First order logic, set theory and God

[polymath257]

sigh... the whole thing can be boiled down to 

P1: everything that exists has a cause
P2: The universe exist
P3: the universe has a cause (in accordance with P1 and P2)

C1: the cause is god
P4: God exists
C2: therefore god has a cause (in accordance with above premises)
C3: the cause of the universe doesn't need a cause (no good reason is given to why that is the case) (fallacy of special pleading )

now if the god/original cause doesn't need anything to cause it into existence then why does the universe need a cause? this all amounts to a mundane statement of the obvious that not everything needs a cause.

This ignores the main point of the whole thing.  Whatever you started with has to be self-sufficient to "cause" itself.  So if you determine that it doesn't need a cause, then the explanation would be supernatural, because we know cause and effect applies in the natural world.  So you would need the whole gun, the gun would need to have made itself, then you could fire the trigger. If not, you have to apply something to the natural world that isn't evident.

Actually, we know exactly the opposite: cause and effect, as classically understood, do NOT apply to the natural world. From what we know of quantum mechanics, causality is NOT a necessary feature of our universe and, in fact, many quantum events seem to be genuinely uncaused.

A big part of the problem is even defining what it means for a system A to cause an event B. If the notion of causality dictates that *whenever* A happens, then B happens, then we know causality is frequently violated.

Similarly, if you say that B would not happen unless A happens, then this is also violated in quantum systems.

Finally, if you only claim that A *affects* the probabiliy that B occurs, then there *is* causality in quantum systems, but it is clear that this sort of causality is very, very weak and does NOT allow for the type of conclusions you want to derive.