Is the universe God?

[max-greece]

Nonsense. Who makes the claim that the universe came from nothing?

Also, your claims regarding the characteristics of God are unsubstantiated.

I was trying to make the point that either everything was either created or it always existed. So if everything that is material hasn't always existed, then it came into existence at some point from nothing (or maybe something non-material). So either it created itself or something non-material created it. When I spoke of God I was speaking of the characteristics of the christian God. You could assume it was something beyond what the universe is made from. The point is that it points to something other than the material world.

All you've got so far is a restatement (including you OP not quoted here) of the cosmological argument.

It doesn't really hold up as it contains too many assumptions. These include, but are not limited to:

1. That our experience here on earth reflects how things work outside the universe (note - not before the universe - that concept may not have any meaning in a timeless void).
2. In order to support the above (causality) - which is dependent on time, which has to be assumed as stated you have to further assume an uncaused, first-cause - in other words - magic. You further have to assume that said first cause is intelligent and performed this act of creation as a conscious decision. Even if you got there linking that to the Christian God hasn't even started.
3. You are not really even using worldly experience of causality - you are only pretending to. Everything physical is caused, yes, but, everything physical has a material cause. God is an efficient cause. God doesn't solve the problem.

What the above means in a nutshell is that if the argument is sound - that everything physical has a material cause then BOTH the scientific "something from nothing" explanation AND the Christian "God did it" argument are wrong.

Not helpful.