Comment by bheadmaster

> It is irrelevant what most people (ostensibly) believe "is God", because we're not interested in taking a vote.

This concedes exactly the point I was making. You are stripping the word "God" of its established attributes (such as intellect, intent, and agency) and reducing it to a highly specific technical definition of a "self-subsisting being" or "first cause".

> "God" is the traditional name for this first cause.

This is a linguistic bait-and-switch. You cannot use a strictly literal, narrowed definition of a term to construct a logical proof, and then implicitly rely on the common interpretation of that same term to assert a broader reality. Labeling a mechanical first cause as "God" deliberately smuggles in the classical theistic baggage that your general observations about causality do not actually demonstrate.

Observing that change exists and positing a fundamental necessity for it does not prove a deity. Calling that fundamental necessity "God" is just a tautology designed to shield a religious premise behind sterile metaphysical jargon.