THE ARGUMENT MUSLIMS & CHRISTIANS AGREE ON (AND BOTH GET WRONG)

A Muslim recently told me why he believes God exists. He used a very common argument that is also used by Christians so I thought it worthwhile giving a full rebuttal. Here it is:

It's good to see you have thought about this a little bit but you have not thought about it a lot.

I can say this with confidence because your argument uses common logical fallacies and at least one assumption that is most likely wrong. Once you eliminate these errors, your argument disappears.

You said, "Can this universe just spring out of nothing without a source?"

Firstly, we don't know the universe did spring out of nothing. There are very good reasons to believe that the universe began to expand about 13.8 billion years ago. But we don't know what triggered the expansion nor do we know what existed prior to the expansion. However, there is no reason to believe nothing existed prior to the expansion--this is an unwarranted assumption.

You said, "I believe the Energy that started everything, and is everything, is God."

OK but that is just a belief. You do not know that it is true--you don't even know that God exists to start everything. So this is your second problem--you just assume what happened and who was responsible and there is no reason to believe your assumptions are true. You need to prove God exists before it makes sense to even suggest this. Assuming what you are trying to prove (that God exists), is the fallacy of circular reasoning and it renders your argument invalid.

Essentially your argument is, I can't see any way the universe we see today could have come to exist without a supernatural power, therefore a supernatural power must exist. This is an example of the argument from ignorance fallacy. Just because you can't see a way this could have happened does not mean a supernatural power either exists or was involved.

You don't know everything, and even if no one alive today knows how the universe could have come about, it does not mean no one will ever know. Do you know every explanation science will ever propose for this in, say, the next 10,000 years? No, of course, you don't, which is why your argument is invalid.

Your argument is already deceased but you have made yet one more error, so I'll mention it for completeness. As a Muslim, you believe in a god first introduced to the world by Abraham. This is one of the thousands of gods that men have worshipped. This god could have revealed itself to Abraham or it could be one of the thousands of fictional gods that men have made up. Can you prove Abraham's god was not invented? I don't think you can but feel free to try.

So, even if a supernatural power was responsible, you don't know which power was responsible. It could even have been a god that has never revealed itself to mankind and it could be that ALL human gods were invented by humans. You are just assuming that if a god was involved, it was Abraham's god. Such an assumption is just a baseless opinion.

With such a combination of fallacies and unwarranted assumptions, your argument is completely worthless. If this is why you believe your god exists, I suggest you stop believing it because believing things for bad reasons is definitely not smart.(Copied)