Yes, exactly: the train's motion is caused by the locomotive. We are the train, and God is the locomotive. There needs to be a locomotive to move the train. The train cars by themselves can't move. Yet it is an error to look at the moving train cars linked together and ask what car is causing the locomotive to move.
Similarly, we don't cause our existence. We are contingent on our parents, on the oxygen we breathe, and on the food we eat. All those things are contingent on other things. There can't be infinite contingent things because nothing would have sufficient reason to exist; therefore, nothing would exist. But we do exist, so there must be something that exists necessarily, which does not depend on anything else for its existence. That's God.
By definition, God is not contingent on people creating gods. God would still exist if there were no people because he is sheer existence itself.
I tried to adapt St. Thomas Aquinas’s third-way argument to our context. Still, these classical arguments probably have better standalone explanations elsewhere than I can summarize here if you want to understand the rationale for believing in God.
The flaw in your 2nd sentence is making up a thing called god that is not there, detectable, nor necessary for humans or anything else to exist.
We are not passive rail cars, we are one of the millions of branches of evolutionary biochemistry that survived over billions of years that became conscious and can notice that we are "here". We're trying to figure out what here is and have created gods to help make sense of this amazing universe we find ourselves in.
As we build on each other's work, we found that we are not the center of that universe, but rather we are on a spec of dust hurtling through space around an average star in an average galaxy.
That reality is AWESOME! We only get 122 trips around that star at most, that is the preciousness of time in space.
Stay humble, stack Sats!
So you don't know why we exist, but you know it's not God?
What you're saying isn't entirely wrong, but you're asserting God doesn't exist without arguments.
I’ve tried to show you that our existence is contingent and infinite contingency is a contradiction; therefore, there must be something that is existence itself. In a goodwill, rational discussion, go after the arguments.
You don't have to assent to belief in God, but at least make good arguments against it.
Correct, I don't fill unknown gaps with "god", that is a cop out, I just don't know yet and that's fine.
There is plenty of stuff we know for sure to work on.
It's on the god is real crowd to show there is a reason to listen to what they say. With thousands of geographically and philososphically incompatible god stories around, it seems obvious that humans created all the gods. Ya can't have an all powerful god that can't even get a consensus on one spec in the universe.
The Church was the State, but used god as their stick to hold power over the Plebs. Right this very moment there is a young girl somewhere being forcibly mutilated in the name of a god.
I say they either prove they are right, or leave everyone else alone.
I did tell you. Again, this isn't a “god of the gaps” argument. You clearly didn't listen to or read any of the content I provided. There can be good theistic and atheistic dialogue, but you're not representing your side well. Now, respond to my arguments, or you will lose my attention.
Maybe next time we can have a better understanding. You're not far off, but I wish you would engage more with what I'm actually saying instead of a caricature you have in your mind; the greatest skeptics help form the best arguments.
I wish you well as well.
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