Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[Esquilax]

Some people, like Esquilax, hold the notion that the rules applying to all known physical objects need not apply to one particular object, the entire physical universe which is the biggest of them all.

While this is true- rules that apply within the interior of something do not necessarily apply to the thing itself from outside- the other thing is that I also assert that the physical laws need not apply during those periods in which the universe operated differently than it does now, that those physical laws are properties of the universe in its current expansionary state, and not globally applying principles operant at every state of the universe's being. This is well supported by the current data.

However, many assure me that at the most fundamental level of reality subatomic particles pop in and out of existence randomly without cause. If this is truly the case, then the logic of the Third Way applies.

Not based on what you've presented here, but what it does mean is that the first way no longer applies. At best, all you've done is remove one argument from the discussion definitively in order to confirm another.

If it is possible that any given particle could cease to exist, then any object made of such particles would cease to exist if all the particles of which it is made ceased to exist all at once. If the object under consideration is the entire physical universe and if the physical universe is the sum total of all being, then...it would be possible at any given point in the history of the universe (whether extending eternally into the past or having a temporal start) to cease existing for no rhyme or reason. Since the physical universe continues to exist, a rational person can reasonably suppose that something sustains the physical universe, something whose existence is not subject to chance.

This doesn't follow at all. I mean, it starts out not following since the third way assumes a whole lot of things it doesn't bother to demonstrate, but even if you were one hundred percent right here, it doesn't follow that since the universe continues to exist, this means it must exist. In a universe that could pop out of existence spontaneously, every single moment prior to that happening you would be able to say that the physical universe continues to exist, therefore it always will. Everything has never happened before, prior to the first time that it happens, that doesn't at all mean that all things that have never happened thus far are impossible. I would have thought this was obvious.

That leaves option 2, the existence of the physical universe depends on something necessary, but that whatever it is cannot be fully know. Except that's not true. We do know something about it: it must exist and it is absolutely requires to sustain existence every second of every day, regardless of how the whole ball of wax started in the first place.

I'm sorry, how did you determine that the universe, regardless of its status within the arbitrary philosophical metric that you insist on, requires outside sustenance? Don't reply with more philosophy, don't attempt to define this into existence: you've made a claim about an objectively real object, and thus this claim is testable. Provide real evidence that it's true, if you can. I don't intend to accept a priori "I know it because I know it," claims are justification for further claims.