The Cosmological Argument for God is a bad argument and people need to stop using it

In examining the topic of the debate - "The Cosmological Argument for God is a bad argument and people need to stop using it" - my opponent has imposed two conditions, namely that the argument be:"1. Provably wrong, or wrong enough so as to render the argument absurd, and also:2. Without any merit as a rhetorical device - that the argument serves no other purpose that is useful to a debate, for example if it does not provoke thought, does not provoke questions or discussion, adds no value to a debate, and therefore necessitates that it should be discarded." The first condition is an unreasonably high standard to place on any logical argument. The premises of an argument are truth statements meant to support the conclusion. I only need to show that the statements are not true for the argument to fail, and saying the statements are not true is not the same as proving them false or wrong, nor does it need to be. When dealing with the burden of proof in assessing the truth of a premise, the premise must be demonstrated to be true before we accept it. We don't have to prove the premise false. This is an important distinction that I will address in detail later.The second condition is about the argument's merits as a rhetorical device, and my opponent has listed several qualifiers. The Cosmological Argument is not "useful to a debate" nor does it add value to a debate, because the premises are flawed and the argument fails, as I have shown. The ability to provoke thought, questions, or discussions, is a very subjective qualifier that I must reject. There are a great many fallacious concepts and ideas that have fascinated people and sparked many discussions, but that is irrelevant to the debate. The topic is not "the Cosmological Argument is not a thought-provoking argument," it is "the Cosmological Argument is a bad argument." "1. ... the cosmological argument need not be right, only possible enough to be thought-provoking, and not disprovable, to be used as an argument in support of the existence of God.2. ... the cosmological argument, as a rhetorical device, is in fact useful enough at provoking thought, discussion, and guiding debate, to give it enough merit that it should not be discarded."I disagree with both points. The Cosmological Argument is not used as an abstract thought experiment among disinterested parties; it is presented by dedicated theists as an intellectual underpinning for a foundational belief system. As such, a theist who uses it in a debate would absolutely believe that the Cosmological Argument would have to be right, not merely thought-provoking. If my opponent's threshold for a good argument is just its ability to provoke thought and discussion, then perhaps my "Dogs from Jupiter" argument should be considered a good argument as well. "...my opponent has to use a different frame of reference for the beginning of the universe than the conventional accepted theory of the Big Bang, and has been using his own personal definition of the 'universe' to include only what he deems as helpful to his argument."My language has been entirely consistent with the Big Bang theory, which uses evidence from the observable universe to show how space-time and matter initially developed. The theory makes no proclamations about anything outside of space-time or what caused the Big Bang. It is here that the Cosmological Argument uses an equivocation fallacy to exploit the public's general lack of scientific understanding to imply that "the Universe," in the premise "the Universe began to exist," must mean everything that exists, because that would preclude the possibility of an infinite multiverse or some other state of physical existence that our observed universe resides in (strengthening the case for the necessity of a God). I highlighted the different usages of the terms because the second premise is making a scientific claim, so we must use the most scientifically accurate usage of the term, not the most colloquially accepted. We can say scientifically that the observable universe began to exist, but we can't scientifically say that everything that exists also began to exist (the implicit meaning in the second premise). Yet another reason to discard the Cosmological Argument - it promotes a faulty understanding of science. My opponent could attempt to dispute this if s/he would actually defend the second premise itself."...since the cosmological argument is also in dispute as to the cause of the universe..."I'll admit, I'm not quite sure what my opponent is trying to say here. The premises of the argument are unsupported. Premise 1 says "Whatever begins to exist has a cause," I pointed out quantum fluctuations as a phenomenon that doesn't have a cause, meaning the premise is not true and the argument fails. Failed arguments are bad arguments to use in debates. End of story. "If it is not true, then what is it? False.My opponent is playing word games, both claiming that he has proven the said premise is not true", and claiming that he is not saying it is false, at the same time." There are no word games being played here. My opponent simply does not understand basic logic in regards to truth statements. Put simply - "not true" does not equal "false". An example: Say I began a logical argument with the premise "I have a red card in my pocket." Is that a true statement? No, because I have done nothing to demonstrate that I have a red card in my pocket, so the statement is not true. But does that mean that the statement is false, meaning its negation - "I do not have a red card in my pocket"? No, you cannot say that either because, again, I have done nothing to demonstrate that I do not have a red card in my pocket. The default position is to say that there is not enough information to say the premise is true or false. An argument is only sound if its premises have been demonstrated to be true, so all I have to do to defeat the argument is show that a premise has not met its burden of proof. "The Universe began to exist" is not a true statement, as I've shown. I'm not required to prove its negation."But simply not being a perfect argument does not render the cosmological argument as being unsupportive of there being a God."We aren't talking about an overall solid argument with a few imperfections - this argument fails on both premises. Failed premises are fatal flaws for the argument - no amount of thought-provoking can change that."My opponent is arguing the validity of the correctness of the cosmological argument, and I am arguing the premise of this debate, the validity of its use in the debate for the existence of God, and for it being valuable enough not to stop using."My opponent has chosen to ignore the lack of soundness of the argument as a disqualifier for its validity (my opponent's definition). If an argument's unsoundness does not prevent one from using it in a debate, then one's standards must be quite low. "While it can be proven beyond a doubt that his made up argument is false, the cosmological argument cannot be proven false in this same way, as we've already seen."And as I've already shown, I do not need to prove the argument false, I only need to show that its premises are not true. My "Dogs from Jupiter" argument and the Cosmological Argument both have premises that are not true, hence they both fail. "The notion that God is a cause of the universe is much better supported than the notion that it is fairies, as in your first example." This is nothing more than a bald assertion. Assuming one grants both premises of the argument, the conclusion points only to a cause of the universe and nothing more. Without making ad hoc assumptions, there's just as much reason to believe fairies are the cause as there is to believe God is. I do sympathize with my opponent regarding the space restriction. I have much more to say in response, but I will have to leave that for the final round.