Question: Atheists, what do you think of this argument for God's existence?
- Everything that begins to exist was created.
-the universe began to exist.
- the universe was therefore created.
- the creator is God.
- therefore God exists.
Relation Questions:
Answer:
It fails already at the first step; "Everything that begins to exist was created". There is no evidence for creation. But to play along, lets skip this step and lets go to step four, where it again fails; "the creator is God". There is no evidence for the existence of any god, let alone for any specific god. If we assume that there is a creator, then it could be any possible god; it could be your God, but it could just as well be Allah, Thor, Zeus, Gaia, Wodan, Mithras or any of the other of thousands of known gods and not to forget any unknown gods... if it was a god or gods at all, as everything might as well be created by an alien life form from another dimension for example. Since there is no evidence for any of this, every assumption which we make is just as valid. Instead of assuming things, I like to stick to the facts. The facts in this case are that there is no evidence for creation, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god, let alone for any specific god. Why fill in the gaps with your specific god therefore? You tried to come up with a logical argument, but the only logical conclusion in this case would be that you do not know how everything came to be, you do not know if any god exists, therefore why would you even believe in the existence of any specific god? That is logical thinking.
The error is in the premise: "everything that begins to exist was created," which is patently incorrect. Things in nature begin and end without a creator. To argue that they are God's "creation" and therefore require a creator is circular reasoning and faulty logic. Try harder next time.
That is an argument that has been posited many times before. It assumes ultimate causation, which is not a terrible assumption as we live in a universe of cause and effect. This has two problems:
1.) You have placed intelligence on this ultimate cause, but have no rational for doing so. In other words it could simply be inanimate. Now by placing intelligence onto this ultimate cause, you have eliminated the need to explain the organized complexity seen in the universe, but theories like the multiverse also do this. Like God though, the multiverse assumes something that can not be readily proven.
2.) There has to be a starting point with no cause, otherwise you have an infinite causation. This leads to the who created God question. The answer is that God exists outside of time thus doesn't need a creator. This same answer applies to the multiverse or omniverse or whatever is greater than the universe.
Narathzul,
Do you recognize that you have made exactly the same argument as theists for hundreds of years? When asked who created God, theists say, God exists outside of time and therefore is not subject to causation. The only difference between your view and the theist view is the placement of intelligence onto that something greater or cause of the universe.
So one thing I would like you to consider is this. Does the universe appear to be so chaotic as to make the placement of intelligence onto this cause, completely absurd? Note I am not asking you to change your view on atheism, only to change your view on the stupidity or lack of logic of theists.
"the creator is god"
explain this premise, this one just seems like a completely blind assumption
"everything that begins to exist was created"
how do you know that? how do you know energy began to exist? why didn't god begin to exist?
"the universe was therefore created"
by "created" you mean the rearranging of matter into something else, and the spawning of matter from energy is not a creation based on thermodynamics
That is known as the Kalam cosmological argument and I think it fails to understand the nature of causality. I refuted Kalam years ago.
Basically, Kalam fails at the very first premise. The whole premise that "everything that begins to exist has a cause" is flawed because logically it cannot apply when we're standing at the beginning of time. If time had a beginning and it begun in the Big Bang, as most scientists think, then logically that’s an exception to the idea that everything that begins to exist has a cause.
If time began in the Big Bang, then nothing can have caused the Big Bang. This might sound counter-intuitive, even absurd, but it has a sound logic behind it. The main pillar of that logic is that causality requires time. The concept of causality literally makes no sense without time because without time there's nothing to distinguish between cause and effect. So since causality requires time, the Big Bang cannot have been caused for there was no time before it. Indeed there was no "before". The rule that something can't come from nothing is not violated here because technically there was no "before" so something didn't come "from" nothing.
Therefore, not only do we not need the Universe to be created but we don't even need a cause. In fact it's logically impossible for it to have a cause since time and thus causality itself begun with it.
Narathzul: It predates Islam as an argument, so it is not Islamic but was adopted by the pre-Islamic scholars from Aristotle, who lived 384BC - 322BC, and therefore predates the time of Mohammed by a very long way.
Aristotle was what would be referred to as a natural philosopher, these people, right up until we reach Isaac Newton (1643AD- 1727AD) were not scientists as we view them now, they had a different modus operandi, that being, they wanted to show how the work of gods, god or their respective deities worked.
The whole idea was to bring people closer to that deity, not to show how the universe actually worked as this was assumed to be part of the role of the deity.
This then meant that what the poster is claiming was an accepted fact, that there had to be a first cause, something that we know today, at least from a scientific point of view is not necessary.
The 'first cause' argument for a 'creator' has two immediate problems, the first being obvious, the creator itself has no first cause, so how do you explain the presence of the creator in the first place, how did it get to the point that could create the universe as is know today.
The other problem that the first cause creator has is the thing that theists and more specifically creationists argue is flaw with science, that being the something coming from nothing argument, as the creator as first cause is itself a something coming from nothing, and even worse, the creator as first cause needs to have brought the whole universe into existence from nothing unless the mechanism used by the creator can be shown.
If you look at the cosmological position on the Big Bang, both these problems do not exist, but there is no first cause, it simply is not required.
The Big Bang has the universe at the very beginning as compressed into a very small space, everything we know and see already there, just in different proportions, this 'singularity' then expanded rapidly, and there is plenty of science that shows how this happened, to the point we are now at, we cannot yet 'see' back to the origin point itself, but we can get a back to a certain point, observations and measurements show that.
Therefore, this tells us two things, one we know from checkable physics that no god or deity was required, the other is that we know where all the 'stuff' in our universe came from.
What we do not know is what triggered the expansion in the first place, there are many ideas and hypotheses as to how, but none have real proof behind them, who knows, it could turn out that the initial 'light blue touch paper' moment was a god or deity, it could be a natural phenomenon, or it could be that certain actions taken by scientists in another dimension where responsible, that someone cause a quantum fluctuation that destabilised the whole thing causing this universe to begin, put your god in there at that point if you wish, but, at the end of the day as the advances have been made, the probability of it being a god or deity is still subject to the two points I made earlier. where did that god come from, how did it get there?
First cause dates back so far, it no longer really has any basis, it was proposed at a time when we did not have a clue how things worked, no idea of atoms, what stars and planets really were and much else beside, what do you think is better, to hang on to the words and thoughts of a man long dead, or listen and try to understand what modern 21st Century science is really telling you?
You cannot prove that everything created was done so my an actual will.
That is a HUGE assumption.
And I'm willing to bet the moment someone points out the fallacy of God needing a creator, you'll suddenly change the rules of your logic.
You cannot start a logical argument with the phrase "Everything that begins to exist was created" and finish it by citing something that was not created.
Epic logic fail.
First Cause
Only works if you use 'special pleading', as in, you suggest that everything needs a beginning EXCEPT god. If your claims require making special allowances so your beliefs make sense, then your beliefs don't make sense.
Oh, oh, let me try!
- Everything that begins to exist was created.
- God began to exist.
- God was therefore created.
- The creator is Flying Spaghetti Monster.
- Therefore FSM exists.
Am I doing it right?
I spoke to my mate Eric about this.Eric is a prophet. I asked him to ask God but Eric said God was in three minds about the whole thing.
Any argument for a god which works just as well if you substitute "purple space gnomes" for "god" is probably not a good one.
A giant run around in a circle. Means Jack shyt to me.
Bla bla blah *THOR EXISTS BECAUSE WE USE HAMMERS TODAY* bla blah.
- Everything that begins to exist was created.
WRONG.
Now go back to your little hole.
Replace "God" with "leprechaun" or "lucky horseshoe" and see if it makes any less sense...
awful. just awful.
Fail after the first line: "Everything that begins to exist was created."
WRONG!
Total crap. Natural things aren't created. Next.
Get a life! please start thinking past all this dribble. There is a wealth of knowledge out there that can help you overcome this chidish notion, think. Please help yourself to get beyond this.
Substitute the word "sponge cake" for god and see if the argument still sounds the same.
I facepalmed when I read this...
One thing: You need to prove that God exists before you can prove that he created the universe.
I'm a Christian, but your demonstration is so stup... Wait a minute, I got it: you're just another atheist trying to make Christian look bad. That's why I smelt troll!
Lines 2 and 4 are false premises that lead to a false conclusion.
which god, and who/what created it/him/her?
*YAWN*