The problem with prayer.

[Cyberman]

1 On the quantum level, nothing from nothing isn't an accurate description of reality

It has been pointed out by many that a quantum vacuum isn’t exactly ‘nothing’ as traditionally understood. A proper atheistic response seems to be that a quantum vacuum adequately satisfied the role of necessary being. Perhaps. Deciding whether it can fill that role requires looking at additional criteria. Anything that is truly fundamental would also be non-contingent; it could not be other than how it is.
That does not seem to be the case with a quantum vacuum. A quantum vacuum follows specific physical laws that govern its capacities and behaviors. From where do these laws come? Either they are brute facts or they could have been otherwise. According to those laws (as I understand from others) the quantum vacuum is unstable. That instability means that it can exist in more than one state: productive or inert. That makes any change of state contingent some more fundamental cause. So presumably, it could be otherwise and whatever is truly fundamental must be found at a deeper level.

So you're content to take shelter behind a huge argument from ignorance? We don't know enough about any initial conditions of the Universe to conclude that a quantum vacuum at that point isn't nothing (and tradition can kiss my arse, frankly; why should anyone care about what is traditionally understood in the face of the raw bleeding edge of physics?)

"From where do these laws come?" is as asinine as "if humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" You're the one proposing these laws came from a god - make your case. Don't just tell us it's a necessary being, actually paint the picture.

2 Assuming you are right, how did your classical "God" manage it - both for itself and for the Universe?

If there are absolutes, primitives, and/or fundamentals, then at some point those who wonder must accept some things as brute facts. The issue at hand is this: has the chain of explanations gone as deeply as possible? The Principle of Sufficient Reason only applies until it doesn’t. As a general rule, atheists stop too early and send boys to do the tasks of men. They take some things as brute facts, like quantum vacuum, even though those things do not satisfy the criteria for fundamentals.

And superintelligent beings with literally zero external evidence for their very existence do? The exact same explanation for millions of toys appearing in children's bedrooms every year? Before hitching one's flag to a position, isn't it at least pragmatic to exhaust every other, simpler possibilities first? Less facial egg lies that way.

3 What part(s) of the scriptural text lead inevitably to that conclusion to the exclusion of any other?

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by ‘that conclusion’. What conclusion? Anyway, we have strayed far from the OP topic of prayer.

The conclusion that reality existed before time began. Don't woryy about drifting off-topic; that happens all the time and this one is more restrained than most.