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

I would like to start off by once again thanking my worthy opponent for his continued participation in our debate. "To demonstrate that the Cosmological Argument is a good argument to use in a debate, my opponent must demonstrate that the argument is sound, not just valid. As much as my opponent may wish, s/he cannot avoid defending the argument." I only have to defend the argument's usefulness under the premise of the debate. Let the reader stop and contemplate for a moment what is being argued here. The following is the debate premise: The Cosmological Argument for God is a bad argument and people need to stop using it. My opponent and I are essentially debating on what makes an argument good, or bad, to the point of becoming so without merit, that people should stop using it. I contest that in order for this to happen the argument would have to 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. I am arguing that the cosmological argument is still useful in a debate concerning the existence of God, and is not without so much value as to be discarded. My points are: 1. That 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. That 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. If my opponent is willing to debate me on the premise of this debate I think the reader will find the Con position, that the cosmological argument for God is useful enough that people do not need to stop using it, will be evident as the correct resolution of this debate. My opponent is relying on the re-framing of the debate, and the re-framing of even our understanding of the beginning of the universe, which is a different debate in and of itself. I'm sure the reader has noticed that 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 opponent and I are not here to debate whether or not God exists, and we are not even debating whether or not the cosmological argument is absolutely correct, let alone the big bang theory, or his personal definition of the universe. I think the reader is intelligent enough, after reading the premise of this debate, to see through the re-framing of this argument. "My opponent has misread my sentence. I only said that quantum fluctuations as a proposed mechanism that created the Universe was in dispute." That is what I understood the sentence to mean as evidenced by my opening statement: "Since the cosmological argument is reliant on arguments concerning the beginning of the universe.." I am not disputing the existence of quantum fluctuations, only pointing out what you yourself have said, that it is in dispute as a mechanism for the cause of the universe, and since the cosmological argument is also in dispute as to the cause of the universe, its value is not negated by the argument from quantum fluctuations. "[T]he merits of the [cosmological argument] cannot be evaluated or defended without [...] defining the deity whose existence the argument is being used to support." The reader can plainly see that the opponent is trying to force the debate of whether or not God exists which this debate is not. If my opponent would like to have that particular debate I would be open to accepting the challenge provided that we finish this debate first. However, I cannot promise that I would use the cosmological argument. "'The Universe began to exist' - is presented as a true statement. I do not need to prove that this premise is false - I only need to show that it is not true, [...] 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. What he's really saying, the reader can easily see, is that he does not know if it is false, but thinks it is probably false. He's all but admitting that the argument is up for debate, and that is precisely the point of the present debate, whether or not the cosmological argument is valid to be used in a debate concerning the existence of God. 1 Seen only in the full quote. "It would be helpful if my opponent would put those phrases in their proper context. I've already addressed what I meant by 'still in dispute.'" The reader will note that I did in fact understand this in it's proper context as answered above. "Basically, even if I grant that the premises [regarding a cause of the universe having the same attributes as a monotheistic God, including omniscience, omnipotence, etc.] are true [...] they still require additional arguments to point to a god. " William Lane Craig would argue they do not, I may lean more on your side that they might. But simply not being a perfect argument does not render the cosmological argument as being unsupportive of there being a God. I would imagine that most of the arguments for, and even against God's existence are not perfect, but are still valuable in debate. "I feel that there is a larger misunderstanding on the part of my opponent regarding the word 'valid.' [Edited for length] When my opponent makes statements like "phases [sic] like 'not necessarily' and 'still in dispute'...do not as yet exclude the cosmological argument from possibly being valid," it makes me suspect that s/he is not using the term "valid" in the formal sense." The misunderstanding has to do with where my opponent and I are applying the test of validity. 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. "This is a valid argument - a structurally valid argument. However, it wouldn't take much effort to show that the first premise is not actually true." [Referring to his analogy concerning dogs from Jupiter.] This is the difference between the cosmological argument, and the argument my opponent has set forth as a straw man. 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. All of the evidence set forth so far against the cosmological argument by my opponent has been in dispute, is debatable, in the same way as the cosmological argument itself, therefore it must be concluded that it is not grounds to discard the cosmological argument from debate. "If one uses an argument to support the existence of one particular entity, but that argument can also be used just as easily to support the existence of anything else [...] then the argument loses its explanatory power. [...] Can it be used just as easily to support the existence of anything else? 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 another straw man. I replied to much more than this but space restrains me, for this I apologise. I propose we both try to clean up the number of points we make so that we can answer everything in future rounds.