rationalskepticism.org

Paul Almond wrote:

Scar wrote:The argument solely rests on Craig misrepresenting the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe (and consecutively, misrepresenting the cosmos as the universe). Without that, he wouldn't be able to identify a beginning for it and thus his argument would fall apart (as it does).

I don't agree with that. Craig claims to show that there must be a start to the universe on philosophical/mathematical grounds. Even if it were proved, tomorrow, that the Big Bang had something preceding it, Craig would probably just say that there must be a start back there somehow. Craig's argument attempt to prove that the universe had a beginning uses arguments about traversing an infinite span of time to try to show that the present could never have been reached in an infinitely old universe, and Hilbert's hotel - a thought experiment involving an infinite hotel - to try to show that the existence of an actual infinity is absurd. I'm not supporting Craig here. His arguments are terrible, and the arguments I've just mentioned here are extremely unconvincing and flawed - but he isn't really just relying on the Big Bang: in fact the argument he is using is a variation on an argument that predates the Big Bang theory.