The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Some brief responses before I conclude. What is it about quantum mechanics that will allow for only virtual particles to pop in to existence and not anything else? I’ve answered that the best minds in science are working on this. I don’t know. No one does right now, including my opponent. But this doesn’t mean Gawddidit! unless you insist upon a God of the gaps that draws an arbitrary line between general relativity and quantum physics. My opponent imagines a man sitting perfectly still in a chair for eternity. Ironically, “eternity”, by definition, is time without an end. [24] Thus, not only is the man passing through time, he is passing through an actual infinite time. Thus, my opponent contradicts both his own premises concerning infinity and timelessness. Again. My opponent states, thus far, science hasn’t been able to empirically explain/demonstrate the origins of consciousness and life from pre-existent matter, and I don’t think it ever will. But just insert a God of the gaps, and he is satisfied. I’m willing to wait awhile, given that humanity is in our infancy of scientific understanding. Dinosaurs were dominant for 135 million years - give humanity at least another 100 million years to figure some of this out before throwing in the towel. [25] It’s only fair. My opponent does indeed treat the bible like a science book when he states, Actually, I do agree that those things [the universe, the earth, the stars, horses, etc.] popped in to being [based upon the biblical accounts in Genesis]. As well as when he says, The Bible teaches us that life came from life, consciousness came from consciousness, and the universe came from an external cause. The bible may assert those things, but it doesn’t provide evidence the way science must. As for the origin of the universe, life, and consciousness, my opponent and I want to know the same answers to the same questions - I’m just not willing to accept his unproven God of the gaps as a definitive solution. My opponent, when disregarding empirical evidence, cannot by logic alone rule out UFO’s, fairies, bigfoot, Vishnu, leprechauns, the flying spaghetti monster, and any other host of fantastic claims. We require objective evidence, not syllogisms, to sort fact from fiction. As for looking for God behind the sun, yes we do look there - every six months (think about it). But I do agree with his last statement, [I do] rule out God when [God] has such limited knowledge, presence, and power. For I rule out a God that writes a book (via his prophets) demonstrating limited knowledge. I rule out a God whose presence is not objectively manifest in the 21st century. And I rule out a God who hasn’t the power to intervene in any detectible way. Thus, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, et al, can be ruled out until we have empirical evidence proving they are anything more than imaginary. Now that my opponent has been addressed, what finally can we say about the Kalam Cosmological Argument? It is a self-serving contradiction, imagining everything has a cause to its beginning – well, except one thing of course, which gets a cosmic get out of jail free card. And that one thing must be God because theists just can’t imagine anything else. But logical proofs like the KCA are not evidence, not facts – they are simply intellectual thumb twiddling. To demonstrate this, let’s devise a simplified syllogism along that lines of Kalam that works for elementary school children… 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. (Hey, it starts the same!) 2. Christmas presents begin to exist under the Christmas tree. (From a child’s perspective, this is certainly true.) 3. Therefore, Christmas presents have a cause of their existence. (Sure. Makes sense so far.) 4. If Christmas presents have a cause of their existence, then that cause is Santa Claus. (Well, duh, everyone knows that!) Therefore, 5. Santa Claus exists! (Yay! QED) Or perhaps you prefer… 1. Santa Claus actually exists in the best of all possible worlds. 2. God created this world, thus this is the best of all possible worlds. (An almighty God certainly wouldn’t create anything but the best of all possible worlds, would he?) Therefore, 3. Santa Claus really exists! By the time children reach about the second or third grade, they may not be able to identify the exact error in the syllogisms, but they will smell something fishy. Because once you realize Santa Claus just isn’t real, there’s no turning back. No amount of philosophical sophistry can change something imaginary into something real. One more look at the KCA broken down into its most basic elements… 1. U began to exist. 2. U has a cause. 3. The cause is G. Therefore: 4. G exists. Of course, the U stands for our universe. And G clearly stands for the Glorified Transcendental Pixies which, as everyone knows, become all powerful universe creating machines when six of them are gathered together (except for the purple ones – they hate universes and consider them terribly messy as universes scatter cosmic debris and black holes everywhere). And that’s the lesson of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Substitute whatever you like for G and declare you’ve solved the mystery! There are many ideas on the table to answer the greatest mysteries… all of which need empirical evidence before we can accept any final conclusion. The purple pixies are correct, the universe is a terribly messy place, and only the most infinitesimal, insignificant blue speck in the vastness of the observable universe is known to be life-friendly. If God designed the universe for human beings, he sure wasted a lot of material and space that we could otherwise have found habitable. Like designing a small island playground in the middle of a sea of endless lava for your kid to play in. When Junior asks why Dad surrounded his playground with decidedly kid-unfriendly lava, Dad shrugs and says, “It’s my will.” If we step off our little rock into the vastness of space – we die (unless we bring our rock’s atmosphere with us). Proponents of the Kalam Cosmological Argument imagine the universe (well, the earth and heavens first, and then the rest of the universe, including horses) popping into existence from nothing at the behest of their imagined wizard. So, in the pre-beginning, there was God and “absolute nothing”. I’ll define absolute nothing as that which is void of any matter, energy, space, time, physical laws, etc.. But if God is “something”, then absolute nothing never existed. Mathematically, if God is 1 and absolute nothing is 0, then 1 + 0 = 1. You get rid of the nothing as if it never were. So even theists cannot truly imagine “absolute nothing” ever existing in its own right, and thus God could not have created the universe out of absolute nothing. But rather than speculate, what does the evidence tell us? 1. We have evidence of something existing: our universe. 2. The closest we can get to empirical observation of absolute nothing is empty vacuum space. 3. Empty vacuum space is not nothing, but a broiling froth of quantum foam, and is our only evidence of something that randomly appears created from nothing. 4. Our universe appears to have a beginning from our perspective within it – but that is as far as current evidence takes us. 5. Our universe (space itself) appears to be expanding at an accelerated rate with no known limits (thus, an actual infinity could exist for time and space, in which case we are a point on a timeline that began approximately 13.7 billion years ago and will continue forever). 6. Scientists seek empirical evidence to prove their claims. Where do we lack evidence? 1. We don’t have any evidence that there presently exists absolute nothing inside or outside our universe. 2. We don’t have any evidence that absolute nothing ever did or logically could exist. (Where would absolute nothing exist? Nowhere. When would absolute nothing exist? At no time. What properties does absolute nothing have? No properties. etc.) 3. We don’t have any evidence that absolute nothing is the default state of the cosmos. 4. We don’t have any evidence for any beings that exist outside our universe, intelligent or otherwise, that could “create from nothing” as my opponent asserts in Round 1. 5. We don’t have enough evidence our universe was “caused” in any meaningful sense of the word. 6. We don’t have adequate evidence to prove string theory, a holographic universe, a multiverse, or any number of scientifically speculative ideas… yet. But the main difference between science and theology is how they each approach speculation. For scientists, what is scientifically speculative, logical and consistent must still be proven empirically. For example, the Higgs Boson has been speculated since the early 1960’s, taking over 40 years for scientists to accumulate enough evidence to feel confident they’ve proven its existence.[26] Theologians, on the other hand, turn speculation into “fact” absent empirical evidence. I’ve deconstructed the Kalam Cosmological Argument in various ways, exposing its faulty premises thus destroying its ad hoc conclusion. I’ve addressed and honestly rebutted my opponents assertions, absurdities, and questions to the best of my ability within the confines of this debate’s character limitations. I’ve established that empirical testing is required to objectively prove what actually exists, and is necessary to sort fact from fiction. I’ve affirmed that science must yet prove what may exist by being held to the same standard of empirical testing as theological claims. And I’ve demonstrated that syllogisms like the KCA are meaningless as proof of anything’s actual reality. I thank my opponent again for engaging in this debate and hope that I’ve provided a fresh perspective for those who read it. May the Divine Six (non-purple) Glorified Transcendental Pixies watch over you. [24] Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com... [25] http://en.wikipedia.org... [26] http://en.wikipedia.org...