Can anyone provide an argument for a necessary being?

[FifthElement]

I guess I look at the information available to me concerning the history of the cosmos and see that everything seems to have a beginning and an end.

Yep, "everything" we can observe, which is hardly a drop in the ocean ...

The universe is not static. It is not eternal.

Nope, not static, but equally eternal and non-eternal, I would say take a pick, but you already did beforehand

There seems to have been a beginning to it all. We call that the Big Bang. If things have a beginning then they have an end.

Let me "fix" that for ya:

There seems to have been a beginning to what we can observe is much more like it ...

Another thing. Lots of theists or alike presume that only god is or can be eternal (or prime mover if you will), that is really a big generalization, if there is one thing eternal, there is a BIG chance that many other things are.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If we can all agree that everything in the known universe does indeed have a beginning and an end, then we can rule out the idea that things can go on existing ad infinitum and also that the universe could have existed forever, can we not? If we can, then positing some prime mover or creator being for the origin of the universe does not seem to me to be out of the question. Conversely, and nobody seems to want to tackle this, is the question of what would be a plausible alternative explanation for the origin of the universe without an agent that brings it into existence and sets it all into motion. Please, dear fellow thinkers, bring forth your best fruits and lay them on the table for us all to examine openly.

Does anything ever really end or does it merely evolve into something else?
When the Earth was formed did it have dirt on it at that time?

[truthBtold]

If we can all agree that everything in the known universe does indeed have a beginning and an end, then we can rule out the idea that things can go on existing ad infinitum and also that the universe could have existed forever, can we not? If we can, then positing some prime mover or creator being for the origin of the universe does not seem to me to be out of the question. Conversely, and nobody seems to want to tackle this, is the question of what would be a plausible alternative explanation for the origin of the universe without an agent that brings it into existence and sets it all into motion. Please, dear fellow thinkers, bring forth your best fruits and lay them on the table for us all to examine openly.

Does anything ever really end or does it merely evolve into something else?
When the Earth was formed did it have dirt on it at that time?

No..it didnt have Christians yet. . Ur right!!!

[Tonus]

Yes, you are right in a way by restating my challenge for an alternative answer the way you have although I didn't and probably wouldn't use the word god in such a question.

I am using it as a catch-all term for any sort of guiding force or intellect in the context of this discussion.

I have nothing to hide so I don't get your reasoning for calling me dishonest when I attempt to take a theist approach to the question of origin.

I mean that the approach itself is dishonest, in that it expects us to accept a default position that has no evidence for it.

I do beg to differ with you though when you say that "god was never the answer" after gaining more scientific, more rational explanations because there are any number of scientist or scholars of past and present who did not discard their theistic views even after gaining new and perhaps improved knowledge and understanding of the many intricate workings of the universe.

True, but their work did not produce any explanations that included god. We have come to understand many things that we once ascribed to god(s) due to a lack of understanding, in such diverse fields as weather and climate, health and sickness, genetics, chemistry, and so on. None of the settled explanations included the supernatural.

That so many have held to religious faith in the face of that fact is impressive and frightening. Less so as we learn more and more about the human mind and psyche, but still somewhat distressing to me.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If we can all agree that everything in the known universe does indeed have a beginning and an end, then we can rule out the idea that things can go on existing ad infinitum and also that the universe could have existed forever, can we not? If we can, then positing some prime mover or creator being for the origin of the universe does not seem to me to be out of the question. Conversely, and nobody seems to want to tackle this, is the question of what would be a plausible alternative explanation for the origin of the universe without an agent that brings it into existence and sets it all into motion. Please, dear fellow thinkers, bring forth your best fruits and lay them on the table for us all to examine openly.

What you are asking is "if it's not god, then what is it?" But if you have no evidence for god, then it's dishonest to assume that god should be the default explanation for questions of the origins of the universe. Especially since we know that humans have, for as long as we can tell, assigned "god" as an explanation for anything that they didn't understand at the time. And when they did gain an understanding, "god" was never the answer. Why would we accept "god" (or any such supernatural explanation) in this case?

I challenge you to show me where Metalogos used the word 'god' in his post.

[Tonus]

I challenge you to show me where Metalogos used the word 'god' in his post.

I assumed that his line about a "prime mover or creator being" implied god.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I challenge you to show me where Metalogos used the word 'god' in his post.

I assumed that his line about a "prime mover or creator being" implied god.

Additional arguments are needed to make intelligent agency a property of the fundamental ground for being. I do think he is headed in that direction though.

[Metalogos]

Whateverist wrote--I will note that you have only responded to the part of my post to which you took offense. I guess you don't want to defend your rush to judgment. You would like to characterize your willingness to adopt a position on the arcane question of prior causes as making an effort and praiseworthy. And that my friend makes you a poseur.
[/quote]

It is heartening, W, to know that you consider me amongst one of your friends. I think I hardly deserve the honor.

You accuse me of rushing to judgement but it is I who have spent a great deal of time so far on this site (during the very recent days that I have joined you and your illustrious company) politely and arduously laying out my position, defending it when challenged, and answering more or less point for point the questions and objections that have been put forward. You, on the other hand, seem to be the one who is happy to pass quick judgement on my character by accusing me of grandstanding and of affecting a particular manner so as to impress. I ask you again, sir, be civil and kind. If ever you hope to win the admiration and acceptance of your position by either me or anyone who is not in your camp, attacking their character without due regard is not the way to go about it.

I do not claim to have any kind of absolute knowledge concerning the origin of the universe. I am not defending a faith in a deity. I simply have not seen any argument yet, either here on this site nor in the larger world that convinces me sufficiently that the origin of this universe we all live in did not come about due to the will of an initial agent for it to do so. I defend the position I have taken, be it have been first formulated some 2300 years ago by Aristotle, because as a philosophical argument to explain the origin of the universe, for me, essentially, it works. When you or anyone else can provide an explanation that is better than Aristotle's I will be very willing to listen openly and, if it works better for me at that time, adopt it.

I have no great problem with atheists or the great service they do and have done to challenge the unfounded beliefs and dogmatic positions that abound and clutter the collective mind. Indeed, sir, go about your worthy business and slay those nasty dragons but do not accidentally stab your friends on the way. Peace.

[Chas]

There can be no reasonable argument for a "necessary being" as the idea is incoherent.

[ThomM]

I've seen the classical arguments, but every argument for a necessary being seems like an appeal to ignorance.

An unfalsifiable premise doesn't seem rational. Perhaps this is the reason I have problems with ontological arguments: they all seem to be appeals to ignorance, with a deus ex thrown in as the explanation.

So my challenge is: can anyone provide a cogent and compelling argument for a necessary being?

Why we can't we contemplate a necessary being without concluding it exists, without resulting to the same appeals to ignorance that resulted in Thor, God of Thunder and Lightning?

How would a being or entity be necessary in the absence of a plausible natural explanation?

You have gotten well beyond yourself here -

The problem is that - even if there was a rational argument for a necessary being - one cannot come up with a rational explanation why that being MUST be a god of religion.

Even if a "creator" might have existed - that is no support for an All Everything god - a being with the single power to start the process of evolution is the MOST that the existence of the universe might support.
The rest of the claim are simply nonsense