(April 27, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Tex Wrote: The first cause can't be physical (ancients use "natural" in a different sense). Philosophers have known this for 2350 years. Starting with Plato, then Aristotle, continuing to Avicenna and Aquinas, and further to Descartes (debatable) and Kant. Even closer to modern day, Heidegger believed a god was first causer(Being and Time).
If the first cause were physical, it would need something to cause it's existence, thus making that causer the first causer (This is the gap that is never air tight according to Gearbreak). This goes forever unless the first causer is Existence itself. Existence itself is obviously more than a physical body.
The first cause must be a being because the Existence is the only thing non-contingent and there are other things. That means the other things are chosen to exist. Because of the will, Existence shows itself as a being.
So in your fantasy something completely non-material, that is to say an abstract thing like "taste in music" somehow poofed the universe into existence!
I would say that the odds are that something material happened, probably something to do with "quantum".
Just because we don't know what happened dosen't mean we can't point to what didn't, I will say, with a great deal of confidence, that god did not create the universe.
I can say this because every time a mystery has been solved it has turned out not to be magic.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.