Does God Exist?

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politicus,

Welcome to the forum!  After we lost several female posters in the last year, your arrival here is great news--thank goodness!

In answer to the thread question, no.

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The burden of proof would seem to lie on the party that postulates the existence of a specific kind of cause.  

It's certainly not unreasonable to believe that the existence of the universe in its current configuration had a cause or set of causes.  But the series of causes could indeed be just an infinite series of causes, or we may just not know, and may never know, the nature of the preceding causes.  On the contrary, there is no good argument, and no evidence whatsoever, that the commonly accepted notion of "God" was that cause.  That's why people who believe in God do so because of faith, and not because of reason.  I happen not to have any such faith.  

In the final analysis, I don't want to be a mortal being, I don't want to die and be gone forever, any more than anyone else does.  I hate that fact not just for myself, but for all the people I love as well.  But my abhorrence at the fact that I, and all my loved ones, will soon be dead doesn't justify the belief in some divine being--it just doesn't.  Unchangeable facts need to be acknowledged and faced, even when it's hardest to face them.