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The only lesson from the painter story is that the room didn't paint itself. You know instinctively that somebody did it, a painter. That's all
Now when it comes to the universe, we know it had a beginning, the big bang, even atheist scientists agree on that.
But what about the cause?
It didn't create itself.
But because the universe is space/time and matter/energy, whoever or whatever was the cause, must have been outside of and beyond time, immaterial, that is, spirit, and supremely powerful and mighty to have created like this.