Its worse when you claim that logic does apply, and then proceed to exempt god from every imposition in each circumstance discussed.  Not only have you thrown away your tools...you've thrown away your credibility.

-Just so I'm not misunderstood, I don't mean that personally. If the credibility of the argument is supported by a statement or body of knowledge, making an exception to that statement or body of knowledge also makes exception both to the credibility of the statement and to any argument which you support with it. It's an inescapable consequence of pleading a special case - and this is true regardless of whether you attempt a deductive or inductive argument.

(May 12, 2016 at 7:28 am)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(May 12, 2016 at 7:09 am)SteveII Wrote: First, It was LadyForCamus that objected that WLC did not respond to the scientific objections. I was wondering what they were. Second, the way this works is you listen to the premise and the support of the premise and offer defeaters (either undercutting or opposing). 

The KCA is an inductive argument. This is an important point. "Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based upon the evidence given." Wikipedia

Therefore, and this is the point so many of you are missing, it is not enough to answer "you didn't prove it!!!" 

The first premise was presented in the link as:

1'. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Let me give three reasons in support of premiss (1'):

1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1'), you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.

2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don’t bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can come into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can’t be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn’t have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, for there isn’t anything to be constrained!

3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1'. The science of cosmogeny is based on the assumption that there are causal conditions for the origin of the unuiverse. So it’s hard to understand how anyone committed to modern science could deny that (1') is more plausibly true than false.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-a...z48RDdCeQH

Addendum:

"Something cannot come from nothing" suggests that there even IS such a thing as "nothing."  Another assertion you'd need to provide evidence for, before you even get to your aforementioned premise.  Your excluding other possibilities, which I'm pretty sure is a logical fallacy, eh?

*you're*  FML!  ?

LadyForCamus Wrote:

SteveII Wrote:If I remember correctly, you asked something about God creating constraints. If God "created" logic, he would not be bound by it. If God were not bound by logic he would be able to illogical things like pick up the rock and count to infinity...twice. Since, as I said before, illogical statements like married bachelor and round square aren't really "things" but are sets of contradictory terms, I don't think that logic was created. The more plausible foundation for logic is a reflection of the mind of God.

"The mind of God" that experienced no linear thoughts in its timeless state "prior" to creation (according to his timeless timeline, of course), does not have to "think" to have knowledge, existed nowhere in non-existence because it hadn't created space "yet" (another nonsensical temporal reference), and so is, based on your description, practically indistinguishable from Absolute Nothingness.

AKA:  "not real"

But, but!  The KCA!  [emoji849]

And God having free will is apparently right out the window if he knows everything, doesn't think, and changes into a temporal being despite being changeless, creating the universe basically because creating the universe is what he knows he will do (using 'he' generously, and assuming we're ultimately talking about the Abrahamic creator god).

(May 12, 2016 at 7:20 am)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(May 12, 2016 at 7:09 am)SteveII Wrote: First, It was LadyForCamus that objected that WLC did not respond to the scientific objections. I was wondering what they were. Second, the way this works is you listen to the premise and the support of the premise and offer defeaters (either undercutting or opposing). 

The KCA is an inductive argument. This is an important point. "Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) [i]is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion.

Then please provide us with strong evidence for the truth of these premises.  We're waiting...


Bold below is mine:

Quote:The first premise was presented in the link as:

1'. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Let me give three reasons in support of premiss (1'):

1. Something cannot come from nothing. SCIENTIFICALLY UNSUPPORTED ASSERTION.  You haven't even defined "nothing" yet To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1'), you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.

2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don’t bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can come into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can’t be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn’t have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, for there isn’t anything to be constrained!

3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1'. The science of cosmogeny is based on the assumption that there are causal conditions for the origin of the unuiverse. So it’s hard to understand how anyone committed to modern science could deny that (1') is more plausibly true than false.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-a...z48RDdCeQH

And, I see the rest of this is just regurgitated WLC.  *face palm*

No, Steve...this is the real world we live in here.  We don't live inside of a logical argument.  If you can't demonstrate with good, tangible evidence that your premises are likely to be true; that they are an accurate representation of the ACTUAL universe we live in, then they are utterly meaningless.

Why is that scientifically unsupported?  Nothing has a definition. Not anything. Can you name something that comes from nothing? Before you throw out quantum particles as an example, that is not an example of something coming from nothing. 

It sounds like WLC because its his link/article that I posted.

SteveII Wrote:

LadyForCamus Wrote:Strange...I don't see WLC using any actual scientific evidence (he only gives it a shout out) to support either his grand assertions about the natural laws of the universe, or his responses to scientifically grounded objections.  

All I see here are simplistic, condescending, and childish metaphors that should insult the intelligence of any average, grown adult:  "Well, why don't bicycles just pop into existence, then?"  Really, WLC?

So you think there is scientific evidence against the first premise? If is simplistic, then it should be easy to list defeaters.

The defeater is that there is no reason to suppose it's actually the case.

RoadRunner79 Wrote:

wiploc Wrote:Quantum mechanics.  The weight of scientific opinion is that very tiny things are uncaused. 

If you are going to ignore science on this point, you shouldn't invoke it on other points.

Why?

Intellectual integrity comes to mind.

Forming a compelling explanation for something that is supposed to be very important to you, and for you to convey to others... might be another reason.  Perhaps the worst sort of irony, would be that there really was some god out there...and the apologists managed to convince everyone otherwise through their ineptitude.

SteveII Wrote:

Quote:Why is that scientifically unsupported?  Nothing has a definition. Not anything. Can you name something that comes from nothing? Before you throw out quantum particles as an example, that is not an example of something coming from nothing. 

It sounds like WLC because its his link/article that I posted.

And there's no good reason to suppose that 'not anything' ever 'existed'. It might not even be possible.

Why is there something instead of nothing?
Why wouldn't there be?

(May 12, 2016 at 10:10 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

LadyForCamus Wrote:"The mind of God" that experienced no linear thoughts in its timeless state "prior" to creation (according to his timeless timeline, of course), does not have to "think" to have knowledge, existed nowhere in non-existence because it hadn't created space "yet" (another nonsensical temporal reference), and so is, based on your description, practically indistinguishable from Absolute Nothingness.

AKA:  "not real"

But, but!  The KCA!  [emoji849]

And God having free will is apparently right out the window if he knows everything, doesn't think, and changes into a temporal being despite being changeless, creating the universe basically because creating the universe is what he knows he will do (using 'he' generously, and assuming we're ultimately talking about the Abrahamic creator god).

LOL...it starts to sound like some horrifying sci-fi movie, like God is trapped in this metaphysically comatose, helpless state with an information overload he can do nothing about. *shudder*

(May 12, 2016 at 10:10 am)SteveII Wrote:

(May 12, 2016 at 7:20 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: Then please provide us with strong evidence for the truth of these premises.  We're waiting...


Bold below is mine:





And, I see the rest of this is just regurgitated WLC.  *face palm*

No, Steve...this is the real world we live in here.  We don't live inside of a logical argument.  If you can't demonstrate with good, tangible evidence that your premises are likely to be true; that they are an accurate representation of the ACTUAL universe we live in, then they are utterly meaningless.

Why is that scientifically unsupported?  Nothing has a definition. Not anything. Can you name something that comes from nothing? Before you throw out quantum particles as an example, that is not an example of something coming from nothing. 

It sounds like WLC because its his link/article that I posted.

Ping ponging questions back at me does not strengthen your case. I am making no claims. The KCA makes claims that require evidence.

I'll repeat: the assertion that: "something cannot come from nothing" requires you demonstrate that "absolute nothing" is even possible before we can even begin to talk about if the universe, or matter, came from it.

The idea that there was ever "not anything", or, "no thing" (which in and of its self is internally contradictory because it reads as, "there was a 'time' when there was nothing.") is a claim that requires evidential support.


Look at it this way. Possibilities for the origins of matter (that I can speculate):

1. God created it (I still don't know what this means)

2. It popped into existence from nothing (I'm not sure "nothing" is even possible)

3. It always existed in some form or another (I.e. There was always something)

4. I dunno...umm...aliens created it out of their own super-metaphysical multiverse.

5. I'm sure people can up with some other wild theory; I'm not that imaginative

My answer: I don't know. Physicists have spent their entire adult lives painstakingly researching and investigating the answers to these questions about existence for centuries, and they still haven't arrived at an answer with any degree of certainty.

Your answer:. "It's number 1."


The burden of proof is on you.