rationalskepticism.org

sturmgewehr wrote:Some arguments defending the fist premise of the Kalam, I think there is a point to these arguments:

What are you talking about God didn't have an effect on anything, bringing the cosmos into being IS an effect, the universe doesn't have to exist before it's created, in fact it did not exist, and now it's here, the effect is THE COSMOS MAN. It's one big effect, that's why they're so scared, it's CONTINGENT, that means CAUSED, which means TIMELESS CAUSSE, and that's eternity, and ay THING would have made it , in fact would have it always present with it, but cosmos ain't eternal.

Err, except that there's no compelling reason to think that the universe had a beginning. I've covered this at length elsewhere.

The idea that anything causal could reside 'outside time' is incoherent to the point of asininity.

Do you see arburd this equivocation charge is.
The EFFICIENT Cause MUST be in existence, because infinite regressionis IMPOSSIBLE, that fact is plain, there's only ONE First Cause, plain fact since infinite regression can't be.
What brought the universe into being is the EFFICIENT CAUSE, so the charge of equivocation evaporates immediately.
Only ignorant people can take an impecable argument and think they have voided it out, it's because they assert it without thinking.

The assertion that infinite regress is impossible is nothing more than a blind assertion, rooted in a fatuous misunderstanding of what infinity is. Moreover, it constitutes a fallacy of special pleading, for the simple reason that, while asserting that eternity is impossible, their magic fantasy is somehow eternal. They're asserting immunity from their own argument for their celestial peeping-tom, and indeed immunity from logic, for the most part. Of course, they have to gloss over the latter, because if he is immune to logic, no logical defence of him can reasonably be mounted.

As for the charge of equivocation, it's a robust charge, because the definition of 'beginning to exist' is different in the two premises. One describes a change in state, while the other describes creation ex nihilo.

There's not ONE logical fallacy, and that's what you don'tlike about it. The fact remains everything has an explanation, NECESSARILY EXISTING OR CONTINGENT, and ALL CONTINGENTS have a cause. And INFINITE REGRESSION OF CAUSES IS IMPOSSIBLE.All of these are non religious statements too. You cannot have the NOTHIGN cause anything because it has no properties, no power, no nothing, in fact the VACUUM IS NOT NOTHING, it BEGAN, and is therefore CONTINGENT. It's not eternal or uncaused. Equals you fail

Actually, there is. The first premise commits the fallacies of blind assertion and appeal to intuition, as well as being factually incorrect, because we can point to causeless beginnings, albeit beginnings in the second sense. The second premise commits the fallacies of blind assertion and argumentum ad ignorantiam, founded upon the aforementioned equivocation.

How else can a TIMELESS Cause give rise to a TEMPORAL effect, if the cause were an impersonal set of conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect, if the conditions were eternally present, the effect would have to be eternally 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.

How can a timeless anything give rise to anything? The notion of a timeless cause is absurd. Causes and effects are temporal by definition, because cause and effect constitute change, which requires time. This is all, of course, assuming that the universe had or required a cause, which is very far from having been established.

Also if you are illogical and irrational enough to attempt to assert that the largest library could happen by OOPS, even though that's a gazillion times mORE LIKELY to happen lol, there's the enormous problem of the fact that the universe is CONTINGENT, so it was caused without a doubt, because ALL CONTINGENTS ARE. It began sure enough, which means the Cause was NOT TIME, SPACE OR MATTER. But this Cause had to freely choose to bring about an effect in time, a THING could not choose.

Fallacy of blind assertion again. On what basis is it concluded that the universe is contingent? In reality, if their magical 'cause' exists, then he is a subset of the universe, because the universe is 'that which is'. What does this mean? It means that their magic man is contingent. The universe simply becomes a brute fact.

I kind of find this Occams Razor thing logical because as it says what is the point of saying anything more than a first cause is complication and gives u no answer thus we will go to that famous infinite regress.

Except that this isn't a correct application of Occam's Razor, because it posits an unnecessary plurality. Occam's Razor is a heuristic for selecting between competing, empirically equivalent hypotheses. On the one hand, we have the hypothesis that the universe is, or is the result of, demonstrable testable processes. On the other, we have the hypothesis that the universe is, or is the result of, demonstrable testable processes and a hitherto unevidenced magical entity. Only one of these posits additional entities, so the application of the shaving implement of the late, lamented cleric of Surrey is clear. I have no need of that hypothesis.

What caused the First Cause?
One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require a cause. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue.[13] The problem with arguing for the First Cause's exemption is that it raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt.[14] On the other hand, one might argue that the First Cause would be something that is able to create time, space, energy, and matter, and somehow exists outside and before the universe. This is so far beyond anything humanity has experienced or can conceive of that it is foolish to try and ascertain whether this First Cause itself has another cause. Occam's Razor would suggest that anything more than one First Cause is an unnecessary complication

The wiki is wrong. Positing even one first cause, when no such entity is required, is an unnecessary complication. We don't even have to get into multiple causes where no cause is required.

I wanted to also ask if Infinite regress makes sense at all, is infinite regress even defined as possible?

https://webspace.utexas.edu/deverj/pers ... worlds.pdf

Out of time for now.