Debate on unicorns is debate on unicorns

[Purple Rabbit]

You're right Rhizo. You can clearly see examples of this in debate on the beginning of the universe. The big bang is seen as a strong argument that our universe was caused into being by an external entity. And some theoretical science indeed speculates on this. Theists frequently bring forward this point in debate and conclude from this that this proves the first cause argument. But we tend to easily forget about how attributes of a speculated cause are smuggled in this way. Before you know it, we allow the discussion to divert from a rather hypothetical assessment on scientific evidence for 'external' causes which involves M-theory (string theory).

If you accept an external cause, this is not necessarily a first cause and we're far off from attributes like omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and even the name 'god'. We should not allow these attributes into debate this way. We have far more reason to talk about M-theory instead. Allowing the god attributes to enter such a debate in a sense is accepting the smuggle. Also a theist who accepts NOMA cannot even bring up the first cause argument from talk about the big bang, because the big bang still is in the realm of science and naturalism.