Hitchens was wildly overrated as a thinker/debater

[Rise]

I'm not going to reply to your post in detail, because you are guilty of argumentum ad nauseam.

...

You repetition of the same nonsense over and over

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You have given no reasons or evidence to prove your claim could be true that I supposedly have engaged in the fallacy of argument by repetition (which is what argumentum ad nauseam is).

Argumentum ad nauseam - RationalWiki
An argumentum ad nauseam (also known as an argument by repetition) is the logical fallacy that something becomes true if it is repeated often enough.

You cannot point to a single thing I have argued that falls under the definition of an argument by repetition - because it never happened.


You additionally commit the fallacy of argument by assertion and/or ad hominem by calling my arguments "nonsense" without attempting to give any logical reasons to prove why anything I argued would qualify as invalid logic.

You couldn't show that if you tried because it isn't true.

and ignoring of rebuttals is amusing, [

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote anything I have said to you that would qualify as failing to rebut anything you said.

Merely asserting it is true doesn't make it true just becaue you assert it is so.

but not an argument at all.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You have given no examples or reasons why aything I have argued would supposedly not qualify as an argument.

You claim logical fallacies that aren't fallacies

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You have given no specific examples or arguments to justify your claim could be true that anything I called you out on with regards to your fallacious arguments is not actually a fallacy or is in error in some way.

and you ignore my actual argument,

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single instance in my posts and give any valid reasons why anything I said does not qualify as a valid counter argument to your claims.

put words into my argument that weren't there

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote anything I said and give any specific reasons why anything I said would quality as a strawman fallacy.

and repeat the same arguments.

You cannot quote anything I said and give any specific reasons why it would qualify as a fallacy of repetition.

And if it was not a fallacy of repetition, then any repeating of an argument (even if assumed to be true) would not inherently qualify as a problem.

Which would make you guilty of the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion: The truth of falseness of your claim is irrelevant to refuting my arguments.

So, there's again, no point to continue,

If all you know how to do is make fallacies of assertion, without ever attempting to meet the burden of proof for your claims, then there never was any point to debating you to begin with. You don't understand how a debate actually works. You don't just throw assertions at each other. You need to have actual logical reasons to justify your claim otherwise no one is required to accept them as true - it's just your opinion. And your opinion can be dismissed as easily as it can be formed.

because you don't argue honestly or with integrity.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and ad hominem.

You cannot quote a single thing I said and give any specific reasons why it would qualify as dishonest in any way.

Your claim is not proven to be true just because you assert it to be so.

 

[ecco]

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition.

Your original response was a failure to meet the burden of rejoinder and a concession of the debate.

Repeating your original comments don't mean they stop constituting a concession of the debate.

Nor does it change the fact that you are incapable of responding because you have clearly been shown to be wrong.

You're just trying to bow out without having to admit you were wrong.



Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
You can't quote anything I have said that is inaccurate about what you said.

If you are referring to accusing you of lying; I conceded it is possible you weren't lying in my last post.

I may have incorrectly assumed you must be being dishonest by your repeated attempts to mischaracterize what I said despite my repeated plain explanations to you of why you were wrong. Explanations so clear and simple I couldn't imagine you couldn't understand them.

This was actually me giving you the benefit of the doubt that you had the ability to process and understand simple and clear sentence structure.

Or giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were actually reading what I wrote instead of just ignoring it and repeating yourself.

I stopped assuming that with my last post and outlined things in the most basic of terms, even teaching you how to exercise reading comprehension of sentence fragments and using a red ball analogy that even a child could easily relate to.

I do believe my last post has been effective in finally communicating to make you understand why you were wrong to mischaracterize what I said - which is why you're trying to bow out because you don't want to have to admit you were wrong.




I never reported you for anything.

If a mod was in here and slapped you for something then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Please do continue to write walls that no one reads.

 

[Rise]

William Lane Craig has publicly stated that if all the evidence was against a God he would still believe by faith alone. So Craig's position in the debate is that regardless of what evidence anyone brings to the debate, he will still insist God exists.

Your statement is a fallacy of irrelevant conclusion because even if it were true it does nothing to disprove the validity of Craig's arguments nor the truth of his conclusion.

Hitchens has no burden of proof to show that a God exists, Craig is the one making a positive assertion, Craig wants to prove the existence of God a feat that has eluded everyone since Aquinas.

Your claim is demonstrably false and you also are completely unaware of the concept of "the burden of rejoinder" which hitchens bears.
Argumentation theory

Craig met his burden of proof for his claim by providing four arguments (using a combination of logic and evidence) to support his conclusion.

In a debate you then have the burden of rejoinder to counter their arguments with your own arguments (using logic and evidence).

If you or hitchens wants to claim that Craig's conclusion is false or unproven then the burden of proof is on you to give reasons why you think you can claim Craig either failed to offer sufficient proof for his claim or why there was error with his arguments.

If you cannot do that then you don't get to claim his conclusion has not been proven.

You cannot slander a figure that can not be proven to exist. Understand what slander is before you accuse Hitchens of it. I cannot slander Golem!

You missed the point of my statement and therefore your comment is irrelevant.

The point was that hitchens could not refute the first three arguments so he instead spent all his time attacking God's character and the character of those who claim to follow Him - which does absolutely nothing to disprove Craig's arguments that proved theism is more likely to be true than atheism and better explains what we see in reality.

Gotten away with what?

With not making legitimate logic based counter arguments but instead falling back on attacking God's character and the character of those who claim to follow Him.

Hitchens did the same basic thing in his debate with Frank Turek. Turek makes the same basic argument that Craig does. Hitchens all but ignored the first two arguments, didn't have an answer to the third, and instead spent all his time basically just attacking the behavior of various religious people or attacking the character of God as seen in the Bible.

If you wish to make the assertion show the evidence that Hitchens is motivated by anger.

I withdraw that claim as I have no interest in taking the time to establish why we would have reason to believe he is.

I did not make this thread with the intention of debating hitchens emotional state, but to debate the fact that hitchens never answered Craig's first three arguments and instead just tried to fill time by attacking the character of God and various religion's followers.

All you are doing is making an assertion that God is a reality when you have provided no evidence this is the case.

Craigs first three arguments already establish the fact that theism is more likely to be true than atheism. And you can't refute them.

So you are wrong to claim my assumption that God exists is only a mere assertion.

That is why I said, in light of the fact that the evidence shows theism is more likely to be true than atheism, we must ask ourselves why so many atheists deny the logical and scientific evidence. Either they don't have the capacity for understanding the evidence or there is something else motivating their rejection of truth.

The logical evidence is so unavoidable that is why I pointed out how some professional philosophers have been converted to general theism on the weight of the logical arguments alone.

Not much evidence or even arguments there that correspond to the title of your thread, you have not mentioned the 30 books Hitchens wrote or the numerous other polemics and and writings. If this is all you have to show to back up your title your arguments are very weak.

Hitchens body of written work obviously didn't do him any good if he is left completely unable to answer the first three arguments in his debate with both Craig and Turek.

So you don't prove that Hitchens is a great thinker or debator by merely pointing to the fact that he wrote a lot of books.

They could very easily be full of nonsense. Quantity doesn't prove quality.

I now understand why the "new atheists" get such a bad reputation amongst even other atheists here. They don't seem to take the question seriously enough to think deeply on it, sticking with shallow arguments or fallacious arguments, simply ignoring the best arguments theism has to offer. The atheists that preceded them in a previous generation seemed to have a reputation as being more more serious philosophers who took the question seriously enough to try to provide real answers.

I think there is a turning away from that attitude with the following younger generation, as seen in those like cosmicskeptic, who has said atheists need to recognize they are losing ground and not getting anywhere by just mocking religion. That religion has serious arguments that require serious counter arguments if you want to expect to get anywhere.
They can't just take for granted it is so absurd that they don't need to have a philosophically and logically rigorous argument against it - which seems to be the approach someone like hitchens takes. I would say dawkins has a similar problem where he seems to feel comfortable dismissing Christianity with the same shallowness and lack of thought that one would dismiss the greek pantheon.

 

[Rise]

Please do continue to write walls that no one reads.

Logical fallacy, failure of the burden of proof and rejoinder.

Unable to answer my arguments, and admitting you are unwilling to try, you have conceded the debate in my favor.

You are also guilty of the fallacy of males fides. By claiming you are unwilling to read the arguments of your opponent which disproved your claims you have admitted you were never debating in good faith.

 

[Secret Chief]

Please do continue to write walls that no one reads.

Frankly, I fear for the server.

 

[gnostic]

You don't understand how deductive logic works, for two reasons:

1. You don't understand where the burden lays in a debate and why.

The burden of proof has been met by Craig to provide reasons for why God exists.

Now the burden of rejoinder falls on you as the atheist to provide counter arguments against Craig's arguments for theism if you want to insist his conclusion is wrong.

If you aren't willing to do that then you can't claim his conclusions are wrong, nor can you claim your conclusion is right.

Sorry, but Craig has only provided a few premises in KCA, which have not met any “burden of proof”, because these premises are not very specific as to what the “cause” is:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

There are no burden of proof in any of the three premises, he presented no evidence, just claims.

It is only outside of these 3 premises, where he conclude the cause is God or the “Creator”, and he reach such conclusion of “cause = Creator” without showing evidence of “the existence of god”.

Basically, his reasoning following in these lines:

Universe has beginning —> Universe has cause —> conclusion- cause = god​

We know the universe exist, because we are living in the universe.

But where are evidence for God or Creator. There are none, because god, any deity, not just the Abrahamic god, gods only exist beliefs in scriptures or other teachings, meaning god exist in imaginations or delusions, belief without form and without substance.

A universe existing don’t equate god existing. So all Craig (and you) have provided are loose equivalent between universe and god. This is called False Equivalence.

And he support his rationality with circular reasoning.

And Craig tried to support his argument/conclusion with some other allegories.

Allegory is merely a symbolic story; allegory is neither proof, nor evidence. So Craig didn’t meet the burden of proof requirement.

So basically, you are just making false claims about what Craig claimed, and what every single creationists have done here, tried to switch the burden of proof upon everyone else.

That’s not how the burden of proof work, Rise.

If Craig or you, claimed that “cause = god” in this argument, then the burden of proof falls upon you two. Only the claimants have burden of proof, so don’t try to shift the burdens upon everyone else.

 

[Rise]

Sorry, but Craig has only provided a few premises in KCA, which have not met any “burden of proof”, because these premises are not very specific as to what the “cause” is:

There are no burden of proof in any of the three premises, he presented no evidence, just claims.

It is only outside of these 3 premises, where he conclude the cause is God or the “Creator”, and he reach such conclusion of “cause = Creator” without showing evidence of “the existence of god”.

Basically, his reasoning following in these lines:

Universe has beginning —> Universe has cause —> conclusion- cause = god

...

A universe existing don’t equate god existing. So all Craig (and you) have provided are loose equivalent between universe and god. This is called False Equivalence.

...

If Craig or you, claimed that “cause = god” in this argument, then the burden of proof falls upon you two. Only the claimants have burden of proof, so don’t try to shift the burdens upon everyone else.
​

​

You demonstrate gross ignorance of what Craig's argument actually was.

You failed to understand what the purpose of the first argument (the cosmological) is in comparison with the next two arguments (the teleological and moral)

The cosmological argument is not meant to establish what the cause of the beginning of the universe is.

The only purpose of the cosmological argument is to establish:
1. That the universe had a beginning.
2. That the beginning of the universe had to be both uncaused and timeless.

You can show no fault with Craig's first argument proving it's conclusion.

The cosmological argument is intended to be paired with the teleological and moral argument to prove that uncaused and timeless cause behind the universe had to be a person being with a mind who intentionally created the universe and mankind.

​

We know the universe exist, because we are living in the universe.

You demonstrate with this statement you neither understand the philosophy nor the cosmology you are trying to argue over.

Because you are claiming that the fact that the universe currently exists is proof by itself that it had a beginning.

But atheist cosmologists don't want to believe the universe had to have a beginning. They try to find ways of figuring out how the universe could currently exist without having to have a beginning.

Your assumption demonstrates you have no awareness of the debate that surrounds these issues when you simply assume the universe being in existence is proof it had a beginning.

This is an issue that has been debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, about whether or not the universe had a beginning.

But where are evidence for God or Creator. There are none, because god, any deity, not just the Abrahamic god, gods only exist beliefs in scriptures or other teachings, meaning god exist in imaginations or delusions, belief without form and without substance.

Craig gave you the teleological and moral argument that demonstrated only a being with a mind could be behind the creation of the universe.

You haven't attempted to refute either of those arguments.

Your claim is therefore false that there is no evidence for God.

And he support his rationality with circular reasoning.

You can't point to anything Craig argued that would qualify as circular reasoning because you just demonstrated you don't understand what he even argued or why.

Your claim of circular reasoning was based on your misunderstanding of what he actually argued, as I explained above.

And Craig tried to support his argument/conclusion with some other allegories.

Allegory is merely a symbolic story; allegory is neither proof, nor evidence. So Craig didn’t meet the burden of proof requirement.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You specify no specific argument Craig made nor give any specific reason why it would be faulty in any way.

So basically, you are just making false claims about what Craig claimed,

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot point to a single claim I have made and then demonstrate with reasons or evidence why it would supposedly be false.

and what every single creationists have done here, tried to switch the burden of proof upon everyone else.

That’s not how the burden of proof work, Rise.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single thing I have said and give reasons to demonstrate why it would supposedly qualify as the fallacy of "shifting the burden of proof".

 

[People_Lack_Integrity]

This is hilarious and so incredibly ironic. Either you are completely unaware you proved my point, or you are trolling. Either way, I laughed.

 

[gnostic]

The only purpose of the cosmological argument is to establish:
1. That the universe had a beginning.
2. That the beginning of the universe had to be both uncaused and timeless.

But Craig didn't prove either statements/premises.

He had shown no works with his premises and he shown no solutions to his premises.

Stating something isn't proving anything.

You can show no fault with Craig's first argument proving it's conclusion.

And you still don't understand logic.

How Craig come to his conclusion that God/Creator is the cause of the universe's beginning, he has never done. So he didn't prove anything.

You keep saying that Craig prove this and Craig prove that, but there are huge gap between his 3rd premise and that of his final conclusion. Without showing the connection between the two, Craig didn't prove his KCA, let alone use "logic".

Your idea of logic is nothing more than false equivalence, circular reasoning.

And btw, I wouldn't even call KCA, philosophy.

 

[Rise]

This is hilarious and so incredibly ironic. Either you are completely unaware you proved my point, or you are trolling. Either way, I laughed.

Logical fallacy, appeal to mockery.
Unable to counter any argument I put forth, you have only ad hominems to fall back on.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
Merely claiming that your arguments are proven doesn't make it so just because you assert it is so.
You have given no reasons or evidence for your claim.

Logical fallacy, failure of the burden of rejoinder.
You have failed to offer a counter argument to any of my arguments which means you have tacitly conceded the debate.

 

[gnostic]

Craigs first three arguments already establish the fact that theism is more likely to be true than atheism. And you can't refute them.

Excuse me, but there are no cosmology in atheism.

The only things atheism that say are, atheists reject the claims of theists that God exist; they don't belief or lack belief. Atheism say absolutely nothing about the universe, and there are no cosmological model in atheism.

So that's a false a claim.

 

[Rise]

But Craig didn't prove either statements/premises.

He had shown no works with his premises and he shown no solutions to his premises.

Stating something isn't proving anything.

...

How Craig come to his conclusion that God/Creator is the cause of the universe's beginning, he has never done. So he didn't prove anything.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You have given no specific reasons why any argument Craig made in support of his first three arguments was supposedly insufficient or faulty in any way.

Therefore, you cannot claim Craig only made assertions and had no logic or evidence to back up his conclusion.

The onus is on you as the one making the claim to prove your claim is true.

And you still don't understand logic.

You're not in a position to be telling anyone anyone about logic when you haven't even grasped the basic requirement of meeting your burden of proof for your own claims.

You keep saying that Craig prove this and Craig prove that, but there are huge gap between his 3rd premise and that of his final conclusion. Without showing the connection between the two, Craig didn't prove his KCA, let alone use "logic".

If you are talking about the third premise of his first argument (the cosmological), then I already explained to you why that would be:

Because it is suppose to, by Craig's design of the argument, take more arguments to get you from the cosmological argument to his final conclusion that theism better explains the universe than atheism.

The cosmological by itself was never intended to get you all the way to his conclusion - that's why he has more than one argument.

Those arguments are the teleological and moral arguments.

I just got done plainly explaining that to you and you still didn't get it.

Maybe now you will.

Your idea of logic is nothing more than false equivalence, circular reasoning.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot point to a single specific thing I have argued and give any specific reason why it would qualify as a fallacy of false equivalence of circular reasoning.

Merely asserting it is so doesn't make it so just because you assert it.

The burden of proof is on you as the one making the claim to provide reasons and evidence to support your claim. Otherwise your claim can be dismissed.

And btw, I wouldn't even call KCA, philosophy.

You haven't even demonstrated yourself to know how logical arguments work, as evidenced by your repeated fallacies and failure to understand the structure and purpose of Craig's argument - so you're not equipped to start judging what qualifies as philosophy.

 

[Rise]

Excuse me, but there are no cosmology in atheism.

The only things atheism that say are, atheists reject the claims of theists that God exist; they don't belief or lack belief. Atheism say absolutely nothing about the universe, and there are no cosmological model in atheism.

So that's a false a claim.

Logical fallacy, irrelevant conclusion.

I said:
Craigs first three arguments already establish the fact that theism is more likely to be true than atheism. And you can't refute them.

Nothing you just said refutes what I said about Craig's three arguments demonstrating theism is more likely true than atheism.

Your definition of atheism doesn't refute any of Craig's arguments nor disprove his conclusion. None of which depend on there being a different definition of atheism.

You cannot give any valid reason why your statement would supposedly be relevant to refuting anything Craig argued.

 

[gnostic]

Logical fallacy, irrelevant conclusion.

I said:
Craigs first three arguments already establish the fact that theism is more likely to be true than atheism. And you can't refute them.

Nothing you just said refutes what I said about Craig's three arguments demonstrating theism is more likely true than atheism.

Your definition of atheism doesn't refute any of Craig's arguments nor disprove his conclusion. None of which depend on there being a different definition of atheism.

You cannot give any valid reason why your statement would supposedly be relevant to refuting anything Craig argued.

You stated that “theism is more likely true than atheism”, because of Craig’s KCA, but atheism have no concept of their own regarding to the universe and cosmology, so your claim about atheism is nothing more than strawman.

Atheism is only about two possible stances, atheists...:

(A) ...disbelieving in the existence of god(s)...
​

or

(B) ...lack the belief in the existence of god.​

Nothing more, nothing less.

Some atheists may understand and accept the concept of the Big Bang cosmology, but some don’t. But the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with atheism, since there are theists who accept the same theory, and BB also have nothing to do with theism.

The Big Bang theory, like all other scientific studies in many different fields of Physical Sciences or Natural Sciences, are religion-neutral.

What I mean by “religion-neutral” is that it has nothing to do with atheism, theism, agnosticism, deism, pantheism, Buddhism, etc.

KCA isn’t science. The motivation of Kalam Cosmological Argument is nothing more than creationist apologist propaganda, invented by William Lane Craig.

Most Christians reject KCA, just as they have rejected another creationist propaganda - Intelligent Design. Most biologists of Christian background have also rejected Michael Behe’s Irreducible Complexity, because it is pseudoscience.

You keep saying Christians and theism, but not all theists and Christians accept KCA, so it is about theism vs atheism, it is about few creationists vs everyone else.

Here is an idea, rise.

Why don’t you create a new thread with a poll asking all theists (Christians and Non-Christians) in RF, if they accept William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument or not.

If you do this new poll, make sure you worded your poll with the word “theists”, so that all theists vote on it.

I think you will surprise by just how many theists will reject KCA. The only who are most likely to vote “yes” are creationists.

 

[Rise]

You stated that “theism is more likely true than atheism”, because of Craig’s KCA,

Logical fallacy, strawman. You are misrepresenting Craig's argument.

The correct answer is:
"Craig demonstrated his conclusion to be true that theism is more likely true than atheism based on the combination of his cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments".

For some reason you keep trying to pretend that Craig only argued for his conclusion based on the cosmological argument alone, which is demonstrably false.

I don't know why this is so hard for you to comprehend even though I have tried to explain it to you multiple times in simple clear language. At this point I have to think you just don't want to comprehend it because it destroys the only argument you have tried to make up to this point.

Let's try this again:

Craig made three arguments.
1A +1A +1A = Conclusion

Craig did not make just one argument to reach his conclusion.
1A does not equal Conclusion.

but atheism have no concept of their own regarding to the universe and cosmology, so your claim about atheism is nothing more than strawman.

Atheism is only about two possible stances, atheists...:

(A) ...disbelieving in the existence of god(s)...
​

or

(B) ...lack the belief in the existence of god.​

Nothing more, nothing less.

Some atheists may understand and accept the concept of the Big Bang cosmology, but some don’t. But the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with atheism, since there are theists who accept the same theory, and BB also have nothing to do with theism.

The Big Bang theory, like all other scientific studies in many different fields of Physical Sciences or Natural Sciences, are religion-neutral.

What I mean by “religion-neutral” is that it has nothing to do with atheism, theism, agnosticism, deism, pantheism, Buddhism, etc.

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition.

You have not given any valid arguments to demonstrate why your argument would be relevant to supposedly refuting my argument.

You have merely repeated your original argument and added more detail to it, without addressing the fundamental problem that your argument is itself irrelevant and does not refute what you are attempting to respond to.

Merely repeating your argument, but in more detail, does not stop it from being irrelevant if that added detail doesn't provide justification for why it would be relevant.



As I already pointed out: None of Craig's argument depends on there being a different definition of atheism than you have given.

You cannot show any specific area of Craig's argument that depends on him assuming a different definition of atheism in order for his conclusion to be true.

The burden of proof is on you as the one making the claim to demonstrate why your clam is true. Your claim being that your argument is somehow relevant to refuting Craig's argument.

You have not demonstrated what the relevance would be by quoting any specific argument Craig made and giving any specific reason why your definition of atheism would refute any argument he made.

If you think Craig is using a different definition of atheism that is required for his conclusion to be true, then the onus is on you to go point out what specific part of his argument you are taking issue with and then give specific reasons why you think it is at fault.

KCA isn’t science. The motivation of Kalam Cosmological Argument is nothing more than creationist apologist propaganda, invented by William Lane Craig.

Logical fallacy, genetic fallacy.

The sources, motives, and/or labels you try to put on an argument does nothing to disprove the truth of it's conclusion.

Most Christians reject KCA, just as they have rejected another creationist propaganda - Intelligent Design. Most biologists of Christian background have also rejected Michael Behe’s Irreducible Complexity, because it is pseudoscience.

You keep saying Christians and theism, but not all theists and Christians accept KCA, so it is about theism vs atheism, it is about few creationists vs everyone else.

Here is an idea, rise.

Why don’t you create a new thread with a poll asking all theists (Christians and Non-Christians) in RF, if they accept William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument or not.

If you do this new poll, make sure you worded your poll with the word “theists”, so that all theists vote on it.

I think you will surprise by just how many theists will reject KCA. The only who are most likely to vote “yes” are creationists.

Logical fallacy, appeal to popularity.

The popularity of an argument does nothing to disprove the truth of its conclusion.

 

[gnostic]

If you cannot focus or consider the whole argument have everything to do with Craig’s conclusion to KCA (thus, “theism of god”), not on the premises alone or each premise individually, nor see there are no link between conclusion and premises together, as Craig have never prove...

...then, I am done. I have wasted enough of my time on a very useless and senseless KCA and on you.

 

[Rise]

I apologize for taking so long to get back to your post. You are one of the few here who actually had some real substantive arguments to make and seemed to have a better grasp of what is actually involved in the issue. The number of posts I have been dealing with across multiple thread has made it difficult to keep up.

Unfortunately that is not true. He has to show that the current classical space-time could not have come from some previously (maybe eternally) existing physical state of any kind.

Craig already addressed that.
If there was a previous existing physical state prior to the big bang then that state would logically also have to have a beginning.
All you’ve done is moved the problem back one step.

And if there existed a reality prior to the spacetime universe, which itself had a beginning, then the format of Craig’s argument doesn’t even need to be changed. All you have to do is change what you identify the beginning point to be and the same argument still goes through to reach the same conclusion.

As Vilenkin said; everything we currently know points to a beginning of the universe. He is unequivocal in that. He might still be working at ways to figure out how the universe could be past eternal but he’s honest about what the current state of the evidence is.

“We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed”.
“The Beginning of the Universe,” Inference: International Review of Science ¼ (Oct. 23, 2015)
-Alexander Vilkenin

“All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning”.
Cited in “Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event”, by Lisa Grossman, New Scientist (Janurary 11, 2012).

Guth didn’t even say the information we have doesn’t point to a beginning of the universe – he just says he doesn’t know. He does assert that he personally believes the universe is eternal and believes one day evidence for that will be found - but he doesn’t claim the current evidence even points to that being the case.

That is why Carroll’s video of Guth is misleading. He is trying to imply that Guth is refuting the conclusions of the BGV, but he isn’t. He’s stating his personal belief that he doesn’t know and suspects the universe is eternal - but Guth never claims he has evidence for this belief yet. You won’t find anything in his proposals where he claims the evidence is not currently pointing to a beginning.

Krauss even affirmed in his debate with Craig that he thinks the universe probably had a beginning, but that he also says he just doesn’t know for sure. So he’s going further by not just acknowledging that the evidence currently shows there was a beginning but is willing to say he thinks that is most likely what did happen. That’s no doubt why he has gone in the direction of trying to come up with “something from nothing” ideas.

Given that, if you want to dispute the idea that the universe had a beginning, the burden of proof is on you to produce some evidence or viable models for a potentially eternal universe to exist prior to the big bang.

You can’t do that.

Not only can you not do that, but there is no other viable working model currently that doesn’t have fatal problems or even the same problem as the big bang just moved one step back (I get more into explaining why that is further down in my posts).

Therefore, we are within reason to conclude based on all the evidence currently before us that the universe most likely had a beginning – therefore it had to have a cause.

As long as there are consistent mathematical theories that exist positing this that have not been evidentially refuted (and there are many) he cannot show this.

You can't point to any model of reality that works without running into one of the three problems:
1. It ultimately does have a beginning point of some sort.
2. It has no mechanism for explaining how an eternal quantum state could suddenly change to generate a non-eternal universe.
3. It is completely unverifiable and unknowable, and never could be known, and therefore is not a scientific theory (such as positing that there could be a higher reality that houses other universes completely disconnected from ours, and there is no way for us to ever detect or observe anything outside of our universe).

That’s why Craig was confident in saying Carroll couldn’t point to any model of a beginning universe that was successful at demonstrating it’s claim.
Carroll admits even his own model isn’t successful by saying it has problems. He doesn’t pretend he has an answer yet. He just believes he will eventually find the answer he’s looking for.

But what you want, hope, or expect to find doesn’t ultimately mean anything if all the evidence is telling us otherwise.

You don’t have any logical or scientific basis for being able to expect you will one day find evidence for the universe being without a beginning.

The reason you expect to find evidence of that one day is entirely philosophical in nature. You have a worldview of materialism which makes it impossible for there to be a beginning to the universe.

But you can’t prove your philosophy of materialism is true. Nor can you disprove all the alternative philosophies and show them to be logically impossible.

Therefore, you have no scientific basis for assuming a priori that materialism is true. And if materialism cannot be assumed to be true then you cannot assume you will one day find evidence for an eternal universe.

Who said space-time is removed by these quantum theories. These quantum theories formulate a quantized version of space-time. Usually (like in loop quantum gravity) you recover a non-classical version of space-time from the theory.

You are mistaken. The models I am aware of which try to get away from a beginning for the universe all try to remove time itself from the equation prior to the big bang because removing time is the only way you avoid a logically impossible infinite regress into the past.

If you leave time in the equation, but simply tweak how it works, you don’t remove the infinite regress problem of the universe needing to have a beginning.

Hawking did try to assert there was no time before the big bang. He said saying time existed before the big bang is like saying there is something south of the south pole.
His model had space/time curve gradually away from a singularity point instead of it being a sharp expansion from a singularity point which is probably why he chose to use the analogy of how the earth’s surface gradually curves towards the polar point.
But once you reach the polar point there is nowhere beyond that point so you still have a singularity point that represents where space and time started to exist.

The BGV theorem does not apply to these quantized versions of space-time precisely because quantum theories ban singularities...there will always be a minimum dimension or minimum unit of time because of the granularity introduced by QM. So a quantized space-time exists but singularities do not. There simply cannot be a singularity in any theory of space time where quantum theories are incorporated.

You are misunderstanding Craig’s argument with regards to BGV.
The BGV theorem doesn't need to apply to the reality prior to the big bang in order for Craig's arguments to be valid.
It is sufficient for Craig’s argument to point out that the space-time universe as we know it had a beginning point.

The reason that is sufficient is because all the evidence we currently have says an eternal quantum universe prior to the big bang is not logically possible.

There is no mechanism you can model that would explain how you could go from an eternally existing quantum state to suddenly at some point in time creating the space-time universe in the big bang. Logically if the conditions for an eternal quantum state to create the space-time universe existed at some point along it’s timeline then there is no reason to think those conditions weren’t always present in which case why didn’t the eternal quantum state just create the space-time at the earliest possible point in it’s existence?

But if the eternal quantum state never began to exist then it existed infinitely into the past.

So if it existed infinitely in the past, then why would it only create our space-time universe a finite amount of time ago?

If it existed infinitely in the past, but created the space-time universe as early as it could, then that would make the space-time universe infinite in the past too.

But it is logically impossible for our universe to be infinite in the past according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the illogical impossible of there being an actual infinite number of past events regressing in space-time, and observations about the age of the universe which show it is not infinitely old.

That is why models that seek to deny the universe had a beginning have to try to remove time from the equation. Time forces you to conclude there had to be a beginning.

The idea of an eternal state prior to the big bang would necessitate some non-physics based answer for why this eternal state suddenly changed at some point along the timeline to generate the big bang. Because the same physics and conditions to generate the big bang would have had to be eternally present. And if those conditions are eternally present then why didn’t they happen earlier?

The only answer to that would be a mind that could make a choice to generate a change. Which is why, ironically, a single quantum eternal reality only lends more evidence to a theistic conclusion when you take it to it’s logical conclusion.

That’s why we get multiverse theories instead. Because you can’t justify there being only one eternal quantum reality that just suddenly changes. They need a universe generating engine that is always spitting out new universes to justify why ours would come in at some particular point.

But those models you will find have their own problems with singularity beginning points that need to be explained because they need to have a time factor in order to explain why our universe appeared at a given point in time.

Because if you don’t have a beginning point with time then you have an infinite past – but if you have an infinite past then that means the universe generating mechanism has had an infinite amount of time prior to the creation of the big bang in order to create it. But if it had an infinite amount of time to run through it’s machine that randomly spits out new universes constantly then there’s no reason to not conclude our universe should not have appeared earlier. But if it can appear any earlier than it did then it would have to appear infinitely earlier. Which would have to make the universe infinitely old. But we know that’s not the case.

That’s why any multiverse model has to have a beginning point out of necessity. They just try to obscure the fact that it does and they move the question of what caused the beginning back one or more steps from the big bang. But the problem is still there.

 

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Why would an eternally existing system be in a steady state? Which theory bars an eternally existing system to ceaselessly transform from one state to another state to another state...ad infinitum?

Let's suppose that the state given by all of existence (AOE) is given by a quantum wavefunction that has a pdf consisting of an infinitely set of unique states with certain probabilities of shifting from one state to any other. And it has been doing this...shifting from one state to the other to another to another....forever and ever in a random manner. This is what actually happens in many quantized subatomic systems....so its entirely plausible and logical that this can happen to the universe as a whole.

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There is no mathematical or logical reason to believe currently that there was an absolute beginning rather than a simple phase change from one type of physical state to another.

Because the only way you can explain why our universe has a finite age from an infinite pre-existent state is if:
a) The pre-existent state was steady in the sense that it was not manifesting the requirements to generate our space-time universe until a particular point.
b) That it would suddenly change to meet the requirements for generating our universe at some point.

The reason a constantly fluxing state doesn’t work is because if the state was eternal then it would have an infinite amount of time to flux through every possible state. Meaning that our universe would have had to have been created an infinite amount of time ago.

The only way you can have an eternal state which does not manifest the requirements to create our space-time universe, but then suddenly change, is if that change is unbound by any kind of casual laws of physics. And the only thing we know that could meet that definition is a mind with free will.

I am not even going to the more common cyclical bounce cosmologies that all avoid the BGV theorem and also avoid the thermodynamic problem as the entropy is reset at the bounce.

As I understand it, no oscillating model can be shown to perpetuate eternally without breaking down over time. If it could, why isn’t every scientist tripping over themselves to embrace the model as a way of getting around the problems posed for materialism by the evidence for a beginning of the space-time universe?

But that actually isn’t even necessary to get into at all: Because we can already disprove the cyclical models by pointing out that it would be logically impossible to have any infinite regress into the past.

It is logically impossible to traverse an infinite amount of time from the past into our present.

We would never arrive at the present because it would take an eternity to do so. And eternity by definition can never be reached.

An analogy to help you understand this would be to think of an infinite deep hole. If you start at the bottom can you ever reach the surface? No. Because it’s infinitely deep.

Likewise, if you think of a timeline that is infinitely regressed into the past, you would never be able to reach the present.

That is why it is recognizes that actual infinites can’t exist in terms of concrete past events or concrete objects, even though infinites can exist in abstract objects such as math.

That is why some scientists are trying to come up with models that would remove space-time from the equation prior to the big bang. If you don’t remove space-time from the equation then you can’t logically have a past eternal universe.

But if you remove space-time from the equation then you have no way of explaining how the non space-time eternal state could create space-time at a finite point in a casual chain that would not have logically resulted in the space-time universe being created an infinite amount of time ago anyway.

The only way you can logically have an eternal timeless state prior to the creation of space-time, which at a casual point a finite time ago resulted in the creation of space-time, is if you had a mind who had the ability to make a decision to initiate a change that is not bound by any physical casual laws.

Obviously. It has been incessantly doing things before budding into this current universe. Who said it has not been doing anything before?

I explained that further up in my post.
Even if you don’t assume the pre-existent state was doing nothing, but assume it was doing something, you run into the same problem.

That problem is: Why didn’t the pre-existent state initiate the creation of the universe sometime in the eternal past? Why only a finite amount of time ago?

If it has had literally an eternity to be doing stuff, even at random, then we would be forced to conclude that whatever is necessary to generate our universe should have already happened an eternity ago.

But we know our universe hasn’t been around for an eternity, and logically we know it couldn’t even we didn’t have observation evidence of it’s finite time in the past. Hence the problem for eternal pre-extistent models.

Sorry no.

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Again just did.

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They have not.

What I just wrote refutes your claim to be able to stand on your position.

So what I said still stands:
1. You cannot escape the logic of why the universe cannot be past eternal.

2. You escape the logic of the fact that we can’t have an eternal physics based state that created the universe only a finite amount of time ago.

3. Both of these scenarios would require a being with a mind and free will, and the power to initiate change, to actuate the state of change in reality to create what we see. You can’t get there with materialism alone.

Let me make this clearer. BGV theorem does not apply to any quantum theory of space time or any quantized version of space time. Ok?

Your statement is not relevant to refuting any argument I or Craig made for the reasons I outlined already in this post.

Vilenkin is one of them.

No, Vilenkin does not propose something came from actual nothing.
He is smart enough to know you can’t actually call it genuine nothing which is why he puts “nothing” in quotes.

He says the laws of physics and math must exist.
It seems he still thinks energy exists. It’s just space and time they are hypothesized to not exist.

 

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They are all proposing a quantized background system that is eternal and dynamic and that is constantly bubbling with universes that have classical space times in them. Let's here more from Vilenkin himself

Its not an absolute nothing. Also note what Vilenkin says and every physicist know : quantum mechanical events do not require a cause though they follow probabilistic patterns of how events unfold. He also says singularity is totally unphysical.

I watched that video.

Vilenkin says the motivation for appealing to a something from “nothing” hypothesis is because you need to stop an infinite regress.

But he acknowledges his “nothing” is not actually nothing, which is why he put it in quotes.
It is math, the laws of physics, and although he doesn’t say it we would have to presume it includes energy (He only says space and time don’t exist). Otherwise where you are going to get the quantum particle from? If there is nothing for physical forces (as described by the laws of physics) to act upon then nothing can happen.

So you still run into the infinite regress problem. You have a quantum energy state that itself had to have a beginning because you can’t explain

However, this logically doesn’t work because the abstract concept of math has no power to cause anything to happen.

The laws of physics likewise, as an abstract concept, have no power to cause anything to happen. Abstract objects can’t cause anything to happen.

The laws of physics are merely descriptions of how things currently behave.

In the absence of something to describe the behavior of, therefore, there are no laws of physics.

The only way you could have abstract ideas like math and physical laws exist without anything to describe as having that behavior is if those ideas existed in the mind of a being before they existed as descriptions of the behavior of energy/matter/space/time.

So you run into an infinite regress problem of a different type: where did the math/physical laws come from and why do they exist?

All you’ve done at that point is traded one type of infinite regress problem for another type.

Which is the shell game seen constantly throughout cosmological theories – They just keep shifting around the causes and beginnings because logically it is impossible for them to land anywhere that doesn’t require a creation out of nothing. Which forces one into God as the only possible answer.


Furthermore, this idea that you could have a quantum particle exist and tunnel is further pointing to the fact that you need quantum energy of some sort to exist for the laws of physics to act upon in order to generate this seemingly random particle.

And if anyone thinks that this quantum particle can appear out of literally nothing but the laws of physics (which as I already pointed out wouldn’t work, but for the sake of argument let’s go there) you still run into three problems:

1. The behavior of quantum particles in our universe is cannot be assumed to be something coming out of nothing because we already know something exists. It is entirely possible that whatever would be causing quantum particles to appear is based in energy or matter that was created as part of the universe itself and then is governed by the physical laws of the universe.

It would be a fallacious category error to start saying that because something appears to be causeless (like nuclear decay) that something can come from nothing. That which begins to exist must have a cause is not the same as saying that everything must have a cause.

Even if nuclear decay had no cause, but were truly random, we still couldn’t say the creation of the nuclear particle came out of literally nothing. No, the creation event of the universe supplied the nuclear elements to us. And the universe is governed by physical laws which determine how that element decays.

2. We don’t even have reason to assume quantum events are truly random. Who is to say something like nuclear decay doesn’t actually have some non-random law that determines how it behaves but that law is simply beyond our current ability to observe or calculate?

Therefore is would be wildly irresponsible from a logic standpoint to assume something like your inability to understand the physics behind nuclear decay proves things happen without cause in our universe – especially when all of our other experience says otherwise.

Irrelevent as nobody (no cosmologist) is saying it.

Your claim is false. Vilenkin is trying to claim that math and the laws of physics could exist independent of anything else in existence in the very video you posted.

If you do that then you are positing by necessity that math/physical laws have casual power to create something out of nothing.

Obviously this not an absolute nothing. What Vilenkin proposes is some sort of potential state which had the laws of the universe, logic, math etc. out of which the universe bubbled out. I find it implausible, but anyways....

You just refuted your own claim by admitting that Vilenkin is positing a state wherein nothing but the abstract concepts of math, logic, and physical laws exist.

This gets you into all the problems I already outlined above about how can these abstract concepts exist without something to describe or a mind to hold them in the absence of something to describe. That’s not science at that point - it’s philosophical platonism.

"And as Alexander Vilenkin, one of the leading quantum cosmologists has observed, actually asked, he asks this rhetorical question at the end of, Many Worlds in One: What is the tablet upon which these laws could be written? Before there's matter, space and time, what tablet could these laws be written on? If mathematics is in the domain of the mind, are we really saying that mind predates matter? Mind predates the universe? And so, if true, quantum cosmology does not have materialistic implications, it has philosophically idealist, and arguably, theistic implications, because it implied mind before matter."
-Quoting Dr. Stephen Meyer who is quoting Vilenkin.

 

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Let me make this clear. There is currently ZERO evidence that the universe has a beginning. The only evidence there is, is that the universe passed through a very high energy density state 13 billion years ago. The energy density was so high that our current low energy density based understanding of physics cannot help us anymore. That is it. No evidence of a beginning exists.

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Since there is no evidence of a beginning anywhere is sight as well....its all speculation. So we can only talk about which are mathematically consistent and is not contrary to any observation.[/

Vilenkin says you’re wrong. So where do you think he’s getting this idea that literally all the evidence we have points to the universe having a beginning?

Where do you think Krauss is getting the idea that all the evidence points to the universe having a beginning and that he thinks it probably did in his debate with Craig?


“We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed”.
“The Beginning of the Universe,” Inference: International Review of Science ¼ (Oct. 23, 2015)
-Alexander Vilkenin

“All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning”.
Cited in “Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event”, by Lisa Grossman, New Scientist (Janurary 11, 2012).

The fact that the space-time universe had a beginning is not controversial or in dispute. So I don’t think that’s what you are trying to say.

If you are trying to dispute that the space-time universe had a beginning, then I can give the reasons for that. But I will assume that’s not what you are trying to do.

You must be trying to refer to whatever you think preceded the space-time universe.

Well, as I have shown in these posts, you run into various logical problems which necessitate concluding either the everything had a beginning point of something being created from literally nothing or there was an eternal state that a mind caused to change.

No. An eternally existing quantum wavefunction describing all of existence is very much possible.

You can’t name one that doesn’t have fatal problems and isn’t subject to what I have already described here.

Obviously every cosmologist disagrees with you, including Vilenkin.

You are committing the logical fallacy of appeal to authority and appeal to popularity.

You don’t disprove the truth of what I argued merely by pointing to someone who disagrees with it.

Here you are simply wrong.

You have failed to meet your burden of rejoinder and committed the fallacy of argument by assertion.

Simply asserting my argument is wrong doesn’t make it so just because you assert it is so.

You need to be able to provide valid counter arguments to my arguments if you want to be able to claim my conclusion is supposedly wrong.

Paradoxically his own model is an eternal universe model as he negates beginning from absolute nothing. He is simply saying an eternal universe with classical space-time cannot be eternal. Fortunately nobody is predicting this.

That doesn’t refute anything I argued. Especially with what I have elaborated on in these posts to show why you can’t get a materialistic eternal pre-universe state to work.

I do not really care what a journalist is saying...

That’s not a journalist’s statement, it’s a journalist quoting Vilenkin.

Vilenkin may believe this, but other cosmologists do not.

Appealing to what other cosmologists believe by itself doesn’t disprove anything I have argued here.

He has also not shown in any paper that there eternal models violate the BGV theorem. See Guth's comment on this 32:27. Actually Guth himself has a few models that do not violate the BGV theorem as well as Ashtekar's Loop Quantum Cosmology universe with a bounce.


That is irrelevant to what has been argued.
The BGV theorem is not being used by either me or Craig to prove that a pre-spacetime quantum state couldn’t have a beginning.

The argument for why a pre-spacetime state could not be explained by materialism alone is based on logic – as I have outlined in my posts here already.

The BGV is only being used to prove that the space-time universe had a beginning. Which is then a segue into why we don’t have reason to believe any pre-spacetime state could have been eternal either.

We cannot show that this universe has beginning either. Remember this is not a classical universe but a universe where QM is a fundamental theory. The BGV theorem does not apply to our universe because long before we get to a singularity, quantum effects would start dominating the space-time physics necessarily.

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Quantum Gravity theories have space time, just a quantized version of it. So yes space-time universes can be past eternal as well.

I think this is where some miscommunication could be happening.

When I talk about the space-time universe I am talking about classical space time that is said to start with the big bang.

When I talk about the universe I am talking about the classical space time universe we observe and know. Not a theoretical construct of something prior to that which we have not observed and don’t know if it even exists

You are fallaciously begging the question when you try to claim the word 'universe" must include a prior quantum existence before the big bang when you don’t actually know that there was.

Vilenkin is also referring to the classical space-time universe when he is referring to the "universe" in his quotes. So my use of that term is in keeping with the way he used it.


You also run into major problems when you bring space-time into the quantum realm prior to the big bang

Because now the quantum space is subject to the same problems of it being impossible to have an infinite regress of time.

Any space time state cannot be past eternal because an infinite regress of time states is impossible to travel through.

That is why Vilenkin’s ideas try to create a place where space-time doesn’t exist so he can try to have an eternal state that doesn’t fall into a problem of an infinite regress of time or an infinite regress of causes for concrete objects.

He still runs into his own brand of infinite regress and necessary beginning problems, as I outlined above.