(August 10, 2020 at 4:10 pm)Belacqua Wrote:(August 10, 2020 at 10:10 am)Eleven Wrote: The one fallible aspect of creationist thought is that all must have a creator.
Therefore, something must have created god.
But then theists decide via apologetic argumentation that special pleading is in order, thus stating that god always existed.
Asking "if everything has a creator, then what created God?" is a lot like asking "if people evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?" The question shows that you don't understand the argument.
Granted, the straw man version is a lot more convenient.
I agree it's a strawman, but it's also a case of special pleading
Atheists tend to frame the argument as, 'If everything that exists had a cause, then God must have a cause', which theists haven't argued since Aristotle made his case for an uncaused cause.
The proper argument is, 'Everything that began to exist must have a cause. God is eternal and so does not require a cause, since God has always existed.' This form of the argument is rife with its own problems, since 1) Theists don't adequately make the case for God having existed forever (other than definitionally and via a rather shaky appeal to infinite regress) and 2) This is nowhere near establishing a theistic god.
Boru
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