Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[LadyForCamus]

I understand your point. You are pointing out the difference between inside the universe and outside the universe and then insisting that it matters. You don't give reasons why it matters. Later on, you just say it is a category error. It's not, because I don't need a specific kind of cause to be true or to create "sets" with them. All that is needed to span any difference is that a causal principle is an objective feature of reality. This would apply both in and out of the universe. There are good reasons to believe this exists and no good reasons to think that it does not.

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I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

(You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

Remember, Jenny:  it’s only a category error when atheists are asking the theist for an explanation of what god is made of, and how he functions.  But, as long as the theist can effectively equivocate by using nondescript language like, ‘beyond the universe’, suddenly we can know all sorts of facts about its objective features.  😏

It’s funny how we can “know” all the things that god is not; time-less, change-less, space-less, cause-less; but we can’t ever know exactly what he is.

Edit:

@steve

I’m very interested in your explanation for how events can happen absent time.