Topic: reasonable to assume that a god would not need a "first cause" himself...

[Femitheist]

I don't know if someone already said this, because I didn't see all of the comments, but...

I think the general argument by most Christians is that the Biblical God's existence, and where it came from, is beyond the understanding of human logic. Meaning, humanity can't effectively know everything, despite the fact that it desires to.

I think the logic-chain would be something like:

1) God existed, and he was always there. His existence is beyond our comprehension, as to its beginning.
2) He created the universe to amuse himself.
3) God, by extension, defines all that we understand about logic and the existence of the universe, and beyond that, he defines all that we are incapable of understanding by doing something as simple as existing without a cause for his existence.

These things (always existed; can't know the cause) can be said about the universe itself. There's no compelling need to toss a god into the mix.

True, but I was just referring to the perspective of Christians regarding their faith in God.

Keep in mind, they are basing their entire lives (no offense intended to those of faith) around a book, or set of texts, that were written thousands of years ago by complete strangers.

So... I don't know if the actual "knowledge" and "application" of anything will ever be plausible, beyond simple faith.

[EhJayArr]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, Femitheist.

From the perspective of a Christian, it's a completely reasonable chain of logic--just like the conspiracy theorist who believes that the worldwide conspiracy is powerful enough to control evidence of its own existence.

[Shibboleth]

Doesn't the original question assume that God exists?

[Femitheist]

If one were to assume that the Biblical God exists, then we can assume the first cause of his existence is irrelevant to us, because it is beyond our logical capacity, by Christian standards.

And, in relation, the Universe creating itself would not be plausible in the same way, because the Universe is a vast, perhaps infinite, mix of living and dead things that are not necessarily sentient. It's definitely, as far as I know, not one massive sentience thing. It's just a collection of things that happens to contain a few smaller sentient pieces.

But, in antipode, the Biblical God is a sentient being capable of thinking, and because of that ability, he would exist, and if he is "everything and nothing" at the same time, once again defying human logic (like lights being on and off at the same time), then he is still beyond our comprehension, so we'd never know whether he existed or not unless he proved it to us, and we'd never be able to understand the cause of his existence because everything we know is bound to concepts that we've constructed. Finite spans of life and death that always have a definite beginning and end, things to which his existence would not be bound.

I hope that made sense, lol.

[jomike]