I'm not asking you to actually concede an eternal universe. Not at all. I'm asking you to acknowledge that IF the universe is eternal, then asserting a creator becomes an illogical proposition;
Again, all evidence points to the standard model, but "If the universe is not represented by that model, and a new model demonstrated a eternal universe,"
Use whatever term you like.
"In a completely hypothetical world."
But were running down a red-herring away from the real world and evidence. That we my point.
I don't find that Sean Carroll, Alan Guth, and others, would risk possible 'career suicide', shame, or embarrassment, by just overtly and blankly asserting the concept of an 'eternal universe' without first doing their homework. I'm fairly confident such scientists are smart enough to know what possible conflict they raise. And if you wish to challenge the concepts, by all means, perform your work, and collect your Nobel prize.
LOL. Yet both boldly teach the standard model which includes the beginning of spacetime, citing both Penrose/Hawking, and Hawking Ellis argue for a beginning since the late 1960s.
https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Space-Time-Cambridge-Monographs-Mathematical/dp/0521099064
Great. Not that it was ever a 'good' one to begin with IMHO. But it would be nice to not hear the theistic population mention it anymore. But we both know that will never happen, no matter what, right?
Again. In hundreds of debates, all online, you can see how atheists handle it. Professional philosophers, not internet infidels, unfamiliar with the whole of philosophy, get crushed.
But for our listeners pleasure I have attached a discussion of some of the internet infidel logic errors here:
Objections So Bad I Couldn’t Have Made Them Up | Reasonable Faith
Again, I ask you the same fundamental question at the very top. You know, like the one posed to many unbelievers.
Again, if you want to make up a hypothetical world that is eternal in order to falsify the 2nd premise in the Kalam
1. If the universe began to exist, then there is a transcendent cause which brought the universe into existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, there is a transcendent cause which brought the universe into existence.
So you can create a hypothetical world to delete the 2nd premise and all you do is suggest that in that hypothetical world we couldn't use the Kalam as an argument for God's existence, but we could use the Liebnizian argument from contingency, now if you want to take us through 2-dozen or so good arguments for God's existence in the real world and create a hypothetical world that one-by-one eliminates the truth value of one of the premises in each argument well by all means go right ahead.
But isn't the theist going to see past your ruse in 5-seconds?