Kalam Cosmological Argument: Modern Science confirms an Ancient Christian Truth.

[adey67]

We have the next parasite infestation. I imagine it will be much like scabies.

That was scabies and not rabies wasn't it? Because I reckon the OP douchebag is definitely mad enough for it to be the latter.

[Paleophyte]

1. Unfounded Premise
2. Equivocation and Fallacy of Composition
3. Non Sequitur
4. Special Pleading

Therefore God

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm still waiting for the drive-by OP to return to the thread.

<lights a cigarette>

[Aractus]

So let's discuss the Kalam and the Big Bang.

The Big Bang Theory was first proposed by a Belgian Catholic Priest, Fr. Georges Lemaitre. Today, it is the most widely accepted theory in cosmology. It confirms the traditional Judeo-Christian (monotheistic) model of creatio ex nihilo or creation from nothing, because it postulates an absolute beginning of the Universe: "“The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded. Most astronomers use the Big Bang theory to explain how the universe began. But what caused this explosion in the first place is still a mystery.” https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/astro...erse-begin

The scientific Truth of the Big Bang is used in Premise 2 of the Kalam.

1. Now, what BEGINS to exist has a cause.
2. But, the Universe BEGAN to exist.
3. Thus, the Universe has a Cause.

A corollary, 4: If the Universe has a Cause, then a First Cause of the entire Universe exists outside space and time that is extremely Powerful and caused the Universe to begin to exist.

Premise 2, as noted above, has empirical and scientific confirmation, not only in the BBT, but also in the BGV Theorem. Premise 1 meanwhile is a basic Truth of philosophy and logic which we see confirmed over and over in reality. We see that planets, trees, houses and even human beings etc don't come into existence without a cause but rather having a cause. Thus, premise 1 and premise 2 are confirmed, and premise 3 or the conclusion logically follows from them. How would Atheists here respond?

God Bless.

I don't mean to offend you, but WLC and his ilk are professional liars. Refer to my 2022 blog post here.

Astrophysicists do not define the Big Bang as "the moment when the universe began". They define it as happening after the universe began. For all we know the pre-Big Bang universe sat around for TREE(3) years before it decided to agitate and then expand. There is no agreed upon pre- Big Bang theory in cosmology.

Whether it's Fraud-Century Mark (or before that Fraud-Century John aka Papyrus P52 for which a 3rd century date is fine according to Brent Nongbri) or WLC's bullshit “minimal facts” Christian apologetics is based on a very deep delusion about what the gospels actually are and exploiting the ignorance of the Christian apologetics consumer. You're referencing US Evangelical Protestant Apologetics - guess how many people that captures and how many it does not? Roman Catholics Apologetics produce their own apologetic materials refuting yours. Counter-apologetics is a major thing within Christianity. The extremism of WLC and the others like him cannot be understated, Apologetics was just supposed to be a way to defend your faith-based beliefs - not asset absolute truth using bizarre and nonsensical arguments that no one outside of your specific faith group within Christianity even agrees with - and that includes Evangelicals and other Protestants outside of the US.

To go back to your question about how the Big Bang happened - no one knows. The god of the Jews, Yahweh, did not create it. Heck, he's not even present in Genesis 1:1. Read your Bible sometime. In Genesis 1:1, Elohim (not Yahweh) creates the Earth. I repeat: he only creates the Earth, not the universe. Genesis 1:1-2:4a is one creation story, then Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is a second creation story. It's in Genesis 2 that Yahweh shows up. Or rather "Yahweh Elohim".

Here's what your Bible actually says:

Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSVUE): When Elohim began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from Ruach Elohim swept over the face of the waters.
Genesis 2:4b-7: In the day that Yahweh Elohim made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up—for Yahweh Elohim had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground— then Yahweh Elohim formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

You have two different, contradictory accounts of creation both of which start with the Earth, not the universe. The universe already exists, and this is explicitly clear elsewhere in the Bible where it is imagined that Yahweh resides just above the clouds in the sky basically. English translations, even the NRSV, have been made by Evangelicals who have a strong interest in concealing the true nature of your text. While it's a good translation overall, it leaves out intentionally the different names for the deities because monotheism to the ancient Israelites/Jews did not mean what you think monotheism is today. It meant that the acknowledged other deities but that theirs was Yahweh. There's incredibly strong evidence that you had two different dominant faith belief systems merge into one to form Torah Judaism in antiquity, that is Yah worshippers and El worshippers. It wasn't just them though, hence why you also get other names for “God” in the Hebrew Bible. Once Israel had been destroyed and the refugees had fled to Judea to seek refuge, the Torah somewhat resembling what you have today was put together along with the shared memory of trauma through the story of the Exodus (which was expanded into prose from a song) culminating in the instruction:

Exodus 20:2-3 “I am Yahweh your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
Deuteronomy 5:6-7 “‘I am Yahweh your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

Even leading up to this there are other instances clearly trying to convince the early pre-Torah believers that Yahweh is Elohim (Yah is El).

[Paleophyte]

To go back to your question about how the Big Bang happened - no one knows. The god of the Jews, Yahweh, did not create it. Heck, he's not even present in Genesis 1:1. Read your Bible sometime. In Genesis 1:1, Elohim (not Yahweh) creates the Earth. I repeat: he only creates the Earth, not the universe. Genesis 1:1-2:4a is one creation story, then Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is a second creation story. It's in Genesis 2 that Yahweh shows up. Or rather "Yahweh Elohim".

He makes the stars, though rather as an afterthought on Day 4 once he's finished making the sun and the moon. Unsurprising how they got that arse backward.

[Thumpalumpacus]

To go back to your question about how the Big Bang happened - no one knows. The god of the Jews, Yahweh, did not create it. Heck, he's not even present in Genesis 1:1. Read your Bible sometime. In Genesis 1:1, Elohim (not Yahweh) creates the Earth. I repeat: he only creates the Earth, not the universe. Genesis 1:1-2:4a is one creation story, then Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is a second creation story. It's in Genesis 2 that Yahweh shows up. Or rather "Yahweh Elohim".

He makes the stars, though rather as an afterthought on Day 4 once he's finished making the sun and the moon. Unsurprising how they got that arse backward.

Any numpty knows that stars are for romantic enjoyment and not pivotal nodes for cosmological evolution.

[Minimalist]

So.....how come there are stars older than the sun?

[Thumpalumpacus]

So.....how come there are stars older than the sun?

Probably because Genesis is bullshit? Just a guess.

[Minimalist]

As guesses go that's pretty good.

[skyking]

So let's discuss the Kalam and the Big Bang.

The scientific Truth of the Big Bang is used in Premise 2 of the Kalam.

1. Now, what BEGINS to exist has a cause.
2. But, the Universe BEGAN to exist.
3. Thus, the Universe has a Cause.

A corollary, 4: If the Universe has a Cause, then a First Cause of the entire Universe exists outside space and time that is extremely Powerful and caused the Universe to begin to exist.

That image needs a sound effect.
BZZT

[Aractus]

He makes the stars, though rather as an afterthought on Day 4 once he's finished making the sun and the moon. Unsurprising how they got that arse backward.

Well that's irrelevant, the fact is the universe already exists and both ancient Israelites/Jews and ancient Christians imagined Yahweh just above the clouds reigning from there. One of the things they agreed on - obviously the Jews rejected that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish Messiah and ultimately he left behind a gentle church that ultimate had and still has no Jews in it!

[SaxonX]

The Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe

[Paleophyte]

He makes the stars, though rather as an afterthought on Day 4 once he's finished making the sun and the moon. Unsurprising how they got that arse backward.

Well that's irrelevant, the fact is the universe already exists and both ancient Israelites/Jews and ancient Christians imagined Yahweh just above the clouds reigning from there.

Worse than that, the Babylonians and Canaanites imagined it first and the proto-Israelites just copied over their shoulder. Though in fairness, everybody did that.

One of the things they agreed on - obviously the Jews rejected that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish Messiah and ultimately he left behind a gentle church that ultimate had and still has no Jews in it!

Funny how that happens when you throw out everything that made it Jewish so that it'd appeal to a pagan audience.

[Xavier]

Thanks for the responses.

Let me respond to some of the objections and expand on the reasons behind each Premise.

3 Reasons to think Premise 1 is true:

1.1 Nothing produces nothing: If nothing ever existed, even today nothing would exist. That's because, ex nihil, nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothing has no powers, no potentialities, no ability to produce anything. Radioactive decay was given as an attempted counterexample. But radioactive decay is not caused by nothing, it is caused by unstable nuclei that lacks the optimal neutron to proton ratio: "If a nucleus is not stable and has not the optimal neutron to proton ratio (1:1 for light nuclei and > 1.5:1 for heavy nuclei), the nucleus undergoes radioactive decay. Various types of radiation and examples of decay are shown below." https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/phy...tive-decay Again, something that began to exist had a cause, verifying, not falsifying the Kalam Principle.

1.2 Denying Premise 1 would be worse than Magic: If something can begin to exist without a cause, then why would Magic be impossible? At least with claimed magic, where the magician attempts to pull a rabbit out of a hat, you have the magician and the hat. Yet, we know it is impossible, because we know rabbits and other such things don't just pop into being without a cause.

Next, if things can just begin to exist without a cause, why only universes? Why not horses to houses to planets to plants to everything else? Why is nothing so discriminatory? Why does it produce only some objects but not others. Clearly, this is false.

1.3 Denying Premise 1 denies Science and Logic: When Sir Isaac Newton was hit on the head with the proverbial apple, he reflected, "this couldn't just have happened without a cause". Had he not done so, he would not have discovered the Law of Gravity. He knew that temporal effects have their own proper cause, whether that be Agent Causation or Event Causation or so on: "Agent causation, or Agent causality, is an idea in philosophy which states that a being who is not an event—namely an agent—can cause events (particularly the agent's own actions). Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_causation

[Dānu]

And yet, Alexander Vilenkin, whose views are regularly promoted by the Kalam's most visible advocate, Craig, sees nothing wrong with something coming from nothing.

The fact that you can pull a nonexistent principle from your ass does nothing to support your premise. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[Xavier]

Now, here are 3 reasons to think Premise 2 is true:

1. The Big Bang Theory: It was objected that the Big Bang Theory does not prove the Universe began. Let me ask those objectors, What, according to you, existed 100 BN years ago? If the Universe is of finite age, that means the Universe began at a finite time ago in the past, i.e. the universe is not eternal, i.e. the universe was created.

2. The BGV Theorem: The BGV Theorem states that any Universe that has on average been expanding in the past cannot be actually infinite in the past but must have had a definite space time beginning. "The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin (BGV) theorem is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary.[1] It is named after the authors Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, who developed its mathematical formulation in 2003.[2][3] The BGV theorem is also popular outside physics, especially in religious and philosophical debates.[3][4][5]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde%E2%8...in_theorem

3. The impossibility of an infinite series formed by successive addition: Again, the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite of past moments can be mathematically demonstrated. (1) a series formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite. (2) the temporal series of past moments is a series formed by successive addition (3) therefore, such a series cannot be actually infinite. Which leads to the same conclusion, that the universe is of finite age, and therefore had a temporal beginning a finite time ago.

That will do for now. Let me know if anyone wants a response to a specific objection. God Bless.

[Deesse23]

1.2 Denying Premise 1 would be worse than Magic: If something can begin to exist without a cause, then why would Magic be impossible? At least with claimed magic, where the magician attempts to pull a rabbit out of a hat, you have the magician and the hat. Yet, we know it is impossible, because we know rabbits and other such things don't just pop into being without a cause.

You are the one invoking magic, nobody else: Out of which hat did god-magician pull the universe-rabbit? Out of what did the god magician "create" the universe? ...or did he just pull it out of his magic hat? Nobody claimed the universe came from nothing, you are putting up a strawman. You arent listening, like you werent at AF, you are preaching, like you were at AF, and you are going to implode very, very soon, like on AF.

Nobody cares who Newton was, only if his claims turn out to be true. In fact, it turned out that even his newtonian gravity was an incomplete theory.
You also are too dumb to understand the concept of (space-)time having a start/beginning. Hence your ill-informed claim that "the Universe began at a finite time ago in the past, i.e. the universe is not eternal, i.e. the universe was created."

BGV:
Why did you pick and choose the parts from Wiki that suited your agenda only? Ah, yes, because you are ignorant, dishonest, and a preacher.

Oh, and what do you think of Jews and Trans people?

[Xavier]

I am invoking magic? I said, if you deny Premise 1 of the Kalam, you have no basis to deny magic, because then rabbits too could pop into being without a cause. Address that if you can. Also, are you familiar with Efficient Cause and Material Cause? When a Sculptor builds a Sculpture/Statue, the Sculptor himself is the Efficient Cause. The Material Cause is the matter out of which the Statue is made. But if matter itself and all of space-time had a beginning, then the universe itself can have no material cause. We hold that it had an Efficient Cause, God. You, Deese, or some of you, apparently hold it had no cause at all, neither efficient nor material. If that's not what you hold, explain what you hold and why.

Quote the parts of the Wiki article on the BGV Theorem that you think favors Atheism. I quoted it correctly to demonstrate premise 2, namely its demonstration of a temporal beginning of an expanding Universe such as ours.

What do I think of Jews and trans people? Simple. I love them. I'm a Christian/disciple of Christ commanded to love my neighbor as I love myself. As long as we love each other, we can abide pacifically despite our disagreements. I do disagree with Judaism, especially Talmudic Judaism, and trans ideology, though. Talmudic/Pharisaic Judaism teaches hatred of Goyim/Gentiles, and also contains various false teachings on Rape and Pedophilia, one reason Christ and His Apostles, and the Early Church Fathers opposed it. Christ, unlike the Pharisees, taught love of all, even Enemies. Next, modern trans ideology which now goes to the extreme of saying children should be taught their gender/sex is a choice and encouraged to change it even without parental consent is an extreme I think even some of you Atheists would oppose. People as divergent on the Conservative-Liberal or Right-Left spectrum as Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, JK Rowling and Rishi Sunak have called out some extremes of trans ideology. Adults can do what they want after they have the data to make an informed decision. Jesus loves every Jew, every trans person and everyone else, and shed His Blood to redeem them. Christianity is informed by that choice the Lord Jesus Christ made to love everyone without exception. Does trans ideology, or whatever modern ideology you profess, profess love for Christians and others of religious faith?

[Deesse23]

double post

[Deesse23]

I am invoking magic? I said, if you deny Premise 1 of the Kalam, you have no basis to deny magic, because then rabbits too could pop into being without a cause. Address that if you can.

Adress what? The strawman you were building? Where and when did anyone but you claim that the universe was "created" from nothing? You are the one claiming to know who created the universe. How about you address what i said?: Out of which hat did god-magician pull the universe? From what did god-magician "create" the universe? Be specific.

Quote the parts of the Wiki article on the BGV Theorem that you think favors Atheism. I quoted it correctly to demonstrate premise 2,

You selectively quoted Wiki. You basically lied by omission. Thank you for confirming that you pick and choose. Religion has made you so ignorant and dishonest that you cant find anything wrong with picking and choosing, that you cant find anything wrong with lying.

What do I think of Jews and trans people? Simple. I love them. I'm a Christian/disciple of Christ commanded to love my neighbor as I love myself. As long as we love each other, we can abide pacifically despite our disagreements. I do disagree with Judaism, especially Talmudic Judaism, and trans ideology, though.

Bolding mine. See, it wasnt that hard to admit to your bigotry.

[Xavier]

Lol. So merely disagreeing with an ideology is bigotry? Ok, then, it's Christophobic bigotry for you to just disagree with Christianity, by that standard. I stand by what I said. We Christians love everyone, but we disagree with certain ideologies, like gender-bending, reality-denying ones, that claim men can become women, and vice versa. But the real danger is in promoting this to children without parental consent, which even some Atheists have called out, as I said.

Address what? Address the Kalam premises, or the reasons behind them, which is the topic of this thread. Again, the Kalam is very simple: (1) whatever begins to exist has a cause. (2) the universe began to exist (3) therefore the universe had a cause. The reasons for each premise were given.

Anyone can claim "selective citation" without giving any proof of this. If I had cited the entire article, you would have said the post is too long. Lol. Typical atheist games. I cited the BGV Theorem to establish one point, which is the point of the entire Theorem, namely that an expanding universe must have originated at a particular point in time and cannot have been actually infinite in the past. That's not out of context nor a misrepresentation. Atheists just don't like the Theistic implications of that Scientific Premise. We believe, "The Truth sets us free". We don't believe in lies, we believe Scientific Truth, when deeply reflected upon, leads to Religious Truth. Answer the premises and the evidence for each if you can. Else, I'm moving on. Take care.

[AutisticWill]

Shed his blood and redeem them -- lemme stop you right there.

Fuck. You.

I do not need to be remanded to the custody of one tyrant out of the custody of another.

I do not need to be snatched out of a hell that doesn't exist and forced into a heaven that isn't real.

I don't want a human sacrifice! I am not responsible for god's death!

Fuck -- you! Fuck you!

Everybody say it with me now:

FUCK YOU!!!!

[Xavier]

So if someone gave his life to save yours, let's say by taking a bullet for you, or pushing you out of the way of a train, is that what you would say to him? Love and Sacrifice are beautiful and divine precepts when one understands them well. The Greatness of Christianity is it inspires heroism, love and Sacrifice, after the example of its Divine Founder. Christ's teaching and example to Sacrifice contains great lessons of value for everyone from Parents to Soldiers. Parents should sacrifice for their children as Christ did. Even Soldiers should be ready to sacrifice like He did, laying down their lives, if needed, to protect other weaker persons who cannot defend themselves. What is extraordinary is the King dying for the servants, whereas usually the Soldiers/Secret Service etc would die for the King/President. But Christ said, "Greater Love has no Man than this, that a Man lay down His Life for His Friends", and "I have not called you Servants, but Friends", and "I am Jesus, Whom you seek. Since then you seek Me, let these others go", laying down His Life for them and setting everyone, especially His followers, an example.

[Minimalist]

“We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll

Perhaps more to the point, Celsus- writing 16 centuries before Ingersoll - had xhristards figured out quite well.

"Christians, needless to say, utterly detest one another; they slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse, and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense..."

Celsus c 180 CE

[Deesse23]

Lol. So merely disagreeing with an ideology is bigotry?

Transsexuality is not an ideology. You are a bigot, trust me, you just lack the self awareness to ...be aware of it.
What exactly do you disagree about with regard to trans people? There right to exist, i presume?

Ok, then, it's Christophobic bigotry for you to just disagree with Christianity,

Nope, stop your false quivalences. Its embarrassing.

We Christians love everyone, but we disagree with certain ideologies, like gender-bending, reality-denying ones, that claim men can become women, and vice versa.

You dont speak for all Christians, you pompous asswipe, you. You just speak for all the dishonest, ignorant bigoted ones, like yourself.

But the real danger is in promoting this to children without parental consent, which even some Atheists have called out, as I said.

The only thing promoted to children is your religion, you bigot.

Address what?

Are you pretending to be deaf too now? Out of what did your god-magician create the universe?

Address the Kalam premises, or the reasons behind them, which is the topic of this thread. Again, the Kalam is very simple: (1) whatever begins to exist has a cause. (2) the universe began to exist (3) therefore the universe had a cause. The reasons for each premise were given.

Why are you pretending your silly Kalam shit wasnt addressed yet? Are you pretending not to have read all the objections to your BS? Or are you pretending these refutations dont exist?

Anyone can claim "selective citation" without giving any proof of this.

Well, we got proof that you selectively quoted, since you left out any criticism of your usage of the BGV from Wikipedia, didnt you? You left out even the critical comment of one of its originators. Do you thìnk people are too stupid to read Wikipedia?

If I had cited the entire article, you would have said the post is too long.

Really? Thats all you have? childish excuses like this? Is this, by the way, a (not so) silent admission that you selectively quoted? God, you are stupid. Why cant your god send, for once, someone who isnt completely incompetent?

Lol. Typical atheist games. I cited the BGV Theorem to establish one point, which is the point of the entire Theorem, namely that an expanding universe must have originated at a particular point in time and cannot have been actually infinite in the past.

And who said its infinite into the past? Why didnt you cite the comment from Vilenkin to your favourite bullshitter WLC?

That's not out of context nor a misrepresentation.

Its the very definition of it.

Atheists just don't like the Theistic implications of that Scientific Premise.

What.did.Vilenkin.say.about.the.religious.implications.of.BGV?

Let me help you a bit, since you seem not to possess the ability to be even remotely honest about taking out of context and selective quoting.

What causes the universe to pop out of nothing? No cause is needed. If you have a radioactive atom, it will decay, and quantum mechanics gives the decay probability in a given interval of time, say, a minute. There is no reason why the atom decayed at this particular moment and not another. The process is completely random. No cause is needed for the quantum creation of the universe.

The cosmological argument for the existence of God consists of two parts. The first is straightforward:

   everything that begins to exist has a cause;
   the universe began to exist;
   therefore, the universe has a cause

The second part affirms that the cause must be God.

I would now like to take issue with the first part of the argument. Modern physics can describe the emergence of the universe as a physical process that does not require a cause.

Nothing can be created from nothing, says Lucretius, if only because the conservation of energy makes it impossible to create nothing from nothing. For any isolated system, energy is proportional to mass and must be positive. Any initial state, prior to the creation of the system, must have the same energy as the state after its creation.

There is a loophole in this reasoning. The energy of the gravitational field is negative;17 it is conceivable that this negative energy could compensate for the positive energy of matter, making the total energy of the cosmos equal to zero. In fact, this is precisely what happens in a closed universe, in which the space closes on itself, like the surface of a sphere. It follows from the laws of general relativity that the total energy of such a universe is necessarily equal to zero. Another conserved quantity is the electric charge, and once again it turns out that the total charge must vanish in a closed universe.

But my own view is that the theorem does not tell us anything about the existence of God.

https://inference-review.com/article/the...e-universe

We don't believe in lies, we believe Scientific Truth,

The truth is: Kalam is fallacious, even according to someone you quoted, "nothing can be created from nothing" is also fallacious, according to Vilenkin, and the BGV does not tell us anything about the existence of God.
Since you believe in Scientific Truth, and not a single one of your arguments carries any water, are you going to suspend your belief now? Of course you wont, since neither Kalam nor BGV is the reason you believe.

Come on, tell us why you really believe!