By way of explanation

The Neutrino Leap is what I have decided to call my own restatement of the old argument about the existence of God. I am unsure as to which particular strain of this argument it belongs, but if I explain it then you will be able to judge for yourself.

The neutrino is a virtually massless element of particle physics. It travels near the speed of light and passes through just about anything - making it very difficult to detect. It was, in effect, not so much as discovered as it is required by our understanding of particle physics - our understanding of what the world is made of required neutrinos to exist. There have, since the 1950's, been experiments conducted that show what we understand to be the affects of neutrinos (in fact 'anti-neutrinos', but let's not overcomplicate things) in the lab - and it is by their affects that we know both that they exist and what their nature is.

So it was by establishing a theory through experiment and observation that we posited this thing's existence and described its nature. The discovery of the neutrino (i.e. the photographing, the displaying) could wait for we were sure of its existence through its necessity to our system - it's function was necessary so its existence was assured.

This is my precedent, my model of argument;  the neutrino's existence was proved by the necessity of its function, not its discovery. The nature of the neutrino was such that one had to accept its direct observation to be beyond the bounds of the scientist's equipment, therefore accept its existence by way of necessity.

And so to the greatest mystery; everything. The borders of our knowledge have been set now at a fraction of a second after the big bang - CERN is attempting to recreate the conditions of that moment to look for another hypothetical particle, the Higgs Boson - to guess at what came before is considered unscientific. I would say it is scientific to apply established theory to present a hypothesis to explain said event. The nature of that hypothesis, on the other hand, is where the argument becomes confused.

There is, unarguably and uncontroversially, a mysterious creating force. We have an established theory that nothing comes from nothing; that creation ex nihilo is not only impossible but, bluntly, nonsense - like the idea of a circle that is square - the terms are incompatible. Nothing comes nothing; everything exists; everything was created by an event that has its root outside of time and space, as neither time nor space existed as we understand them before existence itself. 

A timeless and spaceless, mysterious creating force is what we arrive at. I do not think that this is in anyway controversial. Atheist and theist; Dawkins and Benedict can agree with this (not that I think they necessarily would). It is from here that the arguments begin.

I do not see how you can extrapolate the traditional Catholic view of God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omni-benevolent from what we have said so far. Creators quite often make things they hate and discard and to create the universe from nothing does not make one all-powerful, all-knowing or present everywhere. There is no logic to these traditional categories.

But I will call the timeless, spaceless, mysterious creating force 'God' because that is its traditional name. I would call it 'X' but that would be to avoid the issue - God is the name of the creating  force in the universe; to give it any other name would be awful political correctness and self-censorship. Dawkins would therefore loath me but hey man; the feeling's mutual.

It is the attempts to force dogma onto science that undermines all argument in this area. Dawkins will make absolute statements of faith like 'there is no God; what is just is' with no care for scientific method or investigation of this absurd statement. A Catholic will embrace this idea but then commit heresy against reason and again inject faith into understanding, overstepping all rational bounds in an attempt to revive the traditions of Aquinas and Augustine.

The operative term in my understanding of God is 'mysterious'; I cannot base anything on my idea of it, because my idea is empty; lacking in content. 

God is; so what?

I am no less alone than I was before; I am no taller, no more powerful, my morality and my judgements are no more justified, no more enlightened, no more true; I am a theist in one sense and a nihilist in another. 

There is much that can be drawn from this argument in terms of the way the debate itself should be conducted. Dawkins is clearly a money-grubbing, self-contradictory fool - he steps outside of science and says what it never can; but he says it so insultingly people pay attention to him. When one looks at the great names of philosophy who have addressed the concept of God and were, in affect and by reputation, unbelievers, there is a greater complexity to their argument, a depth in their treatment of the concept.

Hume posited many gods and believed in none; Feuerbach argued for god as existence itself and had no faith in any of it; Russell knew that he did not know and could not care for what was not there; Nietzsche looked to the gods of history and found inspiration in divine men. All were scathing of religious fervour. Religion was to them a poor relation to and separate from the concept of God - which offered them rich intellectual fruit. Dawkins is not so sophisticated as to recognise this separation, and it is infuriating that he should head what I consider to be my side - the rationalist side - of the current debate. Such a poorly read, inconsistent man has no place next to these great names. I have nothing but contempt for the man.

In conclusion, we have a perfectly valid question to answer; how did the universe come to be? We have only the beginnings of an answer, in as much as we know whatever caused this tremendous affect must exist or have existed in a state that is beyond our current comprehension. That we call this cause 'God' is a matter of tradition and ascribes no further conditions; God could literally be dead. It is by the necessity of God's function that we are certain of its existence and by the nature of that existence that we accept God is undetectable with our current equipment. Accepting that existence is no more a leap of faith as is accepting the neutrino back in the 40's.