God's existence - it is reasonable to conclude a supernatural cause of existence

Thank You for the challenge Dairygirl, I would like to start this debate with a trip into the past, to see how we have come to where we are today. The first written language appeared in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE, and so began the first time in history humans were able to reliably pass information onto the next generation(1). Yet despite this, the scientific discoveries in the last 200 hundred years, outnumber all the scientific discoveries for the whole of history(2). Now why did this explosion of discovery occur 4800 years after the invention of writing, or better yet why didn't it occur earlier? To put it as bluntly as possible, superstition. Humanity was only able to start true discover after a movement started in the late 17th century called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment emphasized reason(4), with the purpose to reform society, challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and to advance knowledge through the scientific method(5). Now while this was greatly beneficial, there was also a scientific revolution occurring along side the Enlightenment that resulted in, "A new view of nature emerged, replacing the Greek view that had dominated science for almost 2,000 years. Science became an autonomous discipline, distinct from both philosophy and technology and came to be regarded as having utilitarian goals."(3). Here we have the answer, the combination of reason and the scientific method changed a historical precedent that had existed since the beginning of Humankind. Where the unexplained was treated with superstition, tradition, and philosophy. When humanity sheds its superstition for reason we allow discovery because supernatural explanations warrant no further investigation, they are by definition un-understandable. The brilliant physicist Richard Feynman described this when he said, "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers which can't be questioned". Since this separation of philosophy and science, virtually every unknown that our ancestors had attributed to spirits for thousands of years, the scientific method has found a natural cause for. I will now ask a question. Why, when the current scientific method has explained so many unknowns that where once attributed to supernaturalism. Would it be more reasonable to reintroduce supernaturalism into the scientific method when science only saw its explosion of discovery after it was removed during the Enlightenment? Keep in mind that the scientific method has never once found a supernatural explanation of an event to be true. Proceeding on. One of the most recited claims from those who disagree with the current explanation for the universes is the "something from nothing" claim. You have placed a small twist on this claim by presenting it, along with the Planck Epoch (beginning state of the Universe) as an observation of the laws of nature being violated. I must stop here and do some clarifications before proceeding. Scientific Laws, Theories, and even Facts are not constant. Facts: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as "true". (6) Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. (6) Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances. (6) You may have picked up on the key words in all three of these definitions; observation, explanation, and descriptive (description). All of these things can change, truth in science is never final, and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow. So, to use part of the definition for supernatural, nothing can truly be, "beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature". By definition, violating a Law of nature only means that our description of that aspect of nature was incomplete, or all together wrong. A good quote for this by Richard Feynman is, "You can never know you're right, you can only know that you're not wrong....yet"(7). However, that is just the misunderstanding of definitions, now for the science. You are half correct that at the quantum level gluons and quarks come into existence from existing matter. This 'matter' however did come from nothing, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that when examining empty space on an extremely small scale the uncertainty of that space's energy will increase as scale decreases to the point that pairs of virtual particles can come into existence from empty space, which is the basis of Quantum field theory(8). These virtual particle pairs are described in the theory of Quantum Chromo-dynamics, and is called quantum field fluctuations (9). When energy is put into the quantum fluctuations field a quark gluon pair comes into existence so you are correct there, but the virtual particles making up the field fluctuations come from nothing. These virtual particles have been proven to exist as well, both experimentally as well as mathematically with the Dirac Equation(10/8). To overly simplify how something can come from nothing, think of the number 0. It is nothing, however it can be broken into (0=-1+1) and now you have two very real things that came from nothing. Now you mentioned something very important that quantum mechanics describes things on a small scale. One the biggest reasons we have so many unanswered questions about the Plank epoch (early universe) is because General relativity which unbelievably precise at measuring and predicting larges things, and Quantum mechanics which is unbelievably precise at measuring and predicting small things don't agree when they meet(12). This is because quantum mechanics works in probability and super position while, general relativity is arithmetically geometric with set points. Now this doesn't mean the theories are wrong, take this math equation: 4x-2 = (6+3x)^2. While I could do this in my head most middle-schoolers starting pre-algebra will break the equation it to smaller easier to understand pieces to solve first. They would take (6+3x)^2 and used the FOIL method to get 36+45x ect. Current cosmology is doing this in reverse, starting with pieces of the whole equation. example: Quantum Mechanics+General Relativity+(unknowns)=How the Universe works. They have known for years that their theories were incomplete, this is where string theory, and more recently Loop Quantum Cosmology comes in. These two theories are the leading models to complete the equation for how our universe works, and when that happens we will have the answers to all the unanswered questions you and everyone else are asking(11). Now there are hundreds of textbooks on this subject, so while I cannot in give you all the information you seek in 8000 characters. What I can say is, based on the historical success of supernatural explanations vs. the success of the scientific method, combined with the knowledge of current physics and where it is heading, there is no way to reasonable conclude a supernatural beginning to the Universe. (1) http://www.hrc.utexas.edu... (2) http://www.sciencetimeline.net... (or) http://en.wikipedia.org... (3) "Physical Sciences". Encyclopedia Britannica 25 (15th ed.). 1993. p. 830 (4) "enlightenment" Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. 19 September 2013. (5) Kors, Alan Charles. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print (6) http://www.nap.edu... (7) http://www.youtube.com... (8) http://vimeo.com... (9) http://www.youtube.com... (10) http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au... (11) http://www.youtube.com... (12) http://www.infoplease.com...