Did God Need a Creator?

Answering a common argument by atheists for the existence of God.

From the Baloney Detector

Atheists often argue that theists are trapped in an infinite regress. They challenge, “If God made everything, who made God?” as if the only answer is a God-maker, who required a God-maker-maker, and so on. But the argument clings just as much, if not more so, to the atheist. Since nobody believes the universe came from absolutely nothing (i.e., no mass, no energy, no categories, no information, no concepts), everybody has to start with an eternal reality – an uncaused cause. The question then becomes if the eternal reality is personal or impersonal. But why, then, would an impersonal reality ever give rise to personality? and how would a personal being be able to know it to be true, unless truth also presupposes personal cognition? The personal uncaused cause is therefore a superior starting point.

The Circular Reasoning Fallacy and Infinite Regress

Who watches the watchers? The watcher watchers. Who watches the watcher watchers? The watcher-watcher watchers (etc.)  Evolution: pushing the origin of complex specified information back to a common ancestor, then a more distant ancestor, and so on, without answering the question of where the information came from.  Panspermia: Life was brought to earth by aliens. Where did the aliens come from? They were brought to their planet by earlier aliens (etc.)  Oscillating universe: our current universe is the latest in an infinite series of oscillating universes. The multiverse: we exist because our universe was naturally selected from an infinite number of unobservable universes.

Note: Circular Reasoning is like an Infinite Regress in a circle. Infinite Regress as described here is a linear regress back into the infinite past.

This short essay comes from the Infinite Regress item in the Logical Fallacies section of the Baloney Detector.

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