Kiss your kalam goodbye!

This is a famous argument used by everyone's favourite dishonest creationist apologist William Lane Craig (and his parrot Chad Elliot).

Kalam:
Premise 1) Everything that began to exist or currently does exist must have a cause
Premise 2) The universe began to exist
Conclusion) The universe had a cause which did not begin to exist (i.e an immaterial/spaceless, timeless and uncaused creator)

My refutation:
1) Nothing has ever been observed to 'begin' to exist (even in quantum mechanics)
2) Causality and design are subjective. Many things were once thought of to have a 'cause' which are easily explained by naturalistic means
3) No evidence can suggest that the universe began to exist, nor if this is even a coherent concept
4) Why does this creator get to become an exception to the problem of infinite regression? What evidence is there to show that this creator does not face these same problems. NOTE: By saying that this creator is 'by definition' uncreated, that is not providing evidence. Special pleading is obviously needed
5) Furthermore how does a spaceless and timeless creator interact with the natural world to 'cause' it to exist? Two MORE cases of special pleading
6) How does something that exists (presumably a god) cause something which does not exist to begin existing?
7) The conclusion of kalam is a non sequitur already based upon flawed premises. The absolute BEST kalam can do (assuming that none of its premises are flawed) is present that there was a cause for the universe to exist. This does NOT say that that cause was a god, NOR any particular god. I therefore argue that this argument doesn't even properly argue for a deistic point of view. Besides, if this was being argued from any particular religious standpoint (i.e Christianity, since Craig is a Christian) what makes you so sure it's YOUR particular god that's the cause of the universe? Clearly this is easily reverse engineered to suit any god or any supernatural phenomenon.

So three cases of special pleading, no empirical evidence, an argument based on subjectivity, many instances of incoherent logic, two incredibly flawed premises all leading to an unfalsifiable, easily reverse engineered non sequitur later - we have the kalam argument in a nutshell.

Category:

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Tags:

• Kalam
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• TruthofthePeople

[zelda0521]

you clearly confuse a thing with the matter or energy it was constructed from.

An sand castle began to exist once I built it, even though the sand was always there.

In case of the universe, the universe to constructed by God's power, God has always existed, but the universe didn't exist until God used his power to form the universe.

[TruthofthePeople]

@zelda0521 Matter and energy both cannot be created nor destroyed. In the case of your castle, you took materials that were not originally part of a sand castle and made it into a castle. The sand, the water, etc were always there - you just used them in a different configuration than they were originally.

Nothing can 'begin to exist' as we know it because it would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

[joel230182]

baby's into philosophy! right on boy!

[proofandevidence]

@paralaks Sorry, where is the part where you adress my question towards your claim? Name one thing that has been observed to begin to exist from nothing, or else calling truths comment stupid holds no water.

[fdasherv]

@kevinrspBelieves You are aware that you're hopelessly in love with TruthofthePeople, aren't you? Oh yes, I'm quite sure you'd love to "save" him in many, many ways and for many, many hours.

[paralaks]

@proofandevidence By the way, calling stupidity stupid is not ad hominem. Also, even if it is, not all ad hominems are fallacious.

[paralaks]

@proofandevidence my comment..

[proofandevidence]

@paralaks "Nothing has been observed to begin to exist in any sense" is more stupid than "sun does not exist". <<< Yawn, ok, name one thing that has been observed to exist out of nothing. Please keep the ad hominems to yourself.

[paralaks]

@proofandevidence "Nothing has been observed to begin to exist in any sense" is more stupid than "sun does not exist". If you can't understand this -which just shows how ignorant you are about the universe- try atheist Steven Weinberg's thoughts on design in the universe...

[proofandevidence]

@paralaks Explain how his arguements fail then.