Kalam Cosmological Argument (Twist debate)

Ave.Christian philosophers, and most advocates of the Kalam in general, appeal to our experience in order to prove that the first premise is true. It simply feels right that everything that begins to exist has a cause. If it didn't. why don't we see unicorns pop into being from nothing, or angels? I'd like to argue that making larger metaphysical inferences based off experience is a sketchy thing to do when it comes to reality.Think about the Euclidean geometry you learned in high school. Euclidean geometry has five postulates, and one of these postulates states that two parallel lines will never touch. Interestingly, there is no actual way of proving this is true. You simply can't show that those two lines won't ever touch. Therefore, many people are appeal to their intuition to show that the postulate is true. Consider the lines y=3x+4 and y=3x-5. They have the same slope, so they are parallel lines, and they look like this when graphed onto a coordinate plane. [1] It seems obvious that these two lines will never touch. In our heads, we visually imagine these two lines going on for an infinity, and they never touch. However, the parallel postulate is only true in Euclidean geometry. There are geometries that demonstrate two parallel lines touching all of the time. Hyperbolic geometry, a geometry that rejects the fifth postulate, demonstrates it nicely. [2] Therefore, the parallel postulate is only true for Euclidean geometry, and not other geometries. Why can't the casual principle operate in the same way? It could be true for our experiences that everything which begins to exist has a cause. That doesn't mean it's true for everything, just like the parallel postulate isn't true for all geometries.I'd like to respond to Pro's point about the conservation of energy. Pro argues that, because energy is not created or destroyed, everything must have a cause. I don't think this argument demonstrates that at all. At most, this would show that energy simply changes forms, and never begins to exist. Therefore, nothing really 'begins' to exist, but is just a reformulation of parts that already existed.I take you back to my geometry. Just like geometry, there are things in physics that are true for one part of physics, but not true for others. Think about classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. There are cases where the rules of classical mechanics are violated by quantum mechanics. In fact, energy coming from nothing is such a case! Energy can appear from nowhere in quantum mechanics! [3]The Kalam argues that, because the universe began to exist, the cause must be god. I think there's a good argument for why this isn't true. Every state of the universe, in my view, is caused by another state of the universe. The universe is just the states of the universe, so if you explain that, then you've explained why the universe exists. It also removes the need for an initial state that needs to be caused. Therefore, if my argument is correct, there is no room for god to have created the universe. [4] Assume that each of these are a state of the universe, where time equals something different in each state. T=4 is caused by T=3. T-3 is caused by T=2. T=2 is caused by T=1. T=1 is caused by T=.9, ad infinitum. If you assume that we are living in the trillionth state, or some such large number, you can perform the same exercise, but I prefer to keep this simple. The conclusion of this argument is that there is something because there is something else to cause that something, there is no initial state for god to cause, and therefore, god cannot have caused the universe.Pro argues that this couldn't make any sense because there would be an infinite amount of states before this state, which means we could never reach the current state. I don't think this is true, however. Imagine that T=1 is the start of your lunch and T=4 is the time you finished your lunch. You could divide that period of time into an infinite amount of states (T = 1.8, T= 1.8888), but you still finished your lunch! So, it's obvious that an infinite number of events does not stop you from reaching the present moment.Pro may argue that time began to exist at the singularity, so there is an initial state to explain. However, as Quentin Smith notes, you don't need a singularity! In Pro's sources, he referenced Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time. I enjoy this because I've read the book as well, and Hawking has some interesting things to say on page fifty-three of the book.'It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe--as we shall see later, it can dissapear once quantum effects are taken into account.' [5]I think I can safely ignore the personal cause argument. If the argument I gave above is true, then there is no first cause, so there is no reason to pay any attention to whether that cause would be personal or physical.The contentions I made in this debate can be summarized like this.1: There is no reason to think that the casual principle is always true.2: Conservation of energy can be violated in quantum mechanics.3: There is no initial state for god to cause.4: There is no need for a singularity.5: An infinite series of events does not make the present moment impossible.6: Given 3, a personal explanation of the universe cannot be possible.Vale.References[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://en.wikipedia.org...[3] Davies, Paul. 1983. God and the New Physics. [4] http://www.infidels.org...[5] Hawking, Stephen. 1988. A Brief History Of Time.