Self-evident truth is a thing

[Avodaiah]

So a while back, I started a thread defending the Kalam argument. Eventually I got pretty busy and ended up letting the thread expire, but it ended up being mostly about the difference between making a bare assertion and stating a self-evident truth.
The Kalam does presuppose a couple things. It presupposes that nothing can never equal something (which is why everything that has a beginning has a cause) and that anything that moves has a starting point and an ending point (why everything in the universe must have a beginning).
These are not scientific laws, brought about by testing things time and time again and getting a consistent answer. These are mathematical and logical laws, laws that we know because it would be completely impossible for them to be any other way, and the kind of truths that the scientific method itself is based on. If nothing can equal something, then what's the point of looking for a cause for natural phenomena? They could just happen randomly for no reason. Or if motion does not require a starting and ending point, then why would anyone want to know how the history of anything, or how something was before it changed in some way? The fact is that these questions only make any sense because of self-evident truth, which is what a lot of arguments, including the Kalam, are based on.
Can we not agree on this?

[Chad32]

I could stand behind the idea of not worrying so much about how things started, and just study the way things currently work. I have no problem with that. It seems to be mostly the religious folk that ask how everything began, and assert that the universe isn't eternal and needed a beginning, but their deity is eternal and didn't.

Let's focus more on how the universe works, than where the universe came from.

[Avodaiah]

It seems to be mostly the religious folk that ask how everything began, and assert that the universe isn't eternal and needed a beginning, but their deity is eternal and didn't.

Only because you only need a starting/ending point if you move or change in some way.
P.S. You sound like more of an apatheist than an antitheist.

[Ryantology]

I see no reason not to think that the whole of existence is not an eternally-working process. If cause must precede effect, then there cannot logically be a single starting point of everything. To assert so is to force a logical argument to contradict its own logic.

[Chad32]

Never really heard of an apatheist, but that may be a more accurate word. I am more often merely apathetic to theism than hostile.

There's a lot of evidence for the big bang, or more accurately big expansion. It's possible that another universe caved in on itsself, then expanded again to begin ours, though that's just my personal thought. I don't know how many other people think that.

Like I said, I don't really care. The laws of physics and such didn't really exist until after the big expansion, so it's hard for science to know what happened before it. I find it odd that the writers of the bible believed that heaven was just above the sky, and the stars were just cracks in the firmament. Now that we know more, he's been pushed into either a spiritual realm, or the beginning of the universe itsself.

Talking about beginnings and eternal things is just running around in circles because there's no concrete proof either way. Without concrete proof, you just won't convince most people unless you get them when they're emotionally vulnerable.

[Avodaiah]

I see no reason not to think that the whole of existence is not an eternally-working process. If cause must precede effect, then there cannot logically be a single starting point of everything. To assert so is to force a logical argument to contradict its own logic.

That's the whole point, Ryan. There can't be a single starting point of everything unless who/whatever started it does not change and exists outside of time.
But it's impossible for anything that exists solely within this universe to go infinitely back in time, since everything in the universe is moving. Beginning is a necessary part of motion. Sorry to borrow from Thunderf00t, but saying motion has no beginning is like saying circles are not round.

[Whateverist]

I see no reason not to think that the whole of existence is not an eternally-working process. If cause must precede effect, then there cannot logically be a single starting point of everything. To assert so is to force a logical argument to contradict its own logic.

That's the whole point, Ryan. There can't be a single starting point of everything unless who/whatever started it does not change and exists outside of time.
But it's impossible for anything that exists solely within this universe to go infinitely back in time, since everything in the universe is moving. Beginning is a necessary part of motion. Sorry to borrow from Thunderf00t, but saying motion has no beginning is like saying circles are not round.

I've bolded the part I disagree with. How can you say a creator brought everything into existence without changing itself? How do you know that "existing outside of time" is a thing which any noun can possess? How do you know you aren't just saying weird things which mean nothing?

So no I also can't agree with your premises.

[Avodaiah]

How can you say a creator brought everything into existence without changing itself? How do you know that "existing outside of time" is a thing which any noun can possess? How do you know you aren't just saying weird things which mean nothing?

You're asking how I can say it's possible? Because any other alternative is impossible.
How can we know that this universe contained in these 3 spatial dimension and 1 time dimension (plus the 7 or so others proposed by physicists) are all there is if what we have here points to something outside of them?

[Silver]

You're asking how I can say it's possible? Because any other alternative is impossible.

False.

[Avodaiah]

False.

Do tell.