Does speaking candidly about one's feelings on unicorns make a person "self-righteous?" That's basically what you are telling me when you make the claim above.
You weren't speaking candidly about God, you were speaking candidly of how you viewed atrocities committed by other people. Yeah, God was part of the argument, since He causes these things, but the true culprits are those who commit evil for evil; God causes evil for good. And since you view these atrocities as things you would never do, then yes, you are self-righteous, though not in the normal sense of the term. You don't believe you have the potential to do these things, and I'm telling you that you do.
And the only reason I feel any need to react to statements about God is because they almost always come with a an appeal to self-righteousness. Just the fact that you believe an almighty being loves you is pure conceit in my eyes. Tack onto that the belief you have that you feel your soul is SO IMPORTANT (whether to yourself or some all powerful being) that it warrants being supported in existence forever. Tack onto that all your statements that clearly indicate that you know better than I do the stuff of a realm that even you, yourself basically admit is mostly unknowable. Tack onto that the belief that God has a divine plan for you, and that just about anything you do while working on "the plan" is completely sanctioned by God. Not to mention telling me (and I am sure plenty of others) over and over and over that I am a "sinner", that you have a "way out" of punishment, and that I am currently failing according to your criteria, and will be punished. Basically... telling me I am wrong in an area you cannot possibly claim absolute knowledge within.
I never claimed that there was a way out of punishment. No one escapes what they've sown for. No one. Neither did I ever claim that anything a human being does in support of the plan is sanctioned by God.
And while some of the things you say about feeling "so important" as to warrant eternal salvation or God's love is true for many in nominal Christendom and used to be true for me, once I realized the true depravity of my nature I realized that His love is not only totally undeserved, but unfathomable.
If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you have to be crucified, and it is a long, slow, and excruciating process. I'm still in the middle of it; I'm not yet saved. Sounds great, doesn't it?
And this is where I find my war camp. This is one of the only reasons I ever "go to bat." When someone calls someone else/me out as something for which they are a prime perpetrator themselves. For example, I once had a roommate who complained they were tired of cleaning up after everyone else in the apartment. Mind you, this complaint wasn't directed at me, necessarily - but was being confided in me, because this person did not have enough bravado to go after the real perpetrators directly. Anyway... I went on to tell this person all the times in which I cleaned up after them. Never once complaining - they didn't even know. I cared enough about them, and about the state of the apartment on my own not to care what needed done. If I saw something needing done, I took care of it... as should we all. The fact that they sometimes forgot this or that didn't bother me in the slightest. And I only ever started keeping track of ANY of it when that person first came to me to make similar complaints. I had a vague sense that they had violated their own "rule" a few times that I could (again vaguely) remember... but their complaints started me paying very close attention... awaiting the time that they would complain again... ignorant of their own trespasses. This isn't meant to be a story about ignoring when people take advantage of you. Instead I mean it to give you a sense of what you are doing when you make claims about God. I obviously wouldn't argue the point if you mostly kept to yourself and didn't try and force yours or your supposed God's view onto my life... but that it exactly what you do... all of you who believe that you are meant to be the "witness" for your God - you believe you push this information out with only the best intentions, and from a place of humility... but even when we (those who want nothing to do with your beliefs) tell you directly that what you have done is anything but humble, that what you are saying is an insult even when you believe it a kindness... well, again... that's when I take to these words - making a note of all those points that don't sit right with me... so that when you come complaining to me about my life and beliefs again, I can take all those points and share with you why you have no place to be complaining at all.
I don't complain about you, do not condemn you, and am not trying to force anything upon you. You are here on a forum intended for public debate. Here, you know you will run into people of faith, and you actively, voluntarily engage in these debates. For you to be complaining is hypocrisy.
In fact, I know that I can't convince you, or anyone else. My job is simply to plant seeds wherever possible. Maybe the Lord will make that seed grow; only He can do it.
I can see how you see me as lacking humility, and maybe there is still some part of me that needs correction there. It's difficult to be self-aware of these kinds of things. Impossible, really, absent God's grace. But I think you mistake confidence for arrogance.
Now, as for yourself and pretty much all who are in your camp, I see nothing but arrogance, defiance, rudeness, and just all-around nastiness. If you can't see that, it's because God has blinded you to your own condition.
So you want it to be a local flood? Then you make the story worthless since there was no point in gathering animals since it would kill neither every person on the Earth nor would all animal life. A local flood would not have even killed all of the people on the Earth. And please, your book of myths only scares ignorant believers. I am being much more honest than you have been or can be.
Who said I have no understanding of the sciences? I have some, though admittedly not a ton. I find it very sad that those such as yourself put so much faith in science, when scientists are constantly, constantly, and quite often astronomically wrong. Not that you even have any proof; you don't. You have a general consensus of people who enjoy patting themselves and each other on the back far more than listening to their detractors, who have very credible and convincing arguments.
You people do have a religion, and it's called "science."
I gave you the argument against that. Time must already exist for there to be a thought. Thinking requires passing from a prior moment through a string of consecutive moment in order to transform from a prior state to a later one. If you'd like to rebut that, please do.
A group of gnomes was another poster's substitute for God in your argument. If the plurality is a stumbling block, restate the argument with one gnome.The point is for you to see that your argument parallels the gnome argument. If you can see how you feel about that, then you can understand why changing from gnomes to gods doesn't make the argument any better.
Okay, but I already did restate the argument with one gnome, and said that I would accept that argument. Granted, that gnome must be capable of the supernatural feat of creating something from nothing, but calling it a "gnome" for the argument's sake is fine.
I'm guessing that's you...? God gives many people enjoyable lives. What of it? You are fulfilling a purpose as well. We all play our part, regardless of our being conscious of doing so.
And that's not to say you won't be saved or anything. You could be, certainly. But it's likely just not your time yet:
"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at His coming, those who belong to Him." (1 Corinthians 15:22-23)
Yes, the Big Bang theory qualifies as a scientific theory, and one in good standing. It was arrived at by observing and using those observation to develop a narrative that accounts for present observations and has made predictions of unexpected phenomena that were later found.
If you're going to argue science, you should be well-versed in it. Remember ethos - how you are perceived by your audience.
Have you been reading what I've been writing thoroughly? It doesn't seem to me like you have been, either that or your bias is clouding your judgement.
And I see faith as the will to believe insufficiently supported ideas.
That's not a gift. It's an error in reasoning. It bypasses reason, not transcends it.
How can faith be a path to truth when you could have just as easily believed something that contradicts what you presently believe by the same method? By that method, thousands of religions, tens of thousands of denominations, and millions of gods have been generated, all equally well or poorly supported as the next.
Applying reason to evidence generated just one periodic table of the elements.
what do you want more than an evidence scientifically proved, check it in the museum in Cairo with your own eyes. don't hide your head in the sands like an ostrich
You don't seem to understand how to debate on the internet. You made a positive assertion. That puts the burden of proof upon you when someone week for supporting evidence. If you can't support your claim you refute it yourself.
Yes, I see That you did. That only makes it worse for you. There would be geological evidence of such a flood. There is none. And massive population bottlenecks would be obvious in all life. We do not see that either.
So you are just a science denier that makes it up as you go along.
Who said I have no understanding of the sciences? I have some, though admittedly not a ton. I find it very sad that those such as yourself put so much faith in science, when scientists are constantly, constantly, and quite often astronomically wrong. Not that you even have any proof; you don't. You have a general consensus of people who enjoy patting themselves and each other on the back far more than listening to their detractors, who have very credible and convincing arguments.
You repeatedly show that you have no understanding of the sciences. And though scientists are wrong at times you have not been paying attention to their errors. Their errors continually get smaller and smaller. The detractors tend to be either very ignorant get dishonest, or a combination of the two.
You are using the science that You deny right now.
You people do have a religion, and it's called "science."
Nope, now you are merely projecting your flaws upon others. Science has an extremely well earned respect. Something you can't claim about your religious beliefs. Tell me, how does one fix the errors in the Bible?
I think that is a very odd thing to say. First, you are mixing "proof" and "theory" in a way that
suggests you are not familiar with hoe either trrm actually means.
A proof that is not demonstrable is not proof.
A disproof is not theoretical.
There is more, but never mind.
I believe you are the one who could use the advice to think!
There are many simple-to-understand ways to deminstrate that there was no world wide flood.
Are you not aware, for example of there being many tens of thousands of years'
icw in Antarctica? That is 100% incompatible with a world wide flood.
It basically boils down to there must be a cause for the universe, it must be a god, and it's your god. I called that a non sequitur earlier. That conclusion does not follow from that argument, which may be based in a false premise. How do we know that something cannot come from nothing? The rules that apply within the universe may not apply at the scale of universes.
No, that's not what it "boils down to." You are totally oversimplifying it and literally changing the argument. My argument is that there must be a source for matter. Failure to provide a source is failure to provide a theory, and a supernatural theory is the only thing that makes sense. Has anyone ever provided an alternative? Nope, because they can't.
The law of the conservation of energy is quite clear (even if you want to flub the language/perspective and say that it all adds up to "nothing") that energy can't be created or destroyed.
You can try to obfuscate it all you want with tricky language, but in the end it's all futile. If God has taken away your capacity for clean logic, then you'll never see it no matter what I say.
At other times, you argue that special rules can apply for a god, but apparently not for a universe considered as a whole.
Also, when you want to, you ask us to throw reason aside when contemplating that which is incomprehensible to us, but here, you're rigorously holding to "something can't come from nothing." That's called special pleading - an unjustified double standard and another logical fallacy.
If it made any sense whatsoever to apply special rules to a "universe," which has no brain or capacity for rational thought, then I would. Is it not obvious to you that God, being an omnipotent being, shouldn't operate under any rules?
Why? I already wrote that my belief in God was the result of logic and not faith, and that nothing occurred to confirm something I "suspected" or needed confirmed. Faith was given, that's all. I get that that one is difficult for you to grasp. I don't think one can understand faith until one receives faith.
Yesterday, a faith based thinker posted that for the critical thinker (reason and evidence based), seeing is believing, but that for her, believing is seeing.
I think she offered that as advice, or words of wisdom - that she had found a better way of processing reality
I didn't think that she was on to anything valuable, just describing the difference between how people like me and people like her acquire beliefs and utilize reason and evidence. Yes, bee before believing. Let what you see (all of the relevant evidence) direct you to a belief by applying reason to that evidence. That is a time-tested method for determining the truth.
She believes first, then sees, that is assumes an unsupported idea is true, then subverts her reasoning faculty to the task of sifting through the evidence second to find what she think she can use to prop us her faith based belief while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence.
I believe that you're of this second camp. You frequently ask others to believe first, then the evidence will be revealed to them. These are your words: "You'll be given proof once you believe. It may not be the kind of proof you now desire, but you'll accept it as proof."
That's not appealing.I don't want to engage in that kind of thinking. My reasoning faculty is what grounds me to reality. I use no other method to decide what is true.
Perhaps I've been a bit murky on the whole "faith" thing. The existence of God should be easy to believe due to simple logic. I believed in His existence for many years before I came to have faith in Who He is. That faith was a gift, something I could never have accomplished on my own.
When I speak of faith in this thread, I'm referring to faith in Jesus Christ. That faith is knowledge, the evidence of things not seen. I believe that's why I brought it up, because I had to explain how I "know." It doesn't invalidate my other arguments, which I still believe adequately prove God's existence, even though it isn't verifiable by the scientific method. Who says you need such a method or something similar to prove anything? People prove things all the time by logical arguments alone, but when it comes to God, well, suddenly logical arguments just aren't good enough.
Are you familiar with Hitchens' Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
I remind you once again that when dealing with skeptics, mere assertions are treated as your personal opinion, and as I told you, they don't care what you believe, but what you know and can demonstrate. You haven't tried at all to support your claim that radiometric dating is unreliable. We know its limitations, but when done properly, the results are meaningful.
When radiometric data involves hard data and zero assumptions, then yes, it works quite well. Any radiometric dating that puts things at ridiculous ages is operating on assumptions. You guys can do your own research on that; if you haven't already, then shame on you if you throw your hat into the ring and argue in its favor.
And I never asked or demanded that anyone take my faith on my word alone. I did say that God's existence could be proved by logic alone, and I still stand by that. You all demand I adhere to what is not only an unreasonable standard of proof, but one which is ultimately unnecessary.
Yes, I see That you did. That only makes it worse for you. There would be geological evidence of such a flood. There is none. And massive population bottlenecks would be obvious in all life. We do not see that either.
The flood is another argument for another thread. But quickly, I'll say that when you say "there is none," you are pretty much disqualifying yourself as objective. There is plenty of geological evidence that there was a flood, and it's all available if you just search the internet for it. Sure, there are people in both camps, but to pretend as though there is no credible evidence is just plain BS.
I don't deny science. I can appreciate science on many levels, as God has blessed mankind in many ways through its advances. That is a general and discriminatory term you use in an effort to discredit what I have to say. You have no true substance, only a lot of parroting.
Like radiometric dating, evolution has enormous problems with it, and for anyone to present either as infallible is to completely discredit themselves. There are far too many people who disagree, and they are absolute experts in their respective fields. Yet they are summarily dismissed by your like because they can't possibly be as smart as you guys. Such arrogance.
I think that is a very odd thing to say. First, you are mixing "proof" and "theory" in a way that
suggests you are not familiar with hoe either trrm actually means.
A proof that is not demonstrable is not proof.
A disproof is not theoretical.
There is more, but never mind.
I believe you are the one who could use the advice to think!
There are many simple-to-understand ways to deminstrate that there was no world wide flood.
Are you not aware, for example of there being many tens of thousands of years'
icw in Antarctica? That is 100% incompatible with a world wide flood.
Audie, much could be said here, but I'm not here to go tit-for-tat with anyone who decides to respond to me. I believe all appropriate responses to this post have already been written by me, in some form or another, elsewhere in this thread.
The flood is another argument for another thread. But quickly, I'll say that when you say "there is none," you are pretty much disqualifying yourself as objective. There is plenty of geological evidence that there was a flood, and it's all available if you just search the internet for it. Sure, there are people in both camps, but to pretend as though there is no credible evidence is just plain BS.
No, there isn't any. There is only incredibly stupid misinterpretation at best of evidence. In the sciences we deal with scientific evidence. To even have scientific evidence one must have a scientific hypothesis to start with. Scientific hypotheses are testable, they are falsifiable. What "flood" explanation can you think of that has not been refuted? It would take over five vertical miles of water to cover the Earth. That would leave massive evidence, the lack of such evidence refutes the flood myth.
I don't deny science. I can appreciate science on many levels, as God has blessed mankind in many ways through its advances. That is a general and discriminatory term you use in an effort to discredit what I have to say. You have no true substance, only a lot of parroting.
Of course you do. You can't pick and choose what parts of science that you like. Now if you want to learn people here will gladly help you, but when you reject certain concepts that have been shown to be correct by being tested millions of times you are rejecting science.
Like radiometric dating, evolution has enormous problems with it, and for anyone to present either as infallible is to completely discredit themselves. There are far too many people who disagree, and they are absolute experts in their respective fields. Yet they are summarily dismissed by your like because they can't possibly be as smart as you guys. Such arrogance.
Now you are simply buying into the lies of creationists. There are no real problems with radiometric dating. You will not find any valid ones.
Let me give you a quick lesson. These days new ideas in science are introduced using the process of peer review. It allows bad ideas to be winnowed out first. Then once published those ideas are checked by other scientists around the world. When someone avoids peer review it is a sure bet that they know that they are wrong. Creationists avoid peer review.
Audie, much could be said here, but I'm not here to go tit-for-tat with anyone who decides to respond to me. I believe all appropriate responses to this post have already been written by me, in some form or another, elsewhere in this thread.
Suture self. Your ideas about science are mired in deep deep cunfusion, so much so that
it taints the credibility of anything you might say. But then, I am not on the side of
supporting christianity, so it is fine with me if the emissaries look ridiculous.
No, that's not what it "boils down to." You are totally oversimplifying it and literally changing the argument. My argument is that there must be a source for matter. Failure to provide a source is failure to provide a theory, and a supernatural theory is the only thing that makes sense. Has anyone ever provided an alternative? Nope, because they can't.
The law of the conservation of energy is quite clear (even if you want to flub the language/perspective and say that it all adds up to "nothing") that energy can't be created or destroyed.
You can try to obfuscate it all you want with tricky language, but in the end it's all futile. If God has taken away your capacity for clean logic, then you'll never see it no matter what I say.
And if God has taken away your capacity to understand quantum theory and the theory of relativity that is your problem not ours. It's obvious that you have been spoonfed a line with the words "law of conservation of energy" in it but don't understand that with quantum fluctuations there's no creation of energy to begin with.
There are far too many people who disagree, and they are absolute experts in their respective fields. Yet they are summarily dismissed by your like because they can't possibly be as smart as you guys. Such arrogance.
Some people get full of themselves because they may have spoken to a celeb, say. Or got a letter from the white house.
Mere celebs and politicians. But, fundies got god.
God gives them messages, listens to them, and has granted them special powers, such as inerrant reading. Of the Bible, anyway.
With this inerrant reading power, they are granted access to all manner of arcane knowledge denied to
others, and-it enables to know deeper things about science than any scientist.
Other people's atrocities? Seriously? That's all you got out of everything I said was critiques on "other people's" actions? You read what you want to into things, obviously. We discussed how things don't have objective/intrinsic value, how God is morally reprehensible if the accounts of The Bible are true, how I do understand that I am ignorant of "the truth" but with God unwilling to make Himself known it doesn't really matter if He exists or not, that matter and its configurations are the proof that matter and its configurations are possible... that something exists rather than nothing, and we know nothing of the origins. Is this "other people's atrocities" thing about the "gunpowder" bit? That was such a small detour... otherwise I did nothing but directly assault the possible reality that God exists. And all you got was "other people's atrocities." That, my friend is one amazing self-delusion machine you have between your ears, let me tell you.
I never claimed that there was a way out of punishment. No one escapes what they've sown for. No one. Neither did I ever claim that anything a human being does in support of the plan is sanctioned by God.
Was this supposed to frighten me or get me to have second thoughts? Think hard now...
And while some of the things you say about feeling "so important" as to warrant eternal salvation or God's love is true for many in nominal Christendom and used to be true for me, once I realized the true depravity of my nature I realized that His love is not only totally undeserved, but unfathomable.
As far as I can tell and observe and feel, if God actually exists then He doesn't "love" anything. Either that, or the bar that is set for "God's love" is set so low that it may as well not even be set.
If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you have to be crucified, and it is a long, slow, and excruciating process. I'm still in the middle of it; I'm not yet saved. Sounds great, doesn't it?
I can think of a lot of words that describe how that sounds... "great" is not one of them. Nor is "correct", "real", "true", "relevant", "important"... I could go on, but I am honestly not trying to just hurt your feelings over and over.
I don't complain about you, do not condemn you, and am not trying to force anything upon you. You are here on a forum intended for public debate. Here, you know you will run into people of faith, and you actively, voluntarily engage in these debates. For you to be complaining is hypocrisy.
I understand that what I have written sounds like complaining to you. It's actual just what you said... debate. I challenge your notions... and yes, it has become an "active" thing for me - I readily admit. And that is entirely due to your Christian brethren's distinct challenge they put forth on their own, all the time. Coming to doors and asking me if I have "been saved"... asking me, literally, if I want to be saved from the very being who they say is going to torture me for eternity. That's like a King forming a long line of the subjects of his kingdom, holding a gun to their head and saying "I won't shoot you if you bow to me now and agree to worship me as King forever." It's dumb, nothing more.
I can see how you see me as lacking humility, and maybe there is still some part of me that needs correction there. It's difficult to be self-aware of these kinds of things. Impossible, really, absent God's grace. But I think you mistake confidence for arrogance.
Well... it isn't so much you as any and every adherent to your doctrine that I feel is lacking in humility. I mean come on... who honestly refers to themselves as "the chosen people" with anything but love for themselves at heart? Hmm?
Now, as for yourself and pretty much all who are in your camp, I see nothing but arrogance, defiance, rudeness, and just all-around nastiness. If you can't see that, it's because God has blinded you to your own condition.
See what you will. My truest belief is that your beliefs will die out in the end. And of their own accord, because there will always be a better argument to be had elsewhere. I don't feel you can help that.
As far as I can tell and observe and feel, if God actually exists then He doesn't "love" anything. Either that, or the bar that is set for "God's love" is set so low that it may as well not even be set.
It can certainly seem that way if all you look at are the curses and not the blessings. Or perhaps you simply think the curses outweigh the blessings. The key here is humility, of recognizing the fact that God is genius beyond genius, brilliance beyond brilliance, righteous beyond any concept of righteousness that you have. Then you can start to see "the plan."
It's a great and terrible thing to be made in the image of Almighty God, a process to be enormously respected and feared.
I understand that what I have written sounds like complaining to you. It's actual just what you said... debate. I challenge your notions... and yes, it has become an "active" thing for me - I readily admit. And that is entirely due to your Christian brethren's distinct challenge they put forth on their own, all the time. Coming to doors and asking me if I have "been saved"... asking me, literally, if I want to be saved from the very being who they say is going to torture me for eternity. That's like a King forming a long line of the subjects of his kingdom, holding a gun to their head and saying "I won't shoot you if you bow to me now and agree to worship me as King forever." It's dumb, nothing more.
They are not my brethren. They are servants of Satan, and I can't blame you for your perspective there.
I believe you may very well benefit from reading this paper, if for nothing else but to hear another perspective (just read the first couple of paragraphs at least):
Well... it isn't so much you as any and every adherent to your doctrine that I feel is lacking in humility. I mean come on... who honestly refers to themselves as "the chosen people" with anything but love for themselves at heart? Hmm?
I agree. Of course, I have to still say that there are those who are chosen to do His work in this life, but not due to any merit. And everyone will be chosen at some point.
One is self-righteous for rejecting concepts such as causing evil for good? I'd say that failing to do so is the problem. Simply believing by faith that there is a good god overseeing us and that therefore we should idly sit by as what you call evil occurs because that god ordains it is a dead end moral theory. Ideas like that are an impediment to progress in moral theory, which is best accomplished by throwing out god notions and ancient commandments and instead applying reason and compassion to the problem of optimizing life as best mankind can.
Christianity has done what Pharma is accused of doing - invented a disease, in this case, a form of inborn spiritual sickness, and then offered the only cure for it. I doubt that you have a depraved nature. You seem like a kind and decent fellow. Too bad you have been told differently and convinced of it. How can such an attitude be good for you?
I find it very sad that those such as yourself put so much faith in science, when scientists are constantly, constantly, and quite often astronomically wrong.
I'm imagining you sitting in your air conditioned home electrically lit as you stare into your high def plasma screen monitor, type into your wireless keyboard, and then hit enter, which causes your computer to convert all that visual data into some very large number of bytes of binary signals processed by billions of invisible, microscopic computer elements.that are then converted to a frequency modulated signal to reach your wireless router, where it is then converted to light waves and sent along a large fiber optics cable to be processed by a super computer on a mass server that sends that sends that data to a satellite orbiting the earth made possible by some of the greatest feats of engineering and science, all so it could go back through a similar pathway to make it all the way here to my computer monitor 15,000 miles away from you just so you tell others, "I find it very sad that those such as yourself put so much faith in science, when scientists are constantly, constantly, and quite often astronomically wrong."
I gave you the argument against that. Time must already exist for there to be a thought. Thinking requires passing from a prior moment through a string of consecutive moment in order to transform from a prior state to a later one. If you'd like to rebut that, please do.
Sorry, I must have missed that. Please show me (or retype) where you rebutted the claim that the words exist, think, and act all imply and require the passage of time.
When I was a Christian, I was told that I would be filled with the spirit, achieve the victory, and that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." That didn't happen for me, nor for most of the other congregants, so eventually, I became a secular humanist.
Life has been fulfilling since, and feels more authentic. That shouldn't have happened if the Christian god were real, should it?
Christianity will generally address that as it does all matters that seem to contradict its claims - God has a plan for you, God works in mysterious ways, and the like. Why would I believe that God would reward me for my apostasy?
And there's your answer - I fulfill some unstated purpose
What purpose could that be of interest to God? I'm a counterexample to the claims of Christianity. If I were a Christian, you'd likely say that God has blessed me for my faith and piety, but since I'm not, you have no better answer than that I am serving some purpose for God.
If I'm going to throw a supernatural element into my interpretation of this, it would invoke some agent that seems to approve of my choice to move out of Christianity - something that approves of us using our natural reasoning and moral faculties rather than going to an ancient book for answers
No, that's not what it "boils down to." You are totally oversimplifying it and literally changing the argument. My argument is that there must be a source for matter. Failure to provide a source is failure to provide a theory, and a supernatural theory is the only thing that makes sense.
I don't see any simplification comparing my account to yours. You've made "cause for a universe" into "a source for matter," then jumped to a god as the only possible explanation.
Yes, there are alternatives. These are the six I came up with :
Candidate hypotheses for the origin of the universe:
[1] Our universe came into being uncaused.
[2] Our universe has always existed and only appears to have had a first moment.
[3] Our universe is the product of a multiverse (any unconscious source) that itself came into existence uncaused.
[4] Our universe is the product of a multiverse that has always existed.
[5] Our universe is the product of a god (any conscious source) that itself came into existence uncaused.
[6] Our universe is the product of a god that has always existed.
It appears that your list is down to one possibility. That cannot be justified. It must be done as a leap of faith.
No. It is obvious to me that if a god exists and can think and act, then there must be laws that transcend it to make this possible - things that it couldn't be responsible for, such as the time that it exists in, or its consciousness. It isn't possible for an already conscious entity to be the creator of consciousness. Simply using the word omnipotent doesn't make the impossible become possible.
But with all due respect, that claim is not credible. Your belief can only be arrived at and supported by faith, and by interpreting some of your internal mental states as sensing God. I know what the limits of knowledge are in this area. You have no special senses or inside information, and thus no access to any knowledge not available to others.
Nor have you demonstrated this logic. What you presented were fallacious arguments. Remember the non sequitur above regarding the problem of the origins of the universe? If you want to make a claim of a logical foundation for your beliefs, you ought to be able to generate sound arguments.
