In the last time, strange claims were made about cause in several threads here, like this:

Quote:

everything has a cause.


and this

Quote:

God, who is outside of cause.



However, neither the first nor the second claim was given any reasons for. In fact the first statement is plain wrong, and the second one is at least self-contradictory in its context.

First: We know that on the atomic scale things happen all the time without a cause. An example for this is nuclear decay. It's predicted by quantum theory and proven by experiment that radioactive atoms spontaneously split without any internal mechanism triggering this event:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

Another example of an event happening without a cause is the spontaneous creation of matter out of nothing, which also happens all the time around us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

So, think about this when telling someone "everything has a cause" the next time. Most events in our world have no cause.

Second: Is God outside of cause?

Yes, in the sense of modern religion, where God is considered as an idea of ethics or a principle of creation. You can then assume that this principle is an axiom, and thus has no cause.

No, in the sense of a superstitious religion, which believes that one or several gods control magical or supernatural forces within the realm of our nature - for instance for creating animals out of nothing. This places God or God's force as a supernatural, physical entity within our universe. And then, when you believe everyting in our universe has a cause, your supernatural God must have a cause too (unless he's an event on an atomic scale).

This is just a little suggestion that platitudes like "everything has a cause" are not always useable as arguments in a discussion.