Don’t over work the cosmological argument, brady. It can be successful, if you don’ jump the gun and try to use it to prove the existence of a theistic-type God. What the cosmological argument can argue for quite well is the idea that there is something supernatural behind the existence of the Universe.
And of course the evidence is not of “this world” which, is why science can’t put its finger on it.
And yet our “physical” universe seems to be wholly bound upon cause-and-effect. That which spawned it, however (that which is Eternal), need not necessarily be … albeit cause-and-effect would be one of its outcroppings, in order to express its purpose and utility.
The cosmological argument does not prove the existence of something supernatural. The idea of the supernatural is not well formed. If something “supernatural” created the universe, how is that thing not simply nature? Why is it non-natural?
What the cosmological argument does is poses a problem for the idea of cause, and possibly even for the idea of time itself. It is a good intuition pump for serious metaphysical doubt, but it doesn’t actually tell us that much about the origins of the universe.
you are thinking about the big bang, and the origin of atoms with far too much narrow-mindedness, as if you just got out of science class in grade nine when they did the ‘introduction to big bang theory’ hand-out.
research metaphysics, athieism, Darwinism (evolution), general and special relativity, Einstiens views on God, and merely the nature of our universe and then get back to all of us.
because what you just said sounded like the usual idiotic ramblings of a theist (and a very ignorant theist at that).
i will let you know something however, because eventually, when you actually start to think about the universe and athieism you will realize there must be something that is eternal, because like you said, something does not come from nothing.
Energy, which is essentially particles, (i.e atoms) are eternal. The reactions within these could cause the big-bang, just out of their configurative nature. Our universe is unlikely to be the first of its kind, just out of studying the science of black and white holes in space.
Spinoza contends that nature is God. Nature being the reason for which all things occur and how they occur, though, like determinism (the nonexistance of free will), this nature is almost unfathomable. but this is a different argument all together.
my point is for you to get educated in the area of intellectual athieism and not the athieism of friends that go “well prove it”.
Yes, and this sounds like the usual arrogant empty statements of an atheist. If Brady is so beneath you, perhaps there’s other folks you ought to be tackling?
Dealing with the chronological issues are only the weaker have of the cosmological argument, anyways. Even if the universe [i]were [/i]temporally eternal, which I doubt, that still doesn't address what it exists intead of nothing at all. The cosmological argument applies equally to this- That nothing at all should exist is apparently a logical possibility. So then, why do all these contingent things exist at all? You could argue that God is the temporally eternal thing that brought about the finite universe, or you could argue that God is the necessary Being that brought about the contingent universe.
Also, you still have the question of infinite regress to deal with- saying that there have been an infinite chain of universes before this one is probably incoherent, saying that there have been [i]some[/i] universes before this one just pushes the problem back.