The universe needs a creator, therefore God exists

Happily, it seems that Con and I agree on most points - - We agree the term "cause" is an acceptable synonym for "creator" in this debate. - We agree BoP is shared, meaning we will operate on preponderance of the evidence, or, what is most likely to be true. - We agree the Big Bang happened - We agree something cannot create itself - We agree nothing cannot create something Very good. Thus, the debate now hinges on a single point - is the universe finite, or eternal? Did it begin to exist, or has it always existed? I cannot access many of Con's sources because they require a subscription, so I cannot adequately address them. However, based on their argument, Con is essentially advocating for what is called "B Theory" Time (as opposed to "A Theory"). The only way for a causeless, past-eternal universe to exist is if time behaves according to B Theory. Unfortunately for Con, we have ample evidence to believe our universe operates according to A Theory, which I will now demonstrate: == Rebuttal == "A Theory" time posits that time passes in the traditional sense like a clock- moments pass sequentially from past to present to future, and reality only exists in each present moment (like a ticking second hand) - the past can no longer be accessed and the future does not yet exist. This is the way we all assume time to exist - whether consciously or subconsciously. Our entire culture and society is built upon it. "B Theory" time posits that time doesn't actually "pass." Rather, time just "is" - a fixed, defined property that we all exist within. Past, present, and future are all equally real and exist simultaneously. Like Con said, it is as if time were a stack of paper, and the moment we are experiencing is merely one of those papers, but all the other papers are equally real and also exist in the stack at the same time. To put it another way, it would be as if time was a loaf of bread and we exist on one slice of that loaf. However, although we are on one slice, many other slices also exist at the same time in the same loaf. In such a concept, there is no real "past" or "future," just different points. In this way, Con can indeed claim the universe is eternal because the concept of a "beginning" is meaningless. This is the only condition in which a causeless universe can exist. So, which theory is most likely to be true? We have zero reason to believe B theory time is true. If we truly lived within B Theory time, for example, time travel should be possible. We should be able to easily move from the future to the past at will because moments in time are merely different points in the same "loaf," all just as real as the present. And yet, at this point, it still seems this is an impossible thing to do. We have no evidence to suggest that time travel is real. In addition, there is no logical way to reconcile time travel philosophically. Time travel according to B Theory time becomes circular and absurd once you ask whether someone could go back in time and kill themselves. If the answer is no, then that can't really be considered time travel (if a present reality of yourself trumps a past reality, then all points in time cannot be said to exist equally). If the answer is yes, then how is that possible? If you died in the past, how can you exist as a future agent in order to return to the past and kill yourself? Other problems: In B Theory time, we should expect to have just as many future "memories" as past ones. If all points in time - past, present, and future - are equally real and have always existed, then what can explain the fact that we only have memories of past events? The best possible explanation is that the future has not happened yet, which confirms A Theory time. In B Theory time, the human experience of pain and suffering is absurd. If you have a headache, go to bed, and awake the next day pain free, you may say "thank goodness my headache is gone!" But this makes no sense if we live in B Theory time. If past, present, and future are all equally real, then it makes no sense to feel relief at the headache being "gone" (i.e., in the past) because it is not really gone - it still exists, just on a different slice in the loaf. A Theory: On the other hand, we have ample reasons to believe A Theory time is true. For starters, we all experience time as if it behaved according to A Theory. The past is gone (we remember it), the present is here (we experience it), and the future is yet to come (we anticipate it). By the time you finish reading this sentence, you will perceive it as something you just did, and it is now in the past. This is exactly the experience that A Theory would predict. B Theory, conversely, would predict us having "memories" of events both past and future - i.e., you should already know what the next paragraph says. Furthermore, all of science depends on the reality of A Theory time. Only in A Theory can you have a cause and effect - a present action that impacts a future result. Science is, at bottom, the process of discovering cause and effect with the goal of manipulating future results. In B Theory, there are no causes and effects, things just "are" because moments do not actually pass (hence, how you can have a causeless universe). Science would be destroyed in a B Theory universe, because there would be no need to discover causes and effects if it were possible for things to have no cause. Conversely, what we perceive is exactly the opposite - everything has a cause. Since absolutely everything we experience in our reality came from a cause, it is both reasonable and justified to assume that the universe, therefore, also had a cause. If Con can provide one single example of something that exists without a cause, I will forfeit the debate immediately. == Conclusion == We have no reason to believe B Theory is anything more than theoretically possible, and we have ample reason (starting with our own experience and empirical observations) to believe that A theory conforms to reality. Since B Theory is the only scenario in which the universe would not need a cause (creator), and since the weight of evidence overwhelmingly falls in favor of A Theory, we have no choice but to reject Con's position.