If I see a building, it is evidence of a builder. If I look at the universe ("the Creation"), it is evidence of a Creator, based on our knowledge that all things are caused; it is cause and effect. God is the cause and the world is the effect.
Something was the first step (the first cause) in a chain reaction that caused all this to exist, something that by necessity pre-existed the existence, something not of this world. That first cause is what we call God.
It really takes a very special person to deny that something caused all this to exist, or to claim that a house just built itself from ground up!
The Creation was created to procreate based on created physical laws, perpetuum mobile (perpetual motion), a self-generating and re- generating mechanism.
The second thing we know, based on what we can see, is that mercy is not found in animal nature. Only humans are capable of mercy, but it is not intrinsic to our nature; it must be learned from without. And since it is found in no other species on earth, we can safely say that mercy is something we know that is not of this world .
In the course of human history we have come to connect God with mercy, as we see that the world we live in is full of abundant blessings, and that with our capacity and knowledge we can truly live in paradise if we follow that which is not of this world.
Different peoples have developed different ideas of what or who that first cause is and what mercy means; they are human constructs that reflect humanity in different shapes and forms. This is where we begin to depart from things knowable (self-evident truths), to man-made attributes about God.
The bulk of our faith is based on our man-made constructs and preconceived notions because the core tells us very little about God, except that He is the First Cause who gave us plenty in abundance.
If I see a building, it is evidence of a builder.
Yes it is.
If I look at the universe ("the Creation"), it is evidence of a Creator, based on our knowledge that all things are caused; it is cause and effect.
Now you begin to beg the question, by assuming that the universe was indeed created.
Something was the first step (the first cause) in a chain reaction that caused all this to exist, something that by necessity pre-existed the existence, something not of this world.
This is not a logical necessity at all. Why must there be a first? It is nothing more than an assumption that there is a first. In fact, when you state that "based on our knowledge that all things are caused", this can also be taken as evidence against a hypothetical "first cause".
That first cause is what we call God.
Yes we do. But unfortunately your argument failed to prove its existance.
It really takes a very special person to deny that something caused all this to exist, or to claim that a house just built itself from ground up!
But it does not take a "very special person" to see the difference between Creation (which God made ex nihilo) and construction, which is simply a rearrangement of things that are already here!
It is impossible logically to PROVE God's existance. Think about it: How can God be "deduced"? Deduction works from general to specific (the opposite direction of inference). There is no set of axioms that can circumscribe God, and if there were He wouldn't be God! So we have to work from inference.
The Creation was created to procreate based on created physical laws, perpetuum mobile (perpetual motion), a self-generating and re- generating mechanism.
The laws were created? Ah, but this is where it gets interesting! We can observe things like the motions of planets or the interactions of atoms and, through empirical evidence, predict with confidence how these things might behave. So there seems to be a sort of natural order, or law that governs these things. Now if we really are to speak of a "first cause", then wouldn't that be the Law itself? But I don't mean the mathematical relations we use to describe the behavior of things, but the very essence of the Law itself which surpasses all understanding:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
We are subject to God's Logos, not He to ours.