[madnak]

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I also believe the argument that introduces unnecessary elements is always inferior to the argument that does not.

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For someone living hundreds/thousands of years ago, which of the following is inferior based upon your own criteria?
1) People get sick because God is punishing them for their sins
2) People get sick because there are these tiny microscopic organisms that swim around their body. These organisms, too small to see with the naked eye, jump from person to person spreading the disease.

It would have seemed like #2 included unnecessary elements, so by your criteria it would have been deemed inferior, even though we know it to be correct with a great deal of certainty.

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#2 was inferior for people living thousands of years ago. I don't think #1 was great, either, but #2 was worse. #2 is better now because we have more information - information that supports #2.

If someone shuffles a deck of cards and chooses one at random, I'm correct in saying "that card is unlikely to be the ace of spades." If the card happens to be the ace of spades, that doesn't make me any less correct. And if I proceed to look at all of the other cards, finding every card except the ace of spades, then I am now justified in concluding that the mystery card is the ace of spades (because I have more information).

But I don't think we need to get deep into the philosophy of science here. This is a much simpler case. Let's call a the fact that something (rather than nothing) exists, let's call b the existence of God, and let's call c the existence of the universe. Our goal is to explain c. Let's say that the > operator means "to explain."

Here are two methods of explaining c.

1) a>c
2) a>b>c

These explanations are logically identical. We're not considering the question of b at all. We're trying to find the ultimate explanation for c, which is a in either case. Introducing b into the logic is inefficient. We can actually simplify b out algebraically.

In fact, algebra makes a good analogy. You're basically saying, "x - 4 = -2," and I'm saying that it's better to say "x = 2." That's all there is to it. No matter how much you like the term "-2," that term is not useful in considering this particular equation. And this equation has no bearing on the question "is y equal to -2?", regardless of whether you represent the equation with a -2 or not. Neither -2 nor y matter, because our task is to solve for x.

(A similar example is that x+y=2+y is uninteresting and, since we're solving for x and not y, we should eliminate the ys. Even if we have x=-y, y=-2, we should still simplify down to x=2 if we're solving for x.)

That there is something other than nothing has no bearing on the question of whether God exists. I agree it's an interesting mystery, but it has no bearing on God. If I say "the universe exists because there's something rather than nothing," and you say "the universe exists because God created it, and God exists because there's something rather than nothing," you have said by extension that the universe exists because there's something rather than nothing.

Now instead of having the question of why there's something rather than nothing, we also have the questions of why and how God created the universe. Far from solving the basic question of the universe, we have just introduced greater complexity. God gives no answers, but adds more questions. Thus, the dilemma of the universe isn't a logical justification for belief in God.