Atheism = Desperation

[Esquilax]

Because a cause is necessary to define that set of parameters. What category of cause explains the existence of a set of parameters? Methodological naturalism provides only two options: material and efficient.

Two things. The first is that your argument simply doesn't follow; causes may influence the preceding set of parameters, but there is no reason to think they are required for parameters to exist. When we speak of the inception of the universe we're talking about an event for which we don't have much of an understanding beyond the fact that it doesn't even necessarily have to behave in ways comprehensible to normal causality; why do you feel the need to force our current universe's framework over the top of that, knowing full well that it may not apply? Essentially, you're not going to be able to cover for your first assertion by just making a second.

Secondly, you're a specific brand of christian, no? So isn't it a little disingenuous that you keep arguing for deistic creator forces, rather than what you actually believe?

Again your misunderstanding of the unmoved mover argument shows. As formulated by Aquinas, the unmoved mover argument says nothing about the initial conditions of the universe and, in fact, applies whether the universe had a specific temporal start or is eternal.

I take your point but then, given that we're having a discussion based around this specific claim that the universe came into being at random and how I find that idea to be a strawman, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the discussion is about... well, the formation of the universe?