Kalam Cosmological Argument is a firm argument for the existence of God

Sorry for the late reply, I had a lot of stuff to do today! EQUIVOCATION "Rather they have always existed in some form, and the objects we see around us are merely the latest rearrangements of those atoms" This must be my favorite bad-objection, as it is simply obscene. Are you saying that I existed before I was conceived? If so, where was I and why don't I know about it? Where was I in the 1400's? Just because the stuff that a thing is made of has always existed, DOES NOT MEAN the thing itself has always existed. Moreover, in order to assert this, you must also assert 'Mereological Nihilism' - that is, there are no 'composite objects', and everything that exists does not exist in itself - but just fundamental particles arranged in particular ways to make a form of the object. So what the Mereological Nihilist is asserting is that there really are no tables, or palm trees, or fish, or people. And this is simply absurd, as what the objector is actually asserting is that he himself doesn't actually exist. So why should we trust him when he says anything? Why should we even respond if he does not exist? If he is just a re-arrangement of matter? But the real point is that even if we grant the objector the argument, these things need a cause to even be in existence. So the underlining problem for the objector is that everything that exists within the universe (ie matter) was not around before the universe existed (considering the universe is finite), and therefore will need a cause and so he has not escaped the premise 'whatever begins to exist has a cause' The objector then 'reformulates' the Kalam to include their objection. But the correct reformulation would be this: 1) If fundamental particals arranged universe-wise begin to exist, they have a cause. -this is established by the finite universe 2) The fundamental particals arranged universe-wise began to exist 3) Therefore the fundamental particals arranged universe-wise have a cause At which point, the rest of the Kalam would Follow. He also seems to assert that premise 1 applies to everything inside of the universe but not outside of it. Again, I refer to my new premises. Everything that the universe is composed of began to exist. Therefore they had a cause. And because the cause CANNOT exist inside of the universe, it HAS to exist OUTSIDE of the universe. This uses the laws of deduction, and so I'm not sure what is trying to be achieved here. The second objection here is a strange one, which doesn't really achieve anything. If Con could rephrase this argument, it would be easier to respond to, because it is simply terrible, and seems to show a grave misunderstanding of theology. Am I right in saying that the objection here is that because there was no 'time' before the universe existed, therefore the universe does not have a cause? Because the universe would still begin to exist. SPECIAL PLEADING This seems to be the old 'contingent vs necessary' dilemma. Put simply, by definition God must be necessary. We can bring in the Ontological argument for this. I have to say that I am surprised at the weakness of these arguments; they all seem to be severely misguided in terms of Philosophy, Science and Theology. Additionally, i think that there is a very wrong assumption in some of these arguments - that the Kalam is somehow trying to 'prove' Christianity. But this is severely misguided - the Kalam seeks to do nothing of the sort! Rather, it proves that the universe must have a cause, and that cause is an unembodied mind or conscience. Nothing else. Remember that pretty much all of these 'objections' have been answered already by the pioneer of this argument, Dr William Lane Craig; and can be found at http://www.reasonablefaith.org... God Bless