A god doesn't change that, you have the same question about whether a god has always existed or came from nothing
Discussion
For me, these questions seem to be more productive than whether there is or isn't a god - what larger processes are you participating in, what are you perpetuating? What steps can you engage with to stop perpetuating things you fundamentally disagree with?
There is or isn't a god, and I may or may not be wrong about knowing this. Does being right and then sitting down with a grin about being right actually change anything? Better to find a set of belief systems that I actually align with and perpetuate them.
I agree that living out your values matters, but the God question isnāt just abstract philosophy. If God exists, then Heās the source of those values, and there are real moral obligations that flow from that.
If He doesnāt, then morality is just preference, and thereās no ultimate accountability. So the God question actually determines which belief systems are true and worth perpetuating, and whether our actions have eternal significance or just temporary impact.
If God exists, and is the source of all absolute values, I think its more effective for the masses to have a path to intrinsically understand said values rather than a top down imposition of them. Participating in systems that perpetuate these beliefs and values ultimately is how others will continue to believe, and ultimately staying aligned with my values.
The idea that we can just āintrinsicallyā understand absolute values is wishful thinking imo. Left to ourselves, we rationalize whatever we want. That is why civilization depends on those values being taught, defended, and in some sense imposed through law, culture, and tradition. If you do not transmit them from the top down as well as the bottom up, they will disappear within a generation.
I mean, you can still have leaders that cultivate the beliefs in others. Perpetuating without understanding is self terminating when faced with a belief system that resonates.
Everything that begins to exist needs a cause. The universe began to exist, so it needs a cause outside itself. God didnāt begin to exist. Heās the uncaused cause. You either believe in an eternal something or an eternal someone, the evidence points to the someone imo.
How do you know the universe began to exist?
If God is not part of the universe, in what sense does he exist?
What evidence points to an eternal consciousness?
We know the universe began to exist because all the scientific evidence, like the Big Bang and the second law of thermodynamics, points to a beginning, and philosophy shows you cannot have an actual infinite past.
God exists in the sense of being the necessary, immaterial, timeless cause of the universe. He is not made of matter or bound by space and time. As for evidence of an eternal consciousness, the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of information in DNA, and the existence of objective moral values all point to an intelligent, personal source rather than blind, unconscious forces
"The existence of objective moral values"?
Where do they exist?
What are they made of?
"Philosophy shows you cannot have an actual infinite past"
How does it do that?
How does DNA or physics indicate an "intelligent, personal source"?
In what way does the second law of thermodynamics point to a beginning?
The Big Bang and 2nd law of thermodynamics are not "scientific evidence", but rather theories to explain actual scientific evidence (eg galaxies drifting apart or heat radiating from a hotter to a colder region). That actual scientific evidence does little to prove that there was a definite beginning. If things are spreading apart now, then in the past they were probably closer together, but this does not show that if you just extrapolate all the way back to when everything was (presumably) really close together that nothing happened before this moment or that this moment ever actually occurred.
On objective moral values, theyāre not physical things, just like numbers or logic arenāt made of matter. Theyāre real, but theyāre grounded in the nature of God, not in human opinion. Thatās why things like murder or injustice are wrong no matter what culture you live in.
On an infinite past, you canāt actually get to today if thereās an infinite number of days before it. You can have a āpotential infinite,ā like counting forward forever, but not a completed infinite youāve already crossed.
On DNA and physics, DNA is loaded with information, like a software code, and information always comes from a mind. Physics shows the universe is fine-tuned in ways so exact that blind chance is incredibly unlikely, which points to intelligence behind it.
On the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is running out of usable energy. If it had always been here, it would have run out already, which means it had a starting point.
On the Big Bang, yes, itās a model to explain things like galaxies moving apart and the cosmic background radiation. But when you put those observations together with the second law and the fact thereās no good evidence for a past-eternal steady state, the simplest explanation is that the universe had a beginning.
On objective moral values: That's just your opinion. Prove it.
"you can't actually get to today if there's an infinite number of days before it"
Then when did God create the universe? You can't get to that day if there's an infinite number of days before it.
"information always come from a mind"
That's just your opinion.
If you define "information" such that it must always come from a mind, then either DNA might not be/contain information or you are begging the question.
If you don't define information in this way, you have yet to make your case.
"Physics shows the universe is fine-tuned in ways so exact that blind chance is incredibly unlikely"
"Fine-tuned" is loaded language that presumes it could be otherwise and was chosen this way.
"Blind chance is incredibly unlikely" doesn't actually make sense when you have no idea what process generates universes. Maybe it's incredibly likely that if there's a universe it behaves like ours. Maybe it's certain. What are the odds of flipping heads ten times in a row? What if the coin has heads on both sides? Similarly, you don't know what the "heads" and "tails" are of whatever "blind chance" generates the universe. Maybe it's almost all heads. Maybe it's all heads. Then the fact that we actually see all heads shouldn't surprise us at all or make us doubt that "blind chance" is sufficient to cause the result.
"The simplest explanation is that the universe had a beginning" except you don't stop there. You invoke some sort of pre-universe that did not have a beginning. A simpler explanation is that instead of having infinite universe (A, which you might call heaven or God or something to that effect) and finite universe (B) we only have infinite universe (A, which might be here) or finite universe (B, which is here if A is not here) and not both.
Objective moral values arenāt just my opinion, because some things like torturing babies for fun, are wrong regardless of anyoneās opinion. On the infinite past, God is timeless, so Heās not in the same sequence of days as the universe. On information, DNA meets the definition scientists use, and all our uniform repeated experience is that information comes from a mind. On fine tuning, the constants of physics could be otherwise, and the range that allows life is unimaginably narrow, which is why even many atheists call it fine tuning. The simplest explanation for a finite universe is a timeless, spaceless cause, not another physical universe, which would just push the problem back
A timeless, spaceless cause also just pushes the problem back.
Why does God exist? What caused God? The ultimate answer is you don't know.
I don't know what caused outer space to exist or the Big Bang to happen (if it did), and I call my unknowing "ignorance". You don't know either, but you call your unknowing "God".
God, by definition, is the uncaused cause. Only things that begin to exist need a cause, and God did not begin to exist. He is eternal. That is not ignorance, it is a logical necessity. If there is no eternal something, then you are left with something from nothing, which is impossible. We both have to believe in something eternal; the question is whether it is eternal mindless matter, or an eternal intelligent mind. The evidence from the beginning of the universe, fine tuning, and moral law points to the latter.
Why is something from nothing impossible?
Have you got any nothing we can test?
I haven't got to believe in anything eternal, because I have the humility to say "I don't know"
God perhaps did not begin to exist (I agree in a sense) but you claim he began to act. Why? When? How?
This is what I mean when I say you have only given a name to your ignorance.
Something from nothing is impossible because ānothingā has no properties. It cannot cause anything, it cannot change, it cannot act. By ānothingā I mean the absence of anything, not empty space or a vacuum. You cannot test it because there is literally nothing to test.
As for believing in something eternal, it is not about humility but about necessity. If the universe began, something beyond it had to cause it, and that cause has to be eternal by definition. Regarding God acting, an eternal being can will to create without being bound by time, and the moment He creates is the moment time begins. That is not just giving a name to ignorance, it is following the evidence to the kind of cause that fits the effect we see.
"Something from nothing is impossible because 'nothing' has no properties."
Then how did God make something out of nothing? Was it a miracle (a religious synonym for ignorance) or can you actually explain that which you claim to explain?
Secondly, if nothing has no properties then there is no barrier to the arising of something. Empty space does not block the movement of the planets. Perhaps the something we now observe was somewhere else, or in a different form. How did it get here? What made it change? I don't know and neither do you.
"If the universe began, something beyond it had to cause it"
You have no proof of this. It merely seems sensible to you.
"and that cause has to be eternal by definition"
You have no proof of this, and it's not hard at all to imagine a counter-example: Universe A begets Universe B begets Universe C.
"an eternal being can will to create without being bound by time"
Can you prove that or is this just another opinion?
Belief in God is "following the evidence to the kind of cause that fits the effect we see". Except that no evidence points to a Jewish Zombie Space Wizard, or a Greek Lightning swan-fucker (etc) as the Creator. I am doubtful that you can claim the universe was caused, but even if you could you cannot possibly have proof that it was a timeless consciousness outside of the universe, because proof is a concept that describes things in this universe and their relation to each other. You said yourself "nothing has no properties" so there is nothing we can prove about it. You cannot prove that "nothing" is (or contains) a timeless conciousness.
God didnāt make something out of nothing the way a magician pulls a rabbit from a hat. He created the universe without using preexisting material because, as the first cause, He is not limited by matter, space, or time. Nothing has no properties, so it cannot produce anything on its own, which is why something eternal must exist. The idea of universes begetting universes only pushes the problem back, you still need a first cause that is necessary and eternal. An eternal mind creating without time is not just an opinion, it is the only kind of cause that fits a finite, law-based universe. Once you establish that, the question of which God it is comes from historical evidence, such as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
"An eternal mind creating without time is not just an opinion, it is the only kind of cause that fits a finite, law-based universe"
You don't know that the universe is finite, and some sort of cause that makes the universe exist doesn't necessarily have a mind. Why would it?
I think you missed my point about the constants of physics.
First, when you say they "could be otherwise" I believe you are just mistaken. I think a more accurate claim is that we can imagine what would happen if they were otherwise.
Secondly, even if the constants of physics could be other than as they are now, this does not imply that the current values are unlikely. If whatever process generates universes almost always generates one with the constants of physics we now observe, then it is unsurprising that we have them and observe them. In order for you to claim it is surprising that we observe the constants of physics as we do, you need to show that whatever process generated these constants was more likely to pick other values. Failing that, it's simply your opinion.
"Things like torturing babies for fun are wrong regardless of anyone's opinion"
This is just an opinion that everyone shares. If it's more than that, prove it.
"On the infinite past, God is timeless, so He's not in the same sequence of days as the universe"
How do you know?
"all our uniform repeated experience is that information comes from a mind"
DNA is actually a great counter-example here, but not the only one. Plants have been shown to send chemical signals to each other which seem to convey information (eg I am being attacked by bug X so prepare your chemical defenses).
If you insist these were created by God and thus evidence of information being created by a mind, that is the claim these examples were meant to prove, so you are begging the question (a form of circular reasoning).
"The simplest explanation for a finute universe is a timeless, spaceless cause, not another physical universe, which would just push the problem back", except your "solution" also just pushes the problem back. I stop at what we can know and admit I know no more. You take it a step further, claiming to know what caused the known, but you don't claim to know what caused the unknown, just that it is a timeless spaceless consciousness that can cause things, for which you have no proof. This is not a better explanation than just saying "I don't know" what caused the universe.
That which is causeless is beyond all ideas which appear as its expression though. Including the idea of creator/ created. There is just creating happening endlessly without beginning or end.