The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound

Easy vote: There is an easy way to judge this debate, and it comes in a short form. My opponent's burden is to demonstrate that "The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound. " He does not win the debate if he demonstrates "The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of a Primal Cause which Bears Resemblance to Monotheistic Theology is Sound. " Nor, were you to be more generous in your interpretation, can he win by demonstrating that "The Kalam Cosmological Argument for Monotheism is Sound. " In his round 2 argument he has conceded that he has not done this. He stated that he considered it irrelevant to his goal. He stated his goal was to demonstrate the existence of a personal being. Regardless of whether you think he has accomplished that goal or not, that goal won't win him the debate. The debate is about the capital-G God that, in the English language, is a proper noun referring to the deity of a specific religious conception [1], rather than the lowercase-g god, which is a generic form. He could argue that he means a different conception than the Christian God, which should not gain him ground for two reasons: 1. The Christian God is the most reasonable interpretation given both Apologists profile, and more importantly, the beliefs of William Lane Craig, who is the primary source for pro's arguments and a self-described Christian apologist [2]. 2. The specific conception is irrelevant. Pro has consistent used the proper-noun form of God in every usage. Not once did he use the term "god. " Even if you were to grant that he was not referring to the Christian conception, the proper-noun usage means he was referring to some other religion's conception, whether Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, or any other religion which refers to their supreme deity as "God. " The Kalam Cosmological Argument is, at best, an update of Aristotle's Prime Mover argument. Granting all assumptions and arguments, the only detail you can draw from it is that at one point there was an uncaused cause. However, there is no way to get from an uncaused cause to the head god of a particular religion. In order to win this debate the pro must do this. He has not and he cannot. This is the clearest and strongest reason to vote negative. Playing Telephone with William Craig: While reiterating that this debate should go to negative as even a successful argument here by pro cannot meet the criteria for success, the arguments presented are unclear and do not address the negative's contentions. It is not enough that Craig has made a defense of Kalam's Cosmological Argument, for pro to get any use from it in this debate, he must clearly express and defend it. I contend he has failed to do so. For example, pro notes that I have not responded to his claims of the impossibility of infinities. As pro has not established those claims in connection to any point under contention, I have no obligation to do so. In response to my claim that there was a singularity prior to the creation of the universe and thus outside of it, pro attempts to disagree by saying that the singularity was a boundary to space time and that speaking of 'before' the Big Bang is meaningless. That is essentially the same claim that I have made, as singularities of this nature do not conform to our concepts of 'before'. Causality and our understanding of physical laws breaks down as we approach time zero. This means we CANNOT know what the situation was at that point and we CANNOT state what if any conditions existed. All the laws of physics and causality break down as we approach time zero [3]. This means that all common-sense comparisons to how things work in our frame of reference where we have knowledge of how the laws of physics and causality operate are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how water would freeze under extreme conditions, the laws of causality and physics aren't in effect. Claiming that water at eternal sub-zero temperatures would remain frozen for eternity in a world where physics and causality are broken is no more or less justified than claiming that water at eternal sub-zero temperatures would transform into a three-legged clone of Marilyn Monroe and sing selections from Victor/Victoria. In the world of physics and causality we are familiar with, the first is somewhat more likely. In the world of physics and causality relevant to the debate, it's impossible to say. Pro also errs when he tries to use personal agency as a method of circumventing timelessness. If we accepted that reality was stuck in a state of timelessness, nothing could change. Time is an expression of some kind of change, of action, of motion [4]. If absolutely nothing can change, if timelessness is absolute, then so too are any agents that may exist. I am an agent, pro is an agent, and both of us operate in time. If either of us were somehow trapped in a state of timelessness, we wouldn't be able to cause anything, or do anything else for that matter. We would be unable to move or change because doing so would be operating in time, which is ruled out by the parameters of the scenario. Therefore, agency cannot be the deciding factor that starts time and creates a temporal universe from a timeless state, it must be something else. Without agency as the deciding factor for circumventing timelessness, agency is no longer necessary in this scenario. With agency not necessary in this scenario, a cause with a sense of agency is not necessary in this scenario. Without a cause possessing a sense of agency necessary in this scenario, pro does not meet his own modest goal (which would not win the debate anyway) of showing that the cause was a personal being possessing agency. I choose to drop to argument regarding the KAC as a philosophically undesirable argument (the Believer as Astrophysicist) due to space issues and the belief that the arguments presented here are sufficient for a negative win. The OP clearly stated the win condition was to prove the existence of God; a proper-noun, a specific religious conception. Pro has admitted that his argument only attempts to prove a personal being of unknown qualities rather than God as required by the OP. Examination of his argumentation shows pro has not even met that lower goal. At the end of Round 2, voting negative is the clear choice. [1] . http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu... [2]. http://www.reasonablefaith.org... [3]. http://www.hawking.org.uk... [4]. http://www.sciencedaily.com...