“In other words, if there’s no creator, there can’t be a universe.”
I hear and read this assertion all the time and it is always stated as an axiom. I don’t think it is even a proper question to ask who created the universe because it denies that the universe is an absolute. Existence doesn’t need to be explained or justified, in my opinion. It just is. As far as we know it has always existed and always will. After all the big bang doesn’t say anything about the universe popping into existence from nothing. It simply says that at one time it was a very small package of energy or a singularity. If a god can “just be” why can’t existence. To say that God can “just be” and the universe has to have a creator or first cause is special pleading. If someone can prove that a god exists with evidence then fine but until then the only rational thing to do is to start with what we know, existence exists, and go on from that point and learn as much as we can about it with reason and logic and not fill the gaps in our knowledge with articles of faith.
The alternative to a creator is not random chance or accidents. It is natural law. Who created the natural laws? That is another improper question, in my opinion. The natural laws are absolutes and don’t need a cause. They just are. Again to be consistent, if a god can exist without a cause then so can natural laws or else it is another case of special pleading.
The universe is governed by the laws of metaphysics. Out of nothing, comes nothing. This has been around since Plato, and we have yet to discover anything that violates this rule. The universe cannot have always existed, because infinity is a theoretical construct that can never exist in our universe. It causes mathematical inconsistencies, as outlined in Hilbert’s Hotel.
To summarize the case -
1) The universe exists
2) Governed by natural law, everything that exists has a cause or a ‘beginning’
3) The universe has a beginning
You only have two explanations for its existence. One is that it appeared from nothing, which defies logic. The other is that a transcendent cause brought it into being.
The only transcendent cause that makes sense is an unembodied mind. God.
Your logic is sound, however the argument that there is no evidence God exists is not correct. There is plenty of eye witness testimony. It is proper for you to say the evidence is not sufficient for you. Different people have different needs for evidence. That is why we have juries.
>> “In other words, if there’s no creator, there can’t be a universe.”
>> I hear and read this assertion all the time and it is always stated as an axiom.
Not an axiom, but a condition. Axioms are not subject to conditions.
Existence doesn’t need to be explained or justified, in my opinion. It just is. As far as we know it has always existed and always will. After all the big bang doesn’t say anything about the universe popping into existence from nothing.
You are missing some information. In 1916 Einstein postulated the General Theory of Relativity which propounded an expanding universe. In 1921 Eddington proved this theory, Some time later Hubble proved the universe was expanding by his discovery of the red shift. Now, all 3 of these men were atheist, (Einstein later became a pantheist), but they proved that as they regressed time the expanding universe came to become small, and smaller...until there was singularity,...then nothing. In 1965 Penzias and Wilson (nobel Prize winners) for their discovery of the cosmic bacground radiation which had been postulated had there been a huge explosion of the universe into existence. Hawking referred to this finding as the greatest scientific finding over the past 100 years , if not for all time. In 1989 NASA put up COBE (cosmic background explorer) and photographed the 'thermal ripples' of the origin of the universe. G eorge Smoot, project manager, said these findings were like looking at the fingrprints of God (you can go the NASA's website and look at these photos). A few years later, WMAP was put up and more specifically photographed the findings of COBE. All of these findings were experiments of atheists and all proved a beginning of the universe. Fred Hoyle, atheist, derisively coined the term ' big bang'. Hoyle had popularized the ;steady state theory, but later, in a moment of honest, affirmed the uiverse came to be from a huge explosion.....a 'big bang ".
So contrary to your remark, all of science affirms a moment of creation. Science affirms a moment at which time nothing existed. Remember the moment of creation is marked by the creation of time, matter, energy, and space. Prior to that there was no universe. So the question is asked , "What brought the universe into existence?" It seems science tells us that whatever that was was incredible powerful to have brought the entire universe into existence, timeless (time did not yet exist), non spatial (space did not exist prior to the moment of creation), immaterial (since that First Cause had not yet created matter), In other words, outside of time, space, and matter. and personal, in order to choose to convert nothing into the universe ( create ex nihilo). Those are the characteristics of First Cause...as determined by induction from science.
So, as Leibnez said in the 18 century, "If there is no God, why is there anything at all?"
I won't address the other comments as the Spurs are beating hell out of Miami.
Keep looking under the rocks...you will find truth if you are honest with yourself. Good Luck.
As Julian of Norwich writes, "In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought "What may this be?" And it was generally answered thus: "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: "It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it."