The Kalam Cosmological Argument

[Disagreeable]

I'm lost. Has he provided the rebuttals?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I was describing what Aristotle said. If you are already familiar with this that's good. 

You maybe surprised to find that some folks have some education. It's not like his Prime Mover argument is, you know, obscure.

[The Grand Nudger]

There has only been a single successful argument for gods of any kind in all of human history, and kca isn't it.

[Disagreeable]

There has only been a single successful argument for gods of any kind in all of human history, and kca isn't it.

What is it? The argument?

[The Grand Nudger]

Plantinga's modal ontological.

[Paleophyte]

Quoting from Wikipedia: 'The most prominent form of the Kalam cosmological argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, is expressed as the following syllogism:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.'

I find this argument laughable because it's supposed to be an argument for God but the conclusion is just that the universe has a cause.

It's an argument with more fallacies than premises, which is a good trick. You have a fallacy of composition, P1 and P2 can't be linked to get the desired conclusion without a non sequitur, and both P1 and P2 are unsupported. It's about what you'd expect if you were reading cosmology written by a theologist a thousand years ago. And after all that they still can't get it to "god is the cause" without further fallacies.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Plantinga's modal ontological.

I don't see how that can be called 'successful', since it begins with a condition that is ill-defined and (possibly) self-contradictory.

Boru

[Sheldon]

Plantinga's modal ontological.

 I still can't post links, but this seems like a problem to me:

(31) Necessarily, a being has maximal excellence in every world only if it has omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in every world. 

Leaving aside the fact that moral perfection is subjective, we live in a world with ubiquitous suffering, can we really imagine a notion of moral perfection that stands idly by, and does nothing to prevent the rape and murder of a child for example, if it could so easily prevent it? Of course I am not a professional philosopher, but if an argument doesn't accurately reflect objective reality, isn't that a problem for that argument? 

It also seems like he simply trying to define something into existence, as other philosophers have pointed out in opposing argument. For example he defines maximal greatness as necessarily possessing omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection, we could as easily posit a maximally evil being, this might even better reflect objective reality given my previous objection. 

There are also semantic problems with both omniscience and omnipotence. where each definition creates rational contradictions of course. Omniscience for example would certainly seem to present problems for any notion of free will, or autonomy of choice.

[Disagreeable]

Omniscience for example would certainly seem to present problems for any notion of free will, or autonomy of choice.

I point this out a lot. I've heard the objection "Omniscience isn't predestination so you still have a choice" and they completely miss the point that if God knows you will do X then you can't do otherwise.

[Sheldon]

Omniscience for example would certainly seem to present problems for any notion of free will, or autonomy of choice.

I point this out a lot. I've heard the objection "Omniscience isn't predestination so you still have a choice" and they completely miss the point that if God knows you will do X then you can't do otherwise.

Oh I had a tediously endless discourse with a Muslim on this, his mental gymnastics were impressive in their own right, but it lost its ironic humour for me eventually. If I posit two choices, lets say A and B, and a being exists that knows beforehand which one I will pick, then any autonomy I perceive must necessarily be illusionary. He just endlessly claimed that two mutually exclusive things were happening, that a deity knew which one I would pick, and that I still had a choice, he couldn't explain why without changing the claim to a deity knows all possible choices, or a deity exists outside of time and space and thus can see all choices instantly, of course no objective evidence to support any of the claims, and what was worse they still necessarily rendered any perception of choice an illusion. 

It is marvellous to see the lengths people will sometimes go to, just to preserve a belief, if they are sufficiently emotionally invested in that belief.