If the universe did not exist, we would not be around to discuss this question. Your point, if there is one, appears to be completely irrelevant to the present discussion.
We wouldn't be here to discuss it but theism would be falsified because theism is the claim a Creator caused the universe to exist. The lack of a universe would confirm the belief God didn't create a universe.
Yes. But the existence of a universe, by itself, does not demonstrate that creator gods exist. For that claim to be considered probable, one would have to demonstrate that creator gods exist, and provide a mechanism for how gods create universes. This is the part you don't seem to understand. For any claim to be considered probable, t has to be supported by facts and evidence.
It would be like if I accused someone of murdering Mr Smith and on the day of trial Mr Smith walks in the courtroom. On the other hand if I roll out a dead Mr Smith my claim someone murdered him is more probable than if he is alive. You see there are conditions that have to be met for me to claim he was murdered. His being dead is just one. Its not circular reasoning it circumstantial evidence.
No its not. The existence of the universe is evidence that universes can exist. No inference regarding the existence of creator gods can be drawn from this evidence.
1. Circular argument
Gods create universes
The universe exists
Therefore, god created our universe
No that is not a circular argument and its not what I said either.
OK, let me restate your argument:
Theists believe the universe was created by a god
The universe exists
Therefore, it is probable that the universe was created by a god
The argument is still circular. Because the first premise presupposes the conclusion.
It works just as well for naturalism. If you says naturalistic ungiuded forces caused the universe to exist, the existence of the universe makes it more probable its was a naturalistic causes than if the universe didn't exist. Because anything that exists is either something caused intentionally or unintentionally by mechanistic processes. The mere existence of something raises both possibilities. However the existence of a universe does noting for atheism.
Nobody here has claimed that it does. You are arguing a strawman, as has been explained to you in previous posts. Instead of providing facts and reason to support your claim that the universe was created by a god, which is the real argument on the table.
From
Wiki:
A
straw man (sometimes written as
strawman) is a form of
argument and an
informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.
[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
You really should take some time to review logical arguments and fallacies.
2. Argument from ignorance
Atheists can't explain how the universe originated
Therefore, god-did-it is a good answer
This is why I don't respond to everything. You're not quoting me above. I don't have time to defend things I didn't say. A universe exists and either God did it or mother nature did it. You believe the former correct?
You did make that claim. And if you don't want your arguments to be misunderstood, state them as formal arguments. Instead of using bogus analogies.
I have already explained this. A singularly is not a phenomenon, and nobody thinks a singularity became the universe, caused the universe, or was the beginning of the universe. That's just your misunderstanding of what the word 'singularity' means.
Wrong explanations don't help. How many quotes from scientists do you require? How many sources? Its the working theory...
The universal origin story known as the Big Bang postulates that, 13.7 billion years ago, our universe emerged from a singularity — a point of infinite density and gravity — and that before this event, space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time).
Your source is wrong - that is not the view of cosmologists today. Instead of doubling down on a false claim and exposing your ignorance, you should take the time to educate yourself.
I am guessing you don't remember high school physics, so let me explain. In the late 17th century Newton provided the first mathematical model of gravity - called Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. This is how he wrote it out:
The gravitational force of attraction (F) between two massive particles, m1 and m2, is directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The model works well for most practical problems in our day to day lives, but it breaks down under certain conditions - with relativistic objects (traveling at or close to the speed of light, or in the presence of very high spacetime curvatures, which we will get into later), and under certain other conditions. The model predicts that the force of attraction becomes larger as the particles are moved closer together. In the limit (remember your high school calculus?) as the separation r approaches zero, the prediction for the gravitational attraction approaches infinity.
In reality, as the distance r is decreased, other forces come into play - the strong and the weak nuclear forces, depending on the magnitude of r. These forces limit how close the particles can get (how small r can be). The limiting case that we can observe in the universe is the
neutron star, where the degraded core of a star that went supernova has been collapsed into one extremely large 'nucleus' (but r is still non-zero, even with the densest material configuration known to man). But Newton did not know about subatomic particles and nuclear forces, and his model for gravity does not incorporate these interactions. Therefore, Newton's model of gravitation cannot be used to predict the attraction between particles for very small values of r tending to zero, and it incorrectly predicts an infinitely large force when the particles merge at the limit.
This is what scientists refer to as a singularity. r can never be zero in nature, nor can the gravitational attraction be infinite, no matter what Newton's law states. The law does not apply under these conditions.
Lets move on to cosmological models, since we are talking about the origins of the universe. Einstein published the
theory of general relativity (GR) in the early 20th century, and since that time, GR has been the tool of choice to model the behavior of the universe at macroscopic scales. Einstein's formulation of GR is also a theory of gravitation - only, instead of describing gravity as a force, it is described as the curvature of spacetime. This is how Einstein formulated his model:
The left side of the equation describes the geometry of spacetime, while the right side describes the distribution of energy/matter within spacetime. Matter causes spacetime to curve, while the curvature of spacetime dictates how matter moves. In other words, there is no force of attraction pulling you towards the center of the earth; you experience as if it were a force because you are located within a region of specetime that has been curved and distorted by the planet's mass, and your body wants to follow the curved trajectory of this region.
GR has been used to predict the behavior of large scale structures in the universe, everything from planets like Mercury to superclusters of galaxies. And the model has been exhaustively tested and demonstrated to provide very accurate predictions. But the model is still not complete - it breaks down under certain conditions. Conditions inside black holes, or conditions at the very earliest point that we can look to in our universe. If GR is used to make predictions under these conditions, it predicts a value of infinity for the curvature tensor, which we know is not true. While black holes are extremely dense objects, they occupy finite volume. We know this because we can measure the dimensions of the supermassive black hole,
Sagittarius A* located at the center of our galaxy, and this object is not infinitely dense - it occupies finite space. The word singularity does not imply an infinitely dense object, it is an artifact of our limited knowledge.
This is what scientists call a singularity. The word singularity is used as a placeholder, an unknown quantity, just like we use the alphabet x in algebra. Do you understand now?
There is no "outside the universe" - the universe is everything that exists.
These are beliefs they may even be scientific theories. They aren't a fact and hasn't been established. They are actually examples of naturalism in the gaps.
What are you talking about?
The debate exists because some people don't accept the unsupported claims of theists.
Some people don't accept the supported claims of theists.
So far I have seen no evidence to support your claim. You don't have any evidence, only flawed arguments and broken analogies.
The three facts I listed are indisputably true and each of them has to be true for theism to be true.
Simply believing something doesn't make it true. A billion Hindus believe in the elephant headed Ganesh, but this doesn't make Ganesh real.
The debate occurs because the conditions for humans to be alive and have this debate occurred. A universe exists, life exists and intelligent life exists. Atheism doesn't require any conditions be true except God not exist. We debate because the conditions for theism to be true obtained.
What does this have to do with anything?
For any argument to be accepted as being reasonable, or probable, the argument would have to be supported by sufficient evidence. Every argument has to be judged on its own merits - simply stating that atheists don't have an answer is not sufficient to accept the god-did-it hypothesis as being reasonable. Why do you have such a hard time understanding this?
I'm not making a God of the gaps argument. I'm making a God of the facts argument.
F1 The universe exists.
Theists claim God caused a universe to exist and one does. No god in the gaps. We have a fact necessary for theism to be true and unnecessary for atheism to be true.
F2 Life exists.
Life has to exist for theism to be true. It doesn't have to exist for atheism or naturalism to be true. Do you know of any reason mindless unguided forces would need to cause life to exist?
F3 Intelligent life exists.
Just as there is no reason for natural forces to have a myriad of conditions for life to occur and more conditions for intelligent human life to exist.
Everyone in here knows the aforementioned facts.
None of these three facts imply the existence of gods.
I believe in Bantu the supreme cosmic toad, and his ability to create universes from his flatulence. For my belief to be true, these three facts would have to occur, and they have occurred. Are you convinced that Bantu exists?
You have come to accept the idea that the universe, life and intelligent life could have occurred unintentionally by mindless forces that didn't intend stars to exist, or planets, or solar systems, or atoms and molecules or gravity and oxygen.
For good reason.
They just fortuitously caused a myriad of conditions for us to exist while natural forces require none of them. The slightest slip up there would be no life and theism would be falsified.
So? You are using the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. Fallacious arguments are unreliable.
Theism is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Therefore, it has zero value.
