowing, isn't it?
I'm not up on the latest theory, so can't help, QoQ.

[starlover]

dunno.... how did god appear?

[CountessDracula]

singularities dahling, singularities

[HRHQueenOfQuotes]

but what I don't get about the "big-bang" is if there was nothing there before how did it happen? How did the "singularity" appear???

[Pruni]

This has been bugging you , like, all day??

Sorry, that just made me chuckle.

Nobody created us. A gazillion things happened such that this is the result. I think it's beyond amazing. The idea of a notional creator seems commonplace in comparison.

[rickman]

My highly intelligent answer would be, "It just did ok?" :)

[CountessDracula]

Have you really never heard of it