(December 10, 2015 at 10:23 am)teveII Wrote:

(December 9, 2015 at 11:56 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: Wow man, you really can't be this dense? You haven't proven god exists how could you possibly say that its a plausible explanation, I could take your argument and plug in magic alligator or universe creating turtle as the first cause, they both have the power to create the universe why are they less probable than the magic god that you made up.

You're confused about the what the Kalam argument is.  The argument concludes a cause. The next step is, based on all the back and forth discussed in the premises, describe what attributes must this cause have. Important: nothing new was introduced. A description of the cause is logically developed from the premises. 

If your magic alligator is immaterial, timeless, personal cause of sufficient power to create the entirety of the universe, then you can use the argument. Most people just use the word God.

The cosmological argument itself can also be used to support the eternal existence of a reality existentially independent of God that has properties or capacities to yield universes like this one. God is not the best explanation because it's not the most parsimonious, you're adding an unnecessary entity in this case. Reality itself is sufficient enough as the explanation.

(December 10, 2015 at 10:06 am)Cato Wrote:

(December 9, 2015 at 10:48 pm)SteveII Wrote: Your missing the 20 paragraphs of argumentation that comes AFTER you establish that the universe had a cause. God is not just stated. Each factor is examined as to what could be the cause and not create an infinite regression. You can debate the conclusions all you want--you can't claim that the conclusion is simply "therefore God". The other arguments are similarly structured.

What factors are examined?We're blind to what came before the Big Bang. Stating that there cannot be an infinite causal chain is a lot different than claiming that chain is stopped at the moment our universe came into existence. There's absolutely no justification for this. You cannot claim as knowledge where this infinite causal chain broke, let alone know anything about this chain breaker. An uncause cause does not necessitate intelligence or the idea of God. There is absolutely no way you can get from this chain breaker argument to the lead character in your special book; it's impossible. God as portrayed in the Bible most certainly does not exist. You cannot argue this thing into existence, we know too much.

The Kalam does not argue the God of the Bible into existence. Since none of you want to actually read it, I'll cut and paste a portion of WLC's argument:

So what properties must such a cause of the universe possess? As the cause of space and time, it must transcend space and time and therefore exist timelessly and non-spatially (at least without the universe). This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial because (1) anything that is timeless must also be unchanging and (2) anything that is changeless must be non-physical and immaterial since material things are constantly changing at the molecular and atomic levels. Such a cause must be without a beginning and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any prior causal conditions, since there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. Ockham’s Razor (the principle that states that we should not multiply causes beyond necessity) will shave away any other causes since only one cause is required to explain the effect. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, if not omnipotent, since it created the universe without any material cause.

Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent first cause is plausibly personal. We’ve already seen in our discussion of the argument from contingency that the personhood of the first cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality. The only entities that can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects like numbers. But abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be an unembodied mind.

Moreover, the personhood of the first cause is also implied since the origin of an effect with a beginning is a cause without a beginning. We’ve seen that the beginning of the universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the universe into existence. Now this is very peculiar. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect that it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this happen? If the sufficient conditions for the effect are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? How can the cause exist without its effect?

There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist. So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

So on the basis of an analysis of the argument’s conclusion, we may therefore infer that a personal Creator of the universe exists who is uncaused, without beginning, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and unimaginably powerful.

Read more[url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-new-atheism-and-five-arguments-for-god#ixzz3tvdrNWQG][/url]

(December 10, 2015 at 10:23 am)SteveII Wrote: If your magic alligator is immaterial, timeless, personal cause of sufficient power to create the entirety of the universe, then you can use the argument. Most people just use the word God.

Are you to have us believe that the creators of Bible stories made the cosmological argument and the most reasonable conclusion Based on all known facts is the content of the Bible? If so , you're being hilariously disingenuous. The best you could ever achieve with this approach is a deist' god, but that is still a conclusion troubled by argument from ignorance. "I don't know; therefore God". Again, you cannot get from here to Jehovah, you can't.

The reality is that the Bible is a compilation of stories passed down from ignorants. The cosmological argument and similar others are post hoc arguments that attempt to keep your favorite deity out of the unemployment line like all the others. It's absurd, yet you try to use the same that God is arrived at methodologically; history betrays you.

(December 9, 2015 at 8:09 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote:

(December 9, 2015 at 8:00 pm)athrock Wrote: The topic is too big to cover even briefly, but I did start a thread on the moral argument (in the Atheism forum) which is a standard logical argument used to prove the existence of a supreme being. I'm interested to here input as to why that argument does or does not work.

Not too many theists have contributed to the discussion so far (maybe I posted in the wrong forum), but the arguments against haven't been all that strong so far. 

In my subjective opinion, of course. 

I don't see how that would even be close to evidence, the moral argument doesn't work because none of the premises can be established as true. You cannot establish that there are objective morals, you cannot establish that objective morals have to come from a god, and you cannot establish that there is even a god creating objective morals.

Perhaps you should make your argument in that thread instead of this one. 

(December 10, 2015 at 10:50 am)Cato Wrote:

(December 10, 2015 at 10:23 am)SteveII Wrote: If your magic alligator is immaterial, timeless, personal cause of sufficient power to create the entirety of the universe, then you can use the argument. Most people just use the word God.

Are you to have us believe that the creators of Bible stories made the cosmological argument and the most reasonable conclusion Based on all known facts is the content of the Bible? If so , you're being hilariously disingenuous. The best you could ever achieve with this approach is a deist' god, but that is still a conclusion troubled by argument from ignorance. "I don't know; therefore God". Again, you cannot get from here to Jehovah, you can't.

The reality is that the Bible is a compilation of stories passed down from ignorants. The cosmological argument and similar others are post hoc arguments that attempt to keep your favorite deity out of the unemployment line like all the others. It's absurd, yet you try to use the same that God is arrived at methodologically; history betrays you.

No the authors of the 66 books of the Bible did not base their belief in God on the cosmological argument. They based it on other things. You'll have to look into each one to see what exactly. The cosmological (and other) arguments give Christians a measure of confidence and logical defense from people who say stupid things like "compilation of stories passed down from ignorants". If arguments and evidence suggest there probably is a God, the next step is to examine if that God has interacted in some other way with man.

(December 9, 2015 at 8:14 pm)Judi Lynn Wrote:

(December 9, 2015 at 8:06 pm)athrock Wrote: Well, that was rude. What have I done to deserve being called stupid?

Have you ever read any books written by believers or non-believers going over the issues for and against? If so, then you already know the issues that are debated.

This must be like Obama's refusal to use the phrase "radical Islam"...once he says it, then it's a thing. Until then, it's workplace violence. Similarly, maybe folks here (you included?) don't want to concede that there is evidence (even if it is "weak" in their opinion) because it's better to simply deny that any evidence exists AT ALL.

That way, you don't have to actually think about it. Which may bring us full circle to the point of the OP.

So you're still not providing the evidence. That is so typical of someone who has been asked to present evidence and instead of backing themselves up, they resort to telling the person asking for the evidence to find it themselves. 

To answer your question as to why I called you stupid: Because of your redundant and totally unnecessary over usage of the phrase "over and over". 

See. That is how you answer a question. Now, you try it. Where is this evidence of god?

It wasn't my intent to start a discussion of the so-called evidence that theists routinely trot out...that would derail the OP's thread.

And since the OP has made a very important point, one that has been seconded by other posters (see Posts #23 & 24, for example), then allowing you to deflect here would be inappropriate. It would be better to stay focused on Aractus' main thrust which is that stupid arguments have no place in discussions as important as these.

Although I have commented on a few threads here and there, MY primary focus at present is on one argument, and you are more than welcome to discuss it in the thread that I started elsewhere.

(December 10, 2015 at 10:38 am)SteveII Wrote: So what properties must such a cause of the universe possess? As the cause of space and time, it must transcend space and time and therefore exist timelessly and non-spatially (at least without the universe). This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial because (1) anything that is timeless must also be unchanging and (2) anything that is changeless must be non-physical and immaterial since material things are constantly changing at the molecular and atomic levels. Such a cause must be without a beginning and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any prior causal conditions, since there cannot be an infinite regress of causes.

Therefore, that transcendent cause could not have been a changeless God. If the cause needed to have a mind in order to create, then it must have mindfully planned the creation of the universe. But such mindful planning requires the mind to move on to the next step in the series of ideas. This implies change.
Otherwise, if God did not mindfully plan the universe into existence, then the creation of the universe was mindless (i.e., random and spontaneous). But in this case, why call it God? Why not just stick to the simpler explanation that the universe came into existence randomly and spontaneously.

Quote:Ockham’s Razor (the principle that states that we should not multiply causes beyond necessity) will shave away any other causes since only one cause is required to explain the effect. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, if not omnipotent, since it created the universe without any material cause.

Powerful suggests personhood in this context. However, the cause need not be personal. It just needs to have the capacity to yield universes randomly and spontaneously.

And Ockham's Razor itself suggests that God is not the best explanation since an extra entity like God, being beyond this reality, isn't really needed.

Quote:Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent first cause is plausibly personal. We’ve already seen in our discussion of the argument from contingency that the personhood of the first cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality. The only entities that can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects like numbers. But abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be an unembodied mind.

This is a false dichotomy. It does not follow that timelessness and immateriality must imply either personhood or abstractness.

Quote:Moreover, the personhood of the first cause is also implied since the origin of an effect with a beginning is a cause without a beginning. We’ve seen that the beginning of the universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the universe into existence. Now this is very peculiar. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect that it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this happen? If the sufficient conditions for the effect are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? How can the cause exist without its effect?

The question bolded by me looks like word play to me. Something cannot be called a cause without its effect, but it doesn't mean that the cause can't exist before the effect occurs.

Quote:There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist.[url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-new-atheism-and-five-arguments-for-god#sdfootnote10sym][/url] So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

Aside from the logical problem I stated earlier regarding a changeless God, I see at least two logical problems with the quoted reasoning:

1. The concept of libertarian free will is illogical. Therefore, even God himself cannot have such free will.

2. If nothing can logically arise from nothingness, then not even God himself can form anything from nothingness.

But perhaps a much better solution to this "dilemma" would be that the cause in the form of this whole reality is eternal and universes have always emerged as a result. In this case, the cause has always occurred with effects, unlike the case with WLC's God.

So, conclusion: a personal and mindful God has not been shown to be necessary for the existence of this universe.

(December 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm)Evie Wrote: If evidence were found of God that would make "God" a falsifiable theory, touchable by the realms of science: IOW testable in practice.

So basically, God would be natural and not supernatural... so why call it "God"?

Naturalism has supernaturalism in a stranglehold.

That's certainly one way to conclude that God does not exist...simply begin with the assumption that anything supernatural does not and cannot exist and work from there.

Brilliant.

But that was not what I said now was it?

(December 10, 2015 at 9:47 am)SteveII Wrote:

(December 10, 2015 at 12:04 am)KevinM1 Wrote: You infer a designer because you cannot allow for naturally occurring complexity in your world view.  Please do not speak for the rest of us.  You infer a designer.  We do not.

Moreover, your analogy sucks.  We infer an artist or turtle placer because we can make a comparison.  We know what art is, how it's constructed, and how it differs from things that are not art.  We know that turtles cannot climb things.  With life, we don't have that kind of comparison to make.  We simply do not know if DNA is special or mundane, and to infer anything out of that ignorance is idiotic.

"I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer.  There's no need to presuppose a designer.  Complexity alone doesn't beget anything.

 It is absurd to say my worldview cannot allow for naturally occurring complexity. If science proves something, it must be accepted. It is the naturalistic worldview that is extremely limiting. 

How is the following an argument from ignorance?

Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no material causes have been discovered that demonstrate the power to produce large amounts of specified information, irreducible and interdependent biological systems. 
Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information, irreducible and interdependent systems of all sorts. 
Conclusion: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate, explanation for the information and irreducible complexity in the cell, and interdependence of proteins, ... 

[i'm lazy. cut and pasted from the first website I found that listed it this way (I have no idea about the site itself). ]

You missed premise 3 which states that intelligence may have natural causes, so ultimately all designed objects may be the result of natural processes.