> This is one of the things that really confuses me about what religions say. Somehow it's impossible for the universe to have boomed out of nowhere, but it *is* possible for a supreme being to just *be*. It seems that most religions think of God as more perfect that the universe, and that makes me wonder how something more complex than the universe can just be there, and the universe can't. If I'm not understanding, then can someone please clear this up for me?

Not really, because it isn't enormously clear to me. But that never stopped me before. Basically, the universe is natural and has to follow natural rules. God is supernatural and doesn't have to follow the rules he imposed on the universe.

It sort of relates to why naturalists accepting a beginning (the Big Bang) to the universe was such a boon to Christian evangelism, even if the timing is messed up. Previously, everyone in the scientific community had known that the universe was eternal and thus needed no creator, and only ignorant Bible-thumpers said otherwise. But because the universe really did have a beginning and no ultimate cause can exist within the universe to have effected itself, logic demands a cause outside the universe. Even committed atheists will allow for belief in a First Cause sort of god.

I'll misquote C.S. Lewis, who wrote something very similar to "Unless something is self-existant, nothing can exist at all." It's an odd thought, but true nonetheless.

gab"wonders if this will lead to one of those flame threads"by