Contra 'argumentum cosmologicum'
Jewish, Christian and Muslim apologists all try to “prove” the existence of their made up deity through a variety of philosophical arguments. One of the current popular ones is the cosmological argument. The argument comes in a few variations but can be can be summarized as follows:
Most people would agree that everything that exists had a beginning and/or cause of its existence.
1: The universe exists
2: The universe must have a cause (or ‘beginning’)
3: The universe cannot have caused itself
4: Something not part of the universe caused the universe
5.a: Jewish conclusion: That something is Yahweh. 5.b: Christian conclusion: That something are the three gods: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 5.c: Muslim conclusion: That something is Allah.
Proposing a god as conclusion to the premises is totally unfounded and absurd. The main fallacy in the above argument is the fallacy of ignorance. The conclusion drawn by modern religious apologists is no different than the conclusion drawn by prehistoric shamans explaining lightning as the result of an angry sky god. After six thousand years of religious philosophy, in favor of whatever god that has existed or still exists for the time being, the arguments are still the same. Because we don’t know how or why the universe exists, there must be a god or gods out there. What else can it be, right?
Let’s look at just a few objections to the fallacious argument of three of the “world religions”:
We agree that the universe (that we can perceive) exists, but we do not know if there was ever a moment or state where nothing existed. In other words, the scientific notion of the ‘Big Bang’ of the universe is not necessarily the beginning of existence, and we do not know if there was nothing before that point. Therefore, we cannot state as a fact that the universe had one, single cause that brought it into existence. There is more than just the one possibility proposed by the three above primitive religions.
For instance, the universe may have existed, imploded and expanded time and time again in a never ending cycle without ever having had a cause.
If we accept that the universe cannot have caused itself than…
How can we know that the universe was caused by a thinking anthropomorphic deity imbued with the characteristics humans allow that deity to have? a. If the something that caused the universe is not part of the universe then we cannot perceive or know of it, as a) existence only applies to something within the universe or b) even if existence is possible outside of a reality, this tells us nothing of the nature or the number of those non-existing existences that caused the universe. b. There is no way of knowing that the universe was caused by a single deity. c. Even if we agree with the three pagan religions that the universe was caused by a single deity, then which one? It cannot be Yahweh, the three Christian gods and Allah at the same time. So two of them are wrong, or all three are wrong.
Another fallacy is the special pleading invoked by the adherents of these primitive religions. Everything that exists must have had a cause/beginning. Logically it would follow that god would also have had a cause or beginning. But here’s where the believers make an unfounded exception. When they say “everything that exists must have a cause or beginning”, they of course mean everything except god. If special pleading would be a valid argument however, then one also has to allow the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the god of the Rastafarians, who has also always existed. But you don’t even need to go to a “divine” solution. I.e.: Energy caused the universe. Energy has always existed and is never lost (“dies”). Maybe one could simply call energy god, or god energy. Nothing prescribes that if something caused the universe to exist, that existence was caused intentionally, or intelligently. Finally, the cosmological argument does nothing to show that, if the cause of our universe was indeed a bloodthirsty and morally bankrupt biblical deity, this cause still exists.
The truth is beautifully simple:
The one true goddess is Isa Lahat. She has always existed and she is the totality of all there is. She is eternal energy, always transforming, flexible and never ending. Our universe is a part of a bigger multiverse. It is expanding and will do so for another 58.2 billion years, after which it will contract again for some 72 billion years until it will have completely collapsed in the singularity that will “erupt’ in the next “Big Bang”. The totality of universes, multiverses, or whatever you want to call it, is Isa Lahat and she is eternal. We humans will go extinct in the “near” future and so will our planet, our solar system, the galaxy and the gods created by humans. But maybe, Isa Lahat will create another form of humanlike species in the next cycle, which will undoubtedly come up with their one true gods or goddesses of their own. Ultimately, that is for the universe, Isa Lahat to know.
Richard Dalet PHD, 11 December 2020
Uranus photo: taken by Voyager 2, NASA, JPL-Caltech, retrieved from: DW.com, "Scientists discover what Uranus smells like", https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-discover-what-uranus-smells-like/a-43517814