God's God

[Mystic]

You don't think reality might be a different kettle of fish, as opposed to other things? It's kind of... immense, dude, and has a set of theoretical underpinnings that we can't even safely assume to be correct right now.

I think existence seems to be an an effect. It appears to me in the same way as motion appears to you to be an effect. What you said about not understanding can be the same about things in nature. We can possibly not understand black-holes. It doesn't mean they don't have a cause or we can't know they do have a cause.

Think about existence. It's perpetually existing. Why is that constantly not caused, but everything else seems like that? Perhaps it's due to "Atheism" glasses, where everything we know that can possibly point to a Creator is assumed to be assumptions from ignorance.

More like: As far as we know, everything requires a cause. Existence might too, but we don't know, so we'll hold off saying for sure until we do.

Well it's more then that. I'm not saying to claim to know for sure, but it sure seems that way.

This calls for being agnostic, but not sitting on the other side of fence where it seems most likely a Creator doesn't exist from atheist stand point.

Which is not okay, because you can't be sure everything does require a cause.

How do you know that? Every axiom that proves the Creator seems to be we can't be sure of at the end. I am not certain, but I don't claim no one else can be certain in something that seems true to me.

Does it seem true to you or not? That's the question. Then we can ask why does it seem like that. And perhaps we will become less certain or close to certain or even certain.

Why give up on certainty?

Further, even if we become certain of that, it doesn't follow that the cause is the god you want to specify. That's an additional claim that requires additional, specific proof.

It doesn't specify the type of Creator I agree, but it does imply a supernatural constant cause to the universe.

The one that states a set of rules and then immediately demands a suspension of them for a deity. The atheist position is generally more of a shrug and a recognition that stating things concretely without all the information is silly.

In other words, if it's not proven empirically, you don't take side of the fence, that the Creator seems more likely no matter how seemingly true it is?

Is it only empirical evidence that you take seriously?

Ah, there's your special pleading!

To quote myself:

The logical premise (which seems true to me) is that everything needs a constant cause.
If everything needs a constant cause, then either it's the cause of itself in it's current state or it has a cause from other than itself in it's current state.

Then I reasoned why things in the universe and the universe itself seems to not be able to be constantly causing itself.

Then I reasoned why the supernatural immensely powerful being can be causing itself and the universe.

Where is the special pleading?

Well... yeah. Someone who doesn't give an answer can't be special pleading, can they? Theists, however, are providing an answer that they can't prove, that contradicts other portions of their claim.

It seems like it's still special pleading. Because it's saying "yes we can know everything requires a cause in general, but we can't know existence requires a cause"....why is this the case?