Why is there something rather than nothing? Creation ex nihilo? Christians think that the default is a power [God] that can just tell something to pop into existence and it just comes into existence. In other words, there is God who has no maker and there is the universe that cannot exist unless he makes it. He does not turn into it. He remains a separate being. He just tells it to exist and it exists. That is the claim they are making.
That is insane.
It gives you a God who says, “Let there be whatever”. And the whatever appears. That is magic. Religion will object to the word magic being used. But whatever word is used, say miracle, you end up with the same problem.
Whatever it is if it is real, then it can create in reverse.
God can say, “Let there be death” and life appears. “Let there be only sickness,” and health appears.
The Bible says God looked at all he made and it was very good. So what if he said, "Let there be evil" meaning for good to appear? When you look at it that way, the goodness of God and the sanity of the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" become far from convincing.
So creating by contraries? Christians rule that out meaning they don’t really believe the creator thing at all. It is ideologically and above all emotionally [the notion that God made all from nothing feels possibly true but how it feels should not be the point] useful. Their faith is performative in that instance anyway.
Even if we didn't know all that, there is still the fact that logic says that nothing comes from nothing. In other words, even a God cannot do anything about it. Religion says God just commands things to exist and they appear. That is magic. Things must exist before God calls them into existence if he is able to command them to exist and they obey!
Creation gets too much support by "experts" saying it is true. But they are usually theologians ie propagandists. People listen to their sophistry and think that because the speaker has letters after their name that they have credibility.
From Omnipotence and other mistakes - Charles Hartshorne
APPENDIX FROM Freedom's Embrace by J Melvin Woody
