The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Thank you Con. Con has correctly identified that my opening round is laconic. This is by design. I intend to merely present the argument and leave my opponent the responsibility of dismantling it by either attacking the argument"s assumptions, form, premises, or conclusion. The true weight of my case, therefore, rests in the following defense of Con"s rebuttals: Whatever begins to exist has a cause: Here, Con protests to the absolute nature of this premise, claiming there is no reason to extrapolate this as an absolute metaphysical rule, per say. What"s true of the tiger may not be true of physical reality as a whole, Con claims. In response, I merely say: prove it. If science is the practice of drawing conclusions based on observations of the natural world, then Con is proposing a very un-scientific idea. Without fail, we observe everything that begins to exist has a cause. Indeed, this is the very basis of science, for if things could appear uncaused then the whole purpose of scientific inquiry (seeking to identify cause and effect) would be destroyed! If my opponent can present one single example of an uncaused creation, I will immediately forfeit this debate. Furthermore, we must ask the question: if it is possible for physical reality to exist without a cause, then why DON"T tigers just pop into existence out of nothing? Why would uncaused origins only apply to physical reality as a whole, but not to items within that reality? What mechanism makes this "uncaused force" so discriminatory, and would not that mechanism itself be a cause? This is a very strange attack issued by Con, there is no basis to accept it whatsoever. Everything we know about the natural world confirms: whatever began to exist has a cause for its existence. Assumption 1: Something cannot create itself: Con asks, "well why not?" The answer is simple. In order for something to create itself, it must have already existed in order to take part in the creating. But this is circular logic "" because something could not have created itself if it already existed in the first place. That is merely reproduction, not creation. The purpose of this assumption is to nullify arguments that the universe, as defined, could have caused itself to come into existence. Assumption 2: Nothing cannot create something Here, Con seems to agree that nothing can"t create something, but merely protests that *truly* nothing would also not be restrictive of something coming to exist. But there is a central contradiction in this line of thinking "" if nothing cannot create something, and if nothing is all there is, then nothing will be created. It matters not whether nothing can act as a restriction, because nothing will begin if nothing is all there is. The only way for creation to spring out of nothingness is if there is an agent outside of space, time, and matter that can step into the non-restrictive environment of the nothing. This is, alas, the entire conclusion of the Kalam argument, so it seems there is nothing to refute here (no pun intended). Rules for determining metaphysical possibilities: Con asks what methodology we should use for accepting or rejecting metaphysical claims, lest we merely make them up as we go along. My answer is that we should use logic and observational science. Both confirm that things cannot begin to exist without a cause, and both confirm the universe began to exist. The vast majority of scientists and scholars acknowledge that the universe had a beginning. Specifically, the theorem developed in 2003 by cosmologist and professor of evolutionary science Alexander Vilenkin mathematically proves that the universe "cannot have an eternal past" and therefore must have had a finite beginning [1]. The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has also confirmed, "All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago." [2]. If Con has stronger reasons for rejecting such methodologies, I would love to see them" The universe did not begin to exist Con makes the curious claim that there is no point where the universe did not exist, i.e., the universe has always existed. This would mean, according to our definitions, that time has also existed eternally into the past. This not only goes against scientific observation (see above), but it is also logically impossible. Assuming an A theory of time (I"ll get to B Theory next), the past cannot be infinite. For example - if an infinite series of events had to occur in the past in order to bring us to the present, we would never actually arrive at the present because an infinite series of events can never be completed. This concept is called "The Impossibility of Traversing the Infinite." Con has given no evidence in this section to accept their claim that the universe has always existed, as there are no citations to be found. B Theory Time Here, Con is correct in saying the Kalam is incompatible with B Theory time, but there is little reason to accept B Theory time as true. For example, if time is tenseless, and past, present, and future are equally real, then our present selves should possess as many future "memories" as we do past ones. But we do not, we only perceive past memories and present experiences, suggesting an A theory of time. Next, if the past, present, and future are all equally real and tenseless (meaning simultaneously existing), then the human experience of pain and suffering makes no sense. Consider having a headache at night, going to sleep, and awaking headache free. You man exclaim "thank goodness the headache is gone." But this makes no sense if we live in B Theory Time "" if past, present, and future are equally real, it makes no sense to be more thankful for a headache that occurred earlier than for one that has yet to occur "" such an exclamation is nonsensical. Instead, we experience the headache as an A fact, and A facts only exist in A time [3]. There are numerous other problems with B Theory time, but I"ll stop there for now. In sum, one must ask "" if the universe operates according to B Theory time, why do we so intensely experience it as if it were A Theory? Con stated that "B theory is more likely true than A Theory" but did not explain why. Con will need to present a more detailed case in order to call for a rejection of A Theory. Back to you, Con. [1] http://arxiv.org......[2] http://www.hawking.org.uk......[3] https://en.wikipedia.org...