Best Argument For or Against God's Existence

[Joshua260]

Still waiting for a response to the rest of what I said.... You ignored it all and tried to make yourself look like you won an argument.

Not sure what you're looking for. You said you were going to "shred" the KCA. So I presented the basic argument. You claimed that BGV did not believe in an actual beginning, and then I showed you where they revised that position to agree that the universe did have a beginning. Then you got all upset and went on a rant and never readdressed the KCA. So I'm not actually waiting, but the way I see it, it's up to you to actually get back to the discussion about the KCA. When you do, let me know.

 

[nonbeliever314]

Not sure what you're looking for. You said you were going to "shred" the KCA. So I presented the basic argument. You claimed that BGV did not believe in an actual beginning, and then I showed you where they revised that position to agree that the universe did have a beginning. Then you got all upset and went on a rant and never readdressed the KCA. So I'm not actually waiting, but the way I see it, it's up to you to actually get back to the discussion about the KCA. When you do, let me know.

“Where Dr. Craig says that the Borde, Guth, Valenkin Theorem implies the universe had a beginning, that is false, that is not what it says, what it says is that our ability to describe the universe classically, that is to say, not including the effects of quantum mechanics gives out.” -Sean Carroll

“I don’t know whether the universe had a beginning, I suspect the universe didn’t have a beginning. It’s very likely eternal but nobody knows.” -Alan Guth

“The theorem (BGV) is only about classical descriptions of the universe, not about the universe itself” -Sean Carroll

ALL OF THESE QUOTES ARE FROM LAST YEAR.

OK. You and I are not theoretical physicists. When an actual physicist says to you "that is false", why do you keep clinging to it as evidence for KCA? The theorem talks about universes in general, not just specifically this universe. I know your going to say well Velenkin said this.... Yes he is one of the authors. But when another author of the theorem talks about it, and another physicist explains it, YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. Now please explain to me, why you totally shun anything else that physicists explain or say about BGV.

 

[nonbeliever314]

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

If everything that "begins to exist" has a cause for it's existence, then everything that was a cause for something else's existence, had a cause for it's existence. Ad infinitum.

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

If this universe had a beginning, and something caused it, then go back explanation one.

 

[quatona]

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

If everything that "begins to exist" has a cause for it's existence, then everything that was a cause for something else's existence, had a cause for it's existence. Ad infinitum.

Unless you simply define something as "uncaused".

 

[TillICollapse]

Unless you simply define something as "uncaused".

Uh-oh. I can see something speeshul on the horizon.

 

[Joshua260]

“Where Dr. Craig says that the Borde, Guth, Valenkin Theorem implies the universe had a beginning, that is false, that is not what it says, what it says is that our ability to describe the universe classically, that is to say, not including the effects of quantum mechanics gives out.” -Sean Carroll

“I don’t know whether the universe had a beginning, I suspect the universe didn’t have a beginning. It’s very likely eternal but nobody knows.” -Alan Guth

“The theorem (BGV) is only about classical descriptions of the universe, not about the universe itself” -Sean Carroll

ALL OF THESE QUOTES ARE FROM LAST YEAR.

OK. You and I are not theoretical physicists. When an actual physicist says to you "that is false", why do you keep clinging to it as evidence for KCA? The theorem talks about universes in general, not just specifically this universe. I know your going to say well Velenkin said this.... Yes he is one of the authors. But when another author of the theorem talks about it, and another physicist explains it, YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU TOTALLY DISREGARD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. Now please explain to me, why you totally shun anything else that physicists explain or say about BGV.

I saw the debate with Sean Carroll, and he showed a graphic illustration of his model. His model avoided a singularity...that seems to be the game nowadays, but it still had a definite beginning. Hawking's model avoids a singularity also...but he admits it still has a definite beginning. I showed you where the BGV paper was revised to say that there was not an eternal past. Just recently, Craig had a debate with Lawrence Krauss. In it, Krauss showed an email which he tried to use as evidence that Vilenkin implied that the universe did not have a beginning. What he did was leave out some crucial info (replacing key phrases with a crafty use of ellipses) that would have resulted in a big shift in understanding. One of the things he left out was the phrase (speaking of Carroll's model) "It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning."

Craig had been in communication with Vilenkin and Vilenkin responded that Craig understood his position "very accurately".

Vilenkin to Craig: "I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately"

"From the horse's mouth."

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/honesty-transparency-full-disclosure-and-bgv-theorem#ixzz3cQGvYZGX

 

[Davian]

I saw the debate with Sean Carroll, and he showed a graphic illustration of his model. His model avoided a singularity...that seems to be the game nowadays, but it still had a definite beginning. Hawking's model avoids a singularity also...but he admits it still has a definite beginning. I showed you where the BGV paper was revised to say that there was not an eternal past. Just recently, Craig had a debate with Lawrence Krauss. In it, Krauss showed an email which he tried to use as evidence that Vilenkin implied that the universe did not have a beginning. What he did was leave out some crucial info (replacing key phrases with a crafty use of ellipses) that would have resulted in a big shift in understanding. One of the things he left out was the phrase (speaking of Carroll's model) "It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning."

Craig had been in communication with Vilenkin and Vilenkin responded that Craig understood his position "very accurately".

Vilenkin to Craig: "I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately"

"From the horse's mouth."

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/honesty-transparency-full-disclosure-and-bgv-theorem#ixzz3cQGvYZGX

Do you accept, for the most part, the standard model of cosmology?

 

[Joshua260]

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

If everything that "begins to exist" has a cause for it's existence, then everything that was a cause for something else's existence, had a cause for it's existence. Ad infinitum.

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

If this universe had a beginning, and something caused it, then go back explanation one.

Gladly.
"1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence."

The Christian god did not begin to exist, so if he was the cause of universe, then that would not contradict p1.

But is the cause of the universe contingent? No, because whatever caused space-time to come into existence existed a-temporally. Therefore, there never was a time when the cause of the universe did not exist.

 

[Joshua260]

Do you accept, for the most part, the standard model of cosmology?

Define exactly what you mean.

 

[nonbeliever314]

Gladly.
"1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence."

The Christian god did not begin to exist, so if he was the cause of universe, then that would not contradict p1.

Premise 1 says Everything. Is the christian god exempt from everything?

 

[nonbeliever314]

I saw the debate with Sean Carroll, and he showed a graphic illustration of his model. His model avoided a singularity...that seems to be the game nowadays, but it still had a definite beginning. Hawking's model avoids a singularity also...but he admits it still has a definite beginning. I showed you where the BGV paper was revised to say that there was not an eternal past. Just recently, Craig had a debate with Lawrence Krauss. In it, Krauss showed an email which he tried to use as evidence that Vilenkin implied that the universe did not have a beginning. What he did was leave out some crucial info (replacing key phrases with a crafty use of ellipses) that would have resulted in a big shift in understanding. One of the things he left out was the phrase (speaking of Carroll's model) "It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning."

Craig had been in communication with Vilenkin and Vilenkin responded that Craig understood his position "very accurately".

Vilenkin to Craig: "I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately"

"From the horse's mouth."

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/honesty-transparency-full-disclosure-and-bgv-theorem#ixzz3cQGvYZGX

Interview with Alexander Vilenkin, June 7, 2015
http://now.tufts.edu/articles/beginning-was-beginning

Some people claim your work proves the existence of God, or at least of a divine moment of creation. What do you think?

I don’t think it proves anything one way or another.

I went to a meeting of some theologians and cosmologists. Basically, I realized these theologians have the same problem with God. What was He doing before He created the universe? Why did He suddenly decide to create the universe?

For many physicists, the beginning of the universe is uncomfortable, because it suggests that something must have caused the beginning, that there should be some cause outside the universe. In fact, we now have models where that’s not necessary—the universe spontaneously appears, quantum mechanically.

In quantum physics, events do not necessarily have a cause, just some probability.

As such, there is some probability for the universe to pop out of “nothing.” You can find the relative probability for it to be this size or that size and have various properties, but there will not be a particular cause for any of it, just probabilities.

I say “nothing” in quotations because the nothing that we were referring to here is the absence of matter, space and time. That is as close to nothing as you can get, but what is still required here is the laws of physics. So the laws of physics should still be there, and they are definitely not nothing.

Also: From Sean Carroll's Blog

"The second major point Craig makes is a claim that I ignored something important: namely, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin singularity theorem. This is Craig’s favorite bit of cosmology, because it can be used to argue that the universe had a beginning (rather than stretching infinitely far backwards in time), and Craig is really devoted to the idea that the universe had a beginning. As a scientist, I’m not really devoted to any particular cosmological scenario at all, so in my paper I tried to speak fairly about both “beginning cosmologies” and “eternal cosmologies.” Craig quotes (misleadingly) a recent paper by Audrey Mithani and Alex Vilenkin, which concludes by saying “Did the universe have a beginning? At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.” Mithani and Vilenkin are also scientists, and are correspondingly willing to be honest about our state of ignorance: thus, “probably” yes. I personally think the answer is “probably no,” but none of us actually knows. The distinction is that the scientists are willing to admit that they don’t really know."

 

[nonbeliever314]

But is the cause of the universe contingent? No, because whatever caused space-time to come into existence existed a-temporally. Therefore, there never was a time when the cause of the universe did not exist.

Again, none of this is known for sure. And also, as I said once before, this universe might now be the only one. There could be much more to reality than just this universe, or there might not be. There is a possibility that time is emergent as well. I won't post the paper you can dig that up if you want, but here's an article about it. . All I'm trying to say is that humanity has a lot to learn still, we've come a long way, but we have a much longer way to go. And there are a lot of things we have ideas for, but for me personally and any other scientific thinker and/or scientist, like Sean Carroll said in the quote in the reply above, we are willing to admit that we don't really know. It really boggles me that your won't even at least meet me half way with that one. I even said, that there is a possibility there could be a god, but you won't even say there is a possibility that there could not be. That's the difference between you and me, I'm open to everything, some things I find highly unlikely, some things I don't, but you think one thing is very likely and shut out any other possibility.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Gladly.
"1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence."

The Christian god did not begin to exist, so if he was the cause of universe, then that would not contradict p1.

But is the cause of the universe contingent? No, because whatever caused space-time to come into existence existed a-temporally. Therefore, there never was a time when the cause of the universe did not exist.

If the beginning of the universe was the beginning of time, then couldn't the same be said of the universe? The universe has always existed, in the sense that there was never a time in which the universe did not exist.

 

[lumberjohn]

The problem is that the KCA uses this as a premise of the argument, even though there is clearly much uncertainty among the experts as to whether it is even accurate. A premise must be something everyone agrees to be true -- not something on which the relevant experts are undecided. It isn't necessary for atheists to "prove" the universe was uncaused to defeat the KCA. It must only be demonstrated that one of the premises has not been properly justified

 

[Archaeopteryx]

The problem is that the KCA uses this as a premise of the argument, even though there is clearly much uncertainty among the experts as to whether it is even accurate. A premise must be something everyone agrees to be true -- not something on which the relevant experts are undecided. It isn't necessary for atheists to "prove" the universe was uncaused to defeat the KCA. It must only be demonstrated that one of the premises has not been properly justified

I don't think we can get as far as evaluating the premises properly because the arguer frequently leaves them vague. They are intelligible enough to be understood, but vague enough to sneak in concepts that might otherwise render the premises unsupported.

 

[Davian]

Define exactly what you mean.

It may be perceived by some as hypocritical to cherry pick an untestable hypothesis from modern cosmology just to support one line of an argument while discarding the rest of the science as incompatible with your religious beliefs.

These astrophysicists that are cited in this thread, whose statements you feel do not undercut this "beginning" that you require for your KCA, do you concur with their other scientific conclusions about the nature of the cosmos, such as this "beginning" (if it were such) having happened about 13.7 billion years ago, with our solar system forming about 4.5 billions years ago?

 

[The Cadet]

I'm curious, at what rate are astrophysicists and cosmologists believers in god? Is it higher than the general populace, given that astrophysics supposedly "found god"?

Oh, what's that? The most recent poll (back in 1998) found that they were even less likely to believe than biologists? How weird. And that number has not gotten much better since then? How weird again.

Look, WLC's claims that cosmology has somehow found god runs directly in the face of the consensus of cosmologists. Alan Guth has already made it clear that his claims about his theorem are unsupportable, and Sean Carroll has explained at length that the foundation of his claim, the whole concept of causation as applied to the universe, is an intuitive leap that simply does not apply. William Lane Craig's first premise is completely non-applicable. Martymer81, a physics professor, explains in his video numerous other problems, including that:

• "Begins to exist" is not a term used in physics because we have never observed anything to begin to exist, merely state changes in existing matter and energy. It's really not applicable to the beginning of the universe.
  
• Time must begin to exist, and that statement may or may not even be coherent
• Craig is super duper wrong about BGV theorem and probably didn't read or understand it
  
• Carroll's model proposes an eternal universe, making Kalam's first premise entirely disputable.
• The entire concept of "nothing" is impossible

And more.

There's a reason that most cosmologists are not theists. Craig is just wrong about cosmology.

And, on a related note, Kalam is simply not an argument for the Christian god. It's an argument for a deist god with no further qualities.

 

[lumberjohn]

And, on a related note, Kalam is simply not an argument for the Christian god. It's an argument for a deist god with no further qualities.

Very true. It is an argument for a generic "god" with a lower case "g" that need not even still exist. I often wonder why atheists get so bogged down in dealing with the cosmological and fine-tuning arguments, given how little they actually accomplish for Christian apologists. The arguments are intuitively appealing and based upon many commonly held assumptions. Properly understanding why they fail requires one to understand basic astrophysics and statistics and discard assumptions held since childhood. The arguments could both be conceded for sake of the debate, merely stating that the widely recorded disagreement of the experts confirms that the necessary premises are far from established, and proceed to more fruitful ground such as internal contradictions of Christianity and the problem of evil. Establishing the cosmological and fine-tuning arguments only get Christians to the two yard line. If you accord them unmerited weight, you give the appearance that they've traversed the remaining 98.

 

[KCfromNC]

And, on a related note, Kalam is simply not an argument for the Christian god. It's an argument for a deist god with no further qualities.

Is it even that? I didn't think the argument established any properties for this creator at all. Could be totally inanimate processes. Could be blind luck. The argument itself doesn't distinguish one way or the other.

 

[The Cadet]

Is it even that? I didn't think the argument established any properties for this creator at all. Could be totally inanimate processes. Could be blind luck. The argument itself doesn't distinguish one way or the other.

Actually, this is where the argument completely disintegrates for Christians, because the only reason we can say that it is god is because the argument defines god that way. It allows for no further processes or understanding.