Quote:(1) Whatever begins to exist is caused to exist by something else.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore the universe was caused to exist; and the cause of its existence is God.
(1) May or may not be true. Quantum particles and wave-fronts appear (at the present state of knowledge) to be uncaused phenomena. Causality gets fairly weird at the quantum level - effects preceding causes and so forth.
(2) Unjustified assumption. There is no philosophical or physical reason why the Universe cannot be infinitely old.
(3) Given the objection to #2 above, the most you can say here is that the Universe and God are coeval, which pretty neatly eliminates God as a cause of, well, anything, really.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
