(September 10, 2010 at 2:53 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: If you could only show the logical inconsistencies in my points then perhaps I could shake them off.OK then so lets formally refute your argument. You are mixing your cosmological arguments up between the Kalam and argument from contingency. But lets start with the Kalam from islamic philosophy and populrized by fundie theological spin doctor Dr. William Lane Craig.
The Kalam states:
1 - whatever begins to exist has a cause
2 - the universe began to exist
3- therefore the universe has a cause
Final step - the proposer defines the causal agent as an uncaused first cause, infinite god.
Firstly the syllogistic reasoning is logically valid. But is the argument sound?
Premise 1 is self evidently true of the material and finite universe. However, it tries to baselessly smuggle in the concept of an infinite god into the argument so the proposer can say ta-da god exists.
Premise 2 commits the fallacy of begging the question, as it cannot be demonstrated to be the case and assumes that it is true. All we can 'prove' is that our current universe inflated rapidly from a quantum singularity,
The deductive conclusion is sound. But taken together with the premisies commits a compositional error in that it is arguing from the constituent parts of the universe to the universe as a whole. This is an invalid inference.
However, with the final step it really falls apart. The three steps cannot get you to a god anymore than a universe creating "thought of an apple" or anything else you care to imagine. The rejoinder around god being infinite is invalid because god has been defined into existence by man ontologically. Thus Premise 1 can now be seen as question begging for god. In addition asserting god is infinite is invalid as it commits the fallacy of special pleading as god goes to the defining qualities of the premise.
The conclusion that a god creates and sustains the universe, furthermore now posits lots of additional problems for the theist. God/s now has/have to be timeless, spaceless and immaterial as to create a universe it/they has/have to be outside of it. Such a being is impossible as it has no matter, kinetic nor potential energy to interact with the physical universe (the only known mechanisms for cause and effect). And as you have already noted (and baselessly dismissed) cannot cause anything as its timeless. In addition the boundary conditions of the big bang were so chaotic and results unpredictable that arguing for a designer is again special pleading.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
