Do you believe in cause and effect? That is, do you think every event must have been caused by some other event? Or do you think that things just happen spontaneously, with no explanation or cause whatsoever? If you believe in cause and effect, then you must believe that the universe as a whole has a cause. If you didn’t, then you’d have to believe that we ourselves don’t exist, which is absurd. So, if you believe in cause and effect, and you believe we exist, you must believe in a cause of everything, which is what most people call God. Therefore belief in God must be rationally necessary, to the extent that we believe in cause and effect and our own existence. QED.
May 10, 2013 by m4u
metonymy4u 
The argument by first cause is a very flawed argument: what, apart from a first cause, do you define god as? Any first cause must be exempt from cause: if you cannot define God in any real sense, and defining him as the first cause is not satisfactory without a definition that exempts him from causality, then the concept behind the word “God” is non-existent and the word God doesn’t refer to anything.
yes of course, i agree with you. defining god as first cause necessitates that she/he be outside of spacetime and causality, and therefore is not something that can be spoken at all. (“Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann,…” and all that rot…).
this post was an exercise i set myself to see how succintly i could articulate Leibniz’s version of the ontological proof.
but, how about this more Kantian version? —
God defined as the limit of the infinitely inductive series of spacetime approximations to an arbitrary boundary condition, as well as the limit of an infinite series of attempts to remove all contingencies to the accomplishment of the promptings of duty.
(see my latest posting for my thinking leading up to this particular redescription).
thanks for your comment! 🙂