Tentatively Christian; looking for a reasonable discussion

[Esquilax]

The claim isn't "everything must have a cause" but "everything that begins to exist must have a cause." The sets of objects under discussion are different in both propositions.

And the fact that the "begins to exist" part was a lazy workaround addition to Kalam to avoid being asked the question "who created god?" doesn't bother you because...?

As for your second point, I think the theist would say that God, by definition, has been defined as an uncreated being, like a bachelor is, by definition, unmarried.

And you think it's okay to just define things that way for no other reason than rhetorical advantage, without evidence or justification, because...?

Besides, if you actually think that's a cogent way to argue this point then an equally cogent response would be to simply define the universe as uncreated, or as self-creating, and leave it at that.

It takes a lot more time to correct errors than it takes to make errors.

Yeah, tell me about it.

So I'll let you pick what you think is the strongest argument against the first cause. Or maybe even the top three, and I'll respond to them here.

In fact, if they are good objections, I'll even apologize and eat my hat.

Is there any particular reason you've moved the goalposts so that now we're talking about a first cause in general, and not the Kalam argument itself? The former isn't particularly objectionable- though a tad unsupported, which is really all the argument we need against it- while the latter is shot through with assumptions and assertions. We were discussing the latter all up until now; is that what you'd like to keep discussing?

If that's the case, I made a post with something like three objections to Kalam in it, all of which are valid. Why not start there?