"Two widely read atheistic authors, Richard Dawkins (2006, p. 155) and Sam Harris (2006, p. 73-74) have succumbed to the guiles of Leibniz’s PEQ by countenancing it misguidedly as a searching question that rightly calls for an explanatory answer. Thus, Dawkins allowed a “first cause, the great unknown which is responsible for something existing rather than nothing” (ibid.). And Harris capitulates to PEQ, declaring with very misplaced intellectual humility: “Any intellectually honest person will admit that he does not know why the universe exists. Scientists, of course, readily admit their ignorance on this point” [italics in original] (ibid. p. 74]. But surely the failure to answer a pseudo-question does not bespeak ignorance on the part of scientists, philosophers or even the man in the street. Thus, Dawkins and Harris very misguidedly took PEQ as legitimate grounds for watering down their atheism."

I understand the sentiment of the paper, but it doesn't answer my question. Is there a causal mechanism? If there is an intellectual being - what is its cause? And if not - is there a cause for the cause?

Let me give you a bit more info on what I believe in: the universe has a self-causal mechanism. We are all God, and intelligent life isn't an accident created by the universe. It's an emergent and 'programmed' mechanism which causes it to spring into existence. I'm hoping to see some other viewpoints from the crowd here - so I do appreciate you're input, but it still doesn't answer my question: what belief do you have which might be different from the mainstream view? You seem to be leaning more towards what's already there...what makes your viewpoint different?

I was thinking one day, that if you assume that in the beginning was a consciousness, but nothing else, which for the sake of argument, we can call God, then it could not create anything like our world (or the world of the Bible) without inspiration. It couldn't even conceive of light or matter. It would essentially be trapped in a void without time or space. So creating infinite universes according to arbitrary and random rules and seeing what would develop would be the best it could do to escape nothingness. And then once something interesting developed, it would have to inhabit things (like us) located in time and space to avoid it all being like a dead crystal or painting.

I would speculate that the original state of things was hell, and the universe exists as a mechanism to invent heaven and forget hell, but it's inordinately difficult.

Ahhh - very interesting take!! But I see that your viewpoint essentially states: consciousness is ever-lasting and it is the 'base.' There is no consistency nor wonder in it: it just existed and created an infinite branch - one in which we exist. Very interesting idea, and one which I see is a mixture of having a creator and both having a 'wave function' trying out all paths - but nonetheless, how do you get rid of the inconsistency of having something there that doesn't have a logical base? Or maybe - we don't need a logical base - some things just are I suppose?