The best online Debate website - DebateIsland.com! The only Online Debate Website with Casual, Persuade Me, Formalish, and Formal Online Debate formats. We’re the Leading Online Debate website. Debate popular topics, Debate news, or Debate anything! Debate online for free! The Kalam Argument Revisitedin Religion

anonymousdebater

https://theanonymousdebater.weebly.com/home/week-3-the-kalam-argument-revisited

Joeseph

Your reply to my questions was ......

Counter Argument 1: Who created God?“Whatever begins to exist has a cause……..How is a god exempt from this step in the argument?” (Joeseph, 2018). I would like to point out that the premise listed is actually about the universe rather than everything; also, as I stated in last week’s post, “God doesn’t require a cause because he does not have a beginning.” (anonymousdebater, 2018). As Everist says:

My reply ....That’s merely the fallacy of special pleading , if it’s correct to say something cannot come from nothing god is something so therefore he too cannot come from nothing as even a god has to follow the rules of logic otherwise a god could make a square circle 

You say .....I don’t see why this is a problem, given the formulation of the argument. “Whatever begins to exist had a cause.” God did not begin to exist. “Ad hoc!” one might cry. But they would be mistaken. There is a very good reason for stating this. The application of the conclusion demands that the First Cause precede, logically, all else. The First Cause’s act of bringing the universe into existence is the first moment. Hence, if the First Cause was not really the first cause after all, then the first moment of time would already have existed. But it did not exist. Hence, the First Cause was the first. (Everist, 2016)

My reply .... But again this argument is merely special pleading you set a list of rules up that a god is exempt for and you do so without any proof for this entity called god , incidentally this still leaves a further unresolved  problem as in if a god has always been , which god are you talking about because countless gods have been put forward as existing ? 

How is do you prove your one is the one that brought everything into being ?



I stated .....Counter Argument 2: “How do you prove that something cannot come from nothing?” (Joeseph, 2018).“the Kalam cosmological argument is only inductive logic” (Ampersand, 2018).

My reply .... How do you demonstrate for a fact something  cannot come from nothing? What tests can you do to prove this?

Ampersand

To quote myself:

Ampersand said:

Even back in the day, the Kalam argument wasn't great as it relies in unprovable assumptions about how magical divine power works despite this being something we have no frame of reference for.

However in the last couple of decades it's become totally irrelevant. Although the link in the OP mentions quantum theory, it makes no mention of general relativity which is what is actually key. As per general relativity, space and time are linked. So when you get to the big bang and all of existence being a single micro-singularity not only is there no real space for the universe to exist in there is no time either for there to be causality.

To quote Stephen Hawking From A Brief History of Time:

“The role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe created itself. … Time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything."

This shows that the initial premise the argument relies upon is actually false and the theory can therefore be disregarded.

While the Kalam cosmological argument is only inductive logic, a hundred years ago the reasoning of "In every single moment of human history causality has applied, therefore causality will apply to the creation of the universe" made a certain intuitive sense and I can understand why people thought it was relevant. Of course this was regardless of the logical hole that they're applying a set of rules that apply in one situation (a universe exists) to another situation where you have no idea if those same rules will apply (the universe doesn't exist". It's like saying "Water boils at 100 degrees CC every single time I boil it, therefore all water everywhere boils at 100 degrees C" and being ignorant of the fact that water only boils at that temperature in Earth's standard atmospheric pressure. Just like someone who has never tried to boil water outside of Earth's atmosphere and doesn't have the scientific knowledge to analyse the situation would be making a reasonable but false claim, the same applies to someone who has never experienced causality outside of the existence of the universe but imagines it will be the same. It's understandable that people made that error back in the day but even then it was wrong. Now we have no excuse and the Kalam cosmological argument can be discarded entirely.

This argument can be summarised as "The universe did not begin to exist due to any cause and this is backed up by the scientific analysis of our universe and the laws it operates under".

Ergo the initial assumption of the Kalam Argument of "If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause of its beginning” is disputed and your claim that my argument "is not an objection to either premise, and thus one could claim this and still believe the universe had a cause" is incorrect.

William Lane Craig's statements that you quote about the "First Cause" are therefore also irrelevant as there was no First Cause.

Your defence of inductive logic is therefore also disputed as you rely on "the idea that something cannot come from nothing stands up to scientific standards" but offer no proof while I've quoted a famed scientist quoting the scientific consensus of how general relativity and the big bang interact.

anonymousdebater

@Joeseph ;
It is not special pleading. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading says that special pleading is "You moved the goalposts or made up an exception when your claim was shown to be false."

Something cannot come from nothing. God didn't come from nothing, since he is timeless. Therefore, it's not special pleading.

Note that the Kalam Argument proves that the universe has a cause. It does not explicitly say if the cause is a group of gods, a god or gods that doesn't exist anymore, or just one god. To prove that my God is the correct one is beyond the scope of the kalam argument.

You can't "prove" that something cannot come from nothing. However, we can do experiments and have done experiments to show the Law of Conservation of Mass, closely related but not quite the same. A quantum vacuum is something, so it is not something coming out of nothing, it is something coming out of something, when a matter particle and antimatter particle are created. However, stare at anything long enough, and you won't see anything coming out. You don't see planets popping out of empty space for no reason whatsoever. Even if you did, spacetime is still something.

@Ampersand
The quote makes one fundamental assumption: a cause cannot exist before time starts. Why should that be the case? That definitely requires more explanation. The fact that time started at the Big Bang offers strong support for the second premise: that the universe began to exist.

anonymousdebater

Also, about a zero-energy universe, it doesn't pose an objection to the kalam argument, as it says that the Laws of Conservation are not violated. However, that doesn't allow it to happen. William Lane Craig says, "Finally, Vilenkin’s inference that because the positive and negative energy in the universe sum to zero, therefore no cause of the universe’s coming into being is needed is hard to take seriously. This is like saying that if your debts balance your assets, then your net worth is zero, and so there is no cause of your financial situation! (Vilenkin would, I hope, not agree with Peter Atkins that because the positive and negative energy of the universe sum to zero, therefore nothing exists now, and so 'Nothing did indeed come from nothing.'"
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P200/vilenkin-on-the-universes-coming-into-being-without-a-cause

Joeseph

You say ......It is not special pleading. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading says that special pleading is "You moved the goalposts or made up an exception when your claim was shown to be false."

My reply ..... It certainly is and a rest book case of such , imagine if I said something cannot come from nothing except Zeus creator of the Universe is that not special pleading ? Substitute god and we have the very same argument being used by you 

You say .... Something cannot come from nothing.

My reply ..... What does the term “nothing “ mean scientifically ? Why do several highly reputable scientists disagree with your assertions?  Have you examined nothing in test conditions and can you provide proof of your claims?

You say .....God didn't come from nothing, since he is timeless

My reply .... What is a god? Which god or gods ? How is this entity timeless as in proof please ?

. You say ....Therefore, it's not special pleading.

My reply .... It is and you keep doing it otherwise the counter claim of Zeus being creator of the universe is equallly valid if not why not ?

You say .....Note that the Kalam Argument proves that the universe has a cause.

My reply ......If the universe did indeed have where in science does it say the cause was a god? 

You say ..... It does not explicitly say if the cause is a group of gods, a god or gods that doesn't exist anymore, or just one god.

My reply ..... Gods that don’t exist anymore? What does that even mean ? People don’t believe in certain gods anymore that they couldn’t prove existed in the first place ? 

You also admit in  your argument ..... it does not explicitly state if the cause is god , gods or one god actually it does for one god as you keep asserting 

You say .....To prove that my God is the correct one is beyond the scope of the kalam argument.

My reply ..... Meaning you’ve no proof for your assertions yet you base a whole argument on your god being the one uncaused , you assert this with zero proof it can just as easily be dismissed using the very same reasoning 



You say .....You can't "prove" that something cannot come from nothing. However, we can do experiments and have done experiments to show the Law of Conservation of Mass, closely related but not quite the same. A quantum vacuum is something, so it is not something coming out of nothing, it is something coming out of something, when a matter particle and antimatter particle are created. However, stare at anything long enough, and you won't see anything coming out. You don't see planets popping out of empty space for no reason whatsoever. Even if you did, spacetime is still something.

My reply .... Again what is nothing scientifically? You say “stare at anything long enough and you won’t see anything coming out of it “ , but anything is something , how do you stare at or examine nothing and prove something cannot come from it?

Was your god a something? If so you how did he come from nothing as you keep saying it’s impossible , can you prove it scientifically?

Joeseph

@anonymousdebater

The big bang erupted out of a singularity. A singularity is a point where our predictive theories stop working and our math breaks down - on top of us lacking empirical data about the singularity itself.

About the one thing that we do know about a singularity like the big bang, however, is that nothing from before the big bang could have affected anything that came after it. This is because the very premise of the universe itself, of time itself and of reality - in the most literal sense - was set up at the point of the big bang. 

MayCaesar

In response to my argument, you employed the argument based on interpreting infinities. I do not think your interpretation is correct. Something to realize here is that we are prone to anthropic interpretation of everything, i.e. interpretation that aligns with our everyday experiences in some way. Our everyday experiences, however, do not describe the Universe as a whole and they only represent a tiny, negligible part of it. On much larger or much smaller scales than what we are used to, the world may function (and, according to modern physics, it does) in very counter-intuitive ways, and even the spacetime itself may look very different.

You said that there cannot be an infinite chain of cause and effect reactions, since without the very first reaction, we can never start counting. This is not true; in fact, we can start counting at any point. We cannot start counting from the "beginning", however, since the "beginning" does not exist due to the chain being infinite, and intuitively it seems wrong - but it is not wrong, and it does not contradict logic. Counting is what we, humans, do; the Universe does not have to count, it just exists as it does. 
The example I like to mention when talking about infinities is the following row: 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +... The limit of this row is 2 - yet, it will never be reached if we just keep adding the members of the sequence one by one. Does it mean our math is wrong (since it can be mathematically proven that the limit of this row is, indeed, 2)? No. Our interpretation based on our everyday experiences not involving obvious infinities is, however.

Your other related argument, involved planets, claimed that, since both planets have completed an infinity of revolutions, the number of revolutions they have completed is equal. The problem here is, again, your interpretation of infinity. In math, in fact, infinities can be different. In layman terms, we can say that infinities related to comparable quantities can be deducted from each other, or divided by each other, and the result can be quite physical. Consider the following sequences describing the number of planet revolutions per some period of time:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, …
The limit of each of the sequences equals infinity. However, the limit of a sequence resulting from division of the respective members of these sequences by each other is not infinity:
1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8...
At any point the member of this sequence equals 1/2, hence the limit of the sequence is 1/2. Hence the planets over an infinite period of time have not completed equal numbers of revolutions; the numbers differ by a factor of 2, despite each being equal to infinity.

Furthermore, the time does not even have to be infinite for the infinite chain of cause-effect connections to exist! We can take a period of 2 seconds and split it into an infinite number of chunks: 0, 1, 1.5, 1.75, 1.875... What happened at 0 seconds caused the events at 1 second. What happened at 1 second caused the events at 1.5 seconds... And so on.
We can even go as far as to say that on any finite time range, the number of existing cause-effect connections within is infinite, since we can split any finite time range this way.

---

Finally, with regards to the general notion that "something cannot come from nothing" - this notion is unfounded. We do believe that energy conservation holds, but what we call "energy" is derived from this definition and not vice versa. "Something" very well can come from "nothing"; we will just say then that nothing also has energy in it. And, in fact, in modern physics many things can be interpreted this way. Just a few to mention:
- According to the Standard Model, vacuum has energy that is usually expressed in terms of virtual particles, that are constantly created and destroyed due to the uncertainty principle. You can say that these particles come from nothing, and disappear back into nothing. The energy conservation holds, but only on finite timescales and in a funky way; momentarily, it does not have to hold, that is the derivative of the total energy in the Universe at any given moment does not have to equal 0 - or equal to any specific number, for that matter.
- There is the cosmological parameter called "curvature" of the Universe. As far as we know, this parameter is very close to 0 or, likely, equals to 0. However, if it is not, then the energy can be seen as constantly increasing or decreasing. The negative curvature value, for example, would essentially mean that the energy "leaks" out of the Universe, while the positive curvature value would imply the opposite.
- Also, due to the Universe expansion, the total energy present in the observable Universe effectively decreases with time, as the event horizon moves away slower than the matter on the outer edges due to this expansion. Now, you could say that the matter does not really disappear, it merely moves from the observable to the non-observable part of the Universe - but here we could invoke the typical rhetorical philosophical question: "If we cannot observe it or interact with it any more, then does it really still exist? And what does its existence mean?"

---

I think your general argument is reasonable, but it fails at details, leading to the illogical conclusion. What you could argue is that the Universe has existed forever, and that is actually the interpretation I have: the "Big Bangs" happen and create spacetimes, and in some abstract "spacetime of spacetimes" it has been going on forever and will be going on forever. However, I do not see how the concept of god enters the equation at any point.

anonymousdebater

@Joeseph ;
Something cannot come from nothing. God did not come from nothing. God is eternal. No special pleading there.
The Kalam Argument does not prove any specific God. However, there are several reasons why Zeus cannot be the first cause according to Greek mythology: 1) Zeus did not create the universe; it was Nyx. 2) Zeus was created by Kronos and Rhea. The Kalam Argument was actually "created" by Al-Ghazali, a Muslim.

Must the cause be a God? That is kind of the definition of God.

What does nothing mean scientifically? Nothing is the condition of the universe before the Big Bang, without spacetime, without elementary particles, without even the laws of the universe. We cannot examine nothingness because nothing is not even a thing that can be examined. We can examine pseudo-nothingness, and we generally do not see things coming out of pseudo-nothingness.

anonymousdebater

@MayCaesar ;

Infinities can be different. However, the sequence of natural numbers (1, 2, 3, …) is equal to the sequence of even numbers (2, 4, 6, …). Two infinities have the same cardinality if there is a one-to-one correlation. To get from natural numbers to even numbers, just multiply by two. In fact, the number of rational numbers is equal to the number of natural numbers. The number of irrational numbers, however, is different. The natural numbers are a countable infinity, while the irrational numbers are uncountable.

In terms of cardinal numbers, the numbers are the same, but in terms of ordinals, they are not.

Watch the VSauce video titled "How To Count Past Infinity" here:

Time does not have to be infinite to have an infinite number of cause/effect relationships. This is closely related to a supertask. Find the VSauce video titled "Supertasks" here: However, does this infinite sequence make sense in real life, or only in mathematics? There are several interesting paradoxes with supertasks. For instance, if at each cause/effect moment, you said the next digit of pi, starting with 3, then 1, then 4, etc., what would you say last?

As for your examples, some of them are something coming out of something. A rabbit coming out of a hat is something out of something, not something out of nothing. As for virtual particles, they still came out of a vacuum with energy, which is certainly something.

Ampersand

anonymousdebater said:

The quote makes one fundamental assumption: a cause cannot exist before time starts. Why should that be the case? That definitely requires more explanation. The fact that time started at the Big Bang offers strong support for the second premise: that the universe began to exist.

Your  scenario requires two contradictory and mutually exclusive properties.

I'll draw your attention to where you talk about "....before time starts." For something to be before another thing it must be part of a continuum of time, yet this is explicitly a situation outside of the continuum of time ergo it is an untenable proposition.

I'll also note that you call my scenario an assumption despite it being based scientific evidence and backed up by experts in the field, while you back your scenarios up based on the statements of people with philosophy rather than physics qualifications and therefore unqualified to talk about spacetime relativity; hence why the arguments you present from them seem to run on simplistic homilies rather than any actual evidence. It also renders your argument an appeal to authority logical fallacy, relying on the claims of people who are not qualified to make statements about the causality of the universe in a singularity state.

Also saying that one of your two propositions still holds true is irrelevant. With the first premise being incorrect everything following on from it is irrelevant as the argument as a whole cannot stand.

Joeseph

@anonymousdebater

You say ....Something cannot come from nothing. 

My reply .... you have yet to prove this 

You say .....God did not come from nothing. 

My reply ..... Unicorns did not come from nothing 

You say .....God is eternal. 

My reply .... Unicorns are eternal 

You say ....No special pleading there.

My reply .... No special pleading there 

That’s textbook special pleading .......

Special pleading (or claiming that something is an overwhelming exception) is a logical fallacy asking for an exception to a rule to be applied to a specific case, without proper justification of why that case deserves an exemption. Usually this is because in order for an argument to work, a proponent needs to provide some way to get out of a logical inconsistency — in a lot of cases, this will be the fact that the argument contradicts past arguments or actions. Therefore, proponents introduce a "special case" or an exception to their rules. While this is acceptable in genuine special cases, it becomes a fallacy when a person doesn't adequately justify why the case is special.

The fallacy is a conditional fallacy, because special cases do exist; in other cases, the fallacy is circular ad hoc.

You say ....

The Kalam Argument does not prove any specific God. 

My reply ... Correct it proves no god or gods 

You say .....

However, there are several reasons why Zeus cannot be the first cause according to Greek mythology: 1) Zeus did not create the universe; it was Nyx. 2) Zeus was created by Kronos and Rhea. 

My reply .... Excellent so Zeus was not the first cause you know this for definite as in how ? How do you prove it conclusively?

You say ....The Kalam Argument was actually "created" by Al-Ghazali, a Muslim.

My reply .... Yes I know 

You say ....Must the cause be a God? That is kind of the definition of God.

My reply .... Definitions are many and varied for a god and every believer I’ve yet met has their own 

You say .....What does nothing mean scientifically? Nothing is the condition of the universe before the Big Bang, without spacetime, without elementary particles, without even the laws of the universe. 

My reply .....Nothing  from before the big bang could have affected anything that came after it. This is because the very premise of the universe itself, of time itself and of reality - in the most literal sense - was set up at the point of the big bang. 

You say ....

We cannot examine nothingness because nothing is not even a thing that can be examined. 

My reply .... If you cannot examine it as you say you cannot say something cannot come from it 

You say .....We can examine pseudo-nothingness, and we generally do not see things coming out of pseudo-nothingness.

My reply .... I’m not talking about pseudo - nothingness  

Orthodox_Christian

I don't subscribe to the Kalaam argument, but to say that...

1. God is no exception to the principle of sufficient reason.
 
Well, there has to be one. Infinite regression is impossible since it would take an infinite amount of time to reach any point in time.

2. Something can come from nothing

This is against PSR

anonymousdebater

@Ampersand ;

Francis Collins: "The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory." (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/12-famous-scientists-on-the-possibility-of-god_us_56afa292e4b057d7d7c7a1e5
"I have never felt there to be such a conflict; rather, science and the Catholic faith have always seemed to me profoundly in harmony. Both involve a conviction that the world makes sense and that everything fits together in some coherent way. Physics gives us a wonderfully coherent picture of the physical world, the world of sensible and measurable things. The Catholic faith gives us a wonderfully coherent view of reality as a whole. Science is based on faith in the power of human reason to understand the world. The Catholic faith tells us that the world is the product of eternal Reason, the Logos of God. " (Stephen Barr, https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/faith-and-science-15-questions-dr-stephen-barr)

anonymousdebater

@Ampersand ;

So far, you only have a quote from Stephen Hawking, so not bad, but still...

Albert Einstein, the person who created the general relativity theory, believed in an impersonal God.

It is making a big assumption to say that nothing can change without time. I like to think about time as like a simulation or a computer game. The time within the game only starts when you start the game, but that doesn't mean that nothing happened before. God's time could be different than our time. For example, you can start a stopwatch at 0s, but that doesn't mean that time started at 0s.


@Joeseph
"Except that's a complete lie. While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility." (https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/#fd4578d2fb1b)

The word "proof" doesn't make sense when it comes to science.

The real question is not why God would be exempt, but why things without a beginning would be exempt. Start with this:

A. Any change requires a cause.

This makes sense. Things don't change without any reason. This can be experimentally tested because we never deal with pure nothingness, but we deal with change all of the time. If something always existed, there is no change. If something began to exist, that is a change requiring a cause.

The Kalm Argument concludes with the existence of a Cause.


Textbook Example of Special Pleading: Everyone uses a special pleading fallacy except me because I just don't.


The definition of the First cause is that it must be uncaused. According to Greek mythology, Zeus was not the first cause because Zeus was not uncaused. If you modify the mythology a bit, you could say that Zeus was the first cause. Like I said before, the Kalm Argument only proves that at least one Cause exists.

I'm not going to say that unicorns certainly do not exist, but... Unless you are saying that a unicorn is the First Cause, in which case, the unicorn would be God. The Kalam Argument is pretty general...

anonymousdebater

I also found this: https://me.me/i/neil-degrasse-tyson-facebook-why-special-pleading-irritates-me-~-129575

My Answer: Because God doesn't have to deal with the Laws of Thermodynamics about enthropy.

Ampersand

anonymousdebater said:

So far, you only have a quote from Stephen Hawking, so not bad, but still...

You don't have a single physicist contradicting that position so until you dispute this I think it's plenty. 

anonymousdebater said:

Albert Einstein, the person who created the general relativity theory, believed in an impersonal God.

Irrelevant and overstepping the truth with your claim.

For one his views are muddy as he often described himself as an agnostic so it's uncertain how much trust he placed in the existence of an impersonal god. Secondly, he didn't believe in an impersonal God because of the Kalam cosmological argument his 'belief' (if that's what it was) was more in line with the Teleological argument for god so doesn't help you out. Thirdly the lack of causality as explained by Stephen Hawking has two component - the relativity of time as shown in general relativity and the formation of the universe from a singularity in the Big Bang.The Big Bang was only considered as relatively proven as the only viable model for the creation of the universe in the late 60's and early 70's with the discovery of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation as predicted by the Big Bang theory. As Einstein died in 1955, over a decade before the Big Bang was determined as the accurate model for the creation of the universe, he was never in a position to use the argument that I put forth. Lastly general relativity and the big bang theory do not mean you cannot believe in god - that's a personal decision you can come to for a reason as simple as "I just do and I can't even explain why" - they just mean that you can't logically believe in god due to the Kalam cosmological argument.

anonymousdebater said:

It is making a big assumption to say that nothing can change without time. I like to think about time as like a simulation or a computer game. The time within the game only starts when you start the game, but that doesn't mean that nothing happened before. God's time could be different than our time. For example, you can start a stopwatch at 0s, but that doesn't mean that time started at 0s.

No, it's a very basic assumption which you don't seem to be able to come up with a valid rebuttal for and which - if you do not accept as a valid assumption here - would mean you also have to disregard the Kalam Cosmological argument based on far more far reaching assumptions.

If something changes without time, there is a before and after. That requires at least two points in time, which there can't be because time doesn't exist - hence why your examples are irrelevant because they are just about measuring portions of time and have nothing to do with whether time as a whole exists or not.

You cannot simultaneously say that time exists and does not exist at the same time, which is your current argument. Not only is THAT a hell of a big assumption but an illogical one as well - which isn't solved by your circular reasoning of trying to assume a god exists as a precondition to trying to support your argument for the existence of a god. The entire basis of the Kalam Cosmological argument is it tries to offer a rational and logical basis for the existence of a god. If you have to stoop to just making up imaginary powers and beings to prove the argument, it invalidates the entire point of the argument.

Joeseph

@anonymousdebater

You say ....."Except that's a complete lie. While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility." (https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/#fd4578d2fb1b)

My reply .... Proving anything is an impossibility you say yet if a medicine or tablet cures your illness you go taking it because it’s backed by a history of curing people as in “ The proof of the pudding is in the eating “

So tell me why do you keep asserting something you admit you cannot prove?

You say .....The word "proof" doesn't make sense when it comes to science.

My reply .... It certainly does to me , what word would make “better” sense? 

You say .....The real question is not why God would be exempt

My reply .... But it’s the whole point of the question? 

You say ....but why things without a beginning would be exempt. Start with this:

A. Any change requires a cause.

This makes sense. Things don't change without any reason. This can be experimentally tested because we never deal with pure nothingness, but we deal with change all of the time. If something always existed, there is no change. If something began to exist, that is a change requiring a cause.

The Kalm Argument concludes with the existence of a Cause 

My reply .... But it claims the cause is a god which is an unproven assumption 

You say ....

Textbook Example of Special Pleading: Everyone uses a special pleading fallacy except me because I just don't.

My reply .... You actually do your whole argument is based on something you admit you cannot prove , also I think you’re being disingenuous as you have mentioned the Catholic Church and Christianity more than once so I think you’re making a case for a very specific god but for some reason refuse to mention this , why’s that?

You also say proving anything in science is impossible yet you keep bringing science into it when it suits you to do so 

You say ..

The definition of the First cause is that it must be uncaused. According to Greek mythology, Zeus was not the first cause because Zeus was not uncaused. If you modify the mythology a bit, you could say that Zeus was the first cause. Like I said before, the Kalm Argument only proves that at least one Cause exists.

My reply .... But I asked you to prove Zeus not uncaused how do you prove this as you keep saying proving anything is an impossibility didn’t you?

You say ....

I'm not going to say that unicorns certainly do not exist, but... Unless you are saying that a unicorn is the First Cause, in which case, the unicorn would be God. 

My reply .... But you’re making a case for the Christian god if I’m not mistaken do you deny this?

Your argument relies on special  pleading and is circular in nature 

Orthodox_Christian

>>'' But you’re making a case for the Christian god if I’m not mistaken do you deny this?''

You are, the Kalaam argument doesn't seek to prove the Christian God.

Joeseph

@Orthodox_Christian

I know that but the O P is a Catholic I believe so what god is he making a case for because if it is one of the other counless gods put forward by believers why would one believe in a Christian god? 

Lane Craig also who loves this line of argumentation makes a very specific claim for the Christian god 

Orthodox_Christian

Lane Craig might continue with a case for the Christian God but the argument its self doesn't. The Kalaam arguement only disproves atheism, but doesn't disprove deism which in practice can be the exact same as atheism.

Joeseph

@Orthodox_Christian

You say .....Lane Craig might continue with a case for the Christian God but the argument its self doesn't

My reply ..... Believers make this argument so their particular god is given the credit depending on who makes it , to state otherwise is dishonest 

You say ..... The Kalaam arguement only disproves atheism,

My reply ..... It certainly does not , explain how?

You say .....but doesn't disprove deism which in practice can be the exact same as atheism.

My reply ...... That statement makes no sense 

Orthodox_Christian

>''. Believers make this argument so their particular god is given the credit depending on who makes it , to state otherwise is dishonest ''
Actually, to assume that believers who make this argument imply that the God here is 100 percent their God is the dishonest position. They're just disproving atheism, and work from there with a new argument, another case.

>'' It certainly does not , explain how?''
My apologies, I should say that it attempts to. My mistake there, I admit. Although it does prove a cause, it doesn't prove that this cause is personal. It could be an impersonal abstract force, which isn't really contradictory with atheism if God is defined as a personal being.

>''That statement makes no sense''
Because you can still act like an atheist without contradicting deism somehow. Deism is just the belief that some God created the world. Whether it's a personal or impersonal God is totally irrelevant to them. They can easily still have the exact same worldview as atheistic worldviews would have.

Joeseph

@Orthodox_Christian

You say ......Actually, to assume that believers who make this argument imply that the God here is 100 percent their God is the dishonest position.

My reply .... Incorrect 

You say .....They're just disproving atheism, and work from there with a new argument, another case.

My reply ......To disprove Atheism one has to prove a god exists no one has done so yet 


You say ...My apologies, I should say that it attempts to.

My reply .... And fails 

You say .....My mistake there, I admit. Although it does prove a cause, it doesn't prove that this cause is personal. It could be an impersonal abstract force, which isn't really contradictory with atheism if God is defined as a personal being.

My reply ..... It doesn’t prove a cause , the rest of the statement makes no sense 

You say ...
Because you can still act like an atheist without contradicting deism somehow. Deism is just the belief that some God created the world. Whether it's a personal or impersonal God is totally irrelevant to them. They can easily still have the exact same worldview as atheistic worldviews would have.

My reply .....

That also makes no sense 

Orthodox_Christian

>>''Incorrect''
It's not, because the Kalaam argument never defines God to be of a specific religion. If someone actually does that, then they are really misunderstanding. Did anyone here claim that the Kalaam argument proves specifically their God? Not counting vague theists and deists here, obviously. 

I can argue with Plato's argument to disprove Materialism. Am I a Platonist? No, I am not. 

>>''To disprove Atheism one has to prove a god exists no one has done so yet''
I'll start a debate on the Transcendental argument and we'll see about that.

>>'' And fails''
You deny the principle of sufficient reason?

>>''It doesn’t prove a cause , the rest of the statement makes no sense ''

Obviously I missed a prefix, I meant to say that an believing in an impersonal ''God'' isn't really contradictory with atheism. To make it clear, the laws of logic are impersonal. They aren't intelligent. Which is what I am saying. I don't think atheists would necessarily deny the existence of some abstract principle creating the universe because a cause is obviously necessary. Atheists can be like some kind of Platonists, and just think that universals are just sort of there. A view I think is actually wrong, but that's not the point here.

>>''That also makes no sense''

I'll hammer it down
Atheism: Belief that there is no God
Deism: Belief that there is a God, but he or it didn't intervene in the world after creating it.

What I meant to say is that Deists are the same people as Atheists except they realize that there really has to be some unmoved mover. It could be personal, maybe impersonal, whatever. They can still be relativists like atheists, meaning they would have an extremely similar worldview. Deists aren't religious people. They can be extremely similar relativists like some atheists, they can be materialists like some atheists for crying out loud. 

Orthodox_Christian

>>''Incorrect''
It's not, because the Kalaam argument never defines God to be of a specific religion. If someone actually does that, then they are really misunderstanding. Did anyone here claim that the Kalaam argument proves specifically their God? Not counting vague theists and deists here, obviously. 

I can argue with Plato's argument to disprove Materialism. Am I a Platonist? No, I am not. 

>>''To disprove Atheism one has to prove a god exists no one has done so yet''
I'll start a debate on the Transcendental argument and we'll see about that.

>>'' And fails''
You deny the principle of sufficient reason?

>>''It doesn’t prove a cause , the rest of the statement makes no sense ''

Obviously I missed a prefix, I meant to say that an believing in an impersonal ''God'' isn't really contradictory with atheism. To make it clear, the laws of logic are impersonal. They aren't intelligent. Which is what I am saying. I don't think atheists would necessarily deny the existence of some abstract principle creating the universe because a cause is obviously necessary. Atheists can be like some kind of Platonists, and just think that universals are just sort of there. A view I think is actually wrong, but that's not the point here.

>>''That also makes no sense''

I'll hammer it down
Atheism: Belief that there is no God
Deism: Belief that there is a God, but he or it didn't intervene in the world after creating it.

What I meant to say is that Deists are the same people as Atheists except they realize that there really has to be some unmoved mover. It could be personal, maybe impersonal, whatever. They can still be relativists like atheists, meaning they would have an extremely similar worldview. Deists aren't religious people. They can be extremely similar relativists like some atheists, they can be materialists like some atheists for crying out loud.