RE: Tentatively Christian; looking for a reasonable discussion
March 18, 2015 at 11:36 am
(This post was last modified: March 18, 2015 at 11:55 am by FatAndFaithless.)
To put it shortly (and there are many here that will go into much more detail than I) the Kalaam argument relies entirely on ideas that only apply to the universe as we experience it now (and even then, the whole "cause" wormhole is hopelessly blurred and messy thanks to quantum indeterminacy), and tries to take the model of the universe we have now (which is only possible due to the nature of the universe after the big bang), and apply it to a time before t=0 at which our current ideas of space-time have absolutely no relevance.
We can't make any affirmative statements of any kind dealing with our universe before t=0 (or even the planck time for that matter), because our entire understanding of reality is predicated on the universe after t=0. We don't know if there even exists a time before t=0, or if that question even makes sense, or if there have been infinite universes before t=0, or if all time of any kind originated at t=0, and so on and so forth; it's a massive, enormous utter unknown (for now), and honest people will simply say "We don't know" when it comes to such topics. People who use the Kalaam are exploiting that giant 'unknown' as an opportunity to crowbar in metaphysical and theological ideas that have absolutely no justification, but have an attractive veneer because it's an answer to the great unknown that scientists readily admit. It just happens the answer that the Kalaam presents is unsubstantiated, appropriates scientific terms and ideas for unscientific means, and claims to have knowledge about an issue that cannot be verified, measured, tested, falsified, or reviewed in any way.
Not to mention the hugely vague and undefinable concepts of 'beyond matter, space and time'. There's no evidence to suggest there's something 'beyond matter space and time' at all, or if that's even possible, or what it would look like if it was.
The Kalaam is WLC's pet 'argument', and he frills it up with a lot of metaphysics and tenuous logic knots, but his premises only make any sense if you just accept his re-definitions of already defined terms, and just 'go along with it' and ignore the glaring problems in his argument.
(Folks with more thorough knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong, I just went for a short summary. Just the idea of "cause" could be an entire thread on its own.)
We can't make any affirmative statements of any kind dealing with our universe before t=0 (or even the planck time for that matter), because our entire understanding of reality is predicated on the universe after t=0. We don't know if there even exists a time before t=0, or if that question even makes sense, or if there have been infinite universes before t=0, or if all time of any kind originated at t=0, and so on and so forth; it's a massive, enormous utter unknown (for now), and honest people will simply say "We don't know" when it comes to such topics. People who use the Kalaam are exploiting that giant 'unknown' as an opportunity to crowbar in metaphysical and theological ideas that have absolutely no justification, but have an attractive veneer because it's an answer to the great unknown that scientists readily admit. It just happens the answer that the Kalaam presents is unsubstantiated, appropriates scientific terms and ideas for unscientific means, and claims to have knowledge about an issue that cannot be verified, measured, tested, falsified, or reviewed in any way.
Not to mention the hugely vague and undefinable concepts of 'beyond matter, space and time'. There's no evidence to suggest there's something 'beyond matter space and time' at all, or if that's even possible, or what it would look like if it was.
The Kalaam is WLC's pet 'argument', and he frills it up with a lot of metaphysics and tenuous logic knots, but his premises only make any sense if you just accept his re-definitions of already defined terms, and just 'go along with it' and ignore the glaring problems in his argument.
(Folks with more thorough knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong, I just went for a short summary. Just the idea of "cause" could be an entire thread on its own.)
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson
