Goober

The argument fails by its own logic, because what caused god? Nothing, the argument says so, so the premise that things need causes is false. We can then use occam's razor to rule out god and state that it is the universe is uncaused, which is simpler than saying that god is uncaused and god caused the universe. Unless you want god to be the universe, that is, in which case 'god' is just a name for the universe, nothing more.

Normal

And THAT argument fails, because the universe has a physical existence, and anything with a physcial existance requires a cause for existing, necessitating the metaphysical existance of god.

Your agrument brings up an interesting point. Should pantheists be considered atheist?

Wyz_sub10

The problem with this - and the reason for Jobar's comment (I think) - is that the attibute "physical" began with the universe.

You cannot necessarily attribute "physical necessities" to the universe's origin, because physicality began with the universe's origin.

It is like asking what time it was just before the universe began.

So a metaphysical explanation in the form of god is not required to explain the beginning of the universe.

Normal

Physicality in relation to our universe began with the universe's origin, but the precursor to our universe's existence also existed in some form of physicality, ie. the singularity existed, maybe outside the bounds of our universes physicality, but in a physicality of it's own.

Wyz_sub10

I'm not sure it was a "singularity" (i.e. a point of infinite density) as we know it.

In any case, whatever properties this cause had, they were not likely comparable to properties that exist now.

Because of this, one cannot assume any necessary factors or requirements. Saying it has "some kind" of physicality is meaningless. One might just as well say god has "some kind" of physicality.

IOW, he is not metaphysical, but exhibits physical properties foreign to us.

We can say likewise of any potential cause of the universe.

Normal

It is meaningless to talk about a physicality outside our own, very true, which is the heart of the matter that makes the question of god insolvable.

I still find it interesting that science is pointing in the direction that pantheists such as Spinoza were writing about since the 17th century.

Volker

First, there is no reason tu suppose that an infinite chain of causes is impossible. So statement (3) is weak. If you think statement (2) is right, then there can be no first cause, so statement (3) must be wrong.

If everything is caused (which is debateable) then there must be an infinite regression of causes. In this case, there is no creator, therefore, their god does not exist. The moment you remove the false logic from the argument it turns out to be an argument against god as an creator.

And if not everything is caused, than statement (2) is false and their argument still fails. Either way they lose.

Wyz_sub10

It makes the question of god unsolvable, true. But it does not lend support to a need for god.

If physicality outside of the observable cannot be described in terms of the observable, there is no reason to believe that the cause of the unverse had to conform to the observable.

Silent Acorns

My problem with this (among others) is that one can't speak of "causing the universe to exist" without implicitly assuming that there was somekind of existence before the universe began. IOW, time existed before the universe did.

But what caused time to begin? Time is physical and so, according to this argument, it to must also be caused. But the definition of "cause" used here requires that causes must preceed their effects. But how can the cause of time preceed time itself? Obviously it can't. So either time goes back to infinity or time is uncaused. Both options violate this argument.

So the argument fails becuase it tries to use a temporal concept (cause and effect) to explain the origin of time. It's simply a confusion disguised as an argument.

Unbeliever

I agree, SA. It seems to me that very many, if not all, of the variations of the cosmological argument make use of this "confusion designed as an argument". This is the famous "from nothing comes nothing" premise, which always claims that "there was nothing before the big bang". But since there was no "before" the big bang, the premise is meaningless.

Next I'll look at the Argument from Time and Contingency:

1. We notice around us things that come into being and go out of being. A tree, for example, grows from a tiny shoot, flowers brilliantly, then withers and dies.

2. Whatever comes into being or goes out of being does not have to be; its nonbeing is a real possibility.

3. Suppose that nothing has to be; that is, that nonbeing is a real possibility for everything.

4. Then right now nothing would exist. For

5. If the universe began to exist, then all being must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed-literally-nothing at all. But

6. From nothing nothing comes. So

7. The universe could not have begun.

8. But suppose the universe never began. Then, for the infinitely long duration of cosmic history, all being had the built-in possibility not to be. But

9.If in an indefinite time that possibility was never realized, then it could not have been a real possibility at all. So

10. There must exist something which has to exist, which cannot not exist. This sort of being is called necessary.

11. Either this necessity belongs to the thing in itself or it is derived from another. If derived from another there must ultimately exist a being whose existence is not derived, that is, an absolutely necessary being.

12. This absolutely necessary being is God.
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Again we have an example of the fallacy of composition.

But, IMHO, an argument can be made that, big bang cosmology notwithstanding, the universe never actually "began" to exist:

To say that something "began to exist" is to say that there was some period of time when that thing did not, in fact, exist. But there has never been any period of time in which the universe did not exist, since it has been in existence during every available instant of time.

5&6 have already been discussed above.

8. If the universe had never begun, and so had never existed at all, there could have been no "infinitely long duration of cosmic history", since there would have been no time. The argument again assumes that there was time "before" the big bang, in which case there would have been something, not nothing. Time, according to Dictionary.com is: "A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future." For any events to occur, something must exist that can change relative to something else. So, in fact, at least two somethings must exist.

In 12 we can replace the word "God" with "Vishnu", or "Zeus", or "Pink Unicorn" without changing the argument at all, since the word "God" is just as incoherent, if not more so.

Finally, I would like to point out that these arguments aren't meant to convince or convert skeptics or atheists; their sole purpose is to provide a veneer of rationality-to give the already believing "flock" the mistaken impression that their belief has some rational basis, since the vast majority of believers have neither the ability nor the inclination to logically analyze the arguments to discover any flaws they might contain.