Kalam Sucks Butt

I. The chief concernPro says I didn't answer him, but I did. I dismissed his argument as irrelevant, and I explained why it was irrelevant. It continues to be him who has not answered me. A-temporal causation is irrelevant to my argument. My argument is that there could not have been a state of affairs in which God existed and the universe did not since the state of affairs could neither be temporally prior to the universe, nor temporal with the universe. Since this argument proves, not just that the universe happens to not have a cause, but that it's impossible for the universe to have a cause, we can have the highest confidence that Kalam sucks butt.I was almost stumped by Pro's comment about geocentrism, but then I realized that's irrelevant, too. :-)II. The fallacy of equiovcationCon says, "It doesn't matter if it comes out of flesh or out of nothing! It;s still a cause!!," but I didn't claim the argument equivocated on the meaning of "cause." Rather, I claimed that the argument equivocated on "beginning." Con completely ignored my argument in the last round and went on to talk about causes and "conservation." I have already shown that the conservation of mass is not a universal law, and Con did not negate what I said. The rest of his comments about causation are irrelevant.III. Problems with the first premiseCon's response here confirms something I have suspected about Con for a while. I have suspected that Con's whole persona on this web page is a hoax, or a spoof, or something. He's not being serious. His claims are too over the top.He claims in this round that subatomic particles do not exist. Do I really need to prove that they do? Seriously? I have already provided sources, showing that there's a table of nuclides which spells out the various properties of different nuclides in different elements, their half lives, the kinds of decay they undergo, etc. I've also provided sources on the successes of quantum physics. So I think I've already carried my burden of proof on this issue.Con accuses me of "appealing to majority," but I didn't make an appeal to majority. I made an appeal to expert authority.Perhaps Con is making a parody against atheists who claim you can't know God exists because you can't directly perceive him with the senses. If so, then Con's paraody is a strawman, since I have not made any such argument in this debate.But let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's seriously trying to make an argument against subatomic particles. The response is simple. Although we do not observe subatomic particles directly, we do observe their effects, and their effects are consistent with the properties we ascribe to them. As I've pointed out before, quantum theory is confirmed by it's great predictive value.While I provided sources showing that the Copenhagen interpretation is the most widely accepted interpretation of quantum physics among physcists (this is an argument from authority, not population), and that a "hidden variables" interpretation of quantum physics is not viable, and Con has only responded with assertions to the contrary, I think I have carried my burden of proof here as well. The original argument was that there were counter-examples to the universal causal principle, which undermines the first premise in Kalam.Therefore, Kalam sucks butt.IV. Problems with the second premiseCon's response here is ironic. He accuses me of ignoring him when, in fact, he is the one who ignored me. Originally, he claimed that since the universe is finite in the past, that it therefore had a beginning. I showed that his argument was a non-sequitur by making a reductio ad absurdum argument.1. If something is finite in the past, then it has a beginning.2. God is finite in the past.3. Therefore, God has a beginning.Con rejects 3, which forces him, on pain of contradiction, to reject 1. Rejecting 1 undermines the premise upon which he argued that the universe had a beginning. I gave an argument for 2 which he ignored, so he cannot reject 2. He must reject 1. And if he rejects 1, then he needed to give further arguments for why we should think the universe had a beginning just because it is finite in the past. He never attempted to do that, so his burden of proof is unmet. I have offered an undercutting defeater to his second premise which he was unable to overcome.V. The strangeness of the universeCon says, "V isn't relevant," so I guess it's up to the voters to decide.VI. Personal and Intelligent Con says, "VI is a new argument and is dirty trick." But it's not a dirty trick because I didn't offer the new argument in the last round. I offered it during the rebuttal period. That's perfect acceptable because he had the opportunity to refute it.Unfortunately, he turned that opportunity down. All he had to say was, "Just look around ul see inteligence! Only personal things can give choices there's nothing else that can do it!" I submit that this does not even rise to the level of argument, so I just re-affirm what I said in the last round.ConclusionI have refuted all of Con's arguments for the KCA, and I have shown that the KCA sucks butt.Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Please vote.