http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
A very detailed history and analysis. Personally I do not normally get into debating the existence of god, so this topic is fairly fresh for me. I have in the past read through these arguments, however have not myself debated the topic previously.

Personally I find the Cosmological argument for God very compelling
and believe as a pantheisitic monotheist that this is the One same God
identified in all monotheistic religions. If there is only One God
then it must necessarily be the same One for each of these religions
as a matter of self-consistency.

The Stanford Philosophy site is an excellent and exhaustive site but
I easily tire of reading its voluminous expanse of philosophical
analysis.

Holy cow, that looks like Philosophy 301 there. Would take a whole semester to get through. Just thinking of the number of brownies it would take is daunting. Are you really going to try for it?

It's worse than Phil 301.



It's the Encyclopedia of Philosophy with detailed annotations and
argument and counterargument. Dry enough to soak up the Pacific.
It is carefully researched and written though so it is exhaustive.
Not a bad place to learn something but it is tough slogging no
question.



I'd argue against it but I Kant.

Hahah.

to grant cause to that which can not even be proved to exist would only be a debate about Faith verses Paranoia

The Cosmological Argument is generally a way for Agnostics to draw others into Agnosticism without having to reveal that they are in fact Agnostic and their intentions bias

this bias is obvious due to the fact that the Cosmological Argument intentionally leaves out one factor to make the argument unbiased as to whether it could have in fact been the Universe that caused God

I believe i have stated this before,w/o the universe man could have never created God.

don't tell me that someone is trying to find an "Unified Field-Theory Of Philosophy",using a bunch of philosophies which,to say the least,contradict each other?

to grant God first cause for the creation of the Universe one must first provide a logical reason or a motive as to why a God that needs for naught has a "need" to cause the Universe

I wanted to give spider and other forum goers that support this argument a chance to present what they think is compelling before I weigh in.

Spider, were you at man!?

In the pantheistic view of God, the universe and the God are one so
there is no "need".

Christianity is no different than pantheistism....everything in Creation is a part of God and therefore one with God

That is true. How god as nature really is a god could then be debated, but this argument is most certainly a Theistic or Deistic argument.

No, I disagree. Some folks might try to blur the lines by claiming sum or such, however the distinction between Theism and Deism and Pantheism are fairly distinct.

If god has wants, needs, preference for certain behaviors from its "followers" then you are dealing with Theism. Really doesn't matter what other attributes any given person wants to tack on, perspective with interaction equals Theism.

If god has no wants or desires, no preference, and no perspective then god as nature; god as everything is Pantheism.

Deism is the god who has perspective, wants, desires, but has decided for whatever reason to not interfere, to not engage with reality . ie no supernatural events except the starting up of the universe.

I absolutely accept that there might be a first cause. I find cosmological argument reasonable, but not definite.

The cosmological argument doesn't lead us to anything other than a first cause. No other quality or notion about the nature of a "God" is implied by the cosmological argument, so it isn't actually an argument for any particular notion of god except 'the first cause'.

the fact that a God creates anything proves that it has "needs" ...but yet so far no one has given any logical reason or in fact any reason why a God that supposedly wants or needs for naught would have a need to create "anything"

only then can there be a motive for "cause"

Only if you assume that this god has the motives that living things do.

Does water have a need when it flows downhill?

Do radioactive isotopes have needs when they (apparently spontaneously) decay?

A first cause could, maybe, create the universe in a thoughtless, needless way.

Right I think Funches, like myself, has issue with calling that god. That however, at least from my perspective, is a slightly variant argument.

The cosmological argument is really about cause and not god, then it is an argument from ignorance to go from that cause to god.

Well we do not have anything better that explains this, so god. The go to thing for every intellectual since the beginning of history.

Niel Degrasse Tyson talks about this in a lecture on the great geniuses of the science. It is such a natural thing to do: assume if you cant explain something it cant be explained then if it cant be explained . . god.

water flowing uphill and radioactive isotopes decay occurs due to the laws of physics, not out of conscious or decisive need



creation can only take place out of need...

Then maybe you wouldn't consider an event like that 'creation'.

Are you saying its impossible that an un-motivated event could have caused the universe to come into existence?

I'm at home, wrapped in a nice warm blanket in front of my computer.