[Xujhan]

However amazing a mathematical universe might be, isn't a god by definition more amazing? The entire argument seems self defeating; if it's too improbable that the universe came into being as a nonliving clump of elementary matter, isn't it infinitely more improbable that a super-intelligent being existed before it to create it? How can you demand the existence of a god to explain the existence of the universe without also demanding an explanation for the existence of god? That's one of the standard atheist arguments.

In ancient civilizations, the world was the limit of human understanding and religion was used to explain beyond that limit. All ancient cultures had religious explanations of the creation of the world. Now we understand the world and how it was created, and it's the universe that is the limit of our understanding. Now, Christianity is used to explain the origins of the universe. But is it so hard to believe that one day we may come to understand the origins of the universe just as we once came to understand the origins of our world?

At any point in time, science and understanding fill a portion of what we can comprehend, and the unfulfilled remainder is left to religion. Science is always growing. At some point, it may be that we outgrow our need for religion entirely. I also feel that there are moral reasons to abandon religion in favour of atheism, in addition to scientific ones, but those are much harder to use in debate and also somewhat off topic.