Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[LadyForCamus]

Until I looked it up, I assumed the KCA was deductive (as most cosmological arguments are), but you are right. It's inductive. It wouldn't have killed WLC to use the word probably or likely. It's worded like deductive logic, so please forgive my error. It doesn't really matter though. My problem isn't with the conclusion.

Let's look at the part of the argument that deals with contingency first. I'll quote your post below, with my commentary in bold.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. This is true of things within the universe, yes.

Yes but why would you exclude things outside of our universe?

Because not doing so would be a composition fallacy, lol. What a silly question.

 The Principle of Sufficient Reason or even just any basic causal principle justifies thinking that causation is a feature of any possible reality. What argument do you think would be successful in undercutting this premise to a point to think it is probably not true (since this is an inductive argument).

No. You don’t get to ‘logic’ into existence the scientific underpinnings of reality.  This argument fails at premise 1.  Full Stop.  You have no way of demonstrating that it is more likely true than not true.  

2. The universe began to exist. This is fine, though it isn't necessarily true.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. This does not follow because premise 1 is not necessarily true of the entire universe--composition fallacy.

It does follow unless you can show that (1) is unlikely true. Can you?

He doesn’t have to.  You need to demonstrate that it is more likely true than not true, and with some actual evidence.  Philosophy alone isn’t going to cut it. 

I omitted the contingency part of the argument because in my first response because it has little to with the point I was trying to make--that the cosmological argument is god of the gaps argument. This part of the argument has no god of gaps reasoning, yet it is still problematic because of the composition fallacy. As a youtube video I once saw put it, the composition fallacy works in some cases but not all. If the individual bricks in a wall are red, it follows that the wall itself would be red. True enough. But what if the individual bricks are small? Would it follow that the wall that the wall itself would be small? Not necessarily. You could have a large wall made up of small bricks. https://youtu.be/ppBxkTTGoRQ

Bertrand Russell accused the cosmological argument of the composition fallacy:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmo...-argument/

(1) The premise does not limit itself to the universe or reason from experiences within the universe. You are imposing a limit, not me. The argument claims that it is a general principle, a feature of existence, an obvious metaphysical truth.

It’s true because it’s obvious?  That’s a pretty tight circle, right there.

Steve, the problem (as I see it) with your reasoning throughout this thread, and your debate style in general, is this:

You flip your position on what is knowable beyond our universe depending on which argument is being discussed.  So, when atheists appeal to facts about our observable universe to explain how your god (as he’s often described) can’t logically or scientifically exist, it’s a category error.  He’s supernatural.  We’re making a mistake in our reasoning when we try to apply truths about our known reality to god, and the unknowable state he exists in.

But then out the other side of your mouth, whenever premise 1. of the KCA comes up, atheists are ‘placing unnecessary restrictions’ on what we can know about reality beyond our universe.  All of a sudden you can make predictions, have certain knowledge of “obvious truths”, and reason your way across an obvious category distinction.  We don’t have to provide a defeator for premise 1. because you already did.  It’s a category error. Those are your words.  

So, which is it?