2nd QUOTE: "'I believe atheism is the least plausible of all the theologies. It is clearly so contrary to what is possible. The idea that all this universe always existed, created itself? I mean, talk about the violation of human rationality."

dhw: Why is the idea that the universe “always existed, created itself” more irrational than the idea that a conscious mind capable of creating a universe “always existed” but was never created?

DAVID: I must disagree with your comment (2). Our universe definitely had a start. Therefore it is finite and definitely without a past. You can't avoid First Cause.

I have never avoided first cause. If the Big Bang happened (please remember that it is a theory, not a fact), of course it had a cause, and it is no more rational to say that the cause was a conscious mind that had always existed and was never created than to say that the cause was unconscious energy and matter that had always existed and was never created.