Everything came from nothing

Why even Atheism requires faith and a miracle

Comedian Pete Holmes once said that an atheist believing that nothing created the universe was the funniest guess. “Does God exist? Maybe, but you know what definitely doesn’t exist…nothing. That’s the defining characteristic of nothing: it doesn’t exist. So you either believe it’s God, something science can’t see, taste, touch, or prove, or you believe it’s nothing, something science can’t see, taste, touch, or prove. But if your nothing spontaneously erupts into something, that’s a magical nothing.”

In science, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and nothing can produce something. So even from a non-religious perspective, the origins of life are…a miracle.

How did we develop knowledge for good an evil?

One of the most outspoken atheists of modern times, Richard Dawkins, made this statement in his book: “The universe we observe has... no evil and no good.... DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music” (River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life [1995], 133). A naturalistic worldview denies the possibility of evil because evil’s existence implies moral accountability, but we all know intuitively that evil exists. If evil is real, then good is also real; otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two. If good and evil exist, we need a moral standard to know the difference. The presence of such a moral standard requires a Giver of this moral standard. Therefore, the question of evil and suffering ultimately points to a source of a moral standard.

Current criticisms of Evolution

• Gaps in the fossil record: Transitional fossils (the skeleton of an animal transitioning between known species) are missing and these gaps fundamentally weaken evolutionary theory.

• Complexity of biological systems: An example would be the bacterial flagellum, a sort of propeller protruding from bacteria that is so complex with each tiny moving part having a function that it is not conceivable for some scientists that this part of bacteria evolved randomly, as there are no useless parts.

• Evidence of beneficial mutations in modern science: when the word ‘mutation’ is used in modern science. It is typically in response to a variance in genetic code that leads to an animal or human poorly adapting to its environment and complex health issues. Yet, historically speaking, we are led to believe that mutations led to positive adaptations in the environment. Science requires observation, and all observation points to mutation in humans and animals as being negative for survival, not positive.

• Genetic information origin: Random mutations and natural selection can’t account for new genetic “information” appearing.

  
  

Counterarguments & Broader Context

• Experts say that missing fossils are expected due to geological processes and the sheer improbability of perfect preservation.

• Scientists emphasize that irreducibly complex systems like flagella can evolve through known intermediate steps, sometimes repurposing simpler biological structures.

• On information theory, it’s argued that genetic variation, horizontal gene transfer, and natural selection do increase biological information over time.

  
  

 Evolution explains diversity, but not the beginning

While evolution deals with the question of how life diversifies, it fails to answer the question of how life began. For complex biological systems seen within humans and within nature, there’s 0 evidence of the intermediate ‘steps’ in the process between where evolution claims we started and where we are.

“In truth, the belief in evolutionary theory, with its heaps of missing evidence and Big Bang theory beginnings that rely on cheating observable science, requires as much faith to believe as creationism.”

Let’s look at human beings, for example. Evolution is commonly credited with mutations that cause physical adaptations to our environment. But what physical adaptations have human beings made? We are arguably some of the most maladapted creatures to our environment. We are far weaker than our supposed ape ancestors, with an inability to adapt to colder temperatures without protection. Our evolution has taken place almost exclusively cognitively, for which evolutionary theory has no explanation. 

A notable example is Stephen C. Meyer, a philosopher of science affiliated with the Discovery Institute. In a 2023 Joe Rogan Experience episode, Meyer acknowledged that he accepts "real evolutionary processes," yet argued that neo‑Darwinian evolution is fundamentally inadequate for explaining the origin of life and biological form complexity. He claimed that while evolutionary mechanisms can account for small-scale variation, they fail to explain the arrival of fundamentally new forms. As he explained on the Joe Rogan podcast, “[time] is often cast as the hero of the plot. But no amount of time can give the Darwinian selection/mutation mechanism the creative power it needs to produce all the forms of life we see on Earth.

Final Take

Science says nothing can’t create something. So why do so many people still believe it did?