@jerry99

Ascribing anything to God is just to say you don’t have the least idea of what it is or what it means IMO. It is an admission of absolute ignorance, which is the most honest assessment. What does it mean to say “God did it” when you don’t have the slightest idea of what you are talking about?

I’ve been doing it all my life and I ain’t mad yet—oh wait, maybe I am. That would explain a lot, aye?

"There is this Nature that created itself and decreed immutable laws, brought life into existence, and seems to be awash in intelligent, conscious awareness. For God’s sake, for all the difference we might as well call it God."

There are multiple errors here. Which leads me to believe you either did not listen to the podcast nor understand the universe as we understand it scientifically.

The "nature" of the universe did not create itself and decree immutable laws. The singularity point of the big bang does not subscribe to the laws of physics as we perceive them now. The existence of the universe is seperate to the existence of life. The universe did not bring life into existence by intention, it was brought by cause and effect with chance. Also, there is absolutely no evidence that the universe has concious awareness nor does it imply intelligence. The universe no more decrees laws then water decrees being a liquid.

No, the difference for everything we've uncovered implys nothing of a god as it's commonly applied. You can't have it both ways.

"Also, there is absolutely no evidence that the universe has concious awareness nor does it imply intelligence."

But we are that evidence.

@Matthew2474

The most overriding conclusion of the podcast IMO is that the answer to the question about why there is anything rather than nothing: No one knows. I listened to about half of the podcast until it became obvious that no answer would be forthcoming.

And you are right: I absolutely do not understand the universe as “we” understand it scientifically, and I posit that no one else understands the universe, yourself included. You are not thinking of the overall picture, saying that everything fell into existence by chance accident. There is no basis for such a belief and no way to test your assertion, and even if the assertion were true you would have explained nothing. By what means were the laws of probability established? There had to be some sort of existing framework of reality to accommodate your accidental “falling into existence”. Where does that reality come from? Besides that, our very concept of existence is by no means clear. In the book “Reality is not What it Seems” by Carlo Rovelli, we learn that the universe is not made out of matter. “Matter” is a human interpretation of the interactions between covariant quantum fields. And time does not exist. How can we have an intelligent discussion about the origins of the universe when we don’t know the meaning of existence and don’t know what conscious awareness is and thus don’t even understand what we ourselves are.

So far as there being conscious awareness in the universe, we ourselves provide ample evidence for that. What is the source for that awareness? Again, no one knows—it is a deep mystery, but some very astute people have advocated for the concept of Universal Consciousness, including most of the founders of modern physics along with John Wheeler, and now even Roger Penrose is talking about it.

Universal Consciousness

[scientificamerican.com]

[google.com]

[jcer.com]

[m.huffpost.com]

[google.com] (The best)

I know only one thing, and that thing is that the deep questions about reality are profoundly mysterious and beyond human intellect. Science provides some glimmers of insight but those glimmers are inherently superficial. Ultimate Reality is overwhelming in its implications no matter what silly label you slap on it.