Another Facebook exchange with a good buddy of mine, who I will henceforth call "Donkey" in order to protect his anonymity. Donkey's comments were spawned by tonight's debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham:
God created the Universe first, then created man...So if God created the Universe just to show man how awesome he was...1) where was God before the Universe existed? Cleveland? 2) Isn't that kind of egotistical - "Hey look at me, I made a Universe that you two people can't understand yet, but hang on...one day you might. Unless Ken Ham gets there first."
To slightly paraphrase my remarks, I responded as follows:
I love you, Donkey, but that's a straw man - most (thinking) theists don't believe that God created the universe to show off his awesomeness (although I'd argue that this awesomeness is sometimes made manifest - for our sake, and not his - so that we might come to recognize his existence).
As for question 1), assuming that this is a variant of the "Well then, who created God" argument, remember that most date the time-space continuum back to the big bang. When dealing with questions of causation, such as who or what created whom or what, we presuppose the existence of time. After all, a cause chronologically precedes its effect. But if time does have a beginning, then it would be absurd to ask who or what created (i.e., caused the existence of) God prior to the Big Bang.
Can we wrap our minds around the concept of a being without a beginning? No. But I think it's arrogant of us to dismiss something simply because we can't understand it.
He totally converted after that. Not really.
