[iggymcfly]

For the record, since we're talking about counters to theoretical arguments, can anyone come up with a counter to this? It's the only theistic argument that I can't find an answer to and I don't even know if I've heard a theist mention it. I think it's something I came up with largely on my own.

Basically, time is nonsensical. Of all the events that ever happened, one of them must have happened first right? But if there was a starting point for time, how do things start at that point? Do they just appear? What made time start then? Either way I think of it, it doesn't make sense for time to either start at one point or to have been going on infinitely.

So, the only thing that really makes sense for time is that there must have been a force working outside time that created the universe. Since nothing in our current universe operates completely outside the constraints of time, that leads to the idea that a powerful force not constrained by time (God?) could have created the universe. I think this argument is strong enough for one to at least consider a Deist position, although I still think Christianity's largely ridiculous. Does anyone actually have an answer for this?

FWIW, I get the idea that just because we don't understand the start of the universe doesn't mean something else created it, and I'm still much closer to the atheist camp than the deist camp. I really don't understand how the universe could have started without a deity though. Anyone have a good answer here?