If God exists, then who created HIM? HE DOESN'T EXIST!

A deity is in principle a necessary being - that the material world is contingent suggests the need for a necessary being. The only way around this is to show that the universe itself is necessary. Yet you are completely unable to do this.

Don't be silly. The Greeks, Romans and Norsemen had dozens of deities, none of which were necessary.

You are choosing to define your deity as necessary, in order to justify claiming it is a creator god. That is all. If you can do that for a deity you can do it for a universe.

Indeed and this deity must surely be non other than Allah - "the creator and sustainer of the universe"?

Don't be silly. The Greeks, Romans and Norsemen had dozens of deities, none of which were necessary.

You are choosing to define your deity as necessary, in order to justify claiming it is a creator god. That is all. If you can do that for a deity you can do it for a universe.

Really? This is rather silly. You both know full well I was referring to the Abrahamic God.

It is not that God is defined as necessary, but that a necessary being is required. This cannot be the universe, or anything physical. Hence it must be something non-physical. The argument starts with the need for necessary existence, and finds God. Not the other way around.

Presumably referring to Allah and not the false and flawed trinitarian God?

The existence of a necessary being is inferred from the contingency of the universe; no one is defining anything into necessary existence, except you.

Provide an argument for the necessity of the universe. Stop misrepresenting arguments like an amateur. This is highly embarrassing.

In the post I replied to you offered a critique of their arguments. I merely pointed out that there is a plank in your eye.

I think you are defining your god as necessary, from the argument of Aquinas.

Aquinas' argument makes the usual unproven stipulation Nothing can come from nothing

but then proceeds to make the usual unjustified and self-serving exception except an ever-present deity.

All such arguments have no value: if convenient exceptions have to made for deities exceptions can be made for universes and, anyway, nothing can come from nothing is not something I necessarily (hehe) agree with (as quantum theory clouds, to say the least, the issue).

I think you are defining your god as necessary, from the argument of Aquinas.

Aquinas' argument makes the usual unproven stipulation Nothing can come from nothing but then proceeds to make the usual unjustified and self-serving exception except an ever-present deity.

All such arguments have no value: if convenient exceptions have to made for deities exceptions can be made for universes and, anyway, nothing can come from nothing is not something I necessarily (hehe) agree with (as quantum theory clouds, to say the least, the issue).

I think you are defining your god as necessary, from the argument of Aquinas.

Aquinas' argument makes the usual unproven stipulation Nothing can come from nothing but then proceeds to make the usual unjustified and self-serving exception except an ever-present deity.

All such arguments have no value: if convenient exceptions have to made for deities exceptions can be made for universes and, anyway, nothing can come from nothing is not something I necessarily (hehe) agree with (as quantum theory clouds, to say the least, the issue).

Atheist here
What started the big bang, what was there to create the big bang?

"The usual unproven stipulation Nothing can come from nothing"? Surely you mean "the most successful ontological commitment that was a guiding line of research since Epicurus and Lucretius".

Unless you mean "unproven" in the trivial sense in which it would apply to all basically all knowledge outside of maths and logic.

Also, ignoring the question begging "unjustified and self-serving exception" that is argued for God, *how* do you argue the universe can be afforded the same exceptions?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Also, the paper you were linked is for a Leibnizian cosmological argument. Its concerns itself with explanations rather the causal principle. The former strongly implies the latter, but a rejection of the latter does not affect the former. I'd say the only way someone can affirm QM affects the causal principle is to rely on a number of assumptions (a realist interpretation as opposed to a instrumentalist, then an indeterministic physical interpretation as opposed to a deterministic one, and then finally a very crude "billiard ball' and deterministic theory of causation). But when looking at violating the PSR, QM is of no help. For a violation of the PSR would entail a brute fact, something simply synonymous with being unintelligible. Virtual particle fluctuations are far from unintelligible.

This is different from Aquinas' arguments insofar as of the first 3 ways (which are cosmological arguments) arguably the first 2 rely on a causal principle as opposed to the PSR (though Aquinas would have accepted the PSR, albeit a scholastic rather than rationalist version).

Posted from TSR Mobile

Your author's own conclusion is:

The cosmological argument faces the Glendower, Regress, Taxicab and Gap Problems. Cosmological arguments using a sufficiently comprehensive Causal Principle or an appropriate Principle of Sufficient Reason are able to overcome the Regress and Taxicab objections. The Glendower Problem of justifying the explanatory principle is an important one. However, in recent years, a number of arguments for such explanatory principles, as well as weaker versions of these principles still sufficient for the purposes of the cosmological argument, have been produced. There is, of course, still much room for research here: for examining arguments for or against the relevant explanatory principles, and for trying to produce cosmological arguments using yet weaker principles.
What contemporary analytic philosophers have not sufficiently worked on, and what is perhaps the most promising avenue for future research, is the Gap Problem. There are both inductive and deductive approaches there. The deductive ones that are currently known proceed through exciting metaphysical territory of independent interest. The metaphysics of existence/essence composition involved in Aquinas’ bridging of the gap is fascinating, and the axiom that the perfections of the effect must be found in the cause is one that needs further exploration, both in connection with the cosmological argument, as well as in connection with emergentist theories of mind.

which tells us he isn't happy that his arguments meet all objections, doesn't it?

Of course, you are assuming that metaphysics has any relation to the real world, which is by no means certain. I doubt it, and many scientists and philosophers agree with me. But, then the search for philosophical truth (as opposed to truth) needn't concern itself with reality and empiricism.

I don't. Again, we come back to I don't know and I am not afraid to say so, but cannot accept superstition.

Probably really late to the party but whatever everything that has an effect has a cause, every cause also has a cause, this until you get to God who is the first cause. This is called causation. (Cause no longer sounds like a real word to me)