How could there of been a god if there was no one around to assign it the tite of go and then worship it?

Tell him infinity is an imaginary number for this very reason. Immagine a universe that is infinite in time - we would never get to this point and thus not exist to be having this discussion.

How, precisely?

I mean, how can it be measured?

If it can't be measured, either directly or indirectly, then it's basically a meaningless category. 'God', I mean.

Not a terribly good analogy, I'm afraid. We know a human ('you') made the drawing. We can trace (no pun intended) the events and causes that led to its creation backward to its parts, finding the causal reason why it was created and what its component pieces are.

Not so with theories about what god did. For a long, long time it was just a given that some sort of god created things and/or sustained them. Now, however, there are some very real challenges to the premises behind the need for a god- from various flavors of the ontological argument to the moral argument- that haven't been sufficiently answered by theists.

Though the problem *here* is that, we're dealing not with what we *know* what god did, but what we *think* god did, even given the idea that god exists, in some fashion.

I guess it depends on how you look at God. God created everything, God is outside of our current time/space understanding, so its like trying to understand another demensnion we've never witnessed and have no idea on. The 2d man gets picked up by someone from the 3rd demension example basicly.

Everyone keeps trying to put a human perspective on something that is so far out of our understanding.

I wouldn't argue this angle. Their starting point "God" is a naked assertion. Once you blindly accept the naked assertion, you can wrap it up with more naked assertions and keep piling them on.

I would try to argue the scientific absurdity of the "Omni-" atributes of claimed being, and the moraly repugnant deadbeat god who is selective about his intervention.

Always remember, they are working backwards in their thinking. They assume a deity then look for reasons to justify it. Logic in finding answers in the real world starts with substantiated data then works from there.

This theist's intelligence never existed and never will exist.

But you haven't actually made a counterpoint. You've merely given additional validation to his already perfectly valid point. If we have a claim like the existence of "God", the contents of which supposedly pertain to something which, by the admission of the people making the claim, are beyond their and anyone's understanding, then their claim is self-defeating. It's a completely pointless claim since it by definition requires the relinquishing of all knowledge claims one could make about this entity and therefore creates a mystery of one’s own devising.

Particles did not exist until the gauge interactions that occurred after the separation of forces during the Planck era allowed for the formation of the Higgs Boson (after the Planck era). Since this occurred several billion Planck times after the Big Bang, we know that two particles did not initiate the Big Bang. The initial state (before the Planck era) is something which is purely hypothetical, at least until have a unified field theory.

But the only people who claim to "know" how the universe started are theists. An admission of ignorance on the origin of the universe is not justification for some vague and meaningless hand-waving about some supposed "higher being" which is supposedly "beyond all possible understanding". Can't you see that you are shooting yourself in the foot by making this claim?

I guess it comes down to your point of view. I would never claim to know how the universe was created, im happy with knowing that its far out of my understanding, and far out of anyones understanding for at least hundreds of years, if not thousands. I guess the point I was trying to make wasnt clear enough, its all way to far out of our understanding and science at the moment. I do belive there was something more than a coincidence behind it all, though I do admit that while it wasnt a coincidence there may be little or no meaning behind it.

When it comes to the universe anything we create to explain it is a theory, some have more weight than others, such as those based on evidence. But theories are just that, theories. They try to explain something with the science of today, they evolve and change over time as we learn new things. Some are found out to be false and eventualy die out. Some are actualy right and we use them to grow what we know.

Whats wrong with having a theory that there was something else behind the creation of the universe, that there was some kind of intelligence that started it all? Sure there isnt much evidence to say with any certinity either way, but when our understanding of such things is alot greater we have every chance of finding out if there was. Chances are that to explain how our universe did start we might create another universe, making us the creater of that universe. Of course for that to be even remotely posible we need to understand ALOT more of how everything works, at the moment we are still just starting out to figure these things out.

If every theory was shot down and never expanded on just because there is no evidence right now we would be in a different world. We wouldnt be where we are at now. So saying that a 'God' doesnt exist is still premature, because we dont know for fact either way.

So saying that Thor doesn't exist is still premature, because we don't know for fact either way.

If a child was to ask you if there is a monster in the closet. Would you answer "I don't know"?

You have never seen a monster, I assume, but you do not have facts that they don't exist.. So you are obligated to answer "I don't know" to the child.

Not believing in something does not require facts, the lack of facts should suffice.