First off, when I wrote: : "It can be proved or disproved," I meant to write "cannot" not "can."I am not starting with the axiom, "God exists;" I am starting with the axiom, "Something cannot come from nothing." At this point, you may ask, why not? Indeed, I could be wrong, but this seems, forgive me, a logical principle. If my initial axiom is false, then everything I'm about to say falls apart, but assuming it's not:
You chide me for my claiming to use logical deduction and the process of elimination to produce what I agree with you is only a belief, viz, that God made the universe (BTW, thanks for reminding me of the word, "viz"). Now, you say that what I have here is a "conclusion," i.e., a reasoned judgment, and not a "deduction," i.e., a conclusion derived from reasoning. If there is a distinction between those two terms, it's lost on me. Onward.
I have a mystery before me: where did it all come from? I've tried to reason, by working backwards, where it came from, and as I've written before, I always come to that brick wall behind which is nothing, and so I conclude, the answer is God. You say this is not a logical process. I'm willing to accept that I don't fully understand the formal philosophy of logic, but allow me to offer you another example, and then you tell me whether or not logic was involved:
A detective bursts into a room locked from
the inside. Within there are no windows or other doors.
In the middle of the room, he finds a dead man. He was
shot in the head, and lies on the floor clutching a gun.
A suicide note is pinned to his shirt. The detective was not
there to observe the actual events, but as a detective, he is
trained to analyze the existing evidence and come up with a
theory of events. His theory is, the dead man committed suicide.
Now, Gideon, tell me please if our detective used logic to derive his theory, or some other process (and if so, what would you call that process?). I've tried to use the same detective work in theorizing about the origin of the Universe. Logic, or something else?
I'm not trying to argue with you so much as understand why you insist my method is not a logical one.
