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[Abernathy]

Except that you also say God has no first cause. Your claim is unsupported by constantly re-explaining the need for a first cause.

[jimwalton]

Then either I haven't been clear or you're not getting it. Let me try again. There has to be something that is eternal, that causes all other things, because nothing can cause itself. If something HAD a beginning, something else caused it. Therefore there has to be something that DIDN'T have a beginning, that isn't cause, but always was.

When we look at our universe, we can recognize clues as to what that first cause was like: It as eternal, timeless, purposeful, intelligent, and powerful. We know the first cause was like this because otherwise the result has elements that were never part of the system and therefore not possibilities in the mix. Right? You can't add eggs and milk and expect to get meat. You can only get some version of eggs and milk.

I keep explaining the need for a first cause because you don't seem to catch on to the logic of what I'm saying. Nothing can't come from nothing; it has to come from something, and that "something" is what we call the "first cause." It's necessarily so, or the burden is on you to explain logically and give evidence as to how something can spontaneously generate out of nothing.

[Abernathy]

I understood your answers before, but you apparently didn't understand my previous responses. The problem is you keep jumping past your conclusion that there is a God and God must have always existed. I don't and do not agree there has to be something eternal, so we are still at the beginning of the conversation.

Its not logical to believe God has always existed. Because we don't currently know how everything came into existence, it is not reason to believe it must be a God that has always existed.

[jimwalton]

What I said was, "God is a reasonable choice as to that cause." I haven't jumped past the conclusion, but have posited a reasonable answer to the question.

If you believe that what we see now self-generated from nothing (meaning nothing is eternal), I would be pleased to see your argument to support the logic of that: how that's even possible, and what you propose happened.

[Abernathy]

Lawrence Krauss and others have interesting theories, but my argument still is just because we don't currently know how everything started, it does not mean it must have been because of a God.

The Greeks did not understand where thunder came from, so they made the "reasonable choice" that a God named Zeus made thunder.

[jimwalton]

What you said was, "I don't and do not agree there has to be something eternal,"not that we don't currently know how everything started. Those are different things. So what you're saying is that you don't have a counter-proposal, but you don't buy into my logic that the universe had an eternal, timeless, powerful, intelligent, and personal source?

> The Greeks did not understand where thunder came from, so they made the "reasonable choice" that a God named Zeus made thunder.

This is just a demeaning comment. I walked you through the logic of what I said; I didn't just blindly jump to a conclusion of, "Oh, well, it must just be GOD because I can't think of anything else!"