The absolute absurdity of God

[Mister Agenda]

And yet, evidence suggests that spacetime can generate concrete objects...
How do you wrap your head around this fact?

Sounds fishy that a mathematical model can affect anything in the real world. Links?

The mathematical model of spacetime models, um, spacetime, which is really real. Currently really real. Unlike the past, which is in the past, which is not a real place in the same sense that Albuquerque is a real place (for now).

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1. There doesn't seem to be much need for it to be past-eternal, but if it is, there is the obvious problem with past-infinites that many take it as a brute fact that if anything is past eternal it is impossible to ever get to the present. I have a counter-intuition that there has to a present at some point, and now is as good a time as any; but that is also a premise I can't support any further. In any case, 1. could be a 'causeless cause' without being past eternal (or personal).

Yes, there is very much a need. If it was not past eternal it would need an explanation for its existence. The whole point to the argument is to get back to a necessarily-existing first cause and break an infinite regress.

2. The current cosmos is not past-eternal, but to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state and what came before that is a mystery. If 1. can be past-eternal, so can the universe, in the broad sense of something having always existed in some form. It may have existed statically forever until something changed (causeless cause), have undergone many transformations, etc. The alternative to something existing is 'philosophical nothingness' which strikes me as an incoherent concept.

No, not "to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state...". We have no knowledge of any kinds. It is metaphysical musings at best. The universe cannot be past eternal because material things can't be. See the other post on the impossibility of a past series of events. Something purely material cannot "have existed statically forever until something changed"--see premise (4). Nothing in the argument proposes there was 'nothing' at one point. 

3. Within the universe, that's how it works. But it is a fallacy of composition to assume that the way things work within the universe is the way things worked prior to the universe. Just because a wall is made of indestructible bricks doesn't mean the wall is indestructible. Cause proceed effect within the universe, but even then there seem to be exceptions on the quantum level, where events can occur without a proceeding cause, according to quantum mechanics. And the state of the universe prior to the initial expansion was small enough for quantum affects to apply, according to the available evidence and (I'm told) the math.

Since this is a sub-argument that Jorm inquired about to get to a "personal" cause, I focused on the logic specifically to that point--and not feeling the need to include the whole argument up to that point. The larger argument specifically avoids arguing by composition. "An explanation" is rooted in the metaphysical principle that things don't just pop into existence: a PSR. 

i. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
ii. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
iii. The universe exists.
iv. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
v. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

4. I see no problem with this one.
5. 1-3 were a mess in my opinion, so I can't agree that this has been proven.
6. This is an additional premise/unsupported assertion.
7. You might as well have dumped 1-5 and started with 6 and you'd have just as good a case.

Seems like my effort survived all your criticism.

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Didn't I already show you this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

1. In other words, YOU need it for YOUR argument to work.
2. Up to the point where our knowledge ends, only transformations are observed. Inserting something different than transformations beyond that point is unjustified. You don't get to posit a whole new thing because of our ignorance. The most you can posit is that the series of transformations might not hold. And I'd be interested in your proof that material things can't be past eternal. We've never observed a material thing (energy or matter) ceasing to exist above the quantum level. In fact we only observe matter and energy transforming, never ceasing to exist. On what basis can you conclude that they can't be eternal? And how can you eliminate the possibility of a 'causeless cause' when such events seem to be common at the quantum level? I know it's inconvenient for your premise, but it's what the available evidence points to.
3. The 'metaphysical principle' that things don't just 'pop into existence' was a reasonable inference before we began to understand quantum mechanics and became capable of devising instrumentation that can observe events on a subatomic scale. To infer that 'everything has a cause' and to maintain that despite new observations that indicate otherwise is a form of foolishness. That it's conceivable that someday quantum events may be discovered to not actually be stochastic in nature is not a justification to cling to a principle that denies evidence.

I'm sure that it seems to YOU that your effort survived my criticism.