Atheist Meme of the Day: "First Cause" is a Terrible Argument for God

Today's Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don't; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

"Everything has to have a cause, therefore there must be a God" is a terrible argument for religion. If everything has to have a cause -- what caused God? And if God either always existed or came into being out of nothing -- why can't that be true for the universe? Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

Comments

[Andrew the Atheist]

I'd say this argument doesn't even reach religion, as it barely addresses the existance of a creator. When I am generally confronted with this BS, I refute it, then concede it. If I accept there is a creator, how now does the believer differenciate their version of a creator with all other forms it has taken? Is there more evidence for a garden with talking snakes than a giant tree on a cosmic tutle's back?

[Eli]

Everything has to have a cause, therefore causality is a logically inconsistent concept.

[Anshu]

Don't worry. Jesus still loves you. :)

[hoverfrog]

The cosmological argument ignores the fact that space and time are related. If there is no space then there is no time and there is no "before" the Big Bang (the earliest known first cause). At best we can say that we don't know anything about the Big Bang event, only moments after the Big Bang, and that there is no basis to assume that there was even a "before" to discuss.

Not knowing something is very different to claiming that goddidit.

[Maryann Spikes]

Mention your meme in today's article, gave you a heads-up last night: http://www.examiner.com/x-26772-San-Francisco-Apologetics-Examiner

[Eclectic]

hoverfrog: That basically is the problem but it's more complex than that. We'll probably have to develop a more sophisticated concept of "before".

It's like aliens from another star asking "how far is Earth?" In light-years, it's easy, but when you start adding decimal placed, you have to allow for the earth's 16.6 light-minute diameter orbit and the time of year.

Measuring more closely yet, the diameter of the earth itself stops being negligible and you have to ask "what part of the earth?"

"The beginning of the earth!", they say. Well, that depends on which direction you're coming from, and whether you count water as the surface, how you want to account for tides, and all kinds of messy details that you can ignore if you don't need an exact answer.

Asking about the instant of the big bang is likely to have a similarly messy answer.