God isn't needed for the existence of the universe.

Before there was the universe, There was nothing, Nothing, And only nothing can come from nothing, As logic says. However, In this nothing, There is nothing to support logic, So it is possible for something to come from nothing. It is also possible for the world to come from this nothing. So, There is no need for a deity.

Before there was the universe, There was nothing" - Not so sure you can assert this statement as fact. What I would argue is that something existed, But it did not consist of matter.

I think a better way to state this is "The material universe exists now. However, Before the material universe existed, It did not exist. It came to exist at some point". Would you agree as to a restate of the premise?

Using logic, And observing the world around us, We can observe/deduce the following:

1. Everything that exists, Needed something else to make it exist-- some other "agents" to bring about it's existence. That rock on the road. That tree over there. The car I drive. The computer you use. The cell phone you use. Heck, Even me and you. We did not "pop into existence" -- some other agents were necessary to bring about their existence. None of these things came into existence on their own. We observe this with our senses and science pretty much confirms this.

2. One can pretty much observe this with pretty much everything in the Material universe. You can ask this question pretty much about everything and you arrive at the same conclusion : "______________ needed something else (perhaps multiple things) to bring about it's existence. "

3. If one asks this question repeatedly, One ultimately arrives at the question of "What about matter itself? What brought matter into existence? " (reminds me of Rocky and Bullwinkle-- Wassamatta U. ).

4. Having observed things do not bring themselves into existence (see #1 and #2 above), It stands to reason that "Matter could not have brought itself into existence". Matter could not cause itself to exist-- it would need something that is "not" matter to bring about it's existence. Or, Put another way, Something "outside the material universe" would have been necessary to bring about the existence of Matter. Or put another way, Something "Immaterial" would be necessary to bring about the existence of matter.

So while I agree, "matter" could come from nothing. I would argue, SOMETHING is necessary to bring matter into existence, Since matter could not have come into existence of it's own accord. If it could, This would fly in the face of everything we observe in the material universe, Both with our senses and/or scientifically. This something would have to be immaterial (i. E. Not composed of matter itself).

1. Nothing can come from itself, It needs an external cause. So there was nothing. It's fact from its logical consistency.

2. Well, Even if something is necessary, It isn't necessarily a deity. It could be a force.

Rethinking your original post, Your argument is making an assumption that is presumed to be true: the fact that there was "nothing" before the universe came to be. Would you agree that is an assumption, And not necessarily a Truth?

I would rather say, "before the universe came to be, There was something that was NOT the universe". Now, That "something" could be either "nothing", Or it could be "something" else. I simply do not know. But I would not presume to assert as a Truth that there was absolutely nothing. . . . . .

Regarding your two points.

1. "Nothing can come from itself, It needs an external cause. " Logically speaking, This statement doesn't make sense. It, In a sense, Refutes itself. On the one hand you are saying "nothing can come from itself". That statement can actually be reworded to say "nothing can come from nothing" (substituting "itself" with "nothing", Since "itself" refers to "nothing"). But then you go on to say "it needs an external cause". Which means, If it needs an external cause, Then "nothing" can not produce "nothing"-- something other than "nothing" would be needed to produce "nothing".

This 2nd part refutes the first part-- if it needs an external cause, It needs something that is NOT nothing to cause it.

Put simply, That argument goes like this (would you agree that "itself" refers or equates to "nothing" in your statement? ). IN the argument below, "X" = "nothing" and "Y" = "itself".
Consider X and Y
1. X can come from Y, It needs an external cause.
2. X equals Y, Therefore
3. X can come from X, It needs an external cause. <---- this doesn't make sense, For if X could come from X, It would not need an external cause.

2. I will agree with you-- while logic would dictate that the Material universe would need something that is im-material to create it (i. E. Not of the material universe), This doesn't necessarily point to a GOD that created it. Let's just call it, For lack of a better word, An "Entity". Now, We are starting to see some of the characteristics of this "Entity". Or, If you want, We could even call it "Force". We've already arrived at one of the characteristics of this "force' (or entity)
1st Characteristic - Immaterial - this entity can not be composed of Matter for reasons explained above. It would defy logic set forth in the above arguments.

Keep in mind, I"m not yet calling this thing a "God", I'm just setting forth a characteristic. . . . . It would be like me saying "Man, I see this big thing in front of me. I don't know what it is, But it is Grey. " It might be too soon for me to call it an elephant, But we know something about this thing before me-- it's grey. As we start to use our reason and intellect, Perhaps this big thing will be revealed to us. Same with God. Let's not call this entity "God" yet-- let's just call it "Entity". And we know it's immaterial (not made of matter).

As a corollary to the first characteristic, A by-product of this would be this "Entity" is would not be detectable or measurable by science (as we know it). Why not? Well, Put simply, "science" measures/observes the physical material universe around us. So this Entity, As explained earlier, Would have to be "outside the physical universe". This thing. . . This entity. . . This force has no physical dimensions that could be observed (remember, It's outside the physical material universe).

What I meant was no object can come from itself.

Exactly. So, To re-state-- it has been observed that every object/creature/thing in the material universe can not create itself, Or bring itself into existence. An external cause is necessary. If one keeps asking this question of everything in the universe, One ultimately arrives at the question of "What about matter itself. How did matter come into existence. "

It follows that in order for "matter" to come into existence, Something outside of "matter" (i. E. Not made of "matter") would be necessary to create "matter".

Well, That still doesn't refute my point that it isn't necessarily a god.

Excellent observation. I think before we continue, We should probably do something we should've done in the beginning, Before we started, And that is, Agree to what a "deity" is.

*** So, May I ask you, How would you define "deity" (or if you prefer, How would you describe "deity"). ***

I ask this because I want to make sure we start off right. I want to make sure you're not expecting a "deity" to be something or do something that just isn't logical. I've had arguments where folks had the position to something akin to this: "A god (deity) should be able to make a triangle with only 2 sides ". Then, When I argue that isn't possible because it isn't logical, They counter with, With arms folded and a victorious smile on their face, "See! God doesn't exist. If an all-powerful God exists, He should be able to do ANYTHING. "

Please don"t' spend time dissecting my example above- I hope you get my point. I would just prefer we start off right and see what we both expect a "Deity" to be.

The other thing I suspect is that this discussion might take more than 5 rounds-- 50K characters is not a lot of space to discuss/debate something like "God" (Aquinas et al have written VOLUMES on the topic). Nonetheless, I"ll do my best.

Now. Back to your most recent argument. While I didn't refute your point that a "deity" isn't necessary, I think what I did argue or explain is that "some thing" is necessary to create the material universe, And that this "thing" could not be part of the material universe-- it had to be "outside" of the material universe, Not made of matter, And thus immaterial. So, This "thing" that created the material needs to be "immaterial". Would you agree?

The path I"m taking is a different path--- I'm trying to reveal characteristics of "what" created the universe. An analogy would be this: I can do my best to reveal to you the characteristics of this object in front of us. I can tell you it's large, It's grey, It has big ears and big legs, It's noisy, It's smelly, And it has a trunk. At the end of the day, If you don't believe it's an elephant, Not sure there's much more I can do, Especially if in the very beginning we agree that an "elephant" has these characteristics. At the end of the discussion you can argue, "well, If it"s an elephant, Why are there peanuts here? If this was in fact an elephant, The peanuts wouldn"t be here, Since elephants eat peanuts". Or you might say, "Nope -- an elephant is supposed to have a large horn in the middle of it's head. " I might argue that say "Hey now, You're changing your idea of what an elephant is. " I'll still challenge/debate, But I might question some things. I"m willing to debate (argue) subsequent points after debating / arguing the preliminary points.

One final point, As we debate, I'd like to address issues singularly, And not open up and try to address all issues/questions that may come up later. Let's discuss and put to rest a point, And then move on to the next. A simple analogy would be you and I are driving with a truck load of merchandise, And we come to a huge chasm/canyon in the road. You may argue we need a bridge to get everything across, I may say "No, Not necessarily. We don't HAVE to have a bridge to get everything across". You may counter with "Well, How do WE get across? How do we get all our merchandise across? Etc etc". Let's first settle the question IS a bridge the only means of getting across? Let's not try and address all subsequent questions that arise, Unless we absolutely have to. You get my point?

Okay,