Terrible Atheist Argument #1

[paulpablo]

Okay, so there are smart atheists and there are dumb atheists.

Some dumb atheists make some piss poor arguments. Here I'll deal with one that comes up a lot.

1) "If God created everything then who created God?"

This is one facepalmtastic objection. Typically the atheist is some 12 year old who thinks he's "refuted religion". If he is, it's no use trying to reason. But if there are smart atheists, they ought to know why this is a terrible argument:

a) There are various beings that are called "God", and they all have different features. But philosophically, the most rigorous concept of God is called the "Maximally Great Being", or a being that possesses all the categories of greatness to such a degree that nothing greater can be conceived. Such a being is almost always thought to be personal rather than impersonal.

b) One of the features of this maximally great being is it's role as the "First cause" or "uncaused cause". To understand what this is, you have to look at everything in the world in terms of cause-effect relations. Everything contingent has a cause that leads backwards in a causal chain. Does the causal chain go on infinitely, or is it finite? Theists argue that the causal chain is finite, and it begins at an uncaused cause, or first cause which was not itself caused by anything. This is God.

If you disagree with this idea, you can either:
i) Challenge the claim that the causal chain is finite, arguing that it is infinite in the past.
ii) Challenge the claim that the first cause must be God.

What you cannot do is imply that God needs to be caused by something.

I've never heard this argument in the context you seem to be presenting it.

You seem to be saying that atheists are walking over to religious people and just simply blurting out this claim.
I've only ever heard this claim in the context of a religious person saying something along the lines of

"Something can't come from nothing so god did it"

It seems like a perfectly rational reply to say

"If God created everything then who created God?"

In the context of a reply to someone already making the original claim that things have to be created in order to exist.

But if you live in a world where atheists are constantly making this claim then I can see why you would be annoyed, I don't think I've seen this claim in the context of how you're putting it ever.