Hello Mr. Papageno, thanks for responding.

I apologize for taking so long to respond! I didn't see this response of yours until now.

You said:

"It is also logical that bats are birds.

But they are not. And we can demonstrate that.

So appealing to logic without any evidence really won't get you anywhere."

I entirely agree that logic without evidence won't create a persuasive argument. Logic depends on reliable evidence to be able to reason from.

But we do have sufficient evidence in this case for us to reason logically. I'll explain more in a bit.

You said:

"We don't have any natural explanations for the origins of the Universe, so the most honest answer anyone can give is "we don't know".

You're correct that we don't have any natural explanation for the origin of the universe.

But that doesn't mean we have no explanation.

It only means the explanation isn't natural.

Which shouldn't be surprising, considering that we're looking for the origin of everything we consider natural. Whatever is powerful enough to create the natural world must, by simple definition, be super-natural -- above the natural, not bound by it, different from it.

This we witness all the time.

A programmer who creates a digital world is above it, not bound by it, different from it. So is a painter over her canvas, or an author over their imagined worlds.

The creator is always greater than the creation -- not bound by the same rules as their creation.

Whatever created the natural world, whether a person or a force or whatever else you want to suppose, it must be greater than the natural world, not bound by its rules.

You said:

"You take it a step further and say "we don't have any natural explanations for the universe that we can demonstrate, so I'll go with this supernatural thing that I can't demonstrate".

Logic doesn't require that we can demonstrate what happened in order to know that it certainly did happen.

Crime scene investigators do this all the time.

As soon as they walk into the room with blood on the carpet, a cold body, and the safe ripped out of the wall, they know a crime has happened, even if they can't demonstrate it yet.

As they study it more and more, they can get a clearer and clearer picture of what happened by reasoning logically from the evidence they collect.

That's all we're doing.

It's entirely logical to collect evidence by studying our universe and reasoning logically from it.

And we do find that everything natural proceeds from a cause. Every effect requires a cause sufficient to explain it.

The creation of the natural universe is an effect so large that no natural cause can explain it. Natural causes cannot arise spontaneously. Every natural cause comes from natural effects, produced by prior natural causes. And so on the chain goes.

At the start of this cause-effect chain, there MUST be a supernatural cause -- something that can exist independently of being caused, itself.

If such a thing does not exist, then nothing could exist to start the natural cause-effect chain.

This is not a shot in the dark. It's entirely certain, logically -- something supernatural MUST exist, something that exists without being caused. If it doesn't, nothing could start the natural chain of cause and effect.

You said:

"That's where we differ, and we will never agree.

But it is a true joy to read your writings, sir."

It's a joy to dialogue with you, my friend.

I get the sense we could hang out and have a great time, whether or not we agree on things.