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

[Jenny A]

Remember, the premise does not have to be 100% proven. It just has to be more likely than not. On this point, I would say it exceeds that threshold and is near the "almost definitely true" end of the spectrum. 

I remember no such thing. And I'm going to start here, because I find this statement flabergasting.

More likely than not is not the standard for premises in syllogisms. (I'll get to whether your premises exceed that standard in minute). If your standard is, "more likely than not," then you are obliged to add more likely than not to each conclusion following from that premise. If more than one of your premises is merely "more likely than not" the chances of the conclusion following from those premises will fall below 50%. For example, if the chance premise A is correct is 51% and the chance premise B is correct is also 51%, then the chances that they are both correct is just 26%. Even if the chances that each premise is correct are 70% the chances of both premises being correct drops to 49% and thus becomes less likely than not.

The most common use of the more likely than not standard (sometimes referred to as the preponderance of the evidence) is in the British and British based civil law system. It is not considered sufficient even in civil cases for the award of punitive damages. For punitive damages the standard is clear and convincing. Nor yet in criminal cases where the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason civil cases use the very low standard of more likely than not is because in civil law cases the defendant will be unjustly injured by any award of damages against him, if he did not injure the plantiff. On the other hand if the defendant did injure the plaintiff, it would be unjust for the defendant not to compensate the plaintiff. Since one party or the other will be injured, we must decide between two competing interests and not deciding is in effect a decision for the defendant. So we choose the lowest standard of proof so that we have the best chance of doing right.

But that does not mean the jury is instructed to find each element more likely than not not, as that would not necessarily result in the defendant being more likely than not responsible for the plaintiff's injury.

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I'm not sure you do see my point.  We say a man painted a hose and therefore he is the cause it's new color.  Fertilization is why an embryo is formed, trees grow from nuts, erosion levels mountains, rivers cut valleys.  It is these examples of an orderly universe from which we deduce cause and effect.  None of these examples involve the creation of new matter.  No new matter is introduced into the world by the birth of a baby, the eruption of a volcano, or by building a house.  All of these things are just rearranging the molecular furniture.  And at least at the macro level, every such transformation appears to have a cause or really many causes. And as long as we are just talking about rearanging the furniture, that everything has a cause or causes is a reasonable premise.

But the beginning of the universe is a a real beginning to exist.  It is the beginning of time, matter, and energy.  In effect it is the beginning of objective reality.  Calling both (1) the creation of matter, and (2) the rearranging of matter "beginning to exist" is not inappropriate.  They are fundamentally different things.  So yes it every much matters (no pun intended).

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Extrapolating the rules for matter coming into being from the rules about how to rearrange matter is not possible.  It is a category error.

This is the point at which you are not understanding me. I am not extrapolating rules.  That would actually be a composition fallacy and not a category error--but that is beside the point. Premise 1 does not say: Everything that begins to exist in the universe has a cause. It it making a general statement that is meant to apply to all possible worlds, all possible universes, all possible states of reality that may have come prior to a particular universe. It is a metaphysical statement that applies to any existence -- not a scientific one which would only apply within our universe. 

WLC, the foremost authority on this argument, said it this way in an article:

Objection #4: The first premise is based upon the fallacy of composition. It fallaciously infers that because everything in the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause.

Response to #4: In order to understand this objection we need to understand the fallacy of composition. This is the fallacy of reasoning that because every part of a thing has a certain property, therefore the whole thing has that same property. While wholes do sometimes possess the properties of their parts (for example, a fence, every picket of which is green, is also green), this is not always the case. For example, every little part of an elephant may be light in weight, but that does not imply that the whole elephant is light in weight.

Now I have never argued that because every part of the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe has a cause. That would be manifestly fallacious. Rather the reasons I have offered for thinking that everything that begins to exist has a cause are these:

1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being out of nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you've got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1) you've got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.
2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don't bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can pop into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can't be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn't have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained!
3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise (1). Premise (1) is constantly verified and never falsified. It is hard to understand how any atheist committed to modern science could deny that premise (1) is more plausibly true than false in light of the evidence. [7]

Note well that the third reason is an appeal to inductive reasoning, not reasoning by composition. It's drawing an inductive inference about all the members of a class of things based on a sample of the class. Inductive reasoning undergirds all of science and is not to be confused with reasoning by composition, which is a fallacy.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/l...e-them-up/

That is where we disagree. The concept that something cannot come from nothing is an empirically based idea. Craig asserts it as an empirically based idea in his third reason, "Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise." It comes from observation of things within the universe. (Interestingly, it may not be true even within the universe at the quantum level. https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...icles-rea/) For this inductive reasoning to follow, one must take it as proof that the universe was made of something that predated the universe.

Let's take a look at Craig's other arguments for the premise that something cannot come from nothing

[I]f something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing . . . Why is it only universes that can pop into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can't be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn't have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, since there isn't anything to be constrained!

Interestingly, it still seems Craig is asserting that the universe was created from something. The actual argument doesn't work though. The discriminating factor could simply be that something only comes into being in actual nothingness. The universe is something, so things cannot spontaniouly begin to exist within it.

But let's assume for a moment that Craig is right that something can never come out of nothing. Lets take that a little further, as I did before:

You could of course argue that the universe is made up of pre-existing matter.  But if you go that way, then you will have to add all existing matter to the set of things that did not begin to exist in which case under your formulation, matter being eternal  would not need a cause.)

To which you responded

I wouldn't go that way.

I don't think Craig would go that way either. But all of his arguments in favor of the premise that all things that begin to exist have a cause are nothing more than arguments that something cannot come out of nothing. Coming into existence in his arguments is merely assuming a new form. It's a rearangement of the existing molecular furniture. Matter can only come from matter is the jist of his argument not that all matter has a cause. If matter cannot come from nothing, than the obvious conclusion is that the matter that makes up the world in this universe has always existed whether it was a universe or not. Other than it doesn't require God, what troubles you about this conclusion?

The idea that matter is it's own first cause of its current form is no less logical than that was also a preexisting thing that created the existing universe out of prexisting matter. In fact it's more likely as it only requires stuff that we know exists to have existed eternally and not that a thing we don't know exists to have existed externally.

If you reject the notion that the universe is made of preexisting stuff, than you are back to comparing what we know about the transformation of stuff from one form or another to the actual creation of stuff. Adding a magician (or god) to create stuff out of nothing is not helpful. It's merely a place holder for we don't know how stuff is created.

I won't think what we know about the transformation of stuff has any application to the actual creation of new material or whether the material out of which the universe is eternal.

There are several possibilities:

(1) The material out of which the universe is made is eternal and it's interactions with itself are it's own cause; or

(2) Something, i.e. the material out of which the universe is made, can begin to exist spontaneously, but actual nothing is required for spontaneous existence which is why stuff doesn't spontaniouly exist within the universe;

(3) Only the smallest most basic particles can spontaneously begin to exist. The universe began from the spontaneous generation of micro particles. That has the advantage of considering the spontaneous creation of virtual particles observed by physicists.

(4) A prexisting agency (you can call it god if you like, but I wouldn't as it's only attribute appears to be the abilty to create matter) of some kind created matter out of nothing.

(5) A preexisting agency of some kind created the universe out of prexeisting matter.

Of the five, I find 4 or 5 the least likely because they require the existense of something beyond what we know to exist.