I skipped a step -- ignoring the possibility that things have always existed -- because it seems like a logical impossibility. Once you've discarded the possibility that the universe has always existed, then you are left with a supernatural creator of some sort.
Do you believe that the universe has always existed? This idea seems to me just as impossible as the universe having spontaneously come into existance, uncaused. Uncaused-ness is a supernatural characteristic. If you ascribe this characteristic to the universe, then you are giving assent to the idea that a supernatural element must be included in any explanation of the existance of the universe. In essence you have given the universe the God-like quality of eternal existance.
If my logic is sophomoric (which is entirely possible), then you have the option of bearing with me or ending this exchange. This thread is dead anyway, so if you choose not to respond, I won't be surprised or upset.
I just thought that as long as you were being presumptuous, I'd return the favor.
Short of some sort of supernatural creator, the universe must have (1) brought itself into existance, or (2) the universe has always existed (which you mentioned).
You haven't been brainstorming on this one very long have you? Either the universe has existed for all time or it has not. If it has not then there must have been a time before the existence of the universe. If there was a time before the universe existed, and if it is true that something cannot come from nothing, then something must have existed at a time before the universe existed and from which the universe came. Since this thing existed when the universe did not exist, then this thing must be something other than the universe. If "nature" is defined as everything in the universe, then this thing could be termed "supernatural". The same argument for "universe" can then be applied to this "supernatural" thing, ad infinitum.
That's about as far as I can take it with logic. It sure is a far cry from logically proving that there is or was some willful, or thinking supernatural being.
And then there's another branch of the either-or argument in which the universe has existed for all time. I don't see how this is somehow a less "rational option". It seems to make some sense if you take "time" to be part of the universe rather than some mysterious extrinsic property that somehow can exist independently of the universe. In that case, the universe and time, which is part of the universe, have always existed together and started together.
it seems like a logical impossibility
It may seem like it to you, but I fail to see the logical contradiction that proves it to be impossible.
Do you believe that the universe has always existed?
I don't find it a matter of belief so much as a matter of semantics. If you, as I do, define "universe" as "all that exists", then the question is rather silly since without the universe there is no existence. But of course there is nothing more prima facie true then the fact that existence exists. I suppose people who ask such questions are really wondering if there is something in the universe that somehow defies the laws of the universe, or at best, that is manifested by laws that some of us do not understand.
Uncaused-ness is a supernatural characteristic
O-Oh, is that right? I didn't know that. I-I guess I'll have to inform mythelf.
God-like quality of eternal existance.
I suppose we can all define "God-like" however we wish.
I won't be surprised or upset.
I wouldn't dream of upsetting you. Thank you so much for that out.