Big Bang cosmology supports atheism over theism.

Thank you, Jonathan, for the plug, and thank you, Audience, for coming to tonight's debate.Let's dive right in, shall we?Burden of proofAs stipulated, Pro's burden is to prove that "Big Bang cosmology supports atheism over theism," and my burden is to prove that "Big Bang cosmology supports theism over atheism." It is also stipulated that "God is defined as the personal being which causes the initial state of the universe." There is no stipulation, however, about how "atheism" should be defined, but we still need a definition so we can know whether Pro has carried his burden of proof. There are two possibilities. A lack of belief in God. This is often called "weak atheism. A belief that there is no God. This is often called "strong atheism." For this debate, we should use the second definition for two reasons:1. Weak atheism is not a point of view. The resolution implies that atheism is a point of view because it is supposedly supported by big bang cosmology.2. Strong atheism is explicitly stated in Pro's opening statement. The conclusion of his argument is that "God cannot exist."So Pro should be attempting to prove that big bang cosmology supports the view that God does not exist.As a side note, I would like to point out that although the definition of God for the purposes of this debate entails that God caused the initial state of the universe, God need not be defined that way. Many theists believe God is a creator in the sense that he creates each moment, thereby continuously sustaining the universe in existence. Some believe God is a creator in the sense that he organized the universe from pre-existing material. Some believe there need not be an initial state of the universe for God to have created it.ConcessionsI concede that Pro's argument is logically valid. I also concede that premises 2, 3, and 4, are true. I am only going to dispute the first premise.Problems with the first premiseThere are several problems with Pro's argument.First, Pro commits the fallacy of composition when he says that because each state of the universe is caused by a previous state of the universe that therefore the whole universe caused itself.Second, Pro's argument is subject to the problems of infinite regress. If each state of the universe was caused by a previous state, it would follow that there are a beginningless number of prior states of the universe and they would therefore be actually infinite. But if that were the case, then it would impossible for the present moment to have come about.Consider the borrower/lender analogy. Suppose I need to mow my lawn, but I don't have a lawnmower. So I ask my neighbor if I can borrow his. But he doesn't have one either, so he asks his other neighbor. And that neighbor asks his neighbor. The only way I can ever get a lawnmower is if somebody actually has one who doesn't need to get it from somebody else. If there is no such person (because this chain has no beginning) then I cannot get a lawnmower.In the same way, the present moment cannot happen unless there is a moment that happened without there being a prior moment. In other words, there must be a first moment.Third, Pro's argument suffers from the same problems as Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Using Pro's reasoning, one can "prove" that it's impossible for anything to move. If an object at t=0 is at rest, and at t=1 is in motion, then there is a t=1/2 between t=0 and t=1 at which it is already in motion. Since it's in motion at t=1/2, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, etc., there's no first moment of motion. And if there's no first moment of motion, then its motion can be fully explained by itself without having to appeal to an outside cause to explain why it began to move.While it may be difficult to figure out where the fallacy lies, surely we can all agree that our reasoning has gone awry somewhere. After all, we frequently see things which are at rest begin to move because they are caused to move by something outside of themselves. For example, a golfer can cause a golf ball to begin moving by hitting it with a club.So what is the problem with Zeno's paradox (and by extension, Pro's argument)? According to Aristotle, the problem is that he's confusing a conceptual/potential infinite with an actual infinite. It is true that conceptually, you can keep dividing any interval of length or time without end merely by halving them over and over. If, instead of dividing an interval by halving it over and over, you divided it into equal intervals, it would always be finite. Just because you can divide a line over and over doesn't mean the line doesn't have end points. In the same way, if the universe is finite in the past, then there are a finite number of hours in the past. That means there is a first hour requiring an outside cause.Fourth, Pro's argument suffers from an unsolvable paradox. He agrees that the universe began to exist 13 billion or so years ago in the sense that there is no prior state at which the universe existed. So suppose we place a Grim Reaper (GR) at each moment between t=0 and t=1 such that GR1/2 is placed at t=1/2, GR1/4 at t=1/4, GR1/8 at t=1/8, etc. It would follow, according to Pro's reasoning, that just as every state has a prior state, so also every GR has a prior GR. And just as there is no first state, so also, there is no first GR.A GR is a being that kills you instantly unless you're already dead. This scenario leads to a paradox. On the one hand, no GR can kill you since by the time you reach any GR, you'd already be dead. But on the other hand, you can't survive a moment past t=0. This scenario cannot be actualized in the real world because it leads to a contradiction. If no GR can kill you, then you should survive. But you can't survive.Clearly, if you cross a GR, it will kill you, so there must be a first GR however difficult that might be to conceptualize or represent mathematically. In the same way, if the universe is finite in the past, then there is a boundary that marks the beginning edge of the universe. There is a first moment. There's no escaping it.My case1. If the universe had an earliest moment, then the universe had a cause outside of itself.2. The universe had an earliest moment.3. Therefore, the universe had a cause outside of itself.I have already demonstrated the 2nd premise above. I suspect Pro already agrees with the first premise, too. The whole reason he thinks God is unnecessary is because he thinks each state in the universe was caused by another state in the universe, so nothing outside of the universe is necessary. That is an implicit admission of a universal causal principle because otherwise there'd be no reason to assume that any state in the universe required a cause whether there was a beginning or not.According to his definition of God, I have only to show that the cause is a person. I don't get the impression Pro really wanted to go into that in this debate, though, so I won't spend much time on it. I think he mainly wanted to discuss Quentin Smith's argument. But to fulfill my burden of proof, I've got to give at least a short explanation of why the cause is a person.With any non-personal cause, as long as all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for some effect are present, the effect is also present. So if the cause of the universe were non-personal, then the universe would have no earliest moment. It would be actually infinite in the past. A personal agent avoids this because it can have an intention to create the universe, then act on that intention. Although the intention is sufficient to bring about the universe, it doesn't do so mechanistically since an intention to act can be an intention to act immediately or later. God could, therefore, have a timeless intention to act, then initiate time with his first act. Since God is "the personal being which causes the initial state of the universe," and since I've shown that the big bang supports such a being, it follows that the big bang supports theism over atheism.