God is so quiet

[SteveII]

By admitting that we could logically conceive of both a possible world where we have our universe (obviously) and a possible world where it did not exist means precisely that the universe does not 'necessarily' exist.

Perhaps I misspoke.  When I said universe, what I meant, and what I should have said, was existence.  No, we cannot conceive of a world of non-existence.  That is logically incoherent.  We try, but as soon as we employ language to describe what non-existence is, we are logically refuting our own efforts.  As I said before, non-existence, by definition, is not anything, and cannot be anything, including a world.  Becuase a world, Ofc, would be a thing.  😏

I think you are getting stuck for the moment on "possible world" semantics. The term simply means the way things could have been. We can conceive that it was possible that everything failed to exists and there was not anything at all. There is no logical problem with that possibility. If there is no logical problem with that possibility, then the cosmos does not 'necessarily' exist. 

We may instinctively attempt to conceive of “nothing” as a way to maintain logical continuity within this ‘cause and effect’ type of experience we’re used to, but “nothing”, described as any kind of thing, is by definition something, not nothing. And, non-existence, by definition, cannot exist.  

Ya’ll get any of that?  😝

In philosophy, 'nothing' (along with nobody, nowhere, none, etc.) are terms of universal negation. All you are doing is playing games with a word that grammatically is a pronoun and making it into a noun.

I’m not playing any kind of game.  I’m using simple, irrefutable logic.  Sorry you don’t like it.  You can call ‘nothing’ bananas if it pleases you.  My point still stands.  There is no logical alternative to existence.  Existence exists necessarily, by its very definition.

Why "is there no logical alternative to existence?" There are an infinite list of things that fail to exist. Perfectly logical. The property of 'existing' belongs to physical object and concepts. Properties do not exist by themselves. 

If I had nothing for lunch today, I do not mean that I ate something and it was nothing. If I saw nobody in the office, I do not mean I saw somebody called nobody.

Not eating lunch and seeing people at work are pretty piss poor, and painfully inadequate comparisons to existence versus non-existence, don’t you think?  It seems to me, that you haven’t decided exactly what you mean when you say, “nothing”.

You are propagating a silly argument that only exists in the world of the atheist echo chamber.

If it’s silly, then refute it.  And btw, I did not come by this via other atheists.  I am capable of thinking for myself, thanks.

Go ahead, find a serious philosopher who has written on the somethingness of nothingness.

Huh?  That’s my whole point.  Nothing cannot be something.  So you agree?  Or, are you not talking about actual nothing?  Are you talking about a Lawrence Krauss type of nothing?  Because, that is not, no things.

I don't think we disagree as much as you think. Perhaps my comments above irons it out.

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You are playing word games.  'Nothing' is a pronoun (not a noun as you need it to be) that denotes negation so your phrase means "not a single thing exists". This is a tired old game.

"not a single thing exists" means the same thing as "not-something exists". Just as:

"I had nothing for lunch today" means the same thing as "I had not-something for lunch today", which is equivalent in meaning to "I had not a single thing for lunch today",

and

"I saw nobody in the office" means the same thing as "I saw not-somebody in the office", which is equivalent in meaning to "I saw not a single body in the office".

So no problem so far.

Going back to "nothing exists" which means "not a single thing exists" which means "not-something exists":

"exists" means "is something".

So what you're saying is:

"not-something is something".

And so it looks to be a logical contradiction.

Your problem continues to be that the pronoun 'nothing' means the negation of the word it is referring to!!

You had nothing for lunch. That means lunch did not happen. 

You saw nobody. Means that seeing a person did not happen.

None of the people ate to cookie. Means that eating did not happen. 

Nothing existing. Means that existing did not happen. 

So no, it does not look to be a logical contradiction--in the slightest. You MUST have tried to look this up. Didn't the fact that you couldn't find anything give you pause?