Jaltus said:
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
- Thread starter mattbballman
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Jaltus said:
Brilliant.
mattbballman
New member
Re: Simple.
Re: Simple.
I also agree that it is impossible for nothing to have existed, because, in effect, there would be nothing now.
When you say "FROM THAT WHICH EXISTED", I would question the NATURE and the ONTOLOGICAL status of that "that" and it would be close or even identical with the nature and ontological status of God.
A great many physicists today are quite idssatisfied with this view of subatomic physics and are exploring deterministic theories such as "uncertainty principle".
1.Even according to the traditional, indeterministic interpretation, particles don't come into being out of nothing. They arisee as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy contained in the subatomic vacuum; they do no come from nothing.
2.This can be applied to the origin of the universe out of a primordial vacuum. I just don't think you understand that a sea of fluctuating energy endowed with a rich structure and subject to physical laws is FAR from nothing. There is no basis in ordinary quantum theory for the claim that the universe itself is uncaused, much less for the claim that it sprang into being uncaused from literally nothing.
3. Also the principle of uncertianty doesn't say there is no cause of the events, but simply that one can't predict the course of a given particle.
Not the principle of UNCAUSUALITY, but the the principle of UNPREDICTIBILITY. The principle of causality affirms that there is a cause, even if don't know precisley what that cause is.
So I think that principle fails and things don't come into being unless caused, and things don't cause themselves to exist for this leads to a contradiction.
Yes, I've heard of this. However, big bang proponents like myself not that ther is NO EVIDENCE to support this view. I t is unlikely that there is enough matter in the universe to make the expanding universe collapse even ONCE.
Even if enough matter to cause to rebound, there is good reason to hold that it would not rebound forever!
For according to the well established second law of thermodynamics, EACH succeeding rebound would have less explosive energy than the previous until eventually the universe would not rebound again. Like a bouncing ball, it would finally peter out, showing that it is not eternal. The rebound hyposthesis is based on the FALLACIOUS premise that the universe is 100 percent efficient, which it is not. Usable energy is lost in every process.
So the big ban theory still holds, thus calling upon a cause that banged the bang of creation.
So I see no good reason to believe that the big bang is false and there fore a God that caused it into being.
Re: Simple.
Evangelion said:
I also agree that it is impossible for nothing to have existed, because, in effect, there would be nothing now.
When you say "FROM THAT WHICH EXISTED", I would question the NATURE and the ONTOLOGICAL status of that "that" and it would be close or even identical with the nature and ontological status of God.
Evangelion said:
A great many physicists today are quite idssatisfied with this view of subatomic physics and are exploring deterministic theories such as "uncertainty principle".
1.Even according to the traditional, indeterministic interpretation, particles don't come into being out of nothing. They arisee as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy contained in the subatomic vacuum; they do no come from nothing.
2.This can be applied to the origin of the universe out of a primordial vacuum. I just don't think you understand that a sea of fluctuating energy endowed with a rich structure and subject to physical laws is FAR from nothing. There is no basis in ordinary quantum theory for the claim that the universe itself is uncaused, much less for the claim that it sprang into being uncaused from literally nothing.
3. Also the principle of uncertianty doesn't say there is no cause of the events, but simply that one can't predict the course of a given particle.
Not the principle of UNCAUSUALITY, but the the principle of UNPREDICTIBILITY. The principle of causality affirms that there is a cause, even if don't know precisley what that cause is.
So I think that principle fails and things don't come into being unless caused, and things don't cause themselves to exist for this leads to a contradiction.
Evangelion said:
Yes, I've heard of this. However, big bang proponents like myself not that ther is NO EVIDENCE to support this view. I t is unlikely that there is enough matter in the universe to make the expanding universe collapse even ONCE.
Even if enough matter to cause to rebound, there is good reason to hold that it would not rebound forever!
For according to the well established second law of thermodynamics, EACH succeeding rebound would have less explosive energy than the previous until eventually the universe would not rebound again. Like a bouncing ball, it would finally peter out, showing that it is not eternal. The rebound hyposthesis is based on the FALLACIOUS premise that the universe is 100 percent efficient, which it is not. Usable energy is lost in every process.
So the big ban theory still holds, thus calling upon a cause that banged the bang of creation.
So I see no good reason to believe that the big bang is false and there fore a God that caused it into being.
Last edited:
mattbballman
New member
Re: Simple.
Re: Simple.
I had also forgotten to respond to this:
Well, it's rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of nothing. Out of nothing, nothing comes. And to me that surely is evident when you think about it. If there is absolutely nothing—no space, no time, no energy, no matter—then something cannot just come out of nothing. At least, it seems to me that the premise is far more plausible than its opposite.
Re: Simple.
I had also forgotten to respond to this:
Evangelion said:
Well, it's rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of nothing. Out of nothing, nothing comes. And to me that surely is evident when you think about it. If there is absolutely nothing—no space, no time, no energy, no matter—then something cannot just come out of nothing. At least, it seems to me that the premise is far more plausible than its opposite.
As one with background in HE physics, I'd like to make a short response...well, short for me.
I agree that there are some particles that "pop" into existence, but they are on borrowed energy, not non-existent. Again, they may have causes, we just do not necessarily know what they are yet. Remember, HE physics is still a very open book, it is constantly being rewritten with each new discovery, which is what makes it fun.
Arguing non-causation from this example is problematic, then, since it is very much unproven that this phenomena is uncaused.
The "big crunch" argument is actually not a good one. There is an expansion rate of the universe at which the universe will forever expand, but with less and less velocity. It will never actually stop, thereby circumventing the big bang. This is known as the Omega One theory (sorry, but I no longer have the journal this came from as I read this years ago at my undergrad physics library, and I am now a few states away from there).
Anyway, dark matter is what is posited to bring the universes mass up high enough in order to keep this expansion going forever. Dark matter has been discovered, but we are still not sure if there is enough or even too much of it. Too much and we could possibly keep expanding forever, not necessarily at a slowing rate.
I agree that there are some particles that "pop" into existence, but they are on borrowed energy, not non-existent. Again, they may have causes, we just do not necessarily know what they are yet. Remember, HE physics is still a very open book, it is constantly being rewritten with each new discovery, which is what makes it fun.
Arguing non-causation from this example is problematic, then, since it is very much unproven that this phenomena is uncaused.
The "big crunch" argument is actually not a good one. There is an expansion rate of the universe at which the universe will forever expand, but with less and less velocity. It will never actually stop, thereby circumventing the big bang. This is known as the Omega One theory (sorry, but I no longer have the journal this came from as I read this years ago at my undergrad physics library, and I am now a few states away from there).
Anyway, dark matter is what is posited to bring the universes mass up high enough in order to keep this expansion going forever. Dark matter has been discovered, but we are still not sure if there is enough or even too much of it. Too much and we could possibly keep expanding forever, not necessarily at a slowing rate.
mattbballman
New member
UPDATE!!!!!!!!!:
Objections to Premise 1:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1. Quantum Mechanics- Have proven to be useless
(from lack of response).
2. Premise is not proven or self-evident- But this
isn't true, reduced to self-evident when
defined as being rooted in the principle
that something can't come from nothing(which
hasn't been disputed).
3. Might be true in everyday experience BUT NOT
when it comes to the universe- Big Bang gave
finiteness to universe, so before the universe
there was nothing, but out of nothing, nothing
comes, so their must have been a cause.
4.But what caused God- Not EVERYTHING needs a
cause, but WHATEVER BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause.
a)This is special pleading- NOT special
pleading, since this is what atheist say
about the universe( but has been called
into question due to scientific and
philosophical evidences stated.
b)Also, God doesn't need a cause, due to the
very nature of being the cause of all
space, time, and matter. This cause must
be uncaused, spaceless, timeless, and
immaterial.
So this stands, so far . . .
Objections to Premise 2:
The universe began to exist.
1. Why only one cause- a.)my goal was to disprove
athiesm so even if we do get more than one
cause it would be enough to disprove what
the athiest thinks about there being no cause.
b.)"Occam's Razor" which says that you do not postulate causes beyond necessity. One cause is enough. That suffices to explain the data.
-objection to Occam's Razor due to the usual situation is that multiple causes are required.- MATERIAL cause would have to probably be fuel, oxygen, and an ignition
source, but "Occam's Razor" would apply to the EFFICIENT cause, in that a PERSONAL cause was THERE to START fire. And using "Occam's Razor" we would only need one EFFICIENT cause.
2. No evidence- I gave scientific and philosophical
3. God's In the the universe, so if the universe
began to exist, then God began to exist- We don't claim God exists WITHIN the unverse.
4. Irrelevent- wouldn't be irrelevent because without God there would be no universe, I'm
begging the question of God's existence, I'm showing that God would still be relevent to the universe if he wasn't in the universe, but transcendant to it.
5. The universe was self-caused- self-causation introduces to us a contradiction. Even if true, then the universe came from nothing and by nothing. But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing?
6.Consider this statement: "There was no time in which the universe did not exist."- Just a word game. Time is not infinite in the past.
7.I don't like that- But do you think it's enough to disprove an arguement just by saying nobody likes it.
8.god-of-the-gaps argument- a.)Big Bang provides empirical confirmation of that philosophical conclusion already reached. b.)hypocritical.
9.atheist wants to know What can I see, touch, or experience that is evidence for god?- The fact that you can see, touch, and experience things in the universe call you to raise questions like: Where the universe came from? Why everything exists instead of just nothing at all? Well, typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal, and that's all. But Big Bang cosmology invalidates that by empirically judging the finite nature of the things we see, touch, and experience and giving a reason for why these things exist in the first place.
10. What about a Big Crunch- not a 100 percent efficient and not enough matter in the universe, and contrary to the second law of thermodymanics.
Objections to Premise 3:
The universe has a cause:
1."cause for the universe" is not necessarily equivalent to a "Creator of the universe"- I'm using the word cause here simply to mean something that produces something else, and in terms of which that other thing, called the effect, can be explained.
2.Cause is not God- From the very nature of the case, as the cause of space and time, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being of unimaginable power which created the universe.
3.not personal- a.) irrevelent, still disproves
atheism. b.)how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect. If the cause were timelessly present, then the effect would be timelessly present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions.
4.cause in the universe- God must be OUTSIDE or must TRANSCENDANT space and time, becasue He's the cause of it.
5.not "God, but a "that"- question the NATURE and the ONTOLOGICAL status of that "that" and it would be close or even identical with the nature and ontological status of God.
First, I argued that God is required by the origin of the universe. We saw that whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; and, therefore, there must be a transcendent, personal cause of the universe.
I think what we have got are good reasons, a good suggestive pointer, to the existence of God as the creator we have not got any good reason to give up our my believing God created the universe and become an atheist.So I am simply not reluctant to adopt atheism. I don't see any good reason to embrace atheism in light of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It seems to me that it is more plausible to be a theist.
Thanks . . .
Objections to Premise 1:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1. Quantum Mechanics- Have proven to be useless
(from lack of response).
2. Premise is not proven or self-evident- But this
isn't true, reduced to self-evident when
defined as being rooted in the principle
that something can't come from nothing(which
hasn't been disputed).
3. Might be true in everyday experience BUT NOT
when it comes to the universe- Big Bang gave
finiteness to universe, so before the universe
there was nothing, but out of nothing, nothing
comes, so their must have been a cause.
4.But what caused God- Not EVERYTHING needs a
cause, but WHATEVER BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause.
a)This is special pleading- NOT special
pleading, since this is what atheist say
about the universe( but has been called
into question due to scientific and
philosophical evidences stated.
b)Also, God doesn't need a cause, due to the
very nature of being the cause of all
space, time, and matter. This cause must
be uncaused, spaceless, timeless, and
immaterial.
So this stands, so far . . .
Objections to Premise 2:
The universe began to exist.
1. Why only one cause- a.)my goal was to disprove
athiesm so even if we do get more than one
cause it would be enough to disprove what
the athiest thinks about there being no cause.
b.)"Occam's Razor" which says that you do not postulate causes beyond necessity. One cause is enough. That suffices to explain the data.
-objection to Occam's Razor due to the usual situation is that multiple causes are required.- MATERIAL cause would have to probably be fuel, oxygen, and an ignition
source, but "Occam's Razor" would apply to the EFFICIENT cause, in that a PERSONAL cause was THERE to START fire. And using "Occam's Razor" we would only need one EFFICIENT cause.
2. No evidence- I gave scientific and philosophical
3. God's In the the universe, so if the universe
began to exist, then God began to exist- We don't claim God exists WITHIN the unverse.
4. Irrelevent- wouldn't be irrelevent because without God there would be no universe, I'm
begging the question of God's existence, I'm showing that God would still be relevent to the universe if he wasn't in the universe, but transcendant to it.
5. The universe was self-caused- self-causation introduces to us a contradiction. Even if true, then the universe came from nothing and by nothing. But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing?
6.Consider this statement: "There was no time in which the universe did not exist."- Just a word game. Time is not infinite in the past.
7.I don't like that- But do you think it's enough to disprove an arguement just by saying nobody likes it.
8.god-of-the-gaps argument- a.)Big Bang provides empirical confirmation of that philosophical conclusion already reached. b.)hypocritical.
9.atheist wants to know What can I see, touch, or experience that is evidence for god?- The fact that you can see, touch, and experience things in the universe call you to raise questions like: Where the universe came from? Why everything exists instead of just nothing at all? Well, typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal, and that's all. But Big Bang cosmology invalidates that by empirically judging the finite nature of the things we see, touch, and experience and giving a reason for why these things exist in the first place.
10. What about a Big Crunch- not a 100 percent efficient and not enough matter in the universe, and contrary to the second law of thermodymanics.
Objections to Premise 3:
The universe has a cause:
1."cause for the universe" is not necessarily equivalent to a "Creator of the universe"- I'm using the word cause here simply to mean something that produces something else, and in terms of which that other thing, called the effect, can be explained.
2.Cause is not God- From the very nature of the case, as the cause of space and time, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being of unimaginable power which created the universe.
3.not personal- a.) irrevelent, still disproves
atheism. b.)how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect. If the cause were timelessly present, then the effect would be timelessly present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions.
4.cause in the universe- God must be OUTSIDE or must TRANSCENDANT space and time, becasue He's the cause of it.
5.not "God, but a "that"- question the NATURE and the ONTOLOGICAL status of that "that" and it would be close or even identical with the nature and ontological status of God.
First, I argued that God is required by the origin of the universe. We saw that whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; and, therefore, there must be a transcendent, personal cause of the universe.
I think what we have got are good reasons, a good suggestive pointer, to the existence of God as the creator we have not got any good reason to give up our my believing God created the universe and become an atheist.So I am simply not reluctant to adopt atheism. I don't see any good reason to embrace atheism in light of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It seems to me that it is more plausible to be a theist.
Thanks . . .
Matt, great thread, I read it all!