I’ll first approach this by providing what I think are good reasons to reject some common arguments that I’ve encountered that support atheistic viewpoints.

The “Multiversal” Argument

This argument states that our universe is a collection of infinite universes, that life may or may not exist in multiple others, and that our universe is just one of those rare cases where parameters just happen to be perfectly fine tuned for the Earth to accommodate life.

Let’s suppose that this is the case.

I would propose some questions then. Scientific findings indicate that the universe is growing.

• If we suppose that this is the case for all universes in the Multiverse, then we realise very quickly that all these universes, at one point, must have, either:
  • not existed (what they were before their “Big Bang”, which would necessitate a creator anyway to create this multitude, as we know things don’t just spawn into existence),
  • or were all simply a practically infinitely dense point “IDP” where all their matter was condensed. In this second case, we reach a similar conclusion. If all universes were, at one point in the past, all IDPs, then what caused the first one to begin its expansion? How does an effect (it’s growing) not have a cause?
• If we instead suppose that these universes are instead growing and shrinking over time (sort of like a sine wave) rather than only growing, then I would ask some questions. You can see the graph here forming, of the size our universe over time, where the “upward” periods signify growth . how often does this happen, i.e., what is the period of this occurrence? Is it equal among all universes, if so, doesn’t this suggest a law maker who insisted that this is the case? If the periods are not equal then Occam’s law of parsimony suggests that “other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more.”

The “Primordial Soup” Argument

Unguided Evolution suggests that we originated from a pool of biological fluid some billion years ago, and this is an extremely poor argument for our being.

Let’s start from the ground up.

Skipping forward some billion years from the big bang, due to an asteroid or something transporting- or, there just were- atoms on the Earth that formed amino acids. The most likely method for these amino acids forming would have been passing electricity through methane gas (the probability of an amino acid forming this way would have been ≈1/1020). From these, amino acids randomly formed enzymes (of which there are ≈2000, ≈1300 in a human body), and the probability of even the least complex one forming would have been 1/1,040,000. Somehow, along with the Earths destructive tendencies, all of these things randomly came together to form complex systems such as skeletal structures and more (which I will go through in the next argument). I could even use the fine-tuning argument to add more insult to injury.

I’m a theistic evolutionist, but my point remains that if we, and all species, did stem from a common ancestor, that common ancestor definitely did not randomly come to be, and randomly evolve to the millions of different types of species we have today.

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

To put it simply, there are ten steps listed in this book that needed to happen in the course of evolution. Three of these are: the development of aerobic respiration, the development of an inner skeleton, the development of an eye. It should also be noted that each of these is already incredibly unlikely, and it makes sense that complex systems cannot evolve piecemeal (i.e., one part at a time).

I asked ChatGPT for an evolutional explanation for the generation of the blood clotting system. It said that this complex process likely evolved through the “modification” of simpler, pre-existing mechanisms. For example, it is hypothesized that the initial steps in blood clotting (a complicated system of many constituent processes) may have evolved from a primordial pathway that was used for wound healing. Over time, this pathway may have become more complex through the duplication and modification of genes that code for the proteins involved in blood clotting, and that, along with the destructive properties of the Earth, all of these processes randomly became complex and good enough without any sort of intervention.

Now…

Similarly, I will approach arguments for God. The first two aren’t necessarily arguments for a God, but arguments for an ultimate beginning, regardless of the big bang. I won’t go into horrible detail on these, since I didn’t in the original video that corresponded to this post.

The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics

This is a known law that indicates that the amount of usable energy (note that this is usable energy, which doesn’t include all energy) in the known universe is slowly decreasing over time. As the universe expands, the available energy becomes more dispersed and less concentrated, and the entropy (degree of randomness) of the universe as a whole increases. This means that the amount of usable energy in the universe is gradually decreasing over time, and there will come a point in the far future where there will be no more usable energy left to do useful work. However, it’s important to note that the usable energy available for doing useful work depends on the context and the specific process being considered. For example, there may be sources of usable energy that we have not yet discovered, but unlike God, there is nothing to imply that this is the case, unlike the other arguments I will put forward in my argument. The point still stands that we are running out of energy, and this naturally implies that there is not an infinite supply of energy in the universe, that there was a beginning, and that there will be an end. This also further rejects the multiverse theory.

The Impossibility of an Infinite Time Span within our Universe

This basically states that given we have memory, cannot recall future events, and know that in this universe things happen as a logical sequence of events – one after the other – that time cannot be eternal because if it were, we would constantly stay an equal distance (in time) away from the beginning as we do to the end of it (that is, an infinite distance as nothing would happen). In summary, this impossibility arises because time is measurable, countable and sequential.

The Teleological Argument

This argument asks you to look at your surroundings and reason to yourself about how complexity and order can arise from simplicity and disorder with no form of intelligent motivation.

Tough, right?

Another way to put this is: “How can a cause have a greater effect than itself?”. How can randomness and chaos have intelligence enough to create stability in its own being?

The Fine-Tuning Argument

Stephen Hawking admitted himself that:

1. ‘The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications.’
2. “If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100 thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed before it ever reached its present size.”

A scientist called Charles Darwin said:

“[reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity for looking backwards and far into futurity, as the result of a blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind, in some degree analogous to a man; and I deserve to be called a Theist”

[note that Darwin did not remain a theist and later became agnostic, but the fact that he uttered these words is something]

I’ll just let that sink in for a bit. I will further talk about mental complexity later and how this further implies a creator.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

To be clear, this one doesn’t prove the existence of God, but, it certainly implies it.

1. Whatever begins to exist has to have a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe was caused by God¹.

The Constancy of the Laws of Nature

Since ancient history, there have never been any records of the rules of the universe changing (e.g. Gravity and the behaviour of Forces and Matter). If the universe spontaneously generated, then how come I know with certainty that, ceteris paribus, should I drop a cup, it will fall and not levitate? Does this not imply some sort of sovereign rule maintainer, or giver that governs over creation, given that should there not be one, there would not be any reason for the rules of reality to stay fixed? I cannot supply a naturalistic reason for why they would change, but equally, I cannot supply a reason for them to stay fixed.

The Mental Argument

Here, you need to confront the reality of non-physical entities such as numbers, values and propositions.

You need to explain our capacity for moral awareness, conceptual thought, our power to articulate and understand meaningful symbols, our rational powers, pursuit of beauty, use of language, fear of extinction
You also need to explain the non-identity of the brain, mental phenomena, the fact of private access (the ability to know our own thoughts with directness and certainty) which eludes any brain surgeon. Further, our domination over other animals, we have just the perfect combination of strength, intelligence and structure to do so.

Fin,

I personally believe that the case for God is stronger than the case for not, but what do you think?

If you’re more interested, I encourage you to have a look at the sources I have listed below.

Sources/Good Reads:

• “Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith” – Ravi Zacharias, Norman Geisler
• “Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief” – Bruce Milne

1 – Yeah, I know the obvious question. “What caused God?”. It makes sense that all of time, matter and space came into coexistence at the same time. If there was a creator, then whoever created the Universe (i.e., space, time and matter) is not restricted by any of these. If that is the case, then the creator must be spaceless, timeless and immaterial, and therefore had no beginning, and no creator.
The reason I claim that the argument doesn’t prove the existence of God, is because there needs to be some more fleshing out of the inference between the second premise and the conclusion. It seems to me that you could posit quite a few more explanations of entities that might satisfy this criteria – but the God of classical theism is one such entity that satisfies the argument.