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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 10:22 am
(This post was last modified: August 2, 2024 at 10:27 am by Disagreeable.)
I could imagine that the universe began to exist but didn't have a cause. Like, nothing happened prior to it existing but there was still a point where its existence 'began'.
If everything that begins to exist has a cause then that would seem to lead to an infinite regress.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 11:17 am
(This post was last modified: August 2, 2024 at 11:18 am by Mister Agenda.)
The reason that a Creator God, for purposes of the argument, doesn't have an infinite regress issue is that God is claimed to have no beginning, it has existed eternally without a cause, it is the cause of everything else. Of course, that brings up more questions.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 11:18 am
(This post was last modified: August 2, 2024 at 11:19 am by Disagreeable.)
(August 2, 2024 at 11:17 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: The reason that a Creator God, for purposes of the argument, doesn't have an infinite regress issue is that God is claimed to have no beginning, it has existed eternally without a cause, it is the cause of everything else. Of course, that brings up more questions.
Well said.
And one of the questions raised is "Why can't the universe be eternal? Maybe the universe has no beginning."
Schopenhauer Wrote:The intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth.
Epicurus Wrote:The greatest reward of righteousness is peace of mind.
Epicurus Wrote:Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get,
What is terrible is easy to endure
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 11:20 am
Because it's against the rule they asserted for their god to break, ofc.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 11:25 am
The big bang is basically 'the great inflation' and it can be the case that whatever inflated already existed and already was the universe, just in smaller less expanded form.
Schopenhauer Wrote:The intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth.
Epicurus Wrote:The greatest reward of righteousness is peace of mind.
Epicurus Wrote:Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get,
What is terrible is easy to endure
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 2:29 pm
The whole Kalam argument is nothing more than a Composition fallacy: when you assume that something that is true of a part of something must be true of the whole because it is true of that part. In this case, things within the universe have temporal causes therefore the universe as a whole must also have a temporal cause, but this is not necessarily true. Everything in existence may have existed in a super dense Mass before it "exploded" (spread) into everything that is.
But what caused that Mass to explode and how did that matter come to exist in the first place? Well, instead of asking centuries dead Christian philosophers who were copying the work of millennia old dead Greek philosophers, we could ask modern cosmologists, and when we do, we find that an application of the laws of physics as we currently understand them is all that is needed to get the universe going.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 3:57 pm
(August 2, 2024 at 11:18 am)Disagreeable Wrote: (August 2, 2024 at 11:17 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: The reason that a Creator God, for purposes of the argument, doesn't have an infinite regress issue is that God is claimed to have no beginning, it has existed eternally without a cause, it is the cause of everything else. Of course, that brings up more questions.
Well said.
And one of the questions raised is "Why can't the universe be eternal? Maybe the universe has no beginning."
Even if the universe had a beginning, claiming that it must have had a cause is merely an assertion.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 6:39 pm
If everything must have a cause, then any deity must axiomatically have a cause.
If one claims a deity can transcend time and space, then one cannot rationally claim nothing else can.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 6:56 pm
(August 2, 2024 at 6:39 pm)Sheldon Wrote: If everything must have a cause, then any deity must axiomatically have a cause.
If one claims a deity can transcend time and space, then one cannot rationally claim nothing else can.
You have to watch out with this...
None of the First Cause arguments argues that everything must have a cause. This is true of the Kalam one as well.
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RE: The Kalam Cosmological Argument
August 2, 2024 at 7:02 pm
(August 1, 2024 at 2:54 pm)Ivan Denisovich Wrote: (August 1, 2024 at 2:48 pm)Disagreeable Wrote: Quoting from Wikipedia: 'The most prominent form of the Kalam cosmological argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, is expressed as the following syllogism:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.'
I find this argument laughable because it's supposed to be an argument for God but the conclusion is just that the universe has a cause.
Let's agree with it and then ask what caused god to exist. Super god obviously. What caused super god to exist? Ultra god perhaps. What caused ultra god to exist? ... It's the turtles all the way down and anyone who takes this crap of an "argument" seriously is simply delusional.
Put shortly, it's special pleading. An arbitrary line for "must have been created" has been drawn at this god-thingy. Somehow he's exempt.
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