Dr. Craig is a liar.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Except for when I'm being Poe, and demanding that the same requirements that others put forth they hold up to as well.

I tend to hold beliefs in varying degrees of certainty. I'm not married to any of them and they are all subject to change. But some things I'm more confident in. I wouldn't expect you to be able to prove every little thing you claim to be true...just the outrageous stuff that I see no evidence for.

I don't believe that we need to understand something in order to believe it. 

I do. I know that I'm vulnerable to believing things that are not true, and so I try to notice when I'm sliding down a slope of gullibility. And before I go forming a core belief to live my life by, I'm going to be applying quite a bit of scrutiny to it.

I think that the principle of causality is fairly foundational to science

I agree. I'm not sure if foundational is a word, but it should be! Are you saying that since the universe had a cause, then that cause must be God?

The only causal arguments I ever hear go something like this:

p1: All things that come into being had a cause.
p2: The universe came into being.
c:   Therefore the universe had a cause.

I'll grant you all of those things. But there is a detail that gets overlooked. All things that come into being have not only a cause, but they also have a prior existing form (example: ice/water/steam) And this is true whether or not you can explain it. It's observable and can be repeatedly demonstrated.

It is not true that all things that are caused "into being" have a cognitive artificer. That's a non-sequitor- (example: ice/water/steam).

So, the universe came into being, it was caused by something, and given our understanding of the way things work around here, the universe was probably some other (?) before it was a universe. There's not much else that can be said without pretending to know things that we don't know...

[The Grand Nudger]

@Rob.

What does it even mean to believe in something you don't understand?  Nothing...effectively...it's a logical absurdity, and yet......we all agree it's not only possible, but actual. This is probably another great example, like infinite regress, of why logical absurdity does not yield an actual impossibility.

[The Reality Salesman01]

But we're not all actively trying to minimize our vulnerability to it. Hence...

[RoadRunner79]

Wholeheartedly, emphatically, unconditionally agree with you on this one RR.  We don't seem to need to understand something in order to believe it.  We might, however, need to understand the thing we believe to accurately communicate it to others or form a logical predicate for it's truth or existence.  Hi-five?

I think that it depends on what is being claimed.  I think that the existence of something, can be shown from simple observation, or inductive reasoning (without understanding exactly why).  For instance virtual particles have not been directly observed, but there is reasons to believe that they exist.   I haven't experienced these reasons, but I can rely on the testimony of multiple independent people to convey their experiences.   I can also look at those who contest it, and their reasons. I can look at the assumptions and reasons, and see if the conclusion follows.    I don't think, that we needed to understand gravity, before we said that gravity existed.   We had reason to believe it, before understanding it.  However if the claim is why x occurs, then this is a claim of understanding, and we need to explain why that or give reason for that claim.

[Mister Agenda]

First, thanks for addressing the points and not what everyone else did: various versions of "prove it". 

This list was from the link I supplied. I did not write it (I'm really tired of writing it). 

Regarding your point, it seems you are saying the argument is special pleading for God. P1 says "began to exist". Isn't the argument of most atheist to say the universe did not begin to exist? Doesn't that simply move the question to "did the universe begin to exist"?  No special pleading.

No one knows whether it began to exist or always existed in some form. It will probably be 20 years before we can hope to begin to get evidence confirming or disconfirming any of the various scientific hypotheses for the origin of the universe.

Either way, there are hypotheses that fit the data we already have and for which the math works.

[The Reality Salesman01]

"Why" in a causal sense of a question produces one sort of answer..."Why" in a teleological sense of a question can produce another. You seem to think that the tendency to ask the former in a specific instance is evidence that there must be an answer to the latter. This is not the case. You've got to sort these things out. Has it really not occurred to you that maybe the universe has no purpose? It just...is. And it doesn't give two fucks what I or anybody else thinks because...its a universe!

[The Grand Nudger]

For instance virtual particles have not been directly observed, but there is reasons to believe that they exist.   I haven't experienced these reasons, but I can rely on the testimony of multiple independent people to convey their experiences.   I can also look at those who contest it, and their reasons. I can look at the assumptions and reasons, and see if the conclusion follows.    I don't think, that we needed to understand gravity, before we said that gravity existed.   We had reason to believe it, before understanding it.  However if the claim is why x occurs, then this is a claim of understanding, and we need to explain why that or give reason for that claim.

Purportedly, those people on either side of the issue understand what it is they're talking about, we wouldn't refer to them without confidence in that, and have managed to convey that understanding to you.....or what, again, are we talking about?

You haven't described any situation in which something depends upon what is being claimed...you've simply re-iterated the necessity of understanding to any claim or consideration of a claim.  

Not that any of this matters..because we're not talking, when we talk about god-belief.....about something that scientists do in labs and then report on for verification..are we?  Why would the analogy apply? How is it supposed to be informative?

[Mister Agenda]

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

Infinite regression of past causes seems absurd to humans. If it were logically absurd, by definition, there would be an iron-clad proof of its logical absurdity.

Solving the seeming paradox of 'everything has to have a cause, but it's absurd for causes to regress infinitely' with 'except this one thing that doesn't have to have a cause' first of all just claims that the first statement is false and NOT everything has to have a cause. Given that, a causeless universe is instantly put on the table.

[Mister Agenda]

I think existence itself has always existed and always will... that's what I think.

That's even the theist position if they thought about it more. A universe is the set of all things that exist. If God exists and nothing else does, God is the universe. Even in theology there was never not a universe; and there was never 'philosophical nothingness'.

[RoadRunner79]

I think existence itself has always existed and always will... that's what I think.

That's even the theist position if they thought about it more. A universe is the set of all things that exist. If God exists and nothing else does, God is the universe. Even in theology there was never not a universe; and there was never 'philosophical nothingness'.

I would agree with that. 

However I don't think that is the definition of "universe" used in the discussion, or when talking about the multiverse hypothesis.