Big Bang cosmology supports atheism over theism.

Ave. Contemporary theists such as William Lane Craig argue that BB cosmology affirms the existence of god. Dr. Craig formulates it as follows. [1] 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2: The universe began to exist. 3: The universe has a cause of its existence. By deductive reasoning as to what that cause would be, that cause is therefore god. I will argue in my opening statement that, even if those three statements are granted, it does not entail the existence of god. It will be my position that Big Bang cosmology supports the idea that the universe caused itself. I do not mean this in the sense that X caused X. It is logically impossible for the universe to have caused itself in that way. Rather, I am arguing that the universe caused itself in the sense that Z was caused by Y, which was caused by X, which was caused by W, ad infinitum. Allow me to state the premises of my argument, which is based on Quentin Smith and what is called 'cosmological atheology'. [2] 1: Every state of the universe is caused by another state. 2: If every state of the universe if caused by another state, then an initial state is logically impossible. 3: From 1 and 2, an initial state is logically impossible. 4: From 3, there can be no cause of the initial state. 5: According to the definition of god, god cannot exist. 1: Every state of the universe is caused by another state. s://lh6.googleusercontent.com...; alt="" width="700px;" height="348px;" /> Assume that each of these are a state of the universe, where time equals something different in each state. T=4 is caused by T=3. T-3 is caused by T=2. T=2 is caused by T=1. T=1 is caused by T=.9, ad infinitum. If you assume that we are living in the trillionth state, or some such large number, you can perform the same exercise, but I prefer to keep this simple. The conclusion of this argument is that there is something because there is something else to cause that something, there is no initial state for god to cause, and therefore, god cannot have caused the universe. Theists argue that the BB singularity represents a state where T is 0, so there is indeed an initial state that cannot be explained by prior states. They point to the Hawking-Penrose theorem which posits a singularity that the universe came from. However, Hawking and Penrose have withdrawn this theorem a long time ago. Why? They realized that, once you take quantum mechanics into account, there is no need for a singularity. Hawking has this to say in his book A Brief History of Time. [3] “It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe--as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.” Quentin Smith, professor of the philosophy of physics as West Michigan University, also says more. “The cosmic singularity is a hypothetical time t=0 at which all the laws of nature, space and time break down. It is hypothetical or merely imaginary because if it did exist, it would be a physically impossible state, due to the breakdown of all laws, even the laws required for time to exist. This breakdown at the hypothetical t=0 implies there is no first instant t=0 of the finitely old time-series and that each instant is preceded by earlier instants. An instant is a time that is instantaneous or has zero duration. An interval is a time that is temporally extended and has a duration of a certain length, such as one hour or one minute.” [4] Therefore, there is no T=0. There are only an infinite number of states that are less than one but not exactly zero. One may ask how, if the universe began to exist, such an infinite regress of states is possible. I believe that this question can be satisfactorily answered. The universe began in the sense that there is no state that existed before thirteen billion years ago. There are states like 12.9, 12.99. 12.9999999, but there is no state that existed before thirteen billion years ago. That is the sense in which the universe began to exist. 2: If every state of the universe if caused by another state, then an initial state is logically impossible. The initial state is a state of the universe. It is distinct from the other states because it is the first one. We’ve established in premise one that every state is caused by another state. It logically follows from this that there cannot be a state that exists which was not caused by another state. If an initial state existed, it would not be caused by another other state. Therefore, an initial state is logically impossible. (This is my support for premise three as well.) 4: From three, there can be no cause of the initial state. God is defined as the cause of the initial state of the universe. The initial state is logically impossible given the other premises. God couldn’t have caused the initial state because the initial state is a logically impossible state. In fact, there is nothing that could have caused the initial state, because it’s a logically impossible state. 5: According to the definition of god, god cannot exist. God is defined as the cause of the initial state. From 4, no such cause can exist. Therefore, god can not exist.ConclusionBB cosmology removes the need for a singularity, or a T=0 state. This allows every state of the universe to be cauesd by another state, since there is no initial state that requires explanation. This means that it is logically impossible for god to exist, because there is no initial state for god to create. It also means that the universe is explained naturalistically. Once you have explained every part of the universe, you have explained the whole of the universe. My argument does such a thing without reference to god. Therefore, BB cosmology makes god logically impossible, and allows the universe to be explained naturalistically.Vale.References1: http://plato.stanford.edu...2: http://plato.stanford.edu...3: http://en.wikipedia.org...4: http://www.infidels.org...