Dr. Craig is a liar.

[Jehanne]

This is false:

http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogsp...ctual.html

It is? Why? Put it into your own words.

I can imagine "Sphere World", a world which exists eternally, which simply changes colors from red to blue and back from one moment to the next.  Such a world is finite, and yet, it possess an actual infinite in that it alternatives between red and blue from eternity past until eternity future.

[wiploc]

You said there is no such thing as an actual infinite of anything.  That makes your god either (a) finite or (b) not actual.

"of anything" = things. An actual infinite refers to a quantity.

Does anybody understand what his point is here?

[LadyForCamus]

1) Define cause and effect.
2) Demonstrate simultaneous cause and effect is plausible under your definition.
3) Even if we grant whatever you mean by simultaneous cause and effect, you still can't get around the fact that, God could not exist timelessly and changelessly without the universe prior to causing time to exist within the universe. This is a non sequitur.

Review the first video in my "Timelessness" thread here: http://atheistforums.org/thread-42797.html
Time becomes an emergent property of causality. Or, put in terms of the video, "Causality is responsible for Time."

Third time trying to post this...

First, we must distinquish between a material cause and an efficient cause (there are more types of causes, but I don't think they are germane to the discussion). A material cause always precedes its effect. It is not so clear that an efficient cause does.

For example, take a train locomotive and a freight car connected by a coupling with 0% flex. When the locomotive starts moving (the efficient cause), the freight care moves as well (the effect). Simultaneous. 

Another thought experiment: Take an artist and a clay vase. The clay is the material cause. The efficient cause is not the artist (person) alone. That artist can go home from the studio and may be a mother or daughter and engage in other activities. It is only the artist (person) and the act of molding the clay together that can be considered the efficient cause and therefore necessarily simultaneous with the effect (the vase). 

Regarding your point 3), why do you say that? Do you imagine that God had to count down 3...2...1...create? 

Time is a measurement of a sequence of events and/or the duration between them. Does time require causality or does causality require time?

Why do you keep asking TT how he imagines God does things? He simply pointed a logical problem your assertion. It's YOUR assertion. How do YOU imagine God did it? It's up to you to explain it to us. If causality requires time and God was timeless...how did he cause the universe to exist?

Edit: sorry for the repetition, I see TT addressed this directly!

[wiploc]

Quantum mechanics.  The weight of scientific opinion is that very tiny things are uncaused. 

If you are going to ignore science on this point, you shouldn't invoke it on other points.

Why?

Special pleading is a fallacy.  If your argument is, "You should agree with science when science agrees with me, but you should ignore science when I find science inconvenient," then you are engaged in special pleading.

[wiploc]

Yes, that is a big problem. If you start saying logic doesn't apply to god, you've just thrown away all your tools. It's the ultimate argument from ignorance.

You can forget the stupid Kalam argument for a start.

He's all for inductive logic when he thinks it supports him.  When he's against logic is when we think it supports us and  he can't come up with a logical defeater for our arguments.  At that point, logic becomes a kind of chicanery that other people shouldn't be allowed to use. 

-

@ RoadRunner: This is a perfect example to answer your question "Why?" in post 708.

[wiploc]

And there's no good reason to suppose that 'not anything' ever 'existed'. It might not even be possible.

Why is there something instead of nothing?
Why wouldn't there be?

If there were nothing rather than something, the theist argument would be something like, "Why is there nothing rather than something?  Where did everything go?  God is the only possible explanation."

[wiploc]

Sometimes that happens when I spend too long typing out a reply--it just posts the original post. Damn. I will never be able to articulate my point so well as I did in that lost post...

I'm sorry you lost your original post, that's gotta suck. But I did pose several questions which I'd like to hear your response to. Perhaps you can invoke divine inspiration to reclaim your lost words.

Also, if that happened to me a couple of times, I'd switch to composing in Word or Wordpad and then doing copy and paste to here.

[wiploc]

Intellectual integrity comes to mind.

Sorry, if I was unclear... The why was directed at the first statement about tiny things.

Got it.  Thanks for the clarification. 

Quantum mechanics deals with the very tiny.  Quarks, electrons, virtual particles, cosmic eggs, and such.

[wiploc]

You say there are no actual infinites. Therefore, if God is actual, he is not infinite. If he is infinite, he is not actual.

I do say, and if you don't then you misunderstand what an actual infinite is. It is a useful abstract concept used in math and philosophy. There is no such thing as an actual infinite of things/anything/items/thoughts/moments/causes/whatever you want to fill in here top make it make sense for you.

So your god is finite, right?

[wiploc]

1. Everything that began to exist, existed previously in a different form

...

Defeater for P1: infinite regression of past causes is logically absurd.

How is it more logically absurd than an uncaused first cause?