Arguments against first cause/uncaused cause?

[BearCavalry]

I've always believed that the argument of first cause/uncaused cause is an unbeatable argument for proving the concept of God.

It doesn't prove whether Christians, Muslims, Jews, or Jainists have the right idea about God. It doesn't prove whether God is good or evil. It doesn't prove whether God is a personal, loving entity or something as impersonal as some self-causing physics concept that propogates the galaxy.

But I think it does prove the existence of God if God is defined as an entity so infinitely powerful that it becomes self-causing by permeating all time and space. I just don't logically see how something could come out of nothing. In my opinion, that's an absolute, self-evident truth the way Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" is. However, I was curious if any of the cynics had anything to say.

[BearCavalry]

Preest: Even if we successfully came up with a grand unified theory of fundamental physics, found out how to become immortal through stem cells, and discovered how to travel from galaxy to galaxy via warp-drive, we would still never be able to answer who put us here in the first place or who put the laws of science there in the first place. I consider myself a student of science but I also understand that there are limits to what it can explain.

ThatGirlAgain: It seems you trapped me with my uncareful choice of words about permeating time and space. Allow me to re-phrase, what if God just exists beyond anything and created all the universal quantities (Boltzmann's constant, speed of light, absolute zero, etc.) and science laws (gravity, strong force, weak force, E/M, Newton's laws, etc.)? Along with time I guess.

[AquinasD]

Evidently something must be uncaused. Theists usually posit that whatever is uncaused must be an entity that exists outside of spacetime. Atheists can posit that it is the universe itself that is uncaused. Judge for yourself which scenario makes more sense: the one that needs a being to exist in a realm which we cannot (even in principle) know anything about OR the one that accepts that all that can be shown to exist, in principle, is all that does exist. Hint: use Occam's razor.

You're treating the universe as if it were one singular entity, rather than the collection of many entities.

[McCulloch]

You're treating the universe as if it were one singular entity, rather than the collection of many entities.

Well, wasn't it once? Big bang singularity.

[AquinasD]

Well, wasn't it once? Big bang singularity.

So you're telling me it is necessary for this singularity to be the case, but not so necessary that it must remain the case? In other words, you're positing a "necessary being" that isn't necessary at all, seeing as it can cease to exist.

Of course, I could levy another objection that flows from this, which is that you're treating a being open to change as if it could be the foundation of change. Now, if this being is in principle open to being changed itself, what changes it?

This is more or less reading right out of Aquinas' playbook, a little play called the "First Way" which the OP doesn't seem to be discussing.

[McCulloch]

So you're telling me it is necessary for this singularity to be the case, but not so necessary that it must remain the case? In other words, you're positing a "necessary being" that isn't necessary at all, seeing as it can cease to exist.

Of course, I could levy another objection that flows from this, which is that you're treating a being open to change as if it could be the foundation of change. Now, if this being is in principle open to being changed itself, what changes it?

The universe cannot cease to exist anymore than it could have started to exist. Neither does the universe change. This is because, according to relativity, the universe is not a bunch of matter and energy within a spacetime framework, but is space and time too. If the universe contains time then it is not itself subject to time. Cosmologists have made much progress in understanding the mathematics of the universe by looking at it from a timeless perspective.

[ThatGirlAgain]

ThatGirlAgain: It seems you trapped me with my uncareful choice of words about permeating time and space. Allow me to re-phrase, what if God just exists beyond anything and created all the universal quantities (Boltzmann's constant, speed of light, absolute zero, etc.) and science laws (gravity, strong force, weak force, E/M, Newton's laws, etc.)? Along with time I guess.

Not intended to be a trap, just a comment.

Why would a supposedly omnipotent God create the universe with all of those exact specifications as opposed to any other specifications? This is the same probem as the self-creating universe. What pre-existing factors would limit creation to what we see?

[StephanM]

Evidently something must be uncaused. Theists usually posit that whatever is uncaused must be an entity that exists outside of spacetime. Atheists can posit that it is the universe itself that is uncaused. Judge for yourself which scenario makes more sense: the one that needs a being to exist in a realm which we cannot (even in principle) know anything about OR the one that accepts that all that can be shown to exist, in principle, is all that does exist. Hint: use Occam's razor.

The idea that the universe itself is uncaused would be cleaner if there was no reason for including an entity outside the universe, but I don't think that's the case for 2 reasons:

1) One of the very fundamentals of our understanding of the universe is that everything made up of matter, energy, time, space, etc. requires some sort of cause for it to do anything. To say that the universe itself (which is made up for matter, etc.) disobeys this is to blatantly ignore a fundamental understanding of the universe that is the basis for making sense of anything that goes on.

2) What is free will? You might say that we don't have free will because there are so many things that affect our actions that we can almost predict what choice a person will make with enough information. Even so, what would ideal, absolute, pure free will look like? It would be an action with absolutely no outside influence. In other words, an entity causing something without anything causing the entity; a first cause. This means that (assuming there was a first cause, which hasn't been proven here) there was a will that caused all the commotion we see in the universe.

If you just take #2, you could say that the universe has a will, but if you add #1, then it's a will which is external to the universe that caused everything that has been caused, be it some sort of god or whatever you want to call it.

[Goat]

Evidently something must be uncaused. Theists usually posit that whatever is uncaused must be an entity that exists outside of spacetime. Atheists can posit that it is the universe itself that is uncaused. Judge for yourself which scenario makes more sense: the one that needs a being to exist in a realm which we cannot (even in principle) know anything about OR the one that accepts that all that can be shown to exist, in principle, is all that does exist. Hint: use Occam's razor.

The idea that the universe itself is uncaused would be cleaner if there was no reason for including an entity outside the universe, but I don't think that's the case for 2 reasons:

1) One of the very fundamentals of our understanding of the universe is that everything made up of matter, energy, time, space, etc. requires some sort of cause for it to do anything. To say that the universe itself (which is made up for matter, etc.) disobeys this is to blatantly ignore a fundamental understanding of the universe that is the basis for making sense of anything that goes on.

Except, of course, potentially, for such things as virtual particles. ..and some things appear to be probabilistic, rather than deterministic, such as radioactive decay

So, there do seem to be things that might be uncaused. .. or it could be hidden variables. We have no way to determine that.

However, it could be that the conditions that gave rise to the universe are 'eternal' (what ever that means).

2) What is free will? You might say that we don't have free will because there are so many things that affect our actions that we can almost predict what choice a person will make with enough information. Even so, what would ideal, absolute, pure free will look like? It would be an action with absolutely no outside influence. In other words, an entity causing something without anything causing the entity; a first cause. This means that (assuming there was a first cause, which hasn't been proven here) there was a will that caused all the commotion we see in the universe.

If you just take #2, you could say that the universe has a will, but if you add #1, then it's a will which is external to the universe that caused everything that has been caused, be it some sort of god or whatever you want to call it.

In my opinion, since 'free will' has so many contradictory definitions, the concept of free will is meaningless.. and basically is just key phrases to answer Epicurus' problem of evil.

[rosey]

Evidently something must be uncaused. Theists usually posit that whatever is uncaused must be an entity that exists outside of spacetime. Atheists can posit that it is the universe itself that is uncaused. Judge for yourself which scenario makes more sense: the one that needs a being to exist in a realm which we cannot (even in principle) know anything about OR the one that accepts that all that can be shown to exist, in principle, is all that does exist. Hint: use Occam's razor.

So you deny Aristotle's idea that god is the un-caused first cause, and instead maintain that the universe is? Tell me, how can a universe that is expanding at an ever increasing rate due to a lil' thing called Dark Energy be un-caused? What happened to the big bang? So with that proven wrong, most now turn to the argument that states

OK, the universe isn't eternal. It's been blowing up and then collapsing on itself again eternally.

And once again, Dark Energy rears its ugly head. The universe is expanding apart from a central point faster and faster. Galaxies are moving away from each other, and that speed is ever growing. They are not collapsing. They never have been. Time for a new theory (and by new I mean one besides the one that has been held true since the dawn of man... Incidentally, would you like to know what happens when you run out of theories? You get to where I am. Convert to the Light).

[rosey]

Forgot something. Please don't reply by demanding evidence. Much as it galls me, I'm gonna' have to ask you to actually search "Dark Energy". I know this may come as a bit of a shocker, but even Atheists have to do a little work sometimes.