The first cause argument

[KWED]

An infinite universe is possible, but not likely.
The evidence shows us that the universe started off with a singularity which expanded.

Infinite existence is a concept which does not have to include space. Is time an emergent property of the universe?
That cannot be ascertained one way or another.
It cannot be categorically proved that 'time' is meaningless if the physical universe does not exist.
All we can say is that our scientific observations of the universe involve a relationship between time and space.

So you accept that things can exist infinitely, in principle.

 

[KWED]

No you havent shown any flaw of the argument, all you do is repeat like a parrot "there is no evidence "

If you base an argument on the premise "X is real, therefore...", but there is no evidence for X, then the lack of evidence for the initial premise's validity is a flaw in the argument and the conclusion can be rejected.
It's pretty simple stuff tbh.

 

[KWED]

I've read WLC's arguments before and they're all just laughable.

I have no time for Craig after he claimed that in the Biblical story of the slaughter of the Canaanites...
"the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing."
****ing disgraceful, and a perfect example of the harm religion (and similar ideologies) does.

 

[Polymath257]

Do some studying. You will get to know a lot of things.

I have studied and found the answers to these questions don't go the direction you need for your argument.

The argument was never meant to not fail. Just that you dont understand where it fails.

I've no doubt it fails in many other ways, but it certainly fails in these ways as well.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The problem often arises when a religious apologist reads an article or sees a video where someone appears to make a convincing philosophical or "scientific" argument for god. They then repeat it on forums such as this without examining it in detail, not realising that the article was aimed at convincing existing believers rather than people with an actual knowledge of the points raised. Their own lack of understanding is soon exposed but they are loath to accept it because they had personally pinned so much on it. The more their mistake is demonstrated, the more hubristic and patronising their responses often become.

The apologists don't recognize that the apologetics they recite is for them, not skeptics skilled in critical thinking. The apologetics exist to give the faith-based thinker the sense that his beliefs are grounded in reason and evidence just like the people challenging those beliefs. The other half of that is calling the beliefs of reason and evidence based thinkers faith and religion. It makes those that can't evaluate what's what themselves feel more comfortable, as if the playing field were level. They have faith, too, and we have science, too, which is probably important for those struggling with the asymmetry of faith versus reason.

The apologetics simply don't work outside of the apologetics bubble. I remember an essay presented here arguing that human beings could not have descended from other apes, because all other existing apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, man has 23, and a mutation leading to a dropout of a whole chromosome would be lethal, and thus passed on to descendants. It's actually a compelling argument until somebody tells you about human chromosome 2 and end-to-end fusion. Better for the apologists if they just tell one another these stories, where nobody is expected to be able to rebut it (or even try), than to bring it to those who can find the errors.

Quick googling, cut and paste, drop a word, cut and paste again.

Not your call. You try so very hard to control the writing of others, but always to no avail.

Why do you think that you have either the authority or the expertise to be giving advice even, much less commands?

I didnt know that you had some divine powers to read my brain mate.

Read your brain? You dump its contents onto the Internet. How about if we read your words, which come from your brain?

So many posters are unaware of how much of their thinking they unwittingly reveal in their posting. It's very clear what you believe and how you think. Your values and agenda are also an open book. Your writing oozes them. How many people have summarized your toolbox of distractions and fallacies? Do you think they don't understand why you drag them out, or what it means that you need to and that you are willing to? They don't need to do those things, nor are they willing to. They know why they don't, and why you do.

if somebody claims that the universe has always existed, they need to show that that is the case.

Nobody needs to make that claim in this context. The opposite claim has been made in the cosmological argument. This is premise 2 of Craig's version and the OP's version of the argument: “The universe began to exist.” That's where the burden of proof lies, a burden that has not and cannot be met by those making the claim, and sufficient cause to reject the argument as unsound and move on to the next topic, which was accomplished on the first page of this thread in post 10.

If people want to show that it is possible that G-d doesn't exist, they will continue to do so.

Of course its possible that the universe is godless. There is no need to show anything to support the logical possibility that that is the case, but much has already been shown to support that possibility, such as science revealing that the universe works automatically, that the sun doesn't need Apollo or the thunder Thor, nor do electrons need angels pushing the current through circuits. Then they showed how the universe can assemble itself from seeds with the Big Bang theory (beginning with the earliest universe) and evolution (beginning with the first living population). What gaps are left for a god to fill? We don't know where either seed came from, but we have naturalistic hypotheses for both, and so need no gods at this time. If our universe budded from a multiverse, for example, and chemicals naturalistically evolved to form the first life, then where is a god needed? It's not, which is why it's very possible that no gods exist.

The article explains and provides arguments for why the universe probably has a beginning. If you disagree then you are expected to deal with the arguments and prove them wrong

Prove them wrong to whom? The person making the argument isn't here.

Or maybe you think that because you left a link, you made the argument by proxy, and you are the one to field objections and rebuttals. I'd need to see that you actually understood the argument you are linking to before doing that, in which case it becomes the case that YOU'RE making, even if you weren't its author. Can you fill in for the author?

I've learned from years of rebutting these orphan links - links that aren't offered in support of an argument, but rather, in place of one - that so doing is usually a dead end. There's a reason just a link was left. The one leaving the link doesn't understand it and thus can't summarize or paraphrase it, and hopes that because the language looks to him like the author ought to know what he's talking about, that those reading the link will be convinced by it. But then one finds some flawed apologetics, rebuts it, and there is no meaningful reply coming from the poster, and of course, none from the author, who isn't here.

Another bad outcome following responding to orphan links is when the poster tells you after you respond to his link, "That's not the part I meant."

So did you want to make the argument yourself? You probably ought to before telling others that they are expected to rebut it. I looked at the link, saw it was from Craig, and went no further. He's a classic example of somebody that an apologist would leave an orphan link to. His language sounds like he must know what he's talking about and is therefore correct, and will keep skeptics' backs against the wall. He sounds erudite. He looks erudite.

But his version of Kalam is notoriously horrible reasoning, especially once he feels that he has established that the universe has a cause, and then with any support for his claims, goes on to describe that cause as "an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent."

This is the king of non sequitur in my experience. Where did the multiverse go? How was it ruled out. It wasn't. It was just ignored, which is why this writer isn't one I turn to for anything except examples of flawed reasoning in religious apologetics, and also, his unwitting admission that his mind is closed to evidence, which is another reason that his words are useless to the critical thinker. I'd be happy to reproduce if you have any interest.

You wrote that Craig provides "4 arguments in favor of premise 2." Why don't you go ahead and make any number of them yourself in a way that shows that you understand them well enough to stand in for Craig, since he couldn't be with us today, and I bet a few of us will oblige you with a response to your argument(s). Please paraphrase the text between, "The more controversial premise in the argument is premise 2, that the universe began to exist." and, "So once again the scientific evidence confirms the truth of the second premise of Ghazali’s cosmological argument" in such a way that it is clear that you understood them. Maybe you can explain why the Hilbert Hotel is absurd, but not an infinite God.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..Maybe you can explain why the Hilbert Hotel is absurd, but not an infinite God.

Well, G-d the Most High, does not live in a hotel.

 

[Lain]

Well, G-d the Most High, does not live in a hotel.

I feel like God in a hotel would make for an amazing sitcom.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Please open a new thread to explain that. Thanks.

No, I won't play your game. You brought up rational as a positive. We deal with in the thread.

So here is the limit of rational.
We need Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant.
Step 1:
To doubt what you know and find something you are certain of. I can find the original text if you want that. Here is my short version in a modern take. Could you be in Boltzmann brain universe, which consists of a computer, a program and a powersource. You are running on the computer and the computer feeds you external experiences to simulate another universe; this. So what can you know? You can doubt everything, but then you can't doubt that you doubt, thus "I think, therefore I am". But you can't trust any external experiences as being genuine.
Step 2: Kant and that you can know there is an objective reality and that is all you can know about the objective reality, namely that is not you. The point is that whether you are in a Boltzmann Brain universe or this, you can only know that as experiences coming to you from not you; i.e. objective reality. But that is all. Whether objective reality is the one or the other, you can't know. In other words you don't know what objective reality in itself as independent of your experience of it-
Step 3: Now start with the core assumption that objective reality is epistemologically fair and notice that you can't prove this with reason, logic or evidence.

So if you claim you can know there is a God, you are taking for granted that God is fair as above, but you can't prove that. You have to take that on faith in the end. As a skeptic I assume or take it on faith that the universe is fair as above, but I can't use empiricism(evidence) or rationality(proof) on it. And so far nobody has solved that one. And I doubt you can.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, G-d the Most High, does not live in a hotel.

And how does that deal with the issue? Why is one absurd and not the other?

 

[muhammad_isa]

And how does that deal with the issue? Why is one absurd and not the other?

If a person wants to be bloody-minded, they can question anything and everything.
Does the universe have a beginning?
Most likely, yes.
Otherwise there is no reason for its existence other than some postulation that becomes circular reasoning.

If you think that a circular argument [an infinite one] is reasonable, then good for you.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If a person wants to be bloody-minded, they can question anything and everything.
Does the universe have a beginning?
Most likely, yes.
Otherwise there is no reason for its existence other than some postulation that becomes circular reasoning.

If you think that a circular argument [an infinite one] is reasonable, then good for you.

That is not proof of anything or evidence of anything.

 

[muhammad_isa]

That is not proof of anything or evidence of anything.

So what?
What proof are you looking for?
Is it possible to prove the non-existence of the universe by scientific observation of the said universe?
It is a contradiction.

The first cause argument is not a proof of anything physical.
Who said it was?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So what?
What proof are you looking for?
Is it possible to prove the non-existence of the universe by scientific observation of the said universe?
It is a contradiction.

The first cause argument is not a proof of anything physical.
Who said it was?

I am looking for the process of showing that these ideas in brains is more than just ideas in brains.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I am looking for the process of showing that these ideas in brains is more than just ideas in brains.

Keep looking..
I don't know what you expect to find.
It is a fact that some people believe in G-d and some people don't.
It is more than "ideas in brains".

Is it a coincidence that "these ideas in brains" happen to coincide?
We all have to decide for ourselves, and that's all there is to it.

Some people listen to others and ponder on what they have to say, and some people ignore what you have to say and just want to create doubt.

Probability is a real phenomena. Those that wish to raise doubt often cite it when discussing determinism v random theory.
When it doesn't suit them, however, they ignore probablities and argue for categorical proof.
They fool none but themselves, and those people who want to be fooled.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Keep looking..
I don't know what you expect to find.
It is a fact that some people believe in G-d and some people don't.
It is more than "ideas in brains".

Is it a coincidence that "these ideas in brains" happen to coincide?
We all have to decide for ourselves, and that's all there is to it.

Some people listen to others and ponder on what they have to say, and some people ignore what you have to say and just want to create doubt.

Probability is a real phenomena. Those that wish to raise doubt often cite it when discussing determinism v random theory.
When it doesn't suit them, however, they ignore probablities and argue for categorical proof.
They fool none but themselves, and those people who want to be fooled.

I believe differently than you. What is the probability that I have been fooled by myself or someone else? 100% or what?
BTW the bold one is categorical.

 

[Polymath257]

If a person wants to be bloody-minded, they can question anything and everything.
Does the universe have a beginning?
Most likely, yes.
Otherwise there is no reason for its existence other than some postulation that becomes circular reasoning.

If you think that a circular argument [an infinite one] is reasonable, then good for you.

How is an argument that time can go infinitely backwards a circular argument?

At this point, we simply do not know if time is infinite into the past or not. if General Relativity is true, then it is. But the quantum theories of gravity say otherwise. And we *know* that quantum theory has to be included at some level.

So, no, it is NOT 'most likely' at all.

An argument could be made that anything prior to the BB could be said to not be 'our universe' even if made of mass, energy, time, and space. But that is just a version of a multiverse and doesn't solve the infinite regress issue.

 

[muhammad_isa]

How is an argument that time can go infinitely backwards a circular argument?

What is a circle ? Isn't a circle with infinite diameter a straight line ?

 

[lukethethird]

Nope. The universe had a cause. If time began with the universe, it began with the universe. So by default, the first cause has to be out of time because the universe was caused.

What was the first cause?

 

[firedragon]

What was the first cause?

Thats beyond the scope of this thread Luke. ITs explained in the OP.

 

[firedragon]

No, I won't play your game. You brought up rational as a positive. We deal with in the thread.

No thanks.