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"Well, there is certainly something that was not created. Because there is, well, "stuff". Logic gives us two choices as to the nature of that thing (or those things):

A) That thing which was not created is a natural part of nature.

B) That thing which was not created transcends nature itself."

Of course that is certainly something that was not created. We both agreed almost a week ago that ex nihilo, nihil fit.

But I have no idea what you even mean by "transcend[ing] nature itself." Isn't that an oxymoron like "outside the universe" or "more than everything?"

"The obvious reason to reject A is why even my daughter (who was 4 at the time) rejected naturalism. We all do. As Paul points out there is no excuse. We know the nature of God from what was created."

I'm sorry... that makes no sense to me whatsoever. "We all do" is an obvious reason for rejecting naturalism? How can that be when in point of fact, we don't all. If we all did, there would be nobody to argue with.

"When I asked where milk came from, she said the refrigerator. I followed up and asked how it got in the refrigerator, and she said it came from the store. When I asked how it got in the store, she said that God put it there.

She was correct, albeit she left out some steps. Her logic was otherwise dead on. Now matter how we study nature, and learn additional milk data points...we can not escape this conclusion.

In point of fact, your example there actually demonstrates the complete abandonment of reason that is necessary to draw the conclusion "because God."

Your daughter started by beginning to assemble a chain of causality. And this is the perfectly correct place to start, because we all understand that nothing comes from nothing. The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species. The confidence is so great that we even have invented a label for those instances when it appears the law might have been violated. We call them "miracles."

But as your daughter commenced her journey along that chain of causality, she eventually just threw up her hands, stopped following it, and "called it God." She did it at a very early part in the causal chain. You do it at some much more distant point, perhaps at the Big bang, or perhaps even before.

But you have both done the same thing. You have both given up, thrown up your hands and called it "God." Worse, you actually believe that that "logic is dead on" when in point of fact, it is the explicit abandonment of logic. Logic cannot lead you to the conclusion of God. Logic can only lead you to the conclusion of an eternal and uncreated chain of causality.

An eternal universe.

This is exactly where so many "proofs of God" break down. The argument of the "uncaused cause" or the Kalam Cosmological argument all depend on eventually abandoning their premises and asserting a God that was not actually reasoned to. If we hold the premise that all effects have causes, it cannot lead you to an effect that has no cause. It can only lead you to an eternal chain of causes and effects.

Please don't come back and baldly assert, "But that's absurd." After all you have already conceded that something must be eternal. An eternal universe is no more or less absurd than an eternal God. The only difference is that we actually have evidence for a universe. What comparable evidence do we have for your version of God?

The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species.

Specifically this is rigorously confirmed by induction based on observation, not deduction. Otherwise one could simply say we can simply deduce what you just called "miracles" do not happen without any observation of the universe at all.

An eternal universe is no more or less absurd than an eternal God.

If and only if this eternal God did not transcend nature in a way that made the observation based induction of causality applicable to Him.

An eternal universe.

If there is one thing modern physics has strongly suggested about the universe, that we as a species were not aware of before, it is that there is no example of anything infinite in it.

Now this contradicts our intuition, and who knows what theories will evolve later, but currently it looks like there is a smallest discreet unit of everything. Matter, energy, space, and even time. Thus nothing in the universe strictly needed the Calculus. There is a lot of space, but it doesn't go on forever. There are many particles, but there is a finite amount. There is a lot of energy, but it is finite. Any kind of infinity in this universe only appears to be a concept in the minds of people.

Ender, I have noticed a repeated fallacious pattern in your logic. Again and again you start with a modest premise that is easy to accept but then change it (without realizing it I suppose) to a stronger premise when you apply it to your argument. For example:

The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species.

Here you have a rather modest premise. Easy to support. You use the word "induction". Which is correct, as long as one means something inferred from what we can observe.

Logic can only lead you to the conclusion of an eternal and uncreated chain of causality.

Ah, but here is where you have applied the above premise. But presto-chango-re-arango now the meaning is that this causal change is an inescapable deduction of not only what we have observed...but of any possible Heavenly realm we have not. You have elevated an observed induction to a principle of deductive logic which is beyond question.

Be more careful, and you will see truth more clearly.

Excuse me while I go back a bit and clear up some confusion:

Of course that is certainly something that was not created. We both agreed almost a week ago that ex nihilo, nihil fit.

I think all natural things in the universe follow this principle. But I happen to think not everything in super nature does. But when I brought it up, I was not asserting what I believed but trying to reach a common starting point. I had said:

Everybody seems to agree that nothing comes from nothing. Before the Big Bang theory, naturalists simply considered the universe to be eternal. Super naturalists were divided on the point.

But the Big Bang evidence suggests that the entire universe and all its laws and physical properties did not not simply always exist. It doesn't prove this absolutely, but it gives us a point at which it is hard for any science to look beyond.

Strictly speaking of coarse, the super naturalist views the "nothing comes from nothing" a natural law only. The same way as they think gravity applies to nature but not necessarily to the super natural. Sorry for the confusion this caused.