The Debate About Religion Topic

[Esiar]

JWeinCom said:

Esiar said:

I think the best arguments for God are the universe itself and maybe the Cosmological Argument.

The universe itself would not indicate any creator.  Even if it did, you'd have to make an incredible stretch to go from "the universe might have had a creator" to "God (I'm assuming you mean Judeo Christain god since you used capital G) exists", and he has the traits described in the bible.  

As for the cosmological argument, it's self defeating.  It goes something like everything has a cause, the universe has a cause, so the universe has a cause, and that cause is god.  So, everything has to have a cause... Ummmmmm... except god.  

Basically, the first premise, everything has a cause, conflicts with the last premise, there is something that happened without a cause.  And of course you can say "oh but god is outside of time", but now you have to prove that something can exist outside of time.  

Then if you want to use that argument to prove any specific god, you have to explain why you would be able to make any determinations about the nature of the uncaused cause.  The cosmological argument, at best, gets you to a deistic god, and even that's a huge stretch.  

And, we do not know that the universe "began to exist" as is put forth in many versions of the argument.  The current understanding of the universe's origin, The Big Bang, does not really suggest it was the beginning of the universe.  The Big Bang Theory supposes that the universe existed as a singularity, and then it exploded into the universe as we know it.

The Universe thing kinda goes into the fine tuning argument. Which, I think simplified, would sound like: It's extremely unlikely for life like Earth's to come about by mere chance, since there are tons of different variables that if altered a tiny bit, make it impossible. With it being hugely unlikely to come by chance, it makes more sense to conclude that it was deliberate. And a deliberate effect implies a will, and a will implies that a personal being caused it.

But the Bible definitely does not go that in-depth, and says "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse". So there's really not much I should say on the subject, since I believe that you know God exists in your conscience, but for whatever reason you are denying it (The root is the love of sin, but how that manifests is different)

And for the Cosmological Argument, I think one of the points you made is flawed. The first premise says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, not that everything that exists has a cause, so God would not apply under that premise, since God is the creator of time (Genesis 1:1 mentions a beginning, meaning an absolute start), he would need to exist outside of it, meaning there is no beginning for him, meaning he didn't begin to exist. So does not require a cause. If one were to say that, if time had an absolute beginning, and that the cause of it doesn't exist outside of the boundaries of time, that would be saying that time existed before time.

As for whether the Universe had a beginning, I did find an answer once, but I don't remember, so I'd have to look into it again.