[madnak]

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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?

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The attempt to imagine a "force outside of time" that created time is really just an attempt to reframe the issue in a temporal context. The human mind looks for causes, and we want time itself to have a cause - but a cause is an event that precedes another event in time. It's meaningless to speak of causes "outside time." And even if a "beginning of time" does imply a force, there is no reason to conclude that this force is a god of any sort.

Time is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and it's a mystery we may never solve. Physics shows us that the workings of time and space are confusing and counterintuitive, so we may not be able to conceive of an appropriate answer. But just because something is unexplained doesn't mean God is responsible for it. This has been a common error of humans in the past.

Still, I don't have a major issue with the deist position here. There's nothing inherently illogical about it. My problems with religion have to do with its effects on the real world.