Deism is more Reasonable than any Revealed Religion

The Existence of God Although I think the Cosmological argument has some fair points, others are based on assumptions. I will point these out. "• Something exists. (the universe)" I accept this premise. "• You do not get something from nothing. (1st law of thermodynamics/law of conservation of mass) • Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists." I don't know if we know enough about the start of the universe to be certain that the laws that govern the universe today don't break down, including the laws of thermodynamics/law of conservation of mass, but I'll go along with this premise. "• The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator. • Science and philosophy have disproved the concept of an eternal universe. a.It could not be eternal since that would mean that an infinite amount of time had to be crossed to get to the present. But, you cannot cross an infinite amount of time (otherwise it wouldn't be infinite)." I disagree that these are the only two options. How do we know that something not eternal created the universe, and something eternal created that non-eternal entity? How do we know that there isn't more than one creator of the universe? How do we know that the entity that created the universe didn't cease to exist once the universe came into being? All of these other options show that we can't just assume the creator of the universe is eternal. "b.The universe cannot be infinitely old or all usable energy would have been lost already (entropy). This has not occurred. Therefore, the universe is not infinitely old. • Therefore, an eternal Creator exists." I accept that a creator of the universe exists and that the universe isn't infinitely old. God Characteristic Inferences I'd like to first state that all of these inferences are not proven by the nature of the universe. They may seem to be, but these characteristics are not required by God in order for the creation of the universe to happen. "• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space)." I don't know whether the creator of the universe is beyond scientific understanding, simply because he/it created time and space. For example, we may learn in a few decades how something could come out of nothing, given certain properties of the creator. God would cease to be beyond scientific understanding at that point. "• He must be powerful (He would have to be greater than the universe and be a sufficient cause to it)" Powerful is an interesting attribute. There are many different types of powers. In the Christian sense, I don't think that having the power to create a universe means that the entity also has the power to influence the universe once created. That would be assuming the creator has more powers than the specific power of creating a universe. We simply do not know enough about this entity to assume he has this power, let alone the power to do absolutely anything non-paradoxical. "• He must be eternal (self-existent)." As explained above, this isn't necessarily true. "• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it)." This isn't necessarily true, because we don't know what happened to this entity once the universe was created. God may very well have ceased to exist at the moment of creation. Also, God may have been able to create the universe, but was unable interact with it after. Being able to exist without space doesn't mean he can exist inside it. Therefore, being present everywhere isn't an attribute we could be certain that this God has. "• He must be timeless (He created time)." I think this goes along with being eternal, but won't don't know about what existed before the big bang. For example, there may have been a God that created a universe before our own, but then that one was ended. Then our creator created this universe, which started our universe's time. But, did time not exist in that prior universe? Time is a very complex idea. We simply don't know enough about the nature of reality to be sure that time never existed before our universe. In turn, our creator may not be timeless. For all we know, his time might have ended at the conception of the universe. "• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical." God could have been materialistic before the creation of our universe. Although space and matter did not exist in our universe, we don't know if God existed in a place that permitted him to be made of matter. This pre-universe place is entirely unknown to us, and we don't even know if it exists at all. But the point is, we can't assume that God is immaterial because he created the universe. "• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being." Please back this statement up. I disagree that complex things can only come from complex things. Also, there is evidence on Earth that higher intelligence can come from lesser intelligence. Not even including the geniuses that came from normal intelligence parents, we have fossil evidence that demonstrates that humanity evolved from less intelligent primates. This could all be done through known scientific processes, and divine intervention was not necessary to make this evolution happen. Through science and the study of evolution, we can trace our family tree back hundreds of millions of years to a time where cognitive beings did not exist. This demonstrates that cognitive beings don't necessarily come from cognitive beings. If any of these characteristics are not proven to be true, then we cannot assume that God has them. As a result, Deism is the most reasonable standpoint, as it doesn't claim to know more about God than can be proven. Deism only affirms that a creator(s) of the universe existed, and that the creator(s) is most likely impersonal. Nothing else. Deliberate Creation "• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything." We don't know if he deliberately created everything. There are many different ways the universe could have started by this entity. The universe might have been a byproduct of some unintentional action by the entity. The entity might have "died" and the universe resulted from this death. God might just have an attribute which makes him spontaneously create universes, outside of his control. God might not even be a thinking entity. He could be just some type of property of existence before the universe that has the power to create the universe under certain circumstances. "Lets focus on that part. The Creator DELIBERATELY created everything in our universe, which in turn means that he did so for some purpose." Even if it was true that he deliberately created the universe, this in no way means that he has human-like goals and desires. In fact, I think it makes more sense for God to not have the human-like characteristics the Bible gives god. I will get into this next round. "And since He has a reason for creating our universe, I DO NOT find it "reasonable" in any sense of the word to state (as diests do) that our Creator created us, and then simply removed himself to late nature take over. He created us for a reason, and he is involved in our every day lives to fulfill that reason." We have no way of knowing what purposes a God would have in creating a universe. This assumption that he did it to interfere with human activities must be backed by strong evidence. We don't know if he created the universe to specifically observe humanity. You stated no evidence that points toward him being involved in our everyday lives to fulfill this unknown reason. As I ran out of space, I will be arguing that the Christian God is not a reasonable one to believe in next round. Back to you.