How many books on, ya know, physics did you read before the Summa basically confirmed what you had already figured out about the origins of the Universe?
CMC fnord!
I figured there had to be something to create the Universe, I just couldn’t figure out what until my Philosophy professor recommended Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. He said that the book would answer my questions. It did. It didn’t confirm any of my pre-existing beliefs. It just answered questions that were bugging me. (I probably should have worded my last post better)
Well, Sir Isaac Newton’s works are actually required reading in my Physics class. Newton was a devout believer in God:
Your Philosophy professor recommended an ancient religious text that he said would answer your science questions about the beginning of the universe?
You figured there was no way the universe just popped into existence, because it just doesn’t happen that way – and instead settled on “well, there’s an entity that just exists; it just happens that way, y’know?”
Actually, let me get a touch of clarification: do you believe that a god (but not the universe) just popped into existence? Or do you believe that a god (but not the universe) has always existed?
God has always been. The universe (and, by extension, the hot dense mass that was the universe prior to the Big Bang) could not just pop into existence. It doesn’t work that way. That hot, dense mass had to come form somewhere. It had to have a cause, yeah?
Why couldn’t it have always been? You grant that one entity – which of course didn’t just pop into existence – has always been; why not figure the universe has always been? Why not figure ten or twenty entities have always been?
How do you know it doesn’t work that way?
CMC fnord!
What’s next, OP?
Do you see yourself converting to Catholicism, now that Aquinas has convinced you?
Or do you think you’ll settle for some kind of personal theism, without signing up for any one specific religion?
The latter, actually. Already done that. Frankly, the way organized religion is going, especially with these televangelist morons, I find it disgusting that these guys claim to be buying jet airplanes in the name of God. It’s nauseating. They are the problem, not religion itself. Once religion has truly eliminated the corrupt from their ranks, I’ll take them up on the offer of joining. Until then, I’ll surf on the beaches of Big Island. It’ll bring me a lot closer to God than those yokels.
Why? Why is the universe obligated to obey your dictates?
You first have to establish that you can invoke such a thing even once. Why jump to a plurality of problematic concepts when you can’t even make sense of one?
And please use thus, not thusly.
C+
I have no interest in establishing that it can be invoked even once.
I merely note that, (a) if someone else feels like establishing that it can be invoked once, I see no reason why it can’t be invoked multiple times; and (b) if no one else feels like establishing it, I see no reason to bother invoking it multiple times.
I’m happy with either.
The dictionary lists one as a perfectly acceptable synonym of the other. It set up the thusly/sixty rhythm. Seems cromulent.
Because I am the Supreme Lord and Master of all Reality! The laws of the Universe are my creation! You puny humans cannot comprehend the power that I possess! (Please note the sarcasm.) 
The hell he has.
The hell it couldn’t.
The hell it doesn’t.
The hell it had to.
Every one of your “arguments” is based on totally unwarranted, unsupported assumptions. Why couldn’t your god just “pop into existence”? No answer. Why couldn’t the universe always have existed? No answer. If your god doesn’t have a cause, why does the universe need one? No answer.
[post shortened]
Well, it has to be noted that he ignored the power the mods have over puny posters like him :), he got banned, so no answer indeed.
Some of us are old enough to remember when a “Steady State” universe was still a possible model. Such a universe didn’t actually have to have a “beginning.”
The “uncaused cause” argument is solely based on a human preference for a certain kind of order. In nature, most everything we see comes from some previous cause. But to extend that, either to infinity or to a miracle, is a personal preference, not a deduced law or observed fact.
Religion can either partake of mysticism and miracles and mystery, or it can accept logic and observation. It suffers terribly when it tries to do both at once.
Excellent post, leahcim.
The logic is so faulty (with, as you say, a flaw in every step), the interesting question is why anyone ever found it convincing.
The obvious first answer is because they wanted to believe. But I think on top of that it must represent a logical blind spot humans have.
There is a minimal kind of validity in arguing that, since every observed event has a cause, and that event has a cause, and so on, as far back as we can see, therefor, if there is a “first cause” it must be extraordinary in some way.
We know a great deal about how evolution works; we can see animals giving rise to other animals, and species splitting off into other species. But we aren’t quite sure about the origin of life. Clearly, that origin is different from evolution as we know it. Something extraordinary happened. The “chain of events” has a major kink in it.
It’s folly to conclude that such events must be miraculous, but it’s valid enough to conclude that they must be fundamentally different from what we observe today.
The Big Bang fills that bill very well indeed, and, in time, when we figure out how life originated, that will also probably be seen as remarkable and profound.
Well it must be extraordinary in one way: not having a past cause.
Beyond that, we have no grounds to assume anything.
(and this is of course assuming a (singular) first cause)