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It seems everything in the natural world must have a cause.

How convenient that you would make this absurdly broad assumption, given that you seem to consider the manner in which energy interacts to be a "thing" in some poorly delineated "natural world."

I've never seen a cause whose effect has been the creation of statistical distributions to which fundamental physical interactions conform, so I guess things just seem different to me than to you.

This is not because I want it that way...

No, you're making this assumption precisely because you really, really want it to be that way. In any case, all I've seen from you so far has been a series of your gut instincts about the universe and beyond.

Thus there appears to be something that caused them from outside the natural world

I see that your line of reasoning reduces quite neatly in its entirely to a series of pronouncements of what you think things seem like. Thats's fine for what it is, I suppose, and must sound quite nice to someone who feels the same way as you do. But theology offers no more than this. You may find that arenas of discourse in which falsification exists are scarier, but also more rewarding.

You may find that arenas of discourse in which falsification exists are scarier, but also more rewarding.

Great! By all means, let us consider how to attempt to falsify my assumption that all natural things must have a cause outside themselves. I'm not sure how. Its not that I fear the results of such an experiment, its just that its such a modest assumption there doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to set up an experiment that has any reasonable chance of providing a counter example. Heck the "setting up" part pretty much dooms us.

Alas, a person who does not accept anything unless it can be scientifically verified can not survive at life. Drop the hostility and use your imagination a bit, and you will see that I'm right about this.

How convenient that you would make this absurdly broad assumption, given that you seem to consider the manner in which energy interacts to be a "thing" in some poorly delineated "natural world."

OK the assumption is pretty broad, but hardly unique to me and my desires (I'm a Christian, and I assure you if had invented Christianity from my own imagination, Jesus would not have equated ogling to adultery, rather sexual ethics would be a bit more like a Robert Heinlein novel--now that is some convenient contrivance -- at least from a male view). But it is a pretty modest assumption. It seems no more broad then the laws of thermodynamics, and not nearly as presumptuous (btw, would you think to apply the laws of thermodynamics to God? I kind of doubt it).

As far as the poor delineation. Indeed I don't know exactly how to define such a delineation. If I felt it really necessary I could try to do a better job then I did, but I'm sure there are others who have done it better still. Rather I'm inclined to think that most of the established doctrines of such a delineation already fit the facts, relieving me of any need to contrive one with my particular argument in mind.

Importantly this means that the "convenience" of the fit is simply favorable evidence to my argument rather then a reason to suspect the delineation was contrived for it. Unless you maintain that all such delineations were motivated by the same questionable motives you accused me of.