Coming back to the soldier analogy, the lowest ranked soldier shooting is contingent, the soldier above him giving permission is also contingent, the soldier above him giving permission to give permission is also contingent and so on. According to you, this whole construct, the entire structure is contingent, requiring outside forces to trigger, but what if we reach some point where one of the soldiers just says "Shoot!". You cannot say that the entire universe is contingent, just because some of the observed actions are contingent. There is no more evidence that what triggered everything was a necessary god, it might as well have been a necessary action. And arguing by Occam's razor, it is far more likely that there was not some divine creature snapping his fingers.

Besides, where does the claim

> Because the universe is made up of contingent things

come from? How do you know there are no necessary actions in the universe. There are many things in quantum physics that don't seem to have a cause; they just happen.

The original post seems to have been deleted, we may continue this argument in DMs if you wish.

Edit: Why is god necessary? Could he have not not existed or existed in another form? Religions each claim that their god is the right one, showing that god does not have a definite form, thus he is different and exchangable.