Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

In most of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence. 

With such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God. The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way, does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.

Well, that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist), but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I claim to be able to know anything.

First of all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God, whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually supported by the history of modern Deism:

Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.

— Deism - Wikipedia

In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.

Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. Every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design), the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence.

There have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal attempts:

• God of the Gaps
• The Argument from Design
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Fine Tuned Universe

To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to incorrect conclusions.

Finally, even if the Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly exist. For more on this, see:

• Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless
• The Logical Impossibility of God

Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.

Trying to Make Sense of Noah’s Ark

At the time the story of Noah’s Ark was first written thousands of years ago, it actually made some sort of sense to talk about building a boat large enough to carry representative samples of each of the various kinds of animal on earth. After all, the people who wrote the story didn’t actually know about the existence of most of the different species existing on earth. Sure, they knew about camels, horses, goats, cows, sheep, wolves, cats, bears, lions, elephants, etc., but they had no idea whatsoever about, say, kangaroos and koalas, sloths, penguins, opossums, and all the rest of the animals that lived beyond their small universe of experience. So if you’re only talking about hundreds of different species instead of thousands (or millions), then it makes perfect sense to think about somebody building an ark to hold them all.

OK, so maybe not perfect sense, since you’d still have to deal with feeding them all, disposing of all their waste, and constructing such a monstrous and unseaworthy vessel in the first place using bronze age technology, but you get the point. Those are all minor issue compared to the big one of fitting millions of animals.

That was then, though. Nowadays, we are fully aware of the vast number of different animals that exist today across the globe and not even the most die-hard, blinded by faith, Young Earth Creationist would ever consider denying the existence of these animals. Nobody goes around claiming that kangaroos are a hoax perpetuated by scientists the way that they might claim that evolution is a hoax. After all, we can all go to zoos and actually see many of the animals that were completely unknown to the authors of the Noah story. So, given the fact that there truly are just way too many different species of animals that could ever possibly fit onto a single ark, even the most die-hard, blinded by faith, Young Earth Creationists have to admit that it’s just a made up story, right?

Yeah, right. And Flat-Earthers are all going to finally admit the Earth is round because NASA has provided proof that it has satellites and space stations orbiting the planet. Not gonna happen, sorry.

So, how do Biblical literalists still make sense of the story of Noah’s Ark given what we now know about the animal kingdom? Well, first of all, they claim that there were certain types of animals that Noah didn’t need to bring on board. Sea creatures, for example, could all survive in the water and many species of insects could have probably survived by hanging out on mats of floating vegetation or something similar. Forget the fact that the sudden influx of fresh water and the co-mingling of fresh and salt water would have killed off many marine creatures that have evolved to only live in fresh or salt-water environments. It all sort of makes sense, right?

Second of all, Noah only brought juvenile members of each species onto the ark. Little baby animals (even little baby dinosaurs) take up a lot less room and don’t eat nearly as much as full-grown adult animals, right? I mean, ignore the fact that this isn’t actually mentioned in the Biblical account anywhere, since it could have happened, right? Even if it did happen that way, though, we’re still talking about way too many animals to ever fit into an ark. Which brings us to…

Third, and most important of all, instead of bringing two (or, in some cases, seven) of each species of animal onto the ark, Noah brought two (or, in some cases, seven) of each “kind” of animal. Now, “kind” is not a scientific term, but Young Earth Creationists use a sort of “common sense” approach to determining what is and is not a “kind.” For example, instead of bringing representative samples of dogs, coyotes, jackals, dingos, hyenas, etc., on the ark, Noah would have just brought a pair of some “dog-like” creature (perhaps similar to a wolf). Similarly, instead of bringing lions, tigers, jaguars, ocelots, lynxes, etc., Noah just brought a pair of “cats.”

So, yeah — perfectly sensible, right?

Except… no. The problem with this explanation is that it requires the speciation of thousands and thousands of different “kinds” to occur over the last 4000 years at a speed which would make an evolutionary biologist blush in embarrassment and without anybody actually noticing it happening (Young earth Creationists love to attack things like evolution by claiming it has never been observed, but then they are perfectly willing to accept this).

Just to out this into perspective, after the ark landed at Mt. Ararat, the descendants of this breeding pair of “felines” would have had to rapidly speciate to produce all the different types of cats we see today. Yes, one breeding pair of “cat” was responsible for all the Lions, Tigers, Jaguars, Panthers, Leopards, Ocelots, Lynxes (Canadian, Iberian and Eurasian), House Cats (all the different breeds), Snow Leopards, African Golden Cats, Asian Golden Cats, Bobcats, Caracals, Chinese Desert Cats, Clouded Leopards, Fishing Cats, Servals, African Wild Cats, Andean Mountain Cats, Black-footed Cats, Bornean Bay Cats, European Wild Cats, Flat-headed Cats, Geoffroy’s Cats, Iriomote Cats, Jaguarundi, Jungle Cats, Kodkods, Leopard Cats (different from leopards, mind you), Marbled Cats, Margays, Oncillas, Pallas Cats, Pampas Cat, Pumas (a.k.a Mountain Lions or Cougars), Rusty Spotted Cats and Sand Cats. And all this happened in the last few thousand years or so without anybody seeing it happen.

And that’s just cats, mind you. Repeat the same process with horses (zebras, asses, etc.), dogs (wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc.) and every other “kind” of creature for which we now have many different existing species. All of this happening far more rapidly than has ever been observed in nature, and all without a single person in history ever noticing all these new species miraculously appearing overnight (“Hey — that jaguar just gave birth to an ocelot!”).

Oh, and since dinosaurs must have lived at the same time as humans, Noah also had to bring one representative pair of “dinosaurs” on the ark as well, but they were very small. And they died off right after the ark landed. Or else they lived long enough for their offspring to cover the earth with their fossils and then suddenly died off, again without anybody actually seeing it happen even though it would have been happening right in front of us during all of recorded history.

And, of course, not only would this rapid speciation have to occur without anybody ever taking note of it, but you would also need to explain how all the animals managed to travel to all the distant parts of the word where they eventually ended up. How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it to Australia? How did the Sloths make it to South America? How did the penguins make it to Antarctica?

The only answer to all of these questions that Biblical literalists can provide is, of course, “God did it.” How could Noah build an ark big enough to carry all the necessary animals with only Bronze Age technology? God showed him how to do it. How could such a monstrosity be seaworthy? God performed a miracle and kept it afloat. How could all the different “kinds” of animals rapidly speciate and distribute themselves globally? God made it happen. Etc., etc., etc. If you want to believe this, go for it. God is a god of miracles, after all, and with God nothing is impossible (so they say). But, please, I wish people would stop trying to come up with rational-sounding and pseudo-scientific explanations for how it was all possible or how the story could possibly make any sort of sense. Just admit it was impossible and say that God can do impossible things, end of story. Stop trying to prove that your illogical and irrational beliefs are based in science and just own your beliefs for what they are.

A Revelation Regarding Arguments for the Existence of God

OK, so the title of this post is intentionally meant to be humorous, but after watching yet another debate between a theist and an atheist regarding the existence of God, I had a sudden realization.  An epiphany, if you will.

The theist side of most of these debates usually consists of three main angles of attack:

1. God's existence can be logically proved via a number of different arguments, such as the Cosmological Argument, the Argument from Design or the Argument from Contingency (which is really just a subset of the Cosmological Argument).
    
2. Science (usually equated with atheism for some reason) can't explain everything (or anything, with 100% certainty), but the "God" hypothesis can, so therefore it is more reasonable to believe that God exists.
   
3. Faith, personal revelation, etc., "prove" that the theist's accepted version of God is the right one (which is why Muslims use the same exact arguments as Christians to "prove" wildly different versions of God).

Now, the third angle of attack can usually be dismissed out of hand, simply because the theist acknowledges that there is no way to prove the assertion and it's really just a statement of belief (no matter how deeply held).  And the second line of attack is also pretty easily dismissed, since it's trivial to explain that the burden of proof lies on the head of he who is making a positive claim ("God exists") and atheists don't have to be able to explain anything (or everything) with 100% certainty if theists can't even prove that God exists in the first place.

And so, most of these debates tend to revolve around the first angle of attack.  The theist runs through the same tired arguments that have been refuted time and time again, and the atheist goes through the motions of pointing out how they have been refuted time and time again.  And nothing ever gets resolved!  Even if the atheist refutes every single point made by the theist, even if he explains in careful detail the unwarranted assumptions, begged questions, leaps of logic and major fallacies employed while making the arguments, the theist just continues blithely on to the second and third angles of attack as if nothing happened.

And this is when I had my revelation.  Theists who make these arguments purporting to prove the existence of God aren't actually trying to convince atheists that God exists.  Instead, they are simply trying to offer logical-sounding justifications for what they believe so as to not appear illogical, foolish, gullible, stupid, idiotic, or what have you.  They know that their belief in God is based on a wholly irrational foundation of faith (not to mention cultural inertia, family experience, etc.), and they trot out these arguments to make themselves feel better.

Again, this becomes extremely apparent after a theist runs through all the "logical" arguments as to why a God (of some sort) must necessarily exist, but then has to resort to an appeal to faith or personal revelation or an appeal to emotion to bridge the gap between the supposedly proven "first cause" God and the God that they personally believe in and worship.

All of which is to say that debating theists over the existence of God is probably a useless exercise.  People don't tend to believe in God for logical reasons in the first place, so refuting the logic of their proposed arguments isn't likely to change their opinions.  The arguments are nothing but smokescreens to hide the fact that their beliefs are not based on logic or evidence, since appeals to faith typically don't carry too much weight with the faithless.

The Cosmological Argument

They say there is nothing new under the sun, and that may very well be true.  As I watch various apologists try to justify their belief in God (whether it be the God of Christendom, Allah, or some other version of God), most of them at some point fall back on some form of the so-called "Cosmological" argument that has actually been around for quite a long time and has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy (despite the fact that, as far as I am aware, the God that Aristotle was trying to prove was neither the Christian nor the Muslim God).

Some modern apologists go to great lengths to add numerous subtle nuances to the argument to patch its obvious flaws, but the basic formation of the argument has been codified as the "Kalām Cosmological Argument" (KCA) that reads as follows:

1.  Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

On its face, this is a perfectly valid argument in the sense that the conclusion logically follows from its premises.  There are, however, some serious problems with the argument that basically render it useless on its face.

A Valid Argument Is Not the Same as a Sound Argument

As stated above, a "valid" argument is one which the conclusion logically follows from the stated premises.  However, in order to be at all useful, an argument must also be "sound."  In order to be sound, the conclusion must not only logically follow from the premises, the premises themselves must also be actually true.

For example, the following is a perfectly valid argument that is completely unsound:

1. All elephants can fly
2. Dumbo is an elephant
3. Therefore, Dumbo can fly

This argument is unsound for a variety of reasons, namely that the first premise is not actually true and the second premise refers to a fictional character that doesn't actually exist.  Therefore, this argument is completely useless as an attempt to prove that Dumbo can fly, regardless of whether or not Dumbo really exists and can, in fact, fly. In other words, an unsound argument doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is false, but it simply isn't useful in proving that conclusion.

Another example, perhaps a bit closer to the KCA, would be as follows:

1. All swans have white feathers
2. Black swans are swans
3. Therefore, black swans have white feathers

Again, the problem with this argument is with the first premise.  What makes this argument a bit more subtle than the Dumbo example, however, is the fact that most swans do, in fact, have white feathers.  It's even possible that, before the discovery of the black swan in Australia, every species of swan ever encountered did, in fact, have white feathers.  But there's a huge difference between saying "All swans have white feathers" and saying "All swans that we are currently aware of have white feathers."  Not understanding that empirical evidence is not the same as absolute truth could therefore lead somebody to follow up by claiming that, since black swans must (according to the argument) have white feathers, it must be the case that black swans have a special kind of magical white feathers that just appear black to our eyes instead of just acknowledging that the argument is flawed.

Keeping that in mind, let's take another look at the KCA, but with a few annotations added in:

1. [Based on our limited empirical experience,] whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist [depending on your definition of "universe" and assumed to be true because humans aren't comfortable with the idea of an infinite regress].
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause [unless, of course, the universe is a special case of something that began to exist without having a cause, or unless the universe didn't actually have a true beginning as would be the case if it were part of a multi-verse or in an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction].

The first premise is based on empirical evidence of how things we currently observe behave, but isn't necessarily true for all cases everywhere. Perhaps the universe is the exception to this general rule (after all, we have never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't know whether it follows the same rules as everything else within that universe that we have observed).  Perhaps things come into being by themselves all the time, but just not where we can observe it (or where we have yet observed it).  Or perhaps the entire premise is just flat out wrong and, as physicist Lawrence Krauss describes in his book, "A Universe from Nothing," particles routinely do pop in and out of existence all around us all the time.  Either way, there's simply no justification to accept as absolute the premise that whatever begins to exist has a cause.  It may seem to be common sense and may seem to be based on our experience with the natural world, but that doesn't make it necessarily true by any stretch of the imagination.

[As an aside, it's interesting to note that early formations of the Cosmological Argument simply had "Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.  The big "breakthrough" of the KCA was adding "that begins to exist" to get around the obvious observation that God, as a being who exists, would also necessarily need a cause of his existence.  All we have to do then is magically redefine God as a being who never had a beginning (or "exists outside of time and space") and voila! Problem supposedly solved.  Except, not really.  More on this later...]

As for the second premise, the Bible states that God created the universe out of nothing. That's not what science says, however. The Big Bang theory doesn't explain how the universe was created but simply describes the expansion of the known universe from an seemingly infinitely dense and infinitely small singularity that presumably contained within itself all matter and energy. Where did that singularity come from and what caused it to expand? Nobody knows, but there are numerous theories that do not require any sort of intelligent causation.

Now, some modern apologists try to finesse the argument here by claiming that the universe must have had a beginning since the concept of an "actual" infinity (as opposed to, I assume, the "virtual" infinities that are used in and even required by various disciplines of mathematics and physics) is "metaphysically" impossible.  And by "metaphysically" impossible, these apologists basically mean that the concept makes no sense to them.  OK, so maybe I'm oversimplifying their view a wee bit, but their arguments against "actual" infinities rely on discussions of logical contradictions such as how an infinite amount divided in half would produce two infinite amounts.  And they then claim that this supposed impossibility of an "actual" infinity means that there must have been a beginning to everything at some point, even if you assume the universe is cyclical or budded off from a pre-existing multiverse.

Since the first two premises are not necessarily true, the conclusion is not justified.   The premises could possibly be true, but there's nothing that requires them to be true, and therefore the argument fails on its face as an unsound argument.  Again, this doesn't prove that the conclusion is false, only that this argument doesn't prove it to be true.

What if the Conclusion Is True?

OK, so the cosmological argument isn't sound and therefore the conclusion that the universe had a cause isn't necessarily true.  But it could still be true, right?  And perhaps, some would argue, it's extremely probable even if not necessarily true.

So let's go there and assume for the sake of argument that the conclusion is actually true and there actually was a cause to the universe (either our current universe or the theoretical cyclical universe or multiverse).  So what?  Even if we accept that the universe somehow had some sort of "cause," we still don't know anything about what that cause was. Could the universe be its own cause (again, we've never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't say what the rules are for universe creation)?  Why does it have to be an intelligent being (lot's of things happen by random chance, so why do we insist that the creation of the universe must have been done on purpose)?

Some apologists start with the conclusion that the universe must have had a "cause" of some sort and try to make all sorts of inferences as to what this cause must be like.  For example, since whatever caused space and time to exist in the first place can't possibly exist in space or time itself, this cause must therefore be somehow timeless (a.k.a "eternal") and immaterial.  Gee, they then claim, this sounds an awful like the God of [insert pet religion here], since that God is described as being eternal and a being of pure mind.  Except... Well, first of all, there's no explanation given as to how something that is timeless and immaterial could actually have any interaction whatsoever with time and space.  It just did.  Second of all, God isn't actually described as a "pure mind" in any of the holy scriptures (in fact, he is described as a physical being who interacts with his creations).  Third, while God is described as being "eternal" in the holy books, that's not the same as "existing outside of time" or "timeless."  It just means he has existed forever and will exist forever, "forever" being a measurement of time and not a state outside of time.

These apologists will also argue that whatever caused the universe to exist must be an "agent" of some sort, meaning an intelligent being.  And this is supposedly because something had to choose to create the universe or else it would have stayed in it's uncreated state forever.  And only an intelligent being is capable of choosing.  Except... the whole concept of choosing implies the passage of time.  The whole concept of a being sitting around saying, "No universe yet, no universe yet, wait for it... NOW!" only makes sense if you're talking about a being that exists within time and not outside of it.  Besides, there's no logical requirement that something like the creation of the universe must be the result of choice in the first place.  If quantum theory teaches us anything at all, it's that sometimes things happen when they do out of sheer random chance.

Which brings us to the part where apologists really back themselves into a corner via a startling bit of circular logic.  If everything that begins to exist must have a cause and the universe must have had a beginning because actual infinities are metaphysically impossible, where did God come from?  As mentioned earlier, the original formulation of the Cosmological Argument stated that everything that exists must have a cause, but modern apologists changed that to everything that begins to exist must have a cause.  This provided them with a loophole to state that God is exempt from the first premise since he didn't actually have a beginning and therefore didn't need a cause to begin to exist.

Well, aside from the fact that this leads to all sort of mental wrangling described above whereby you have to claim that, in order to never have had a beginning, God must simultaneously be an immaterial being consisting of pure "mind" (whatever that means) existing outside of space and time and somehow be able to interact with space and time whenever he wants, it also ignores the second premise of the argument that claims that the universe must have had a beginning because an actual infinity is impossible.  If that is actually true, than it would also apply to God.  Claiming that God, being an infinite and eternal being, is the exception to the rule that actual infinities are impossible is just a case of special pleading and one would be equally justified claiming that the universe (or multiverse) is the exception to the rule and therefore there's no need for God.  In other words,  if the universe necessarily had a beginning then so did God, and no amount of making up claims out of whole cloth that God must be "timeless" can avoid that fact.  And remember -- the "timelessness" of God was not an something originally attributed to him in the scriptures, but was instead something ascribed to him as a way of dealing with the flaws in this argument.  God never claimed to exist outside of time, but assuming that he must do so is the only way this argument can possibly work.  Except that "timelessness" doesn't actually mean anything.  If an "actual infinity" is meaningless, the concept of "timelessness" is surely far, far worse.  Calling God timeless to patch up a flaw in the KCA is like making up the concept of magical white feathers in my black swan argument described above.  Sure, it makes the argument work, but it's ridiculous and self-contradictory on its face and is only required because you want to accept a false premise as true.

But let's go a step further and assume that somehow there is such a thing as an immaterial mind that is both "timeless" and "spaceless" and that such a concept is not just an obvious self-contradiction [Q: What do you call something that does not exist within space and time? A: Nothing].  And let's push accommodation to the very limits and assume that such a being could actually somehow interact with the physical universe, at least to the extent of creating it in the first place.  What justification is there to imagine that intelligent being just happens to be the God worshiped by your particular religion and not that of your neighbor?  One you've "proved" that the universe has a cause and that cause was some sort of intelligent being of some sort, how do you know it's your God?

My favorite part of watching people argue for the existence of their particular God using the Kalām Cosmological Argument is when they get to the end and are inevitably asked how they know that this "first cause" God is their particular God. And then you invariably get answers along the line of "Because Christ came to me and spoke to my heart" or "that's where faith comes in" or "the Koran is the most demonstrably true book ever written", etc.  In other words, every different religion that believes in a God can use the same argument to prove the existence of their particular version of God, and every different religion is convinced that their version of God is the correct one.  Which is to say, an argument that can be used to prove inherently contradictory conclusions is not a particularly useful argument:

In Conclusion...

 So, to sum up:

1. The Cosmological Argument doesn't necessarily prove that the universe must have had any sort of "cause."
2. Even if it the universe did have a cause, there's no justification to claim that that cause must be a conscious agent an trying to describe that cause as existing outside of space and time (since those terms have no actual meaning) or that it is "pure mind" (since we have no evidence that minds can exist apart from a physical brain) or that something that is outside of space and time could even possibly interact with matter and energy in the first place.  After all, when was the last time you were able to affect anything apart from your own body simply by willing it to happen with your mind?
3. Finally, even if the universe did have a cause, and even if that cause could actually be said to be a timeless, immaterial being of pure mind, there's no justification to associate that being with the God of any particular religion, since it doesn't actually match the description of God from any religion's holy books and has, in fact, been equally associated to many different religions.