Would you prefer just reading that the argument is fallacious, It is a non sequitur. It's conclusion doesn't follow from what preceded it
Yes, I would very much prefer to see posts free of unnecessary condescension that does nothing but poison these discussions.
4) is the second premise of the second syllogism, and it is incorrect. It doesn't consider other possibilities, such as a multiverse being that source
Earlier in your post you said that no research is needed for this argument yet here you show just how badly you misrepresent the argument due to that exact lack of research. In his presentations of the argument, Craig offers lengthy explanations of why the first cause ought to be a personal eternal agent rather than a multiverse. It's like you're only looking at the bare premises and are unaware of the support given for these premises. Obviously, premises on their own are mere assertions. That's why philosophers back them up with particular arguments.
Objecting to those arguments is one thing but to say that alternate options are just ignored and that God is simply shoved in is just plain false and had you actually read his work you wouldn't have made such a statement. I therefore advise you to at least look at his presentations of the argument in his popular literature On Guard or Reasonable Faith and for a more scholarly treatment look at his chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
Many of us have no practical use for theology, at least not the faith-based aspects of it. II'm excluding the Bible as literature or its history, which I consider legitimate scholarship, but not the parts that assume the existence of gods, which has no more legitimacy than studying the Disney princesses or the Pokemon cast of characters. Sorry, but just because a subject can be studied in depth doesn't make it scholarship if it's about nothing real.
You probably have no practical use for astrology, communism, or Scientology. Isn't that reasonable for those rejecting a belief system? Should we pretend otherwise when discussing them?
Or maybe you think that the astrologers are on to something, and Madame Cozmo should be taken seriously and shown more respect rather thought of with disdain.
Natural Theology is not theology in the sense that you're talking about. It's a philosophical project which aims to provide arguments for the existence of God. Having said that, theology is actual scholarship in the full sense of the term, in fact the line between theology and philosophy of religion can get incredibly unclear at times as both offer rigorous arguments which are in the case of theology based on the study of a particular holy text and the findings of exegetes, historians as well as scientists.
It has universities, journals and teaching positions in higher education. Even atheists can be (and have been) theologians. To say it's not "actual scholarship" is just ignorant.
Christian apologists are viewed the same way as palm reader Madame Cozmo, and Tom Cruise and his thetans, whether it be Michael Behe, Ken Ham, Pat Robertson, Sarah Palan, the Duggars, Kent Hovind, Ray Comfort, or William Lane Craig. Many just see charlatans, and naturally, they disapprove.
To draw a parallel between a renowned scholar like William Lane Craig and people who do palm reading really betrays that you're out of touch with what you're talking about. It is one thing to disagree with him but to call him a charlatan is just inappropriate for the reasons I'll get to now.
Here, his credentials are his arguments, not his degrees or public stature.
That "here" is a very out of touch place, then, since scholar's credentials are incredibly important when evaluating them. Someone with multiple PhDs, a teaching position in a higher education institutions, owning a good H-index and enjoying a good reputation is obviously more reliable than a person with a B.A. who is unemployed or simply teaching in highschool and has published maybe two papers in their entire career.
Most of his education is religious studies, including a doctorate in theology, and that which wasn't is wrapped up in his religious argument (Kalam), which most of career appears to be based on. You already know how I feel about theology.
He holds doctorates in philosophy of religion as well as systematic theology. The former is a field to which this topic belongs. Leaving aside your misguided feelings about theology, those are very good credentials. As for his career, his main focus of study was actually the coherence of the concept of God. The Kalam was his contribution to Natural Theology, a significant and well-respected one at that and definitely taken a lot more seriously by people actually qualified to tackle it than random people on the internet.
Those topics include divine omniscience, divine eternity and divine asiety. All of which have lead him to contribute and take part in some of the toughest topics of philosophy such as truth-makers, the nature of time and the platonic realm. He collaborated with well-respected atheist philosopher Quentin Smith on two huge scholarly contributions on two competing theories of time (a theologically neutral topic mind you).
But none of that matters when evaluating this argument. It's simply incorrect.
And before you begin evaluating an argument you ought to make sure you've done your best to understand it by researching it properly. Given your comments so far, I think it's evident that you (and a lot of other people in this thread) haven't done so.
What more do I need to know about him than that he considers the argument above sound is when it is not? Or maybe you explain why a caused universe must be caused by a personal god.
I'll leave you with a quote from a popular atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett (who found his place on the same list of top 50 most influential philosophers as William Lane Craig, in fact Craig got a place higher than him) and who has done great work in the philosophy of mind, though the laymen are a lot more likely to know him only for his criticism of religion:
"As I tell my undergraduate students, whenever they encounter in their required reading a claim or argument that seems just plain stupid, they should probably double check to make sure they are not misreading the “preposterous” passage in question."
If you find the argument so obviously false on such obvious grounds (and really, if you were right this would have been an obvious problem with the argument) while the scholars themselves seem to take it more seriously (given how they not only do not accuse Craig of ignoring alternate options but actually tackle the multiple different arguments he has offered for them and do put in a lot of hard work in it since they know very well these issues are quite hard and complicated) then you may have just proved that the scholars are incompetent or, much more likely, you haven't approached the argument competently.
Both your main complaint and the following:
The premise that everything that has a beginning has a cause isn't clearly established either since rules that apply within a universe don't necessarily apply to universes themselves, nor that the universe had a beginning. Perhaps just the expansion had a beginning.
have already been responded to by Craig. Maybe you find those responses contentious (certainly many people do and I myself have my reservations) but to say they're not there and that Craig is simply ignoring things and doing cheap apologetics like a typical charlatan is really just digging a grave for your own credibility.
Craig's credentials are his fallacious argument, not his degrees.
No, his credentials are his academic accomplishments which have pushed his opponents to write dozens if not hundreds of articles arguing in great depth against them
"a count of the articles in the philosophy journals shows that more articles have been published about Craig’s defense of the Kalam argument than have been published about any other philosopher’s contemporary formulation of an argument for God’s existence." - Quentin Smith, Kalam Cosmological Argument for Atheims
and was said to be
"among the most sophisticated and well argued in contemporary theological philosophy" - Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
I'll reiterate my previous sentiment, then, how sad it is to see lay people so easily dismiss these arguments as obviously fallacious. Of course, as Dennett would say, you and the OP may be right and it may be that all those papers written on the subject were just pointless as your brief remark would do just as efficient of a job but it is a lot more likely (indeed, having read a lot of the material on the subject I find it quite apparent) that you're the ones who got things wrong.
