The God Hypothesis is the best scientific explanation for the origins of existence

Allow me the luxury of repeating myself, but we don't know what time is, how it works or how it is structured yet. I think it is premature to start basing conclusions based on indirect evidence based on something we don't understand.The "ball on a pillow" analogy was very good and thought provoking, however, like all analogies, it breaks down under scrutiny. In order for this "simultaneous cause and effect", both the pillow and the ball would have to have always existed. However, you postulate that the universe had a beginning. This would mean that the ball moved to create the depression in the pillow, implying chronological cause and effect. Maybe, there is a series of pillows, each resting on the one behind in a circle, so that every pillow causes a depression in the next one (my new "eternal multi-cushion theory"). Or maybe not.The BVG theoremThe BGV theorem does not prove the universe had a beginning. It proves that expansion had a beginning. The universe could have existed in a steady state before expanding. But yes, you are right, the expansion is future eternal. (This leaves some difficult questions though, like what will happen when the universe becomes too large, will things become pixellated? There was an interesting article about this in New Scientist a while back).Once again, you mention a physical law, which as far as we know, only applies to our universe, not neccesarily the next one or the "inbetween". And if you want to get down to physical laws, what about Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Mass? God would of had to break both those laws in order to create all the matter and energy in the universe. Of course I'm not postulating that if there is a god, it is governed by any physical laws, I'm just pointing out that physical laws in this universe don't apply to a "before" or an "inbetween" or a different universe. If they did, that would blow the whole "fine tuned universe" thing out of the water, as all places would have the same laws, thereby making comparison impossible.And I disagree with your statement that I use an "arbitrary rule". Why is it arbitrary? Am I not allowed to ask the very valid question of "where did god come from?". How come God can be eternal but the universe can't? And yes, it is a requirement, that's why we've worked all the way up from "is the world flat?" through "where did we come from?" and now we're at the final hurdle: "where did the universe come from?" which we are discussing now.How do you know the universe is finely tuned? What have you got to compare it to? You can't make a comparison if you are only comparing one thing, that's like inventing the sploon and saying "wow, that's a really a very finely tuned sploon". There are no other sploons to compare it to, so you cannot know if it is a finely tuned sploon, or a normally tuned one, or a badly tuned one. For your assertion to be true, there would have to be multiple universes, with universes that are perhaps better tuned, and universes that are badly tuned, in order to make the statement "the universe is finely tuned".I didn't revise any principles, in fact, you just repeated what I said: "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one". But yes, you are right in saying that I don't have an explanation. Not a complete one anyway, but neither do you, although I'll get back to that in a minute. Science doesn't have an explanation either, but no, that does not mean yours is valid. We wouldn't have gotten very far in science if we just said "oooh, here's something we don't know" "oh, we'll just take the first plausible suggestion that comes our way". Back to your explanation. How did God create everything? If you want me to argue against a hypothesis, at least explain it first.I don't think you have provided sufficient evidence, indirect or otherwise, other than: The universe may have had a beginning If it did, we don't know how it happened If things were different, things would be different Science has no explanation for the beginning of the universe I'm sorry, but I think I'll stick with the default setting as regards to science on an unsolved matter: I don't know yet. Although I'm still a gnostic atheist, you have moved me more towards agnosticism with regards to deism. I guess I'm a gnostic atheist agnostic adeist.