Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.^[1]

~Clarence Darrow

T
here is at best weak circumstantial evidence for God’s existence, and it’s heavily outweighed by direct evidence that our religious beliefs exist for reasons having nothing to do with the actual existence of God. However, this does not prove God must not exist. Moreover, it misses a larger question.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

God is really an invention to answer that question. We can decide that God exists or not, but the other question remains.

Let us call this the cosmological question. In a moment, I shall stun you by offering the one and only correct answer to the question, finally putting an ancient philosophical quandary to rest. But first, the theistic answer to the cosmological question requires greater scrutiny.

^[1]Why I Am An Agnostic by Clarence Darrow, http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/clarence_darrow/why_i_am_an_agnostic.html ↩