DEBUNKING Bad Online Atheist Strawman

On X an online atheist posted an image of an argument he believes theists make in order to argue for the existence of a God. Look at it yourself:

Now for many who have not studied philosophy of religion this seems like a checkmate to the theist. Theists claim that everything has a cause, therefore, by logical necessity, God must also have a cause. However, theists apparently would reject this claim that God has a cause, therefore, the theist has a contradictory belief.

However... the argument this individual has made has not been made by any theist... like ever. And in this article I will be showing the ACTUAL argument theists make for the belief in a God, show that he has straw maned the theistic argument, and lastly show problems even in his parody of the theistic argument that shows this online atheist should not be taken seriously.

The ACTUAL argument made by theists

This argument that this atheists posted is a strawman of the ACTUAL argument theists make for the belief in the existence of a God. The ACTUAL argument goes as follows:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. the universe began to exist
3. therefore: the the universe has a cause

This iteration is the same one made by Imam Al-Ghazali; the creator of the Kalam cosmological argument. If anyone has read the works of William Lane Craig (or has seen any of his videos) will know this argument.

Now how does this original iteration differ from the one presented by the online atheist? Well for starters the first premise NEVER claims that EVERYTHING has a cause. But it simply states that everything that BEGINS to exist (i.e., has a beginning or a start to its existence) has a cause.

An example I can give for you guys to better understand this first premise can be the laws of logic (like the law of non-contradiction). The law of non-contradiction have never had a beginning in existence; it is a law of the universe and it has always been around (whether we had a name for it or not). It is not like one time in the universe it was possible that contradictions did exist, but then the law of non-contradiction came into existence, and then there were no more contradictions. The law of non-contradiction was always around, therefore, it did not need a cause.

Now in terms of the first premise in relation to the belief in a God, theists all agree that God has never had a beginning in existence; God was always around. He is the first cause, the necessary being, and however else you want to explain God to be. The point I am getting at is that if theists uphold that God never began to exist (i.e., he was always around) then there is no contradiction with this argument and with the belief theists have with God.

Many theists with the Kalam cosmological argument will argue that there must be a first cause to the universe. If there were no first cause, then there would be an infinite set of things causing other things to exist. For many (not all) theists, this would lead to numerous of contradictions. How can the universe or anything start if there were an infinite paste of causes? In order to resolve contradictions that might ensue with an infinite regress of past causes, there needs to be a first cause. This first cause must not have been caused by anything else and it must have also caused the universe to exist. For theists, this first cause is God.

Now whether one upholds this argument or beliefs it is convincing is up to them. Even for me this argument is not the best argument for the existence of a God (I personally favor the contingency argument over this); however, that is besides the point. In terms of this online atheist, it is clear that he clearly straw manned one of the most famous and academic arguments for the existence of God.

Online Atheist does not understand logic

Another problem with the atheist's iteration of this argument is that it seems obvious that this atheist doesn't even know how deductive arguments work.

Let's look at the actual Kalam argument to get a better understanding of how a detective argument should look like

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. the universe began to exist
3. therefore: the universe has a cause

Now this argument is a perfect example of a proper deductive argument (if all the premises are true and lead to the conclusion, then the conclusion must also necessarily be true). Why? Well if we were to write this in a different way it might make it easier to understand what I mean.

1. All A's have C
2. U has A
3. Therefore: U has C

If we look at the argument in this format, we see that all the premises connect with one another. All A's (everything that beings to exist) have C (cause), and since U (the universe) has A (it began to exist) it then perfectly leads to the conclusion of U (universe) having C (a cause). All the points in the premises connect to one another to formulate the conclusion of the argument (Therefore: U has C). While there are debates on whether the premises themselves are true, no one is debating about the format of the argument itself.

Now let us look at the atheist's iteration again

1. Everything has a creator
2. God is that creator
3. God does not have a creator

Let us take this argument and put it into the same format we put the previous one in

1. All A's have C
2. God is C
3. God has no C

This argument seems somewhat weird doesn't? Where is the conclusion? Is it 'therefore God has no C'? Is it "God is C"? It seems that there is no actual conclusion that was built up through the use of premises. I know this is nitpicky, but if one is going to make fun of theists, at least do it properly. This is not even an argument. So not only do theists NOT make this argument, but even the parody argument was pretty embarrassing.

Conclusion

Overall this was a poor attempt from an online atheist to debunk theism and an argument theists use to prove God's existence. While this was an easy jab at this online atheist's argument, it did give me an opportunity to share one of the most well-know arguments for God's existence: the Kalam cosmological argument. There are many books written on this argument that originally came from Al-Ghazali, and if you guys want to hear more about this argument, then subscribe to my blog!