A potential argument for existence of God

[Aoi Magi]

Probability is a thing, and if one occurrence happens to pass that doesn't necessarily mean it was "chosen". Also we can't be sure that the other possibilities didn't come to pass, and that is why people are looking into the multiverse idea. Also the more information we gain the less uncommon our origin seems. Everything in the universe is quite capable of forming life, and it is not as mysterious or impossible as most people think.

[Mr Greene]

Have you considered the possibility of an 'oscillating' universe?  That is, a Big Bang, followed some billions of years later by a Big Crunch, with everything collapsing into a singularity.  After an unspecified interval, the singularity expands into a new universe, and so on, ad infinitum.

I'm unaware if the evidence supports such a scenario (I'm not a physicist), but it at the very least, it pretty neatly addresses the problem of whether the universe had a beginning:  Our universe may have, but we might conceivably be the latest in an infinitely old string of universeS.

Boru

I think the OP's "argument" has been been satisfactorily dealt with at this point, perhaps with a nudge to actually read Hawking's Brioef History of Time before misrepresenting the man's position.

On the Big Crunch; There appears to be too little mass in this Universe to bring that about as Dark Energy (Quantum Fluctuation) dominates the intergalactic void increasing the acceleration of Universal expansion towards heat death.

[Alex K]

Yes, right - unless dark energy is dynamical and can decrease in the future. But there is currently no evidence for that

[paulpablo]

Hi everyone, 

So last night, before falling asleep, I thought of a potential argument for the existence of God (and this isn't the reason why I believe in God), and would like to see feedback on whether it's a good argument or not and why. So this is how it goes:

The universe had a beginning. Therefore there can be only two possibilities: either it was created from nothing, or it created itself. The universe couldn't have created itself because it was nonexistent before its creation. And if it was created from nothing, because nothing existed, there were no factors to narrow down creation to a certain kind of thing, and thus nothingness had an infinite amount of options to choose from to create something. We know that it did choose a particular one. Therefore, by choosing a particular one, it (nothingness) discarded all the other options. Hence, nothingness has an inherent quality of picking certain things and not picking others, and also the power to create its chosen option. But how can nothingness have such qualities of power and choosiness; it is nothing; it  has no quality or disposition! If nothingness does indeed have these qualities, then it is no longer nothing; it would be a powerful, choosy being that has the ability to choose freely (because there are no factors to limit its choice) and hence has a free will, and is uncreated. Sounds a lot like God!

Keep in mind that the resulting "nothingness" with its mentioned qualities does seem to match with the Islamic concept of God, because in Shia Islam, Allah (God) is nothing but His Qualities; His Qualities are Him, and are His Essence.

The problem I have with the argument is that still nothing is explained.  We don't know how the universe works, we don't know what nothing is.  We don't know how a god could make something from nothing unless he made the universe out of a piece of himself, which would mean we, and all the rocks, computers, toilets and pigs of this world are all just slices of Allah.  And I imagine the thought of that is pretty offensive and unbelievable to Muslims.
Or Allah just manipulated something already in existence, in which case it still doesn't explain how that thing came into existence from nothing.

We still don't know how a conscious being could make a choice outside of time and space. 
It's really a problem that still remains a problem if you put god there or not.  Unless you say god is just magic and can do anything in which case you could just say magic exists and then it could leave endless possibilities open.
It could be that you're the magic creator and you made everything because you were bored of being alone and you erased your own memories of it.
  It could be that an army of magic elephants shot the universe out of their trunks.

[QuarkDriven]

Hi everyone, 

So last night, before falling asleep, I thought of a potential argument for the existence of God (and this isn't the reason why I believe in God), and would like to see feedback on whether it's a good argument or not and why. So this is how it goes:

The universe had a beginning. Therefore there can be only two possibilities: either it was created from nothing, or it created itself. The universe couldn't have created itself because it was nonexistent before its creation. And if it was created from nothing, because nothing existed, there were no factors to narrow down creation to a certain kind of thing, and thus nothingness had an infinite amount of options to choose from to create something. We know that it did choose a particular one. Therefore, by choosing a particular one, it (nothingness) discarded all the other options. Hence, nothingness has an inherent quality of picking certain things and not picking others, and also the power to create its chosen option. But how can nothingness have such qualities of power and choosiness; it is nothing; it  has no quality or disposition! If nothingness does indeed have these qualities, then it is no longer nothing; it would be a powerful, choosy being that has the ability to choose freely (because there are no factors to limit its choice) and hence has a free will, and is uncreated. Sounds a lot like God!

Keep in mind that the resulting "nothingness" with its mentioned qualities does seem to match with the Islamic concept of God, because in Shia Islam, Allah (God) is nothing but His Qualities; His Qualities are Him, and are His Essence.

you're doing a pretty god job at implying that nothing "chose" certain qualities and left others out.. How about the right conditions were there in the right amounts for a Big Bang to occur, therefore setting everything in motion to what we see and have today.. Life on a little insignificant planet orbiting a star... what if we found actual life on another planet? would it still be your god who "gave them life"?

If a god created the univserse, why would he wait almost 10 billion years to create a planet to then create man on a fraction of that 4 billion year old planet? if a god created the planet, he could have done so without all the cooling and lack of oxygen, therefore creating man to woshrip/fear him/her a lot sooner...

another point.. why would a god have to pick and chose what he wanted in order to create the universe? wouldn't he/she just create it at will? after all, your god and for that matter, every other god are omnipotent, right?

[The Inquisition]

If there are an infinite number of explanations on how the universe began (if it began at all). Why would an omnipotent, anthropomorphic deity be the best explanation?

The existence of A does not demand B.

[robvalue]

Yeah, it was God, but not Allan I'm afraid. Turns out it was an insane old man called "Lord Yahweh". This is how he did it:

http://youtu.be/wKtuk0ZpnbY

[Cyberman]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong, it pushes the boundaries of wrongitude.

This is how it really happened:

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

[Cephus]

Hi everyone, 

So last night, before falling asleep, I thought of a potential argument for the existence of God (and this isn't the reason why I believe in God), and would like to see feedback on whether it's a good argument or not and why. So this is how it goes:

The universe had a beginning. Therefore there can be only two possibilities: either it was created from nothing, or it created itself. The universe couldn't have created itself because it was nonexistent before its creation. And if it was created from nothing, because nothing existed, there were no factors to narrow down creation to a certain kind of thing, and thus nothingness had an infinite amount of options to choose from to create something. We know that it did choose a particular one. Therefore, by choosing a particular one, it (nothingness) discarded all the other options. Hence, nothingness has an inherent quality of picking certain things and not picking others, and also the power to create its chosen option. But how can nothingness have such qualities of power and choosiness; it is nothing; it  has no quality or disposition! If nothingness does indeed have these qualities, then it is no longer nothing; it would be a powerful, choosy being that has the ability to choose freely (because there are no factors to limit its choice) and hence has a free will, and is uncreated. Sounds a lot like God!

Keep in mind that the resulting "nothingness" with its mentioned qualities does seem to match with the Islamic concept of God, because in Shia Islam, Allah (God) is nothing but His Qualities; His Qualities are Him, and are His Essence.

This is nonsense.  By definition, nothing can ever create itself.  To create it must exist, therefore it doesn't need to be created.  This is a really obvious example of a false dichotomy.  There isn't two possibilities.  There are many.  You're just ignoring the majority of them.  There is nothing that says the universe was created at all.  In fact, all the evidence shows that it was likely formed by entirely natural means.  Further, nobody says that it came from nothing.  Anyone who makes that claim has no clue about science.

This whole thing isn't new but it has been soundly and completely discredited before.  Try again.