Critique of the Cosmological Argument for Proof of the Existence Of God

[tanthrix]

I've decided for my own sake to start critiquing arguments for the existence of God as we go through them in my Philosophy of Religion class at PSU. It will mainly be a nice way for me to get my thoughts out on paper and keep interested in my class, but it will also help explain why I am an atheist to anyone who is curious

Comments

[tanthrix]

I wouldn't call it mental illness. More like mental longing. ;-) The psychology of religion isn't as interesting to me though, because it seems be a relatively straight forward set a circumstances that makes religion so prevalent. One of the biggest of which is that humans inherently desire purpose. Everything just being here isn't good enough, so we'll believe anything we're told that gives us purpose and defend it to the end regardless of how illogical it is. Some would argue this is ultimately a good thing as long as it's not taken to a fundamentalist level, regardless of whatever the truth may be. I used to think that, but I'm not so sure these days. I'll post about it in a few weeks or so when I get it all sorted out in my head.

As of now I don't agree that something must have come from nothing. It seems completely impossible to me. If something came from nothing there would have to be a way (whether it be a means or a physical space for this something to go into) for that nothing to have become something, and that way would have been, well, something. Does that make any sense? It satisfies me enough to discount it for now until given other evidence.

What makes far more sense to me is that our understanding of time is incorrect. We just might not be smart enough to perceive the universe as it actually is, if such a thing is even possible. It might be something that will be forever out of our means of perception, but I can live with it. Even if we knew it wouldn't really change anything. Suppose we found out just how it all works. We'd still ask "Why is there something instead of far more nothing?" ;-)