William Lane Craig continues to desperately defend the indefensible.

[Esquilax]

I dont consider it necessary to further argue this point, your position is indefensible.

"I'm going to run away now, but if I just say that your position is indefensible, that means I win! Nyah nyah!"

Oh, and that's not actually your position. I feel like I need to tell you that, because you're incapable of simple things like reading context clues and recognizing snark.

And I refuted that point, we have seen everything begin to exist. Ourselves, every sound, every emotion.

Oh, that's funny: I wasn't aware that biological science maintains that whenever a woman is pregnant, she creates the matter that forms the baby from nothing. I thought that she developed the infant gradually over time using pre-existing materials gained from outside means; you'd think that there'd be a bigger deal being made of wombs breaking the laws of physics, but I guess it's just a secret only you know.

Your only defense is that we havn't seen matter begin to exist,

Given that your argument is about the beginning of all matter, I'd say it's rather an important point.

to which i appeal to scientific consensus which promotes that matter began to exist at the beginning of the universe.

You don't have that consensus, as I've already provided quotes from cosmologists that you yourself said were big figures in the field stating otherwise. Beyond your misrepresentation of discussions of universal expansion, you have nothing more than bluff and bald assertions. Read the damn science more closely; it's not my problem that you refuse to read the things you claim to know about.

Quantum vacuums aren't 'nothing'. As Theoretical Physicist David Albert writes:

“[V]acuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems—are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff...the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those [quantum] fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings—if you look at them aright—amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing."

I believe that statement had two contentions in it, the first being that nowhere in the premise does the Kalam argument establish its positive assertion that everything began to exist. You haven't addressed this.

"Not knowing", isn't an alternative, it is not another possibility missing from the statement "you need a prime mover or an eternal regression", its a cop-out.

It's intellectual honesty when we don't have enough information to make a solid conclusion. I get why that might be an alien idea to you. Again you simply demand that there are only two possibilities; how did you rule out a third path we haven't considered yet? Everything is unknown until the first time it's considered, after all.

There is no false dichotomy here, just "science of the gaps" argumentation. We're talking about logical probability, neither of us know anything. You've provided no logical justification of your objection, which only works if you can make an argument for an eternal regression.

So, in your mind the statement "You haven't made an adequate case for your position" is the same as "I make a competing claim"?

I listened very closely, you asked for "anything" which begins to exist.

And you even failed to provide that, unless you actually believe babies pop into existence from nowhere inside wombs, and aren't the product of a sperm and an egg.

It doesn't matter what "recently proposed models", are, unless they are subscribed to by more people who know what they're talking about, than the existing model which posits a beginning, and they aren't.

You're veering into argument from authority territory there, asserting that the number of scientists who accept a given claim is more important than the content of the claim itself. At one point, I'm sure you'd be arguing that Phlogiston is a good explanation for fire; after all, lots of scientists believed in that elemental spirit of fire!

I'll take this as forfeiture of the point. Your theories are fringe theories, which exist but have very little backing.

My theory that I don't know has very little backing? I didn't realize intellectual honesty required that much support.

As for "very little backing" against your position, apparently Vilenkin is only an important scientific figure when he agrees with you, eh? And all the other scientists whose work you've misinterpreted, with your characteristic theistic layman's ignorance?

So your argument is that everything recedes into a point in time where we can no longer understand what is happening. This pretty much constitutes a beginning to me, as all you have is an argument of ignorance "we cna't know, it could be possible, some way, that there wasn't a beginning". You recognise we're looking at the matter probabilistically, and hence you should concede the point.

If we don't know something, if the very basis of our descriptive tools is no longer adequate to describe something, it's not an argument from ignorance to admit that we don't know it. You're taking a point in time in which we can't yet describe what goes on, and saying "there was a beginning there." I'm admitting that if we can't even describe a thing, we don't know what happens there.

"We don't know, therefore beginning," is an argument from ignorance. "We don't know, therefore we don't know," is simply a statement of fact.

You are misrepresenting your own source now, which i have already fully quoted.

"I]f someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is “yes”. If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is “No, but…” So, there are ways to get around having a beginning, but then you are forced to have something nearly as special as a beginning."

The theorem implies a beginning, but there are potential work-arounds. Again the evidence is in my favour.

Yes, you want to take the simplistic answer over subtleties, because the subtleties, the account that takes in all the evidence, doesn't agree with you. It's just like when you dismiss the chief conclusion of Vilenkin's own theorem, because it disagrees with you. This isn't about the actual evidence with you, just the bits you can cherry pick to suit the conclusion you came to before looking at any of it.

What this amounts to is failure to distinquish relevance from irrelevance. The chief result of his paper isn't relevant to us, who are only concerned with a tiny part of it.

The chief result of the paper, that we require new, as yet undeveloped physics models to describe what happens before the beginning of universal expansion, is directly relevant to a discussion of what happened prior to the expansion of the universe, and it beggars belief that you'd call that irrelevant.

I never argued that he knows anything, this is just a bad attempt at a straw man. We're talking about likelihoods. His answer doesn't pertain to where the evidence is leading whatsoever. The only fact we can glean from it is that he isn't 100% certain, which we already knew.

So when Guth goes on to answer "I suspect the universe didn't have a beginning," you're claiming that he still thinks he does? Did you even look at the debate we're talking about before you made up your mind on it?

Besides, the "I don't know" that Guth admits to is also reflected in his professional work; it's an acknowledgement that we don't have sufficient evidence to formulate an accurate calculation of probability. I don't know why you're so desperate for an answer, any answer, even a wrong answer, over just admitting that there isn't enough information yet.

Why are you prizing an answer for which the probability can't even be properly calculated yet? Why does that make you proud?

No, it says alot about your position that you recognise we are arguing about probabilities, yet you want to portray " there are ways to get around having a beginning" as a defeater to the fact that the scientific consensus thinks the universe "probably" had a beginning. Its hilarious, or deceitful, take your pick.

"If I assert a scientific consensus in my favor over and over, it totally exists!"

Oh, also not your position. I know you have trouble with that.

Again, difference between evidence and proof. As i already stated, proof shows something is true, evidence argues that it might be true. All he is saying here, is that his findings don't prove Gods existence, he is not saying that they cannot be taken as evidence, and he even implies that it is evidence when he confirms " In this regard, the theorem that I proved with my colleagues does not give much of an advantage to the theologian". If you want to debate it'd be helpful if you knew the meanings of basic words you use.

Well, in my defense, I don't often debate with evasive players of sophistic word games; I find them tiresome.

Well i am not afraid to follow where the evidence leads and discuss things on a probabilistic basis. All you are making is another "science of the gaps" argument.

But you aren't following the evidence, because you're actively misrepresenting the scientific models and outright dismissing whatever science doesn't fit with your conclusion. That may be christian science, but it's not the real kind.

How am i twisting science? You need to make the case before you make the assertion.

When you think Vilenkin is arguing for your position, he's alright as a source. When I pointed out that he's a proponent of multiverse theory, suddenly he's unreliable, and just making assumptions. That's twisting science.

More literally, you're also twisting the conclusions of Vilenkin's theorems, but I've discussed that already. I shouldn't need to rehash it.

You've offered no evidence for any kind of multiverse. The only evidence for it is predicated on apriori naturalism, which is why scientists acting as scientists, who are naturalists by profession and definition, take the appearance of fine tuning as evidence for the multiverse - because the only other reasonable explanation is not naturalistic. They therefor have no choice but to posit and infinite multiverse which would sooner or later spit out a universe such as ours. They're just doing their job, and their job does not include or assume the supernatural. This is the paradigm of science.

I'm not required to provide evidence for a multiverse, as I don't necessarily accept that. And you still need to tell us whether you consider science a reliable source of information or not, because you were quoting scientists a minute ago, but now you're dismissing the work of scientists because of some bias that you can't establish, because they disagree with you.

One or the other, dude. You can't pick and choose what science is good, and what isn't.

Hmm, you are copping out of this one too, then. The appearance of fine tuning does exist, hence the multiverse theory is imagined as a naturalistic explanation.

Fine tuning can only be a thing if you can first demonstrate that this particular universe, the appearance of life, whatever you're claiming the universe was fine tuned toward, was a goal state that it could have failed to reach. Without establishing that, this particular universe is no more or less likely than any other type of universe. You're assuming fine tuning without demonstrating that the universe was tuned at all.

He said "putative evidence", and explains his position thoroughly in the quotes i originally provided, which were provided for the very reason of clearing this issue up, and the false inferences people such as yourself have made. Your quotes are earlier, my quotes are clearing up the quotes which you gave.

"Putative evidence," like his own experience? Like not seeing Jesus rise? You keep scrabbling for the primacy of personal experience, but then you ignore this point every time it's brought up. Are you trying to hide that it's there?

Really, the guy fakes drawings of human embros to make the look like other creatures to support evolution, and im misrepresenting when i call it a fraud? You've provided no argument, just assertion so i don't feel the need to respond with much.

Aww, you didn't watch the video before you disagreed with it, did you? Cute.

Haeckel's drawings, and his theories about embryonic development, were later completely vindicated by actual photographs of developing human embryos. This claim you make that his drawings were faked completely misses the part where they turned out to be accurate.

Piltdown Man - the greatest hoax in the history of science? Natural History Museum.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/scien...-man-hoax/

Which, as the video explained, did not fool the scientific community, and once the tools were developed that could demonstrate that Piltdown was fraudulent, it was the scientific community that labelled it as such.

This was the hoax which was originally used to get evolution into schools. And even though it was shown to be a fraud, evolution remains.

Evolution remains because of all the other pieces of fossil evidence that have come to light prior to Piltdown and since. Not to mention the genetic evidence, observation both in the lab and out, and many others. Your idea that an entire scientific theory should be thrown out because of a single fraud shows that you don't know much about science, or logic in general: the sky is red at sunset sometimes, does that mean the idea that it's blue in the daytime is a fraud?

No, we're appealing to personal experience to justify personal belief. Its completely rational and you cannot make an argument showing otherwise without misrepresentation.

I can too: if I pump you full of hallucinogens, you can see some weird shit. You could use your personal experience of your hallucinations to justify your belief that they were real, but objective reality proves you wrong. Gee, I guess personal experience isn't necessarily completely true, huh?

So, how do you go about telling the difference between a realistic personal experience, and one that isn't?