(February 12, 2015 at 3:01 pm)YGninja Wrote: (1) Its a mockery and a misrepresentation. You cannot deny it is not a misrepresentation because you have a: Used quotation marks, implying the words are his own & b: Admitted that those are not his words which you quoted.
If I admitted that those were not his exact words
literally the next post I made after being spoken to about it, I can hardly be accused of seriously attempting to misrepresent Craig's position, can I? A real attempt at misrepresentation requires that I seriously try to sell my quote as Craig's actual position, which I didn't even attempt to do.
Quote:(2) You are not answering the question, just sidestepping.
You asked me if I objected to the premise that everything begins to exist has a cause, and I answered you, detailing what my objections were. What more do you want? If you want to ask additional questions then fine, but don't pretend I didn't answer exactly what you asked me at the time.
Quote: Does everything which begins to exist have a cause? Are you aware of anything which began to exist, which does not have a cause, or even any argument describing how something could begin to exist without a cause?
Are you aware of anything that began to exist
at all? Everything that exists today is a reformatting of pre-existing materials; we've literally never seen ex nihilo beginning to exist, period.
Speaking of sidestepping, though, you've apparently chosen to ignore my objection that Kalam's "begins to exist" language doesn't establish the existence of a category for things that didn't begin to exist, which is the main objection I had with the implication. Kalam is kind of a non-starter if you can't establish that other category; you might be tempted to say that a non-caused thing must exist to start the chain, but there's an alternative to that. I've often posited, as a hypothetical, a cyclical series of causes, each one a direct mirror of the one before it, where one leads to the other, which promptly reverses until it causes the first again... There's really no reason to take Kalam's false dichotomy as seriously as it wants us to.
Quote: As for what you feel is implied, that something can exist without a cause, do you have any argument against something which necessarily exists? Something must, surely, necessarily exist from which everything else came, otherwise you are implying an infinite regress exists, which you've given no supporting argument for.
Are you often in the business of shifting the burden of proof to cover for your unjustified assertions? I'm not going to play that game, nor do I need to imply an infinite regress; I'm quite comfortable just admitting that neither of us know the answer to that question yet. Seeing that you haven't supported your claims does not entail I take up the exact opposite position.
Quote:(3) That the universe began to exist is the leading scientific opinion.
" It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)." - A.Vilenkin, perhaps the worlds most prominent cosmologist.
Have you read the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem? I have- and not coincidentally I'm also familiar with Vilenkin's correspondence with WLC, too- and there's a subtle distinction here that you're missing. Vilenkin's own work only establishes that
our current expansionary models of the universe require a cosmic beginning, not all models everywhere, and that the beginning he's talking about is a beginning to
expansion, not to the universe as a whole. In fact, Vilenkin's own paper concludes that at some point, our understanding of the universe breaks down, and we require new physics to discuss whatever else is beyond that point; this point is the beginning of universal expansion, but this is not the same thing as a beginning to the universe as a whole:
Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin Wrote:Whatever the possibilities for the boundary, it is clear that unless the averaged expansion condition can somehow be avoided for all past-directed geodesics, inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary [20]. This is the chief result of our paper.
You see? The "chief result" of the paper is that we need new physics to describe what happens at the edge of universal expansion,
not that it means the universe had a beginning. Alan Guth, who co-wrote that paper, came out and said exactly that for Sean Carroll- another physicist- in his debate with Craig, and Vilenkin has also come on record as stating that an answer to whether his theorem states that the universe had a beginning, if one is willing to entertain the subtleties of the theorem, is
no.
Moreover, Vilenkin also doesn't think that the universe had an external cause, as WLC attempts to address in his review of the very source you cited yourself. Vilenkin is a favorite of theist apologists, because his views are subtle, and can easily be misinterpreted to support one thing, when in fact they support the opposite, as a number of unambiguous quotes from the man attest to.
Incidentally, Vilenkin also dismisses the idea that his views can be used to support the god conclusion, which is precisely what you and WLC are attempting to do, so...
Quote:(4) Mostly covered in (3), however, the cause of something which begins to exist, cannot be the thing itself, because otherwise you are saying that it existed before it existed, and i don't think any more needs to be said on how absurd that idea is.
If that thing is the universe, and spacetime is a property that necessarily requires the universe to exist in, then there is no "before" for the universe to exist within prior to its own creation.
Quote:(5) The vast majority of scientists agree that time began at the birth of the universe. If you want to postulate some kind of universe within a universe or multiverse type theory, 1: You've got no evidence for such a thing, 2: You are killing occums razor, 3: You would only succeed in pushing the problem of the prime moving first cause back. The premises are justified, your objections aren't.
So, first of all, Vilenkin is a proponent of the multiverse hypothesis, so which is it: is Vilenkin's expertise worth considering or not? In fact, your initial citation of his comes from a whole book where he does nothing but explore the evidence for a multiverse; your first and second claims are bunk.
Secondly, again, I'm not required to take any position at all, in order to tell you that what you're arguing lacks justification and is fallacious. In the absence of an alternative, your fiat assertions about Kalam do not become true by default; the truth is that neither of us has sufficient justification to make the declarative statements that you are.
Quote:(6) I didn't see and still can't find your "what if you went back in time and saw the resurrection was a lie?" argument.
That's cool, I have it here:
As it says here, Craig's answer can be found in two places, years apart, after being asked the same question by two distinct individuals.
Quote: Again you are sidestepping, countering the fact that it seems reasonable to believe something which you experience merely by changing the subject.
How am I changing the subject? You claimed that Craig's position was reasonable, in that personal experience is believable, and I countered by presenting evidence that Craig would discount his own personal experiences where it contradicts his religion. I've shown that your claim is irrelevant, in that Craig isn't appealing to personal experience, he's appealing to believing in god no matter what you experience and receive as argumentation.
And to be clear, Craig doesn't just discount his own personal experiences where they disagree with christianity, he also discounts reason itself; you say Craig's personal experience represents reasonable evidence, but Craig states unequivocally that reason is subordinate to the gospel, to him:
"The magisterial use of reason occurs when reason stands over and above the gospel like a magistrate and judges it on the basis of argument and evidence. The ministerial use of reason occurs when reason submits to and serves the gospel. Only the ministerial use of reason can be allowed. ... Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa." (p. 36) Reasonable Faith, WLC.
You can't defend this kind of attitude. It is, pure and simple, a presupposition: "I'll believe in god no matter what you say!"
Quote:(7) Who claimed all evidence is putative?
If all evidence isn't putative, then that means there is effective evidence against god, and your argument falls apart. But Craig doesn't accept that such evidence exists, in that he considers his inner witness a defeater-defeater for
everything one might bring against it, as my quote above shows.
Quote: One more time, you are changing the subject. "tell that to all other religions...." isn't an argument, its a diversion. What is experienced can be rationally preferred to putative objections.
You think everything is a diversion, but it says more about your own ignorance than it does my argument, because you've missed the point every time you've dismissed what I'm saying as diversionary. Personal experience
cannot be rationally preferred to actual evidence, because personal experience does not necessarily lead one to true conclusions, as my example of other religions shows. The practitioners of other religions claim personal experience with gods that Craig claims not to exist, meaning that we now have two sets of personal experience that are in direct conflict; they can't both be true, which means that in at least the majority of the cases, personal experience cannot be rationally preferred over evidence, as that personal experience is false, whereas the evidence is true.
This is actually really easy. I don't know why you didn't get it.
Quote:Yes, this can be problematic, but thats beside the point. Craig is clear that with objective proof to the contrary of his experience, he would dismiss his experience before the proof.
See my quote above: reason and evidence is subordinate to the bible, in his view.
