Credible/Honest Apologetics?

[R00tKiT]

If someone's looking for credible and honest apologetics - and you whip out your kalam....calling them a joke when they tell you they'd already heard it and didn't find it credible or honest...might be a bad approach.

First of all, Simon M didn't say he didn't find it "credible" -whatever this is supposed to mean-, he said that the cosmological argument is structurally invalid. Secondly, the kalam is an extremely short syllogism and the conclusion follows from the preimses, that's the definition of validity.

Validity is a very low bar, the following argument is perfectly valid, even if it's ridiculous:

Premise 1: Peanut butter is awesome.
Premise 2: If peanut butter is awesome, aliens exist.

Conclusion : aliens exist.

If anyone who reads this doesn't understand why it's valid, they should spend some time studying logic and syllogisms.

So atheists can rest assured that they're not doing us a favor by granting that the kalam is valid, but if they don't grant us even that, then yeah, they are a joke.

I do think it's great that you're arguing for a pagan god, as a muslim, ofc.  However..just because you think that your kalam is a crucial step in arguing for your god - doesn't mean that it deserves "full consideration"..whatever the fuck that is, nor should you be so hasty to assume that a person who just told you they considered it hasn't given it "full consideration".  In fact..if your kalam actually is crucial to proving whatever god you believe in..and it's wrong..then that's the whole ballgame.  There's nothing left, nothing further to discuss and give our "full consideration".

Whether the premises of the Kalam are true is a very complicated issue, it involves modern cosmology, causality, and even quantum mechanics, just to name a few. I doubt anyone here really knows everything there is to know to make an informed decision about this argument. In particular, the Kalam rests on the principle of sufficient reason, which is applied routinely in science and everyday issues, so suspending judgment on it or rejecting it when it comes to the Kalam makes one guilty of double standards.