The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Sound

Thanks Pro. Everything that begins to exist has a cause I feel pro still has a problem on his hands. His case here seems like simple semantic hair splitting. What's changing in these vacuums are particles, these have no cause. Even in a perfect vacuum—a region of space containing neither matter nor energy—particle-antiparticle pairs (such as an electron and its antiparticle opposite, the positron) constantly appear and disappear in a time span too short to observe. Although it would seem impossible that a particle could materialize from nothing—not even from energy— it so happens that no laws of physics are violated because the particle is annihilated by its corresponding antiparticle before either one can be detected. - Harvard [ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu...] Pro says a change is an event, not a thing. However, this is a straw man. When talking about these fluctuations, we're talking about what has changed. Not the nature of change itself. A tire change describes the event of changing a tire. If we were to state the tire change had a cause, would we be wrong? Clearly, we're discussing what has changed, not the very nature of a change itself. His next part on Bell's, I agree with. My original argument doesn't dispute it either. Pro's argument is based on a straw man fallacy. I never argued that a deterministic theory was impossible, because Bell certainly never proved such a thing. I don't know why Pro argued this way because nothing I said suggested such a thing. I said Bell disproved local hidden variables. Popular deterministic interpretations like the Bohmian use non local hidden variables. Bell's inequalities are compatible with these. Bell showed that any hidden-variables formulation of quantum mechanics must be nonlocal, as, indeed, Bohmian mechanics is [ http://plato.stanford.edu...] Non local variables still damage premise one [http://www.theculture.org...]. Remember, I said I wasn't saying quantum fluctuations are a definite hit on premise 1. I'm arguing that quantum mechanics in general (regardless of current interpretations) undermines premise one. Pro's response here fails, my argument still stands. Epistemological error I'm uncertain why Pro thinks this is an argument against premise 2. This is again, a straw man fallacy. I even said I wouldn't dispute premise 2, so I have no clue why Pro is defending it. I said we don't know if time, space, or matter existed before. Pro gives evidence that it didn't exist at the big bang. I conceded that that's probably true, but this doesn't mean these things didn't exist before. All Pro can prove is that it didn't exist at the start, but before, it can't be known. Pro never showed that before was an intelligible idea that we can determine what exists. He claims my argument is self defeating, because I say you can't know what was before, but this means I know what was before. The first problem is, knowing something and not knowing something are two different things. If I say a "hfhdhd" exists, one could say we don't know anything about this thing. Is it wrong to say we don't know what it is? Does Pro think we have all knowledge of the universe? Because if there's something we don't know about the universe, then that's saying you know something about what's unknown. All I have to show is that we don't know. It's self evident that we don't know. I wouldn't say our knowledge is only by science alone. I would say it comes from what we understand and experience from existence. Not just by inductive scientific research. Even assuming a divine source of things like reason, reality still needs to conform to it. How could we possibly assume the universe can tell us what was before the universe? Math, moral, and metaphysical truths must conform to reality too. So, even if you assume a divine source, it still must conform, and thus be knowable. My argument still stands. Why God? Pro ignores why I think is proof of mind argument is flawed. There's nothing wrong with the syllogism and I never claimed there was. This is an irrelevant red herring. I'm not sure why Pro thought I was attacking the syllogism. I extend arguments here. Pro says the cause can't be non sentient because we can't put ascribe an entity to it. I did say it was a force, however even if I didn't this doesn't mean such a thing didn't create the universe. Just because we can't conceive of it, doesn't mean it didn't exist. Since when is the existence of something based on our ability to ascribe? Pro says The fact is, we just can’t conceive of something which possesses all these attributes. I can think of two entities which are timeless and spaceless, namely abstract objects and unembodied Minds. This is a textbook example of the argument from personal incredulity. [http://www.toolkitforthinking.com...] Pro is unable to conceive, so it must be wrong. Clear fallacy. My argument here, still stands. Retro-causality Pro's response here boils down to, your theory doesn't work under my theory, therefore your theory is wrong. If retro-causality is based on the B-theory and since retro-causality is proven, then the B theory is proven. Thus the KCA fails. Arguing from temporal becoming, I feel fails. Say person A and person B are watching a magician. Person A concludes the magician is using legitimate supernatural forces to do his tricks, while person B says that's an illusion. One can't argue person A is right because it seems like the magician is really using supernatural forces, because person B contends that it's an illusion. Similar to the B theory, that holds temporal becoming to be an illusion. If Pro wants to deny retro-causality, then he must deny the reality of quantum mechanics. It has been verified experimentally [http://arxiv.org...] [http://www.popsci.com...]. Pro could appeal to realist interpretations of quantum mechanics to deny retro-causality, but these have been falsified by Bell's inequalities [http://phys.org...] and Leggett's inequalities [http://www.quantumphil.org...]. My argument still stands. Simultaneous causation Pro straw mans this argument. What exactly is the difference between circular and simultaneous causation? The causes and effects are happening simultaneously. There's no need for any of the atoms to exist prior to their existence, because it happens simultaneously. This isn't self-causation at all. Even if Sargon’s example isn’t simultaneous causation, this still doesn’t answer, why should we prefer God over the real concept of simultaneous causation. It seems Pro only went after Sargon’s analogy claiming it’s not the real concept, not after the concept itself. My argument still stands. The cause is probably not God Pro says God's mind is an unchanging state of consciousness and awareness. This means God isn't a functioning mind, how would consciousness and awareness exist without functioning thoughts? It's like saying you can listen to music without audio. A mind without processing information, has static information. How can we call such a thing a mind? Static information are things like books. If God's mind is static, then every choice would've already been in the mind of God. However, this means God doesn't have a chance to choose to create a universe, if there was already a choice. It would've already been chosen, with no chance to chose! Therefore, God must have at least two states of successive consciousness. Pro still has a problem on his hands. Thanks, now back to Pro.