Satan's Little Helper appeals to vast periods of time where one "state" slowly begats another state to account for the universe.
This of course is pure fantasy. No matter how many eons of time you imagine the result is still the same. And, that reality is that the most brilliant scientists who have ever lived, in the most controlled of labratory circumstances ever devised, have never been able to create something from nothing.....EVER.
Please explain what "state" was the beginning state from which the other states morphed from. What's that you say? "The state was nothing". Your argument has the exact same constitution as the first state that you present .... nothing.
That the universe had a beginning is beyond dispute scientifically. That beginning infers a First Cause. This proof was very troubling for atheist scientists initially.
If you say on the one hand, that a "state" existed before the universe, then you are saying the exact same thing that Genisis says: "In the beginning, God..."
If on the other hand, you state that the universe always self-existed then you have bigger problems with an eternal digression of cause and effect events. That one is easy to disprove. Give me just a second and I will. ...There I did it. Oh, you missed it. Here, I'll do it again. Still don't get it? Allow me to explain.
If time is an infinite digression of C&E events in infinite past, how do you account for the future? For every moment back in time there is one moment in present. Where does the future come from? Your "long series" of time argument that atheists like to use is not your friend. I would encourage you to refrain from using this particular argument.
Now if a "state" existed outside the constraints of time and this "state" brought all things into existence including time, then you have an argument that makes logical sense. That time can be manipulated is beyond dispute, proven some one hundred years ago by a man named Albert Einstein....perhaps you've heard of him?
If that is true, then from the standpoint of beings such as us (which is the only one that concerns us right now), then the universe would have been seen to appear out of nothing as time and matter came into existence.
From the standpoint of God, the universe, time, energy would be simply the effects of the manifested causes of his willful creativity. In other words, the time that you imagine to be so permanent and that in fact characterrizes your faulty arguments is in fact not permanent at all. Time itself had a beginning.
Since he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, it is very unwise to simply "imagine" him out of existence. The truly fearful thing is that he loves justice as much as he loves us. As in our own societies, crimes must be punished or else the society cannot be characterized as just. God must punish us for our crimes or else he cannot be characterized as just either.
Both our punishment and our reward is eternal. The non-existense that you imagine when you die is just another atheist fantasy. It's not the end. It's just the beginning of your nighmare.
The stakes are very, very high. As any mother would scream, "take me instead"! if she found out her daughter had just been kidnapped and unnaturally perverted; so too God decided, (yea even planned) to take the shaft for us when we were perverted by our captor. That Roman spear is our destiny. But he took the shaft for you and me and anyone else that would accept his ransom purchase.
Satan reasons:
What practical content have you provided? You use sweepingly incorrect generalisation along with straw man arguments and childish rhetoric. You even go so far as to state that "god simply created it", how wonderfully convenient. Lets stop thinking about everything then shall we, god obviously intended things to be the way they are so lets not bother with science or medicine because god obviously intended everyone to die of the flu. You see there are way too many holes for the god theory to stand up, if you think he's so damn wonderful then ask him to explain cancer.
Atheists like to cry and whine about why God doesn't fix this problem or why he doesn't solve that pain I see over there. The reason is that he is not your Father. You are not his son. He has no responsibility toward any of us whatsoever. We are naturally from our father the devil, being trapped in sin and completely unable to do that which we can all imagine: don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery. Yet, ALL of us are GUILTY of these and far more even though most of us don't want to do it. Atheists do not find this curious at all, well because they're atheists.
It gets much worse. In our depraved state, we can imagine righteousness but must live out our moral failures. Atheists try to relieve this problem by saying there is no such thing as morality, or that it's relative. This is just anarchy and they know it. Let's see an atheists raise their 3 year old like this. "Johnny" you may kick the dog if you feel that is right for you". UTTER BOVINE EXCREMENT.
It still gets worse. Our depravity is so complete that we cannot even choose to choose God if he first doesn't make that possible. "So that no man may boast".
Some will then say then, "why even seek God if I can't do it on my own"? You will need to read this sentence over and over until you see the self-fulfilling prophecy imbedded within it.
The reason that God arranged to deal with us in our utter weakness, blindness, and depravity is that he did it another way before man's existence and God was burned badly by a very large rebellion. He created us (the elect) in part to replace the rebelious angels, and to raise us from our depths of wickedness and self-deception to the heights of DIRECT SONSHIP with God. This is clearly taught in the scriptures. "To which of the angels did he say 'this is my son'"? The answer is none. Jesus was his only son. But we the elect undergo sanctification now until we "reach the full height and stature of the Christ"! The other reason is to provide judges for the rebellious angels. Yes, we will be their masters.... and they know it! They fear ANYONE who accepts the offer to "Come, and take Life's water free". Our destiny will be their complete humilitation.
This is an unimaginable destiny for ANY who accept his pardon for our crimes. The reason that we must start out in total depravity is precisely because our destiny is total LIFE. Self-Life. God wishes to make sure that no one can ever boast that they did it, or had a hand in it themselves. It's all his doing.
God is playing a very high stakes game with Life. We (fallen humans) are the focus of his greatest moral creation yet.... the elect. But, we must start out as we are now.
Of course, the other option is to simply stick your head in the ground and imagine that you are just a globular DNA mass existing alone in the universe with no purpose, no basis for justice, and no basis for ....well anything.
