There is no external cause of the universe

AveEntailment argumentCon does not respond to the fact that FLRW metrics prove that every state of time is half-open. This is empirical evidence for the first premise of my argument that has not been refuted. Until Con addresses this evidence, he concedes the point, and the first premise by implication.Con's argument about how the theory of relativity shows the universe to be expanding is a red herring. My argument is not incompatible with Big Bang cosmology or the theory of relativity. I typed an entire paragraph explaining how my argument was consistent with a universe that is 13.9 billion years old and expanding. The universe still had a beginning in the sense that every state of time must be less than 13.9 billion years old, the age of the universe. In algebraic terms, if T represents a state of time, then every T < 13.9 billion years ago. Con glossed over this and doesn't make any effort to answer it.I gave two arguments against a physical interpretation of the initial cosmological singularity. The first argument was that it's supposed to have zero-dimensions, but infinite temperature, which are physically incompatible. The second argument was from Dr. Craig which says that an object with no physical extension or temporal duration is hardly a physical thing at all. Con does not answer either of these arguments. Instead, he quotes from Barrow and Tipler saying that quantum mechanics can't eliminate the singularity. This statement needs some scientific context. Many physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, think that quantum mechanics eliminates the need for a singularity. Con's objection would only work if I had said that quantum mechanics makes the singularity unnecessary. However, I obviously didn't say anything even close to that. My arguments were against a physical interpretation of the singularity. Con's argument is a response to something I never said.Con spends many paragraphs (well, not really, as he copy and pasted his arguments) talking about why the universe can't be past-eternal. This is irrelevant to the truth of the argument I presented, as I demonstrated in the second paragraph of this round. My argument is decidedly not inconsistent with Big Bang cosmology and a finitely old universe.Con makes a strange and ultimately comical argument. He says that I've misunderstood the 'principle of sufficient causation'. My opening statement says nothing about the principle of sufficient causation, which is a made-up principle that's not found anywhere in philosophy, or my opening statement. He then tells me the real definition of it. He says that the principle of sufficient causation states "“Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause." The philosophically trained reader would recognize this as the Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason, not the principle of sufficient causation, which doesn't even exist!Con argues that P3 of the argument commits a logical fallacy, the fallacy of composition. This is when you reason that because something is true of all of the parts, it must be true of the whole. Con doesn't give any reasoning for why P3 commits this fallacy. He tells us what the fallacy is, but he doesn't tell us what it is about P3 that commits that fallacy.The statement 'every state of the universe is sufficiently caused by a previous state' means that any state will sufficiently caused by a previous state. From this statement, you can deduce that there is no state of the universe that was not caused by a previous state, because if there were, it would violate the rule. (This rule is true because FLRW prove them, which was not answered to by Con). It is a deduction from a fact about the universe. It is not reasoning from parts of something to the whole of something. I did not say 'There is no state of the universe that is not caused by a previous state, therefore it is true to say that every state of the universe is caused by a previous state'. It's the other way around, making my argument a logically valid deduction, not a logical fallacy.He also accuses the first premise of 'begging the question' and amounting to nothing but the fallacy of 'circular reasoning'. This claim is incoherent. Fallacies like begging the question and reasoning in circles apply to a whole argument. There is no such thing as a premise that begs the question, only an argument that begs the question. Con also doesn't give us any reasons to think that the first premise begs the question. What, are we supposed to take his word for it? I don't think so.Con concludes by saying that it's absurd for the universe to have created itself. Nobody, literally nobody in this debate, thinks that the universe caused itself. My argument's causation is [...X--->Y--->Z...]. It is not A--->A.It's clear that Con has failed to make any substantial criticisms of the entailment argument. Con's long (and plagiarized) argument about the history of relativity is wholly consistent with the entailment argument. Con responds to a straw man argument when he talks about quantum mechanics being applied to the singularity, as I never tried to suggest such a thing. He also construes the argument as saying that the universe is past-eternal, when I put a lot of effort into my opening statement to explain why my argument is consistent with a universe that is not past-eternal. The fallacies he lobs against my premises are bare assertions, and he never shows why the premises commit those errors of reasoning.Plagiarism by Con Virtually every statement made by Con was plagiarized from William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith website. I understand that there were links which said 'Read more:', and then a URL, but that wasn't Con trying to cite his sources. That's a built-in feature with Dr. Craig's website. If you copy and paste anything from his website, that will come with it. You can try it yourself if you don't believe me.The Purdue University Online Writing Lab lists the instances where credit and documentation is needed [1]. This list includes 'Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium.' (Italics mine) It also includes instances when you 'Copy the exact words or a unique phrase'. It's clear that Con had an obligation to give credit, as his source falls under 'Web page' and 'Copy[ing] the exact words or a unique phrase'.They also define plagiarism: 'There are some actions that can almost unquestionably be labeled plagiarism. Some of these include buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper (including, of course, copying an entire paper or article from the Web); hiring someone to write your paper for you; and copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks or proper citation.' (Bold is not mine.)According to the rules of giving credit, Con had an obligation to give credit to Dr. Craig and ReasonableFaith for copying and pasting their material. Con copied and pasted large sections of text from ReasonableFaith without using quotation marks or proper citation. There is no effort made to distinguish between what he was saying and what Dr. Craig wrote. The arguments he wrote himself are written in the same font and style as the words he copy and pasted from Dr. Craig. This is what Purdue University's Online Writing Workshop considers an action that can 'unquestionably be labeled [as] plagiarism'.I'll conclude this round with some of the most egregious examples of Con's plagiarism, but due to the fact that 95% of his last round was plagiarism, I won't be able to fully expose it.ReasonableFaith: "This stand-off persisted unaltered until 1917, the year in which Albert Einstein made a cosmological application of his newly discovered General Theory of Relativity.6 To his chagrin, he found that GTR would not permit a static model of the universe unless he introduced into his gravitational field equations a certain "fudge factor" L in order to counterbalance the gravitational effect of matter. Einstein's universe was balanced on a razor's edge, however, and the least perturbation would cause the universe either to implode or to expand. By taking this feature of Einstein's model seriously, Alexander Friedman and Georges Lemaitre were able to formulate independently in the 1920s solutions to the field equations which predicted an expanding universe."Con: "This stand-off persisted unaltered until 1917, the year in which Albert Einstein made a cosmological application of his newly discovered General Theory of Relativity. To his chagrin, he found that GTR would not permit a static model of the universe unless he introduced into his gravitational field equations a certain "fudge factor" L in order to counterbalance the gravitational effect of matter. Einstein's universe was balanced on a razor's edge, however, and the least perturbation would cause the universe either to implode or to expand. By taking this feature of Einstein's model seriously, Alexander Friedman and Georges Lemaitre were able to formulate independently in the 1920s solutions to the field equations which predicted an expanding universe."RF: The philosophical conclusions against past eternal universe through impossibility of infinity has been confirmed by remarkable discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. We now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago.Con: "This philosophical conclusion has been confirmed by remarkable discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. We now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago."Con's plagiarism is obvious.ValeReferences http://owl.english.purdue.edu...