Lies, Dang Lies, and Daniel Dennett -Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 4)

[Uber Genius]

I'm sorry, all of our experience with cause and effect is within the context of the universe. You cannot even begin to discuss a cause for the universe. You can try to come up with analogies of painters and watchmakers for an "efficient cause" or whatever you want and then apply that to the universe, but I think you'd be guilty of committing a composition fallacy.

More new atheist philosphical crap.

Does it ever cease?

We aren't talking teleology. The fallacy of composition says that a certain part of of thing must have al the same attributes as thief thing in itself. The hair of an elephant is light in weight therefore an elephant is light in weight.

How does Plato's Timaeus or Aristole's Metaphysics book 12 in any way engage a composition fallacy? Don't just fake philosophical knowledge by continuing to spit out terms of which you have no idea what they mean.

Or by all means show where I have argued that the world has certain features based on an examination of the attributes of so,e of its constituent parts?

 

[Gene Parmesan]

More new atheist philosphical crap.

Does it ever cease?

We aren't talking teleology. The fallacy of composition says that a certain part of of thing must have al the same attributes as thief thing in itself. The hair of an elephant is light in weight therefore an elephant is light in weight.

How does Plato's Timaeus or Aristole's Metaphysics book 12 in any way engage a composition fallacy? Don't just fake philosophical knowledge by continuing to spit out terms of which you have no idea what they mean.

Or by all means show where I have argued that the world has certain features based on an examination of the attributes of so,e of its constituent parts?

Every effect within the universe has a cause. Therefore the universe has a cause. Composition fallacy.

 

[Uber Genius]

Every effect within the universe has a cause. Therefore the universe has a cause. Composition fallacy.

Another straw man yet again! Well at least you are consistent. Always putting words in people's mouths instead of dealing with their actual claims.

The Kalam is an inductive argument base on premises undergirded by science. As I stated in my last which you apparently didn't read or comprehend I have not argued that because all the constituent parts have a cause the universe has a cause. That would be the coposition fallacy. But that is your straw man not how I argue Kalam or William Lane Craig argues it.

In fact your composition fallacy claim appears in "The Ten Worst Objections to The Kalam by Internet Infidels," presentation by William Lane Craig. I will post the video so you and others can avoid these mistakes.

Specifically the premise "anything that begins to exist has a cause," is defended both philosophically "out of nothing nothing comes," scientifically, as all scientific method infers knowledge about a class of things from a subset, also science looks at causes and recognizes and seeks to differentiate between design (agent causes) or random chance causes, or necessary causes. Further cosmogonists don't say the universe doesn't area cause due to cause and effect not operating beyond space and time, never heard this once but have heard Hawking, Bourde, vellenkin, Guth (none of which are theist) admit the need to investigate cause!

Finally your own experience tells you your view is false. At no time in anyone's life ever has something appeared out of nothing without a cause. If universes can be without a cause (jus pop into existence out of nothing (no attributes)), then what is stopping everything and anything in the universe to be challenge impacted BY NOTHING?

Since the laws of gravity can be a function of mass and distance or they can be caused by nothing since Gravity is much easier to cause than an entire universe.

So your,suggestion entails actually destroying the ability for science to differentiate amongst causes altogether. My Lexus just popped into existence like universes do.

"Oh honey, the woman in my bed with me jus popped into existence completely naked 30 seconds before you walked into the room." After all universes don't need a causal story and women are much less complex than universes.

There are good objection to be argued about the Kalam but the internet infidel objections are weak and laughable.

Graham Oppy or J.H. Sobel have philosophically sound objections that I would recommend.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

I'm not saying the universe came into existence out of nothing. I'm claiming we are currently unable to make any positive claims about anything before the universe (if words like "before" or "anything" make sense beyond the known universe).

I would like to continue the discussion, but if you find me woefully ill-prepared to have the discussion and you lack the patience to continue politely, you have my permission to move on and I will take no offense to an abrupt end to our conversation.

Should you humor me, I'd love to continue. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." It seems you are on board with this statement, and I would say that I am too. But I think before we could possibly proceed, when you say "begins to exist," what does it mean to "exist?"

 

[Uber Genius]

I'm not saying the universe came into existence out of nothing. I'm claiming we are currently unable to make any positive claims about anything before the universe (if words like "before" or "anything" make sense beyond the known universe).

I would like to continue the discussion, but if you find me woefully ill-prepared to have the discussion and you lack the patience to continue politely, you have my permission to move on and I will take no offense to an abrupt end to our conversation.

Should you humor me, I'd love to continue. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." It seems you are on board with this statement, and I would say that I am too. But I think before we could possibly proceed, when you say "begins to exist," what does it mean to "exist?"

Makes perfect sense. "begin to exist," is defined by WLC as follows:

"The kalam cosmological argument uses the phrase “begins to exist.” For those who wonder what that means I sometimes use the expression “comes into being” as a synonym. We can explicate this last notion as follows: for any entity e and time t,

e comes into being at t if and only if (i) e exists at t, (ii) t is the first time at which e exists, (iii) there is no state of affairs in the actual world in which e exists timelessly, and (iv) e’s existing at t is a tensed fact.

From clauses (i) and (ii), you can see that in order for e to begin to exist there is no need for there to be a time prior to t at which e does not exist. If that were the case, then it would be true by definition that time did not begin to exist, which is surely a matter to be settled by investigation, not definition!

Clause (iii) precludes God’s beginning to exist if He enters time at the moment of creation from a state of timelessness sans creation. This result is intuitive because God, if He exists timelessly sans creation, doesn’t begin to exist or come into being at the moment of creation!

Read more: Beginning to Exist | Reasonable Faith

 

[Uber Genius]

So the reason we have for thinking causation precedes creation is metaphysical since nothing physical exists.

our experience always confirms and never denies the causation of things that begin to exist. Secondly, we have good reason to believe there is no possibility of an infinite regress of causes (Aristole's Metaphysics book 12)

So what the inference of the Kalam is driving at is that an immaterial, timeless, spaceless, increadibly powerful and knowledgable, personal being is required to produce the creation.

Personal because the universe is not eternal in the past and if it were created automatically by an impersonal force that always existed there would be no agency and hence the universe would be created due to the sufficiency of the attributes of the impersonal being.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

Thanks for clarifying, I do appreciate it. And I wholeheartedly agree that this is an unsettled matter that requires more investigation. Which was one of the main points I was trying to get at.

My stumbling block here was not what kind of cause is behind the universe and time or anything like that. But rather, how could it be possible to cause time? Causes seem to exist within a timeline. So I spent some time refreshing myself on the concepts of spacetime and what not. Of course once you go down that rabbit hole you just end up with MORE questions. It's clear that I'm not equipped enough to have that discussion (though I readily admitted that earlier in the thread). Maybe once I understand that better I will understand how anyone could make claims about the origins or lack thereof of time.

Thanks again for trying to help me understand. Sorry I couldn't quite meet you where you are right now.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

So what the inference of the Kalam is driving at is that an immaterial, timeless, spaceless, increadibly powerful and knowledgable, personal being is required to produce the creation.

Which it fails to do so spectacularly.

 

[Chriliman]

Thanks for clarifying, I do appreciate it. And I wholeheartedly agree that this is an unsettled matter that requires more investigation. Which was one of the main points I was trying to get at.

My stumbling block here was not what kind of cause is behind the universe and time or anything like that. But rather, how could it be possible to cause time? Causes seem to exist within a timeline. So I spent some time refreshing myself on the concepts of spacetime and what not. Of course once you go down that rabbit hole you just end up with MORE questions. It's clear that I'm not equipped enough to have that discussion (though I readily admitted that earlier in the thread). Maybe once I understand that better I will understand how anyone could make claims about the origins or lack thereof of time.

Thanks again for trying to help me understand. Sorry I couldn't quite meet you where you are right now.

It may be helpful to think of the 'prime mover' as something that encompasses all time and space, so not necessarily timeless or spaceless, which would mean it could be the initial cause of all other understanding of what time and space is, rather than the cause of time and space itself. IOW, time and space is part of the 'prime movers' being.