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

[SteveII]

That is the ONLY option. You cannot talk about "scientific" for things prior to the first moments of the universe. Full Stop.

Agreed.  So, if we have no access to observations or data “beyond” that point, then we cannot make any predictions, assumptions, or extrapolations at all.  Full Stop.  What’s baffling is your continued insistence that we can accurately apply philosophical principles from within our known universe out across this unknowable state, despite the fact that we have no information about it.   

You are not differentiating between our inductive experience and our inductive reasoning. They are not the same thing. For the past nearly 100 years people have dedicated their lives to figuring out what might have come before our universe. A super-obvious assumption MUST be present to even begin that enterprise: that there exists, as an objective feature of reality, a Causal Principle. Why do you think they assumes such a thing? They know the laws of physics don't apply so they are not applying our experiences. They REASONED into this assumption. 

You provided a nice wiki article earlier about how philosophy and science work together.  Just as science is headless without philosophy, philosophy without science is wholly untethered to the real world.  If philosophy is our only option in this instance, then there is no way to determine a probability one way or the other, and and premise 1. is completely unjustified. Without access to tangible information, you simply can’t say a damn thing about abstract causal principles beyond our universe. 

All of our intuitions about reality (not just our universe) screams out a causal principle.

So your whole case for determining that premise 1 is more likely true than not is human intuition? That’s weak, Steve.  Plenty of facts about reality go against our “screaming” intuition.  Surely you know this.  No way of getting around it?  Human intuition is demonstrably fallible.  There.  I just got around it.  

So again; there is no way of avoiding the composition fallacy here before we even get to the ‘therefore god’ stuff.   

When debating something like this, one possible goal is to show the high intellectual price your opponent has to pay for objecting to a premise. This is one such case. Let's see:

A) Because the KCA is a inductive argument and the premises are probabilities, what you are actually claiming when you say Premise (1) is false is that it is more probable that it is false. That a causal principle is not an objective feature of reality is more likely true.  You have to propose that it was at least possible for our universe to just pop into being. But what makes universes so special that only they can pop into being? Why doesn't just anything pop into being today? 
B) But, you just seem to be saying is that it "might be the case" there is no Causal Principle that is an objective feature of reality. You don't seem to have a positive argument that makes this a defeater for the premise. It is just an objection--and not one that weakens the premise enough to think that it is not probably true. 

Regarding your first point about category error, yes--comparing God to physical laws is an obvious and silly category error and shouldn't be done. This is not that.

Regarding you second point, is there any reason whatsoever to think that causal principles only apply within the universe?

Wrong question.  The right question is: is there any reason to think that they should?  Because, your argument implies that they do, and if you can’t justify that assumption, it’s a damn composition fallacy.

Because a state of existence cannot be described coherently without a causal principle. Go ahead, try to describe such a state of affairs. What can or cannot happen when you need no prior state for absolutely nothing (or is it everything)? I'm interested to hear you try. 

Why are scientist talking about string theory, multiverses, etc.?

Because they’re scientific theories, Steve.  Category error.

Nope. Cosmogony has large amounts of metaphysics built in.