The Cosmological Argument (in any form) is risible

Preface: - Abbreviation: from now on, the Cosmological Argument will be referred to as CA, & the Kalam CA as KCA. - Objectivity: Pro has made the affirmative claim that the CA in all it forms is risible, & thus it stands to reason to expect from Pro an affirmative case establishing how the CA is in fact risible, at least with a reasonable degree of objectivity. Imagine if I made the claim that such & such joke is funny, or such & such female is beautiful ; it would be expected from me to make a compelling case of why my claim is justified to some degree of objectivity. - Judgement: the Cosmological Argument is a philosophical construct based on Logic that has been the subject of serious philosophical discourse for well over a millennium [1]. It’s rather counter-intuitive to expect such a construct to be the object of laughter! Thus, one should require from Pro some really good reasons why he thinks that is the case, even more so than what is usually required. Pro, then, has a huge burden of proof he has yet to fulfil. Case: Misrepresentation of the Resolution: - Pro, throughout his first Round, attempts to argue for the dubiousness or unreliability of some form of the CA & extrapolates that to conclude on the comicality of the CA in all its form, a hasty generalisation [2] to say the least. - Pro’s dubious method consists of a “form of comparing a nuanced circumstance or argument to a laughably commonplace occurrence or to some other irrelevancy on the basis of comedic timing, wordplay, or making an opponent and their argument the object of a joke.” which coincides with the definition of appeal to ridicule [3], an informal fallacy of appeal to emotion. He does that by relating a story of an irresistibly ‘smart’ chicken trying to figure out the ultimate origin of the World, & by adding *laughs* here, & *giggles* there! - Pro’s case is in its entirety a red herring [4], for it is not really relevant to wether or not the CA (in all its forms) is risible. The contention that the comical traits of the extraordinary circumstances in which Pro’s chicken found itself, is not really relevant to the alleged comical nature of the CA itself, which as I explained before is rather counter-intuitive, for Pro’s method is in & of itself fallacious. - Pro uses a forum source to make the point that the CA is unreasonable because some guy in a forum was being unreasonable (or some theists are being unreasonable)! This tactic is known as ad hominem fallacy, more precisely Tu quoque fallacy [5], which is “an informal logical fallacy that intends to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position.” At any case, this does not even relate to the resolution! => A funny story, or a funny response from a theist, or a funny dialogue is irrelevant to the CA being allegedly the object of laughter! Misrepresentation of the CA: - Pro misrepresents the CA in a rather straw man fashion, in which he overly expresses a universal construct that has metaphysical conclusions in a particular frame! The CA deals with: being, contingency, necessity, causality, infinity [6]. . .which are universals [7], whereas Pro deals in abiogenesis, evolution, birth. . . which are particular instances of the said universals! - Even more so, Pro resorts to dubious semantics to distort the philosophical nature of the CA by inserting words like “supernatural”, “magic”, “natural”, “source”. . . which are not precisely identified as to represent the CA [6], which constitute a straw man fallacy. - Pro’s misrepresentation of the CA, rejects on top, the very conclusion the CA infers based on a false analogy. Pro attempts to inject the premise of the CA into its own logical conclusion so that to prove its inconsistency, which is in itself a fallacy of begging the question [8]. To elaborate more, the necessary being which the CA infers is identified with God, asking why God is necessary is inappropriate, for it is defined as such as not having an explanation. Or, in a simpler formula, asking: “what caused God?” is the same as asking: “what caused the uncaused?”, it’s like saying: “what black is white?” Which leads to a contradiction, thus an inappropriate question. Disregard of other forms of the CA: - Pro disregards the other forms of the CA, namely those that involve sufficient causation, contingency, possibility & necessity [6]. - Pro’s argument is focused on temporal causality, infinite regress & actual infinities ; but ignores entirely the other forms of CA that discard causality in favour of sufficient causation & necessity & more ontological oriented arguments. - It is not on me to present all the formats of the CA, for it is the BOP of Pro to show that all these formats provoke laughter. Conclusion: - Pro’s entire case is logical fallacies compiled together to make a fallacious argument seems legitimate, while in fact it invalid, for: 1. It is not really related to the Resolution. 2. It is not really representative of any of the elements of the Resolution: not the CA, not its varieties, & not its alleged comicality. => It is only reasonable to reject Pro's entire argument on the basis that it's invalid.Sources: [1] http://plato.stanford.edu... [8] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://plato.stanford.edu... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org...