Everything that exists must have a cause.
Who says "Everything that exists must have a cause." instead of "Everything that begins to exist must have a cause."? Wikipedia currently has "Every finite and contingent being has a cause." --Yqbd 04:53, 9 December 2007 (CST)
- The "begins to exist" clause is a cop-out to avoid having to answer the question, "who or what created God?".
- To repurpose Paley's watchmaker argument: suppose that you're walking through the woods and see a watch lying on the ground. You might wonder how this complex device came to be there, how it was created, and so forth. If a native came up and told you that the watch had always been there, would you nod in satisfaction and move on?
- Of course not. Because the real question is "what is the explanation for this phenomenon?" It doesn't make sense to have an exception for eternal phenomena.
- --Arensb 12:24, 9 December 2007 (CST)
The universe began to exist?
In the opening line, "it does so based on the fact the universe began to exist", did it? How do we know it hasn't existed forever? Isn't a counter apologetic to that that the person is assuming the universe did begin to exist, which no-one can possibly know right now, thereby invalidating their claim? Aardvark 07:17, 17 June 2009 (CDT)