Stump the Christian?

[Randy Carson]

Oh, good.

You've done this before. 

That means the two of you should be able to provide really clear, concise refutations.

Please do.

composition fallacy, fallacy of equivocation and general idiocy, for starters

a quick search on the forums alone would've told you that and much more.

Composition Fallacy?

The argument is in the classic form Modus ponens:

P implies Q.
P.
Therefore, Q.

1. All men are mortal. (Everything that begins has a cause.)
2. Socrates was a man. (The universe began.)
3. Therefore, Socrates is moral. (Therefore, the universe has a cause.)

The argument does not imply that because some things in the universe have a cause, therefore the whole universe must have a cause. Instead, the premises are argued as follows:

Regarding the first premise:

1. Something cannot come from nothing.
   
2. If something can come from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything does not come into being from nothing. If the universe can come into being out of nothing, why not root beer? Or bowling balls? And why don't they appear out of nothing at random?
   
3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise one of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. (This is an example of the type of inductive reasoning that undergirds all of science.)
   

Regarding the second premise:

1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that if the universe had existed forever, it would have run out of energy long ago.
   
2. Modern cosmologists, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, have proved that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history, cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. This also applies to multiverses – if there is such a thing. Vilenkin said,
   

“This means that scientists “can no longer hide behind a past eternal-universe. There is no escape; they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

The Fallacy of Equivocation?

The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a word is used in two different ways as follows:

1. Socrates was Greek.
2. Greek is a language.
3. Therefore, Socrates is a language.

However, in the Kalam Argument, God is the efficient cause of the universe, not the material cause. Here is another example:

Michaelangelo is the efficient cause of the statue, "David". The material cause of the statue is the block of marble.

Further, "begins to exist" means "comes into being". Thus, the Kalam argument may also be stated:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe came into being.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

In the Kalam argument, there simply is no equivocation.