Kalem cosmological argument

a reply to: rajas
Please don't think like that. If you mean people won't respond kindly to your way of thinking then fair enough but it's still an opinion worth debating. I have stated my interpretation of the question.

a reply to: spygeek
Boom. Nail on the head.

Does anyone one else watch religious debates on YouTube. The OP is just regurgitating the power point presentations of the weakest candidate. Hopefully some hear would have seen it, religious leader with glasses....can't debate outside the realms of the PowerPoint presentation.
His name is frank turek. Identical rationale.

a reply to: rossacus

Yep. Pretty much any with Harris or Hitchens, and many others.

I'm getting a William Lane Craig vibe.

originally posted by: rossacus
a reply to: spygeek
Boom. Nail on the head.

Does anyone one else watch religious debates on YouTube. The OP is just regurgitating the power point presentations of the weakest candidate. Hopefully some hear would have seen it, religious leader with glasses....can't debate outside the realms of the PowerPoint presentation.
His name is frank turek. Identical rationale.

It's funny I thought of this exact same guy when I first happened upon this thread, couldn't remember his name though.. thanks for mentioning him, it's been bugging me at the back of my mind for hours

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: Thetan

I'm going to make another thread after this one which extends the argument to the question of what caused the effect of the universe. Establishing the validity of this argument is the prelude to the auxiliary conclusion.

You mean to say once you're satisfied that this thread concludes there was a cause you will finish the Kalam Cosmological Argument that the cause was god?

It won't be a revelation.

Also, it's spelled Kalam.

Lol, I suspect we may well be waiting a while for the sequel, judging by how this thread is going.. The op really should be attempting to come up with an original argument instead of just reposting and rehashing this long since refuted and demonstrably false one.. Somehow I think that won't be happening but you never know..

a reply to: spygeek

I wasted too much time trying to find him.lol....but worth it.

originally posted by: Thetan
Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

check

The universe began to exist.

Citation needed.

Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

Without proof of the statement above, this statement can be dismissed.

This is a deductive argument. In this thread you will argue for, or against this argument. I will argue for it.

If you can't prove the premise, deductive reasoning is useless, and you have failed to prove that the universe had a beginning. Sorry. There is no evidence that the universe ever began to exist. It is wishful thinking on your part. The universal law that energy cannot be created or destroyed suggests the singularity was already there.

a reply to: rossacus

Most people listen to their thoughts, thats their reality, the truth wont matter.. I think people will maybe think differently about most things, but the opinion is fact that is not hidden, you have to search and the journey makes you less of everything and more human.. Once you figure it out, well you got an answer and a even bigger question mark..
Could maybe all the theories and teachings present a philosophical ideal called humanity? Could the main aspect of everything be, we really dont know.
My opinion wont matter, cause it will just put my universe on someone elses, like andromeda eating the milkyway.

a reply to: Barcs

Hey you!

recommend books on how to debate please =)

I always believed the big bang to be a synonym for "point zero". We are still expanding, as a universe but only to a certain point, then it collapses, or get's approximately infinitly small =>0 and boom expands again?
So from that point of view the universe exists because mass exists, and mass exists, because energy exists, and energy exists, because it is all in motion?
Could be wrong of course, wtf do i know, but it certainly makes more sense than it is created, or a projection. At least to me...

a reply to: Thetan

Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

This is an inductive premise, not deductive, and is therefore not unquestionably valid. Dismissed.

The universe began to exist.

You have no proof that the universe began to exist. Doubly dismissed.

Finally, spacetime is part of the universe, and no temporal case ‘before the universe' can be made. The predicate is illigocal. Triply dismissed.

I think you can now flush this argument back down the intellectual privy from which you extracted it. It might be ‘among the most sophisticated and well argued in contemporary theological philosophy’, but that's not saying much, is it? Theological philosophy is an attempt to rationalize the irrational. It’s had two thousand years in which to try and it hasn't succeeded yet.

‘Thetan’, eh? Give Mr Cruise and Mr Travolta my regards.

originally posted by: Thetan
Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

This is a deductive argument. In this thread you will argue for, or against this argument. I will argue for it.

Prove that cause and effect hold true for objects existing outside our universe first.

Where'd the OP go? I feel that great rebuttals have been made to the premise and the person vanished.

a reply to: Astyanax

So you disagree with this then Sty?

In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology.

Professor Steven Hawking

source

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Astyanax

So you disagree with this then Sty?

"In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology."

Professor Steven Hawking

source

Do you disagree with this randy? Did you actually read the lecture you linked?

There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside. 

According the current understanding of physics, "time" is part of the fabric of the universe, therefore there was no "time" when the universe did not exist; similar to how there is nothing "south of the South Pole". Within this understanding of time, even if time does have a beginning and end, the universe is still essentially "eternal", as much as anything that physically exists can be.

It is possible to model a universe in which "time" does not exist, and it is possible this was in fact the state of the universe prior to the big bang; an eternally "timeless" quantum vacuum. "The beginning of 4 dimensional spacetime" is not synonymous with "the beginning of the universe". This is one of the biggest problems with the KCA; it fails to define the essential properties of its key conept: that which it refers to as "the universe".

Here's a cosmological argument for the op and others to consider/refute:
(Bear with me, my studies in logic are in my distant past; I am rusty).

P1. The first and second law of thermodynamics posit that the spacetime continuum had a beginning.
P2. The first and second laws of thermodynamics posit that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being cannot physcially exist within our spacetime continuum.
P3. An omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient being that does not at least partially physically exist in our spacetime continuum can not influence it, and therefore is no longer omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.
P4. An omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being can not create or influence a spacetime continuum governed by laws that invalidate its own physical existence or influence within it.
P5. Natural quantum fluctuations have been mathematically proven to allow for the big bang expansion at the beginning of spacetime to happen spontaneously.
C1. An omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being is not a reasonable explanation for the cause of the beginning of spacetime.
C2. Natural quantum fluctuations are a reasonable explanation for the cause of the beginning of spacetime.

Of course there is a bit of a problem regarding the terms of omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, as they are temporal quantifications extrapolated to infinity and therefore somewhat illogical, unknowable and indefinable. However, the premise that a being that exists everywhere, knows everything, and has the power to do anything, can not exist in or of a spacetime governed by fundamental physical laws that restrict any one of these qualities holds true. A concept of "God" can not create a logical contradiction if it is to be rationally accepted.

This can be demonstrated by this sort of argument:

P1. Omnipotence of a being posits that anything and everything is possible for that being.
P2. For everything and anything to be possible for a being, fundamental physical laws must make an exception for that being.
P3. A being that is excepted by fundamental physical laws cannot have a detectable physical presence in any space, nor detectably influence any object, governed by those fundamental laws.
P4. A being without a detectable presence or influence is neither omnipotent, nor a being.
C1. No such omnipotent being can logically be said to exist in or have influence over our universe's spacetime.

Nothing against those who hold a faith in a supreme being or personal God figure, but such a faith is neither based in, nor can be positively argued with, deductive reasoning.

a reply to: Titen-Sxull
Nonsense. He only actually refutes premise one, so let's look at his refutations.

Ex nihilo is pure specualtion and not empirically suported-While it is true that we have never observed something being created out of nothing, it is the only logical answer. We know that matter couldn't have always been here because matter is never quiescent. If matter is never quiescent, then that means there must be an actual number of infinite past events, however this leads to absurdities; an actual infinite cannot exist. Hilbert's hotel furnishes an excellent example of thism.youtube.com...

Ex materia doesn't have to be physical- Yes, he claims in his first refutation that creation ex nihilo isn't empirically supported and then states something that also isn't empirically supported, namely, that an efficient cause could cause an effect upon something inside the physical universe, that isn't physical. Considering that everything that we know of in the phyical universe is physical it becomes incumbent upon him to show us that something inside the physical universe is non physical.

Why can't a material cause of the universe be timeless and enter into time at the beginning of creation?- This is an incoherent statement; here we define universe as, "all cases of matter, energy, space and time." So this by definition wouldn't be a material cause of the universe, as the universe already existed as the material itself. One last thing.

The man in this video completely misrepresents craig's argument at the time of approximitely nine minuites into the video. What Craig is actually saying is that since energy is never quiescent, there must be an actual infinite amount of past events if the universe has always existed, and it's impossible to have an actual infinite.

a reply to: spygeek

Do you disagree with this randy?

Stopped reading after this because I'm not allowing you
to answer my question, with the same question on
friday the 13th.

a reply to: spygeek

I'll not be arguing the existence of any god here. Now lets take a look at your rebuttals.

Rebuttal to premise one- Surely, what you mean to say is, "There seem to be examples of things happening without a cause." Is this an accepted fact? Not at all, I direct you to David Bohm's interpretation. Furthermore, doesn't it seem more probable that we just simply don't have instruments to measure particles that small correctly yet? Besides, as people debating about this before us have said. Extrapolating that there are no causes for these things just because we haven't found any yet , decisevely, is like extrapolating that due to our inability to detect alien life, there is no alien life in the universe. I'll leave you with a quote by John Jefferson Davis.

"Quantum-mechanical events may not have classically deterministic causes, but they are not thereby uncaused or a causal. The decay of a nucleus takes place in view of physical actualities and potentialities internal to itself, in relation to a spatiotemporal nexus governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. The fact that uranium atoms consistently decay into atoms of lead and other elements--and not into rabbits or frogs--shows that such events are not causal but take place within a causal nexus and lawlike structures."

a reply to: spygeek

I'll adress your refutation to premise two now.
It is not an assumption but a notion very much grounded in general concensus among scientists, it is also the only logical probablility in an inductive sense. The multiverse hypothisis is irrelevant since that would be incudled in the definiton we are using for universe.
As for this "pre big bang universe," how could it be static when energy isn't quiescnet? Also, this raises the highly interesting question, if it was eternally static beforehand, what was the cause of it's change? For example,(and actually I think this is Craig's example.) If a pool is frozen for eternity and then melts, what made it melt?

a reply to: Barcs

Citation? Energy and matter are not quiescent.Therefore, if the universe never began to exist, then that means that an actual infinite amount of events have happened. However, an actual infinite cannot exist. See Hilberts's hotel for an illustration link above for a demonstration of that.