The Un-Caused Cause

Oh boy! Our first true philosophical post!

Bear with me on this one. I could spend a few days reading a bunch of fancy articles and repeating them here, but instead I intend to use my own words. I do encourage you to check out the wikipedia article on this for a mostly unreadable synopsis of common views on the Un-Caused Cause (henceforth the UC).

We live in a universe where action tends to cause reaction. In short, when we ask the question 'Why did X happen?' we can usually trace X back to Y.

Not so with the UC.

For Theists, the UC boils down to the existence of G-d. Genesis begins with the line "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

This implies that before there was a 'beginning' there was a G-d. We do not know how he came into existence - we are told instead that they were there before time. We are not told how G-d came to be, simply that they were. Whether reading the Bible as a series of parables/metaphors or as a factual account, anything before G-d creating the heavens is the UC.

There's a lot of debate and speculation here that I'll leave to apologetic thought to explain. Put plainly, we are not given a cause for the origin of G-d. Only their effect of creation.

On the flip side, for Atheists, the UC boils down to the Big Bang. Off the top of my head, I believe that some physicists have gotten within a few nano-seconds of the BB in terms of their modeling everything that came after. But, no one can offer an acceptable theory as to how conditions that LED to the BB came about. Granted, everything after the BB seems to line up (with the annoying exception of dark matter and dark energy) but as to how we arrived there? *shrug*

Both sides tend to fixate on the other's UC as 'proof' that they are being foolish.

False. Both sides have the same logical gap. We cannot show an X that leads back to Y. In this, both parties are essentially telling their adherents to go with what they feel to be true.

At the end of the day, the difference between a Theist and an Atheist boils down to which theory they place their faith in.

Also, whether or not they are putting on pants on a weekend.

Bourbon count: 5