I’m on a bit of a kick here, despite being well aware of how obscure these discussions are and how little this affects the overall philosophical narrative. Still, this issue has bothered me for a long time and I’d like to give my criticism of it here. Let me be clear that I identify as an atheist. Still, that doesn’t mean I agree with every cosmological concept advanced by atheists. There is one cosmological concept in particular that is, frankly, complete nonsense, yet which seems to have a hold over some of the brightest minds in existence. I find this issue has everything to do with semantics.

Nothing, in the narrowest, most authentic sense of the word, implies literally no thing whatsoever – not just no material objects. Nothing implies just that: nothing. Any definition of nothingness which, in effect, allows for anything at all except complete nothingness is, in fact, not nothingness. This should be obvious semantically.

1. The existence of any reality at all – whatever reality’s true nature – is something.
2. The existence of something implies an innate potential for something to exist. If there is no innate potential for something to exist, nothing can exist.
3. Given something’s existence (i.e. reality), there was, in fact, an innate potential for reality’s existence, whatever the precise nature of that potential.
4. The existence of an innate potential for something is not nothing.
5. Therefore, given reality’s existence, given that reality’s existence requires an innate potential for reality’s existence by the very fact reality exists and could not exist otherwise without some form of innate potential, and given that an innate potential qualifies as something and is not technically nothing, reality did not and could not possibly have originated from pure nothingness, as there is at least some form of innate potential for reality to exist required for its very existence.

If no potential for reality ever existed, reality would not exist. Logically, reality’s very existence implies some innate potential for its existence. This cannot be rationally denied. Notice I have not once said what the nature of that potential was. I have simply stated that, by necessity, for reality to exist, some potential for reality’s existence must exist innately, or else there would be no reality as it exists and only pure nothingness. As such, the existence of an innate potential is not actual nothingness. Actual nothingness implies no potential for anything at all. If there exists any potential for anything whatsoever, that is technically something, and so is not pure nothingness. Atheistic cosmologists err severely in their notion that the cosmos could have originated from literally nothing. It’s nonsense by the very fact said cosmologists posit the existence of a cosmos at all, which by necessity implies an innate potential for the existence of the cosmos. That innate potential, whatever its nature, is not nothing.

Would any atheists care to try to explain how the cosmogonic potential for reality’s existence can authentically be deemed nothingness? I’d be curious to see the kind of mental gymnastics you lot pull in trying to frame potentiality as nothingness. It’s absurd, really. Theists laugh at the concept of cosmogonic nothingness because it’s a nonsensical notion. Even theists, with all their flaws, can see it’s pure nonsense.

- D.L.X.