The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound

I would first like to note that pro seems to be involved in wishful thinking when he suggests that I have conceded the KCA to be sound. Roughly half the space in my arguments have been devoted to showing the flaws in the argument itself while roughly half has been devoted to showing that pro's OP argument refers to a specific God which he has not attempted to defend. The fact that I spend time pointing out that pro's argument has massive vulnerabilities due to his use of language is not a reason to vote for pro. Now, onto the God/god debate, which forms the primary voting issue. It has gone uncontested that if by "God" pro refers to the Christian God, or any other conception, pro has not met his burden of proof and should lose the debate. Pro's arguments have only focused on why he doesn't mean what he said. Coming into round five there are several reasons to vote con on this issue: the dictionary definition of God vs god, pro's stated reverence not making sense toward a generic god, and pro's admission that he uses the term "God" because he believes in the Christian god. Pro's arguments against these are too weak and reliant on assertion to succeed. Pro claims that "because I believe in the Christian God and I reference him in the proper sense does not mean that the KCA _must_ demonstrate the existence of the Christian God. ". His belief in the Christian God is, indeed, irrelevant here. It is his choice of language, his referencing Him in the proper sense, that requires him to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God. As pro has chosen to use "God" to reference the Christian God in the proper sense, then the resolution pro must support is "The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of the Christian God is Sound. " That is what it MEANS to say you are using "God" to reference "the Christian God" in the proper sense. Pro claims that the sentences he attempts to claim as a definition "obviously" imply that he wanted to demonstrate a minimal conception of a god, but we have already seen that the definition of the word he used (God instead of god) makes the sentences semantically and logically equivalent to "Some object that the first cause need not be the Christian God, but was rather an impersonal in nature. There are, however, good reasons to believe that the cause of the universe was a personal cause with attributes that closely resemble a monotheistic conception of the Christian God. " Pro's response to this is to assert that the replacement is wrong due to (unspecified) context and that it makes no sense. This is not enough to reject the rephrase, especially in the face of actual argumentation that claims it is not wrong and does make sense. Pro also suggests that "God" is standard parlance among philosophers when they really mean "god. " However he does not point to any examples or evidence that this is the case. Since pro has opened the door to this new line of argumentation, I feel no obligation not to step through it. Peter Williams uses bible verses to support his argument for "God" as Abrahamic God in an argument from aesthetics [1]. Dr. Michael J. Vlach refers to a Christian God that holds humanity accountable by the use of the word "God" in his formulation of the Cosmological argument [2]. William Rowe uses the term "God" to mean a specific theistic conception including properties of omni-benevolence, eternal existence, etc in his formulation of the cosmological argument. [3] I could go on, but I feel that I've shown that philosophers using the term "God" are referring to specific conceptions of God, whether Western Theistic, Christian, or Abrahamic. This supports my contention that if you choose to use the word "God" you have to accept the meaning that goes with it. To repeat the points that still stand at the end of round five on the main voting issue: 1. "God" means a specific conception of a god. The term 'god' means a generic god. 2. If pro uses the term "God" rather than "god," he should be compelled to defend that the KCA implies "God" rather than "god. " 3. Pro has intentionally and admittedly used "God" because he believes in the Christian conception of God. 4. Therefore he should be compelled to prove that the KCA supports that specific conception of God. 5. Pro has not done so, therefore he loses the debate. This is a strong, clear reason to vote con before considering the following arguments. Pro continues to argue that I have not responded to his infinite universe or thermodynamic arguments, but has not given any arguments as to how they impact the debate, what effect they should have on voting issues, which arguments they support or disprove, or any reason we should care about them at all. Without that, there is no way to weigh them as part of the debate. On the initial conditions debate: Pro's OP argument requires that there be no prior determining conditions to the universe: "Hence, because there are no prior determining conditions, the cause of the universe must be personal and uncaused. " If he cannot show there are no prior determining conditions, he cannot show the universe must be personal (according to his own argumentation) and uncaused. Indeed, he cannot show this. Pro agrees that using "before" in relation to the creation of the universe is nonsense. He affirms there were no temporal moments which preceded the Big Bang. He then tries to use semantic ambiguity to conflate the resulting impossibility of knowing if the Bing Bang resulted from determining conditions as knowledge that there were no determining conditions. We don't know what the singularity was like. We don't know the properties or the laws that the space-time boundary operates by. We don't know what, if any, non-temporal effects it could have on the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Pro tries to take the fact that we know nothing and transform it into the fact that we know there was nothing. This doesn't work, and shows that the knowledge of determining conditions required by the OP does not exist, and thus the OP fails. On the timelessness-free agent argument: Extend my arguments from Round 4. Pro still has not justified the assertion that beings can will themselves out of timelessness when doing so is impossible by definition. He argues that he has already answered this by saying that timelessness is only a contingent property in regard to beings. This is only a restatement of the assertion. It takes more to defeat a counter to an argument than rewording the argument in a more obtuse manner. Pro has not shown why timelessness does not effect beings (or why it is contingent, if you prefer) even in a world where it is defined as an universal condition. To succeed here, he needed to show what was so special about beings that timelessness does not apply (or is contingent) to them. He did not do so. Extend the reasoning from R3 and R4 regarding why the lack of support for agency > timelessness is a reason to dismiss the OP. Vote con as pro has not proven capital-G God. Otherwise, vote con because accepting either the lack of support for the determining conditions OR the lack of support for agency arguments mean his interpretation of the KCA is not supported. [1] . http://www.quodlibet.net... [2] . http://www.theologicalstudies.org... [3] Rowe, W. The Cosmological Argument. p. 222-223