Shadowstar38 said:
someonehairy-ish said:
But seriously, why would there have to be a higher power? Why is the notion that there probably isn't one ridiculous? I dun geddit.
Everything has a beginning. There has to have been a point where itself didn't exist. And sense you can't make matter out of nothing by natural means, the origin of the universe must be supernatural.
Not according to quantum mechanics, where matter and antimatter are pretty much popping up at random the whole time to wave their privates in the face of physicist's understandings of reality.
And however it happened the universe would have begun on the quantum level. So scientifically, that argument is quite weak - it doesn't fit observed data.
Even aside from that when it comes to philosophy there are quite a few problems with this argument.
First, there is no need to assume it is in fact your conception of a godlike being. This particular argument has been in Western philosophy from the ancient Greeks, and has been used to argue for a variety of very different religions, which shows it doesn't actually tell you anything about the first cause.
In fact one doesn't even have much of a reason to think such a first cause would be eternal, or sentient thus taking it being a god right out of it.
Further "From whence God" - if everything has to be caused, then that goes for God too, unless you make an exception for God, in which case not everything has to be caused and the logical thread of the argument falls to pieces.
A far more logical outcome, one that is consistent with observation on a quantum level is that the basic premise "Nothing comes of nothing" does not actually hold true.