Why is the cosmological argument still relevant?

Answer 1

Answer I think most Atheists and critical thinkers would argue that the cosmological argument is not relevant and never was. The cosmological argument is a proven logical fallacy.

It alleges that there is a problem that "anything that exists must have a cause, the universe exists, and therefore then universe must have a cause." and replaces it with a bigger problem: By saying that God is the first cause you are saying that God exists and therefore the argument applies to God and God must have a cause. This would then become infinite as whatever caused God must have a cause and whatever caused that must have a cause and so on.

The cosmological argument is therefore self defeating and irrelevant from the get go.

The other big problem is that the argument doesn't even say that the first cause had to be God, it just says there had to be a first cause... That first cause could have been natural. So, making the argument in support of the existence of God is pointless.

Another Answer there are many reasons as to why this debate is still going on, but most of it boils down to the traditional Faith Vs Science debate.

through all of human history we see Scientists being shunned and destroyed for showing people how things work. a Bronze age text known as The Bible, decided to lay it all out for us, the world, the universe, everything. however the men who wrote it didn't have the knowledge and understanding we have today. and every single breakthrough scientists make seems to go against the ancient book. those who have devoted themselves to this book refuse to let go. and for a fairly rational reason.

initial Scientific movements, such as the fact the earth revolves around the sun, were met with the same contempt, if the earth moves around the sun then the earth is no longer the center of the universe, then it was discovered that we weren't even center of the galaxy, and after all that we are on a far edge of only one out of billions of Galaxy's. suddenly the chances we are alone in the universe decrease dramatically, we see how small we are in comparison to existence, the more we discover the smaller we get, the further away god seems, after all that it would be hard to imagine god remembers we are here let alone that we are his favourites.

so now the believers feel distanced from god a little, their faith is being tested, so what happens next? well we discover the universe is about 14 billion years old, created in a massive explosion.

Other discoveries, such as the curved and totally un-flat nature of the world, which goes against the Bible, were put down to being Metaphorical, if you claim that some things are metaphorical you can get away with it, but the big bang theory means the entire first chapter, the creation, and the reason for being, was just metaphorical. and to make such a large and important part of the bible into a metaphor casts a huge shadow of doubt upon every other important aspect, since God himself is in that metaphorical chapter, perhaps God himself is just a metaphor

The Big Bang theory does something else to Christians too, while it doesn't disprove that there is a god, it disproves the one in their book. while there MAY be some form of extra terrestrial power out there watching us, listening to our prayer, and guiding us towards an after life, its not the guy in that book.

Religion, unlike hobbies, isn't something someone does, and unlike science its not something someone can see, and test and advance for themselves, its WHO they are, its WHAT the are. i work with a few devout Christians. One of whom, after being asked the question, "what do you think of the new guy" replied with simply, "well he's a christian". and people cannot just give up who they are just like that.

The fact they cannot give up who they are is what leads to their standard responses. if someone was to tell me that something i believed was false, i would ask them for an explanation as to their reasoning behind their claim, if their thinking had any rational thought behind it i would test their claims, and adjust my beliefs accordingly. Those of faith however, when you question their god, they don't see it as you testing their god, your testing them. and they respond as a threatened animal would, irrationally, often violently, and i would offer up any atheist video on you tube as evidence for this, find any atheist video, and read through the comments.

Since Science is evidence based and Religion isn't, when shown the evidence, Believers have nothing to respond with, and so many wont even bother listening to the evidence, again shown in video's on you tube, how many people of faith have said "i don't believe in evolution because it doesn't answer why we are here, it doesn't answer how the universe began... etc" they have their convictions, and they will stick to them, ultimately making them look stupid, but you have to admire their persistence.

One day the Cosmological argument will cease to be relevant, science will keep moving forward, education will improve, and more people per day turn away from religion, than too it. Religion will die out eventually, just like the Zeus, Odin and Ra... Eventually everyone will have enough knowledge to realise that Jesus is just fairy story's and he will join them in the ranks of Mythological characters