God's existence - supernatural explanation superior to natural due to violation of nature

"How do we know that energy came from something other than a higher energy state?" because that's what it looks like. there may be other possibilities, but they are mostly theoretical. empirical evidence alone suggests that that's the case. again, something doesn't have to be definitively proven to be able to call it proven. "he Second Law makes no claims about how long something can exist, but rather discusses the process of increasing Entropy that all things must undergo" thermodynamics states that energy in systems decrease and order becomes more chaotic without outside input. if we see that our universe is winding down, that means as a closed system the energy has a finite total to it. that means it couldnt have an infinite beginning as that would require infinite energy, which we see doesn't exist in our universe. that means something could not have lasted forever just sitting there waiting to explode into the big bang. this is justifiably called 'god' cause it appears supernatural. the laws of thermodynamics do not act as normally they would act. "Even if laws have indeed been violated, why must the unknown be supernatural?" by definition a supernatural act is a violation of natural laws. i think what you mean is if we have a law that appears violated, we should amend the rules to account for the apparent violation. but that would mean natural laws are not violated, but merely being accounted for. "leads us to believe that Creatio ex materia (creation from materials) is only way for things to "come into being". For example, I can't make a table by simply wishing one up, I must use certain materials, wood, nails, lacquer, etc. If God is somehow exempt from this and acts upon nothing to create something, this is equivalent to saying "God did not act on anything to create something", but then how can we use examples of "Intelligent designers" to justify God's existence when all known "designs" require materials? It does not logically follow." if anything, you are arguing for the supernaturla explanation. things have to come from existing things, to follow our rules. but that is not apparently how our universe came into being. it looks like something from nothing. it looks magical, you might say. "That there must exist some cause to begin all other causes, a cause which is itself uncaused. Well, if all known causes act upon physical substances, doesn't that require that something existence either before or with "God"? That is to say, some grouping of materials existing at the same time, and for the same amount of time as God? Otherwise, we are left with creatio ex nihilo, creation from nothing, and inductive arguments fail to work." you are trying to argue a natural explanation existing alongside of the God explanation. that would defeat the purpose of hte God explanation, and, again, the fact that the natural explanation breaks down acco0rding to our observations, as you noted, stregnthens the supernatural explanation. " PRO must justify preference of the God Model over the available models. If we must have "empirical evidence" to determine which model is correct, should we not require the same of God? If not, we are using Special Pleading, and thus are not reasoning soundly. "For all cosmological models, empirical evidence must be presented. Except for in the Case of God" we have empirical observation. given the the supernatural cause, if for the sake of aguement, existed, it wouldn't be able to be probed throughly analytically. all we can have is evidence. like a magician waving his want and turning a cat into a dog, or causing a dog to exist out of nothing. "uncaused cause? It is just as likely that the cause was caused, or was a physically uncaused cause. For example, how do we know that quantum fluctuations did not lead to the increase of energy for the Big Bang?" we dont know quantum machanics to do that. as you admited earlier something from nothing only comes at the quantum level, and only where matter existed to begin with. we are talking about before matter. i suppose you could posit that God is an infinte serious of causes and there exists no uncaused cause (except the infinite chain would itself be an uncaused cause). but at the beginning of our universe, which is all we have to work with, there appears to be something from nothing. something from soemthing else makes more sense. thermodynaimcs dictates that it is not something that could have lasted forever and then exploded, cause we are reaching a final end to our universe. that means for something else to make more sense would be that it's something that we cannot ascribe according to our laws. it is a violation, or at least outside of our laws. hence, super, outside, natural, nature. again con points out that other theories are possible. but only theoretically and not empircally, and nothing have to be definitively proven for it to be called proven. we are just calling a spade a spade. after every known scientific attempts at understanding, at what point can we say the magician is actually using magic? (turning a dog into a cat, or causing a dog to exist where nothing existed. in a way, it's just like that. we have nothing, then we have the universe, a grand scale situation of magic, apparently) it would be to deny what true and plainly evident to just live your life as if he isn't, or even to act as if you dont want to take a position on it. bottom line: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.