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

"My opponent's rebuttals seem to largely rest on a poor understanding of formal logic and argumentation." My opponent's argument, that the cosmological argument is bad, rests on his rejection of the law of cause and effect, and of the accepted theory that the universe had a beginning. What my rebuttals rest on is that the reader can plainly see my opponent is the one actually using faulty logic and argumentation. Let's remember how he tried to disprove the premises of the cosmological argument. Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. His refutation of this was that 'whatever begins to exist' might include more things than the universe. That's it, that's his whole argument. Let's take a look: "[T]heories like the Big Bang only explain the origin of the observable universe, not everything that exists." Well okay, what else exists other than the universe? This is my opponent's main argument against the cosmological argument, and I'm positive that the reader does not fall for it. Everything we observe has a cause, hence the law of cause and effect. He admits it by saying he needs something to exist other than 'the observable universe' in order for his argument to disprove the cosmological argument. He then admits immediately afterward that we have no evidence for any such thing. And he does this repeatedly, despite the fact that it was refuted in the very first round. He's rejected the Big Bang, without outright saying it, by implying that there are more things in existence than the entire universe and that something out there somewhere must be existing that did not have a cause that started with the beginning of the universe. Premise 2: The Universe began to exist. Most of conventional science accepts that the universe began to exist. Even naturalist scientists and young earth creationists actually agree on this, that the universe had a beginning, and my opponent is trying to convince you that this premise is false. Here is the quote from my opponent: "[T]he premise "The Universe began to exist" is not true and the argument fails - another reason to discard it." When I pointed out his faulty reasoning what was his response? A word game. "Put simply - 'not true' does not equal 'false'." This is basically the same as trying to pretend you never said it. But what he actually meant by the above statement was that 'we do not know for certain it is true', as he later explained, but we've already answered why 'we do not know' in no way discards the cosmological argument. I have pointed out time and again that 'we do not know' if the cosmological argument is true, or if there is more than 'the observable universe' and so neither should be discarded from a debate. "The fact that the origins of the universe are in dispute means that the premises of the argument, particularly the second premise [...] cannot be considered a true statement because it has not met its burden of proof to be considered true." According to conventional science and pretty much everyone except my opponent, the statement that 'the universe began to exist' has sufficiently met the burden of proof. "[W]hat value is there in using an argument that has been demonstrated to be unsound and that promotes a poor understanding of science and cosmology?" In fact my opponent is the one who promotes a poor understanding of cosmology by disagreeing with the fact that the universe had a beginning, which the cosmological argument promotes. When my opponent gleefully pounced on my admission that the Cosmological Argument was valid [...] I knew that s/he did not fully understand what a premise actually is in formal logic. Not only have I proven I understood your faulty logic, but I haven't resorted to ad hominim attacks by telling the reader what you do and do not understand. "I have demonstrated that the premises of the Cosmological Argument are not true statements." He didn't, see above. "My opponent decided to focus almost exclusively on the second part of the topic - "people need to stop using it..." This is correct, it is because my opponent didn't spend any time on the second part of the entire debate. While I addressed both whether it was a bad argument, and whether people should stop using it. "What would be the point of using an argument whose premises are possibly true instead of actually true?" For support, answered below. "[W]hat would mere thought-provoking or discussion do to help [a theist's] case to prove the existence of God?" This is a strawman argument. There are no arguments that definitely prove that there is or is not a God, there are only supports. The cosmological argument both supports that there might be a God, and is useful as a rhetorical device in a debate, as explained in round four. "[M]y opponent contended that the only criteria to make it a good argument is whether it provokes thinking and discussion." Now my opponent is lying, that was only one of the criteria in favor of the argument's continued use in a debate, along with other critia including that the argument could not be disprovable, and was not absurd. "1. My opponent thinks that an argument's worthiness in a debate is completely divorced from the actual merits of the argument itself." I have included the argument's worthiness as well as other merits that make it useful in a debate. My opponent spends a lot of time telling the reader what I think and understand. "2. My opponent does not understand basic rules of logic and argumentation, particularly regarding formal argument structure and assessing truth propositions." I'll let the reader be the judge of that. Final Statment: In order to win the debate two things needed to be proven by my opponent, that the cosmological argument is a bad argument, and people need to stop using it. The con side has consistently given the reader reasons why it is not a bad argument, and also reasons why people do not need to stop using it. The pro side has given some reasons as to why the cosmological argument may be a false argument. He has not proven that it is a false argument, let alone a bad argument, which is half of the actual premise of this debate. In addition, my opponent has completely ignored why people should stop using it, that is, he's ignored the whole second half of the debate. The con position has consistently answered both why the cosmological argument is not a bad argument, and also why people should continue using it in debates concerning the existence of God, for more reasons than just whether or not it may be correct. In order for the cosmological argument to be so bad that people should stop using it, it would have to be undebatable. The fact that my opponent has spent this entire debate, debating against it, is self-refuting of that premise. It has been demonstrated here that the cosmological argument cannot be proven correct, or incorrect - which is not the premise of the present debate. The fact that it is not provably correct, or provably incorrect, is precisely what makes it a debatable issue in the first place, and therefore not worthy of being excluded from such debates. And as we've seen, we are indeed debating whether or not people need to stop using it. To vote for the pro side means you both accept "The Cosmological Argument for God is a bad argument, and that people need to stop using it." A vote for the con position is to disagree with one, or the other statement, or both. I would like to thank you, the reader, for your time and steadfast patience in reading this debate as we both eagerly await your decision. And finally, I would like to thank my opponent as well for his participation in our debate. He has been civil, well spoken, and a worthy opponent.