The Kalam Cosmological Argument is unsound

Contention #1"I am not required to provide another member of the group of 'mortal' to prove the conclusion - the conclusion still follows that all men are mortal regardless of whether or not I give another member. "You're missing the point, and your argument you used to compare isn't a fair comparison. I didn't say you needed to produce another member of the group mortal - if you want to carry this metaphor what I was referring to was what is implied, immortal, and how the set is essentially meaningless."The curious clause “everything that begins to exist” implies that reality can be divided into two sets: items that begin to exist (BE), and those that do not (NBE). In order for this cosmological argument to work, NBE (if such a set is meaningful) cannot be empty[2], but more important, it must accommodate more than one item to avoid being simply a synonym for God. If God is the only object allowed in NBE, then BE is merely a mask for the Creator, and the premise “everything that begins to exist has a cause” is equivalent to “everything except God has a cause.” As with the earlier failures, this puts God into the definition of the premise of the argument that is supposed to prove God’s existence, and we are back to begging the question." (1)----------------------------------------------------------Contention #2"Pro asks for another member of NBE, and I would say that numbers do not begin to exist. Mathmeticians and philosophers alike assert that numbers don't begin to exist, but rather are universal, necessary truths. The same could be said about shapes. Even if nothing existed at all, numbers and shapes will still be necessary truths - the concept of a square would still exist even if space and time did not." This is another equivocation fallacy. Numbers and shapes don't "exist" in even remotely the same way as anything you're referring to in premise 1.------------------------------------------------------------Contention #3"Here, I would completely agree that if the Kalam was arguing that because everything within the universe that began to exist has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause, that would certainly be the fallacy of composition. However, I don't know of anyone who argues this."This is EXACTLY what your third premise, derived from 1 and 2, states. Almost word for word...."1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause2) The universe began to exist3) Therefore the universe has a cause"----------------------------------------------------------------Contention #4"The reasons why we believe that the universe, beginning to exist then has a cause is because of three reasons:1) Something cannot come from nothing; out of nothing, nothing comes. This is both a logical and metaphysical truth2) If something can come from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why anything comes into being from nothing; why only universes and not anything else?"I'm not sure you can demonstrate that these two claims are true. Can you? Also, while I am by no means an expert, and it's been said that if you claim you understand quantum mechanics it means you don't understand quantum mechanics, it seems that much of what we're learning from it demonstrates these two claims could in fact be demonstrably false. There's countless sources out there that talk about quantum fluctuations and the like, but all I can really honestly do is read it and pass it along - I'm no physicist. All I can say is that I'm not convinced that the absolute statement "something cannot come from nothing" is a meaningful or correct statement."There's nothing in the laws of physics which demands that the law of cause and effect be more than generalizations for interacting with the world above the quantum level. Within quantum mechanics there seems to be real counter examples to the first premise of the argument. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." For example, when Carbon-14 decays to Carbon-12 the radioactive decay is a perfectly random causeless event and thus though the Carbon-12 began to exist it wasn't caused to exist. Likewise, when matter and antimatter (particle-antiparticle formations) such as electron-positron creation, they can be said to have started to exist but not to have been caused to exist. While radioactive decay of particle-antiparticle formation can be predicted and serves a function, such as stabilizing the atom and equaling out the energies from two-photon interactions, there is no reason why such a thing should happen at those specific space and time coordinates. The underlying probabilities can be calculated and are extremely accurate, but alien from the classical sense of cause and effect." (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------Contention #5"I would define something to 'begin to exist' if: The thing exists at Time 'T', and there is no point prior to Time 'T', in which the thing exists...... Moreover, supporters of the Kalam, although they think do that the universe came into being 'ex nihilo', they also think that it came from an external cause - that is the whole point of the argument!"Once again, I'm not sure such a statement actually means anything. To talk about the literal moment in time T where the universe could be said to "exist", and then to say there's no point "prior to time T" is nonsensical because TIME ITSELF didn't exist. Nothing stated in a temporal sense, such as causality, is meaningful without time.----------------------------------------------------------------Contention #6"But regardless, why is it impossible for a timeless entity to cause something without time? I don't see any contradiction..."I didn't say it was impossible, but it's nonsensical. Causality, by definition, requires time.----------------------------------------------------------------Contention #7"That because everything in the universe has causal relations in time, therefore actions without the universe have to have temporal causal relations." This is absolutely NO WAY follows. How can you talk about things in the universe and based on that conclude something about actions without the universe? Once again, this is essentially a meaningless assertion.----------------------------------------------------------------Contention #8"If we are to go by my opponent's logic, for all we know there are no causal restrains without the universe."So what? We have no reason to think the concept of causality makes any sense if the universe, and therefore time, don't exist. Why do you think that statement makes any sense?----------------------------------------------------------------Sources(1) http://www.infidels.org... (2) http://wiki.ironchariots.org...