(January 6, 2024 at 5:47 am)JJoseph Wrote: Whereas the God of Christian Revelation has always declared Himself Eternal.

Is simply declaring that you are this or that sufficient to establish that you are this or that?

(January 6, 2024 at 7:44 am)JJoseph Wrote: Let me give you an Analogy: Your Father built a Wonderful House with a Beautiful Garden, and left you and your brother and sister alone, let's say to fight a War with an Enemy before coming back.

Can you and your siblings correctly deduce that your House and the Garden attached to it must have had a Builder and a Designer or not? That is the question. I say, yes you can and should.

Are you familiar with what David Hume has to say about such analogical arguments?

Foghorn Leghorn also did a lot of declaring.

oh boy.

Angrboda, no, not really, I'm not. Not an expert on Hume. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what you are talking about, as to what Hume said. If you're speaking about Hume claiming things people infer as designed, and then applying that by analogy to natural things to see that has a Designer, then that's interesting. But I will comment on that after you confirm. Design vs chance would be more going into the Fine Tuning argument Dr. Craig uses. As for the Kalam, its soundness and Truth only depends on the soundness and Truth of Premise 1 and 2, since I think everyone grants Premise 3 follows from Steps 1 and 2.

As for God declaring Himself Eternal: I am saying, what God declared Himself to be nearly 3500 or 4000 years ago, when He spoke to Abraham and Moses, the Kalam can prove to be True of Him today. It can show that a Personal Creator of the Universe, that transcends space and time, created the Universe today; but God declared this of Himself 3000+ years, when He spoke to King David, King Solomon, or Prophets and Patriarchs like Moses and Abraham. Just a "coincidence", I'm sure, and this answers the point of those who were claiming, even if Kalam shows God exists, it doesn't show the Abrahamic God. Well it certainly shows a Powerful Creator God, Who is Eternal, and thus comes quite close to showing the God of Abrahamic Monotheism. Of course, it is a cumulative case, and further arguments down the line, like fine tuning, the moral argument, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ etc show more details.

Let's review the Kalam argument and consider the responses:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause: any rejoinders? Not really. Some claim this premise hasn't been sufficiently established. But virtually every example we can think of satisfies it. Even the one or two claimed counter-examples we can think of don't really count as absolute "nothing", but at best are a kind of relative "nothing" or vacuum in a particular state. In brief, step 1 is at least 99% certain, validated based on practically countless examples, with only some half-hearted "counterexamples" offered up to escape the practically inevitable conclusion that God made us.

2. The Universe began to exist: Again, hardly defeatable. The fact that the Universe began to exist is (1) proven by its finite age (2) shown by the impossiblity of a series of temporal moments leading to an actual infinite. (3) proven by the fact that many Science textbooks freely speak of the Beginning of the Universe (4) is also a conclusion of the Borde Guth Villenkin Theorem. Wiki says, of this: "The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, or the BGV theorem, is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary." And since our Universe is one such Universe, it clearly follows that our Universe cannot be actually infinite in the past but has a spacetime boundary. See how easy it is, unless you really want to run from God?

3. But why run from God, Who came down from Heaven wanting to save you? God forgave everyone who couldn't reason to the Truth that there was a Creator of the Universe, and came down from Heaven Himself to make it easy for all to find the Way back to Him. But find it we must, and in time before our deaths, if we hope to go to Heaven one day, and rejoice there in that blessed Land of Paradise, with God's Angels&Saints. Amen.

(January 6, 2024 at 1:05 pm)JJoseph Wrote: Angrboda, no, not really, I'm not. Not an expert on Hume. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what you are talking about, as to what Hume said. If you're speaking about Hume claiming things people infer as designed, and then applying that by analogy to natural things to see that has a Designer, then that's interesting. But I will comment on that after you confirm. Design vs chance would be more going into the Fine Tuning argument Dr. Craig uses. As for the Kalam, its soundness and Truth only depends on the soundness and Truth of Premise 1 and 2, since I think everyone grants Premise 3 follows from Steps 1 and 2.

Quote:David Hume is the most famous critic of these arguments. In Part II of his famous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume formulates the argument as follows:

Quote:Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

Since the world, on this analysis, is closely analogous to the most intricate artifacts produced by human beings, we can infer “by all the rules of analogy” the existence of an intelligent designer who created the world. Just as the watch has a watchmaker, then, the universe has a universe-maker.

As expressed in this passage, then, the argument is a straightforward argument from analogy with the following structure:

• The material universe resembles the intelligent productions of human beings in that it exhibits design.
  
• The design in any human artifact is the effect of having been made by an intelligent being.
  
• Like effects have like causes.
  
• Therefore, the design in the material universe is the effect of having been made by an intelligent creator.
  

Hume criticizes the argument on two main grounds. First, Hume rejects the analogy between the material universe and any particular human artifact. As Hume states the relevant rule of analogy, “wherever you depart in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty” (Hume, Dialogues, Part II). Hume then goes on to argue that the cases are simply too dissimilar to support an inference that they are like effects having like causes:

Quote:If we see a house,… we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect (Hume, Dialogues, Part II).

Since the analogy fails, Hume argues that we would need to have experience with the creation of material worlds in order to justify any a posteriori claims about the causes of any particular material world; since we obviously lack such experience, we lack adequate justification for the claim that the material universe has an intelligent cause.

Second, Hume argues that, even if the resemblance between the material universe and human artifacts justified thinking they have similar causes, it would not justify thinking that an all-perfect God exists and created the world. For example, there is nothing in the argument that would warrant the inference that the creator of the universe is perfectly intelligent or perfectly good. Indeed, Hume argues that there is nothing there that would justify thinking even that there is just one deity: “what shadow of an argument… can you produce from your hypothesis to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world” (Hume Dialogues, Part V)?
As for God declaring Himself Eternal: I am saying, what God declared Himself to be nearly 3500 or 4000 years ago, when He spoke to Abraham and Moses, the Kalam can prove to be True of Him today. It can show that a Personal Creator of the Universe, that transcends space and time, created the Universe today; but God declared this of Himself 3000+ years, when He spoke to King David, King Solomon, or Prophets and Patriarchs like Moses and Abraham. Just a "coincidence", I'm sure, and this answers the point of those who were claiming, even if Kalam shows God exists, it doesn't show the Abrahamic God. Well it certainly shows a Powerful Creator God, Who is Eternal, and thus comes quite close to showing the God of Abrahamic Monotheism. Of course, it is a cumulative case, and further arguments down the line, like fine tuning, the moral argument, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ etc show more details.

https://iep.utm.edu/design-arguments-for...-god/#SH1b



As for the Kalam, it has many problems which have been noted by many.  Only those with a predetermined conclusion in mind take it all that seriously.  And as noted, it only would prove that the universe had a cause, even if it were sound.  That the cause necessarily was God requires a leap of faith which none of us are under any obligation to take.

JJoseph Wrote:God declared Himself to be nearly 3500 or 4000 years ago, when He spoke to Abraham and Moses, the Kalam can prove to be True of Him today. It can show that a Personal Creator of the Universe, that transcends space and time, created the Universe today; but God declared this of Himself 3000+ years, when He spoke to King David, King Solomon, or Prophets and Patriarchs like Moses and Abraham.

So god speaking to people who never existed in a fairytale proves god.

JJoseph Wrote:Whatever begins to exist has a cause

Whatever begins to exist has a natural cause. You have not proven the supernatural element. Even the so-called beginning of the universe (Big Bang) was a minimal thing where only atomic particles existed and it took billions of years for elements, galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms to form -- all in a natural way.

So all you have is your persistence to repeat dumb lies over and over again.

(January 6, 2024 at 4:23 am)JJoseph Wrote: Hi all. I'm curious if any of you can refute the Kalam cosmological argument for God's existence


Step 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

E.g. Houses, Trees, Planets etc begin to exist and have a cause. So does the Universe, which brings us to Step 2.

Step 2: The Universe began to exist. 

This step is also proven by mathematical logic, has empirical confirmation in the Big Bang Theory etc.

Step 3: Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

The conclusion logically follows from the preceding premises. Dr. Craig occasionally goes for a further step.

Step 4: Therefore, an Eternal Creator of the Universe exists, that brought the Universe into existence from nothing.

This sounds very much like the traditional Creator God of classical Judeo-Christian Revelation? Any thoughts on the subject?

Regards,
Joseph.

1. Virtual particles apparently begin to exist without a cause.
2. Causality is inferred from observing events in the universe, it's a fallacy of composition to assume that causality applies to the universe itself. Also, the universe may have existed eternally in some form, with the Big Bang marking a transformation, not a true beginning.
3. Due to the weakness of 1. and 2., 3 is an unjustifed conclusion.
4. If the universe has a cause, it doesn't follow from the previous steps that this cause is eternal or a person. It could be an uncaused event that triggered the formation of the universe, as in the vaccuum fluctuation hypothesis popularized by Victor Stenger.

I do think you may have a point that quantum foam has some of the attributes ascribed to God: timeless, creative, powerful, containing all information. Eternal even, since quantum foam can't not exist. Sadly, quantum foam remains hypothetical for now since we lack the means to test it.

Hi op. I'm curious if you can refute the Pastalogical argument for FSM's existence


Step 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

E.g. Houses, Trees, Planets etc begin to exist and have a cause. So does the Universe, which brings us to Step 2.

Step 2: The Universe began to exist.

This step is also proven by mathematical logic, has empirical confirmation in the Big Bang Theory etc.

Step 3: Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

The conclusion logically follows from the preceding premises.

Step 4: Therefore, an Eternal Creator of the Universe exists, that brought the Universe into existence from nothing.

This sounds very much like FSM. Any thoughts on the subject?

Regards,
Nay Sayer

(January 6, 2024 at 6:08 am)JJoseph Wrote: But whether you identify as Atheist, or Non-Religious, or a Non-Man, or a "Birthing Person", or whatever else Liberal Atheist Godless Woke Rubbish they're coming up these days is irrelevant to the ULTIMATE QUESTION: WILL YOU GET INTO HEAVEN AND ENJOY ETERNAL HAPPINESS WITH CHRIST OR NOT?

I don't want to spend eternity with your imaginary friend. I have no interest in living forever.

And I believe with moral certainty that for all your prayers, your fate is identical to mine - one day you will simply die, and remain so in perpetuity.