Don't even waste your time going into the comment section. It's like they all are - simple dismissals of theistic arguments, very powerful ad hominem attacks directly almost universally at WLC - as if he's the only person in this debate, taking arguments out of context, etc.
+ClusiveC I think Ahmed is a strong debater but I was very disappointed with how he tackled the moral argument. Copson was very poor too. Having said that, I think the moral argument is very unsound and should not be respected.
I don't expect respect for my comment , no!! :P But I can explain to you why the moral argument is unsound if you like. The main problem is that he (WLC) is not able to demonstrate that the intuitions that he appeals to to affirm objective morality cannot exist on naturalism and he isn't even able to make a probabilistic case for how the intuitions of right and wrong are less likely to exist on naturalism as they are on theism. That's a summary of my critique but I can go into more detail if you like! :) Thanks for your nice reply anyway :)
I was listening to WLC speak about how this was one of his favorite moments of his career as an apologist. He spoke very respectably about Cambridge and it's history of debate and was honored to be invited. Like an excited child in his reflection of it, he loved all the pomp and style of the set up of this British style of debate. He respected his colleague and noted how the room was already on the side of atheistic beliefs as this was during Richard Dawkins fever, but got up and did his WLC thing. And was pleased with the outcome.
It’s also quite easy to think you don’t need any of this “God crap” when many in that room are in their early 20s, relying on a false idea of that you’re invincible, can party all night without having any health consequences. Nothing is taken seriously with life so you can just laugh at the theists for being stupid people when most at that time haven’t gone through any severe drama in life.
@@joachim595 They don't even need severe drama, they just need to go out of their dorms that isn't a gap-year in Thailand to see real events in the world and understand them. I was like them (earlier on), but I accepted theism after studying philosophy (in a great department) and I honestly couldn't resist changing my mind in the end.
Oners82 At least they aren't textbook fallacies or blatant strawmen... you could say the cosmological argument commits the composition fallacy, but that would itself be a strawman.
***** Well, they try to, although obviously you don't agree with the arguments they provide. They can't be faulted because you simply disagree with what they are saying. I could run with your reasoning and ask whether atheists ever provide "actual responses" to theistic arguments.
***** That's a bit of a semantics game there... the arguments theists commonly offer have premises which they try to support evidentially (again you can disagree, but that is no fault of them), and as the conclusion of a valid argument follows necessarily from the premises, the warrant for the premises is also a warrant for the conclusion.
This crowd behaved like little kids from 6th grade, Dr Craig is a true christian and a very wise man, that´s why everything wound up being on God favor and always is going to be like that. God bless you all.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros It's the British parliamentary style mate. It's supposed to get rowdy and expressive! Hahahaha (I am a Dr. Craig fan and he just gave an interview on this with on WiseDisciple channel)
William Lane Craig suffers from a a neuromuscular disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which is why his hand shakes. This is a hereditary disorder that involves the slow disintegration of the myelin sheaths around the nerves, resulting in progressive muscular atrophy.
@@ingodwetrustgachatuber2747 this is Peter Williams he’s in the video!! I think he’s just letting us know because some people may think his hand is shaking because he’s nervous.
This is WLC in God Mode. So socially aware of his audience and completely disassembling his opponents arguments as he always does. There is a reason that the majority of students walked out of that "non-delusion" door despite them being obviously overwhelmingly skeptical about theism. ... what happens when you are endowed with the holy spirit. Good job WLC. GOD bless you.
Just because it is not possible to prove god's non existence doesn't mean god exists. Unfortunately, religions still have enough hold on societies that the norm is a belief in a god.
I haven't gone any further, but where I am at in the debate right now, Ahmed has slyly taken the moral argument out of context by making it a situation where you have to believe in order to have moral values, which is *not* the argument at all. He has a habit of doing this. He did it several times in his 1 on 1 debate with WLC, even into the questioning period where he repeated questions asked slightly out of context. Sneaky version of setting up straw men if you ask me.
+ClusiveC Certainly, a lot of athiests make this mistake in debates but I actually believe that I think theists love it when they do because it means that the athiests are NOT spotting the actual fallacies in the moral argument which are pretty plain to see.
@@amugsgame9936 The argument that "moral subjectivism" is an objective assertion undoes any supposed fallacy. There IS a singular standard necessary to conceive morality and alternative systems and deviations. As for "torturing innocent children," we observe that cruelty by torturers of diverse kinds, not just psychoanalytical bad childhood types, but ideological greed-superpower types, fascisto-cultural types, and so on. A stronger argument is that evolution by natural selection by physical laws relates to the material explanation of human capacities to act kindly and fairly, say, in mother-child bonding, and marriage, and it is from that biological standard that deviations occur. Theistic standards prioritizing lovingkindness led to its derived morality of Human Rights, including allowance for varying moral systems. Islam, for example, has about forty nations that have formed an alternative Islamic Cairo agreement, while the US has failed to sign the Econ,Soc, and Cultural half of the UN UDHR Covenants. The USSR failed to sign the Civil and Political half when it existed.
"In any case, Spencer, how much effort have you really made to understand these laws in the cultural context of the ancient Near East?" - William Lane Craig
As a former Atheist myself, the final speaker, whilst intelligent is a perfect example of why the atheistic argument is so very dull....not for lack of complexity or genius, but because his obvious scrabbling to a "can we just get on with reality please" tone and scattered reasoning (constant interruptions of evident cognitive dissociation) belies a mind already made up with intuitive animus driving his internal supermarket sweep for arguments. Without realising it himself, he seems far more certain of what he is not certain about, than what he is certain about (something the atheist believes is THE ultimate defence of their intellect and proof of their dedication to facing up to Hard facts). Whilst I respect his position very much, especially given his background, his true convictions (i intuit from his conduct) lie at a much lower level of resolution than his arguments (in this case motivations matter). I think a better question for this debate might be, "is it possible, that a delusion, can also be true/a reality?" because if it is possible that someone who is presently deluded about a fact can still be holding to what is factual, if so then the motion is defunct and also "is love a delusion?" (especially since christianity for example claims that God IS love - in which case does it follow that love IS God or a god and so on and so forth in their world view). This was a good debate but I do think that WLCraig made a good point about the underhanded strategy of the opposition. Its also (again as a former atheist) very telling to see laughter where serious points are being made, perhaps if WL Craig had been waving a loaded gun at he audience simultaneously, they would not be so quick to ignorance, though sadly it would have the same effect in terms of their being unable to see what they have never truly taken the time to envisage....I wonder how many of them will later in life realise, as i did, how shallow their position really is.
Arif Ahmed trying use undetermined, undiscovered, future physics to disprove premise two of the ontological argument was essentially a bad joke. "We could find out that maybe the quantum vacuum is truly random" - and therefore things don't need causes. That's ridiculous. Further the principle of cause and effect is essential for physics, if not all science. If you somehow discovered some physics that violated the cause and effect principle, you would disprove the logical basis for doing science in the first place, which would immediately delegitimize your discovery. He's offered argument that 1) is self-refuting and 2) assuming future discovery... and that's the best atheism has against the ontological argument. Wow.
+orbdustFilms Why do you insist on reading William Lane Craig who is a religious scholar for accurate modern physics? It also confuses me why so many atheists read physicists for the best religious philosophy/history. We did find something that violated traditional notions of cause and effect. It's called Quantum Mechanics and we found it in the 1920s/30s (so you are only just century out of date, not bad for a theist). Since then we've been confirming and finding reinforcing evidence for QM ever since.
In any case, I'll be fair and simply say that the "who designed the designer" argument is extremely weak (for the reasons I've given). I apologize for using more pejorative terms.
If the unfathomable complexity of God does not require a designer, how could something less complex than God require a designer? Correct me if I’m wrong, but is there any facet of the Big Bang or the universe itself that requires an explanation that does not also apply to God? Can you or anyone else explain what it means for an eternal mind outside of time and space to create time and space by simply thinking it or saying it somehow? Why couldn’t I skip all that extra baggage of theism and just say the universe has always existed in some form just as God has always existed? In both worldviews, the universe exists, but in your worldview you have the extra burden of explaining why an infinitely complex being is required in order to have a universe. Yet you believe you do not have the burden of explaining why and how this being exists while demanding an explanation for the existence of the universe from the unbeliever. So based on ontological economy and parsimony alone, theism is strongly disconfirmed.
I don't care what the atheist argument for moral values without God is, when push comes to shove and when people's patience and tolerance is pushed beyond their individual human limits, those ideas, devoid of the saving power and grace of God, will fail in action. And that often marks the very difference between those of Faith and those without.
[If by nothing you mean what does not exist, then the answer to the question for why there's something rather than nothing is that nothing does not exist.] So Krauss hasn't demonstrated that something can come from nothing, since nothing does not exist, he doesn't have a starting point.
He wasn't particularly persuasive because the speaker who preceded him (Andrew Copson) was so atrocious, that after Craig had swiftly demolished his points, he didn't have much to respond to! Copson's first argument was guilty of the genetic fallacy, his second argument didnt even address monotheism, and neither of his arguments responded to Peter Williams's opening points. Craig would have been better, as I said earlier, if he had the chance to respond to Arif Ahmed.
@karmaran You haven't watched the video in full then, have you? Craig explicitly explains how Andrew's argument - about Gods being similar to us - works with polytheism but not monotheism, because the nature of the necessary, timeless, space, immaterial, transcendent being is UNlike us!
"They're not idiots in there" Well, having heard some of their questions, I'm not sure I'd agree. One female student asked Craig how he can prove the Christian God exists, when that clearly wasn't the debate topic! I was shocked to hear what are supposedly Britain's brightest and best students trotting out old fallacies like "if God created us, who created God?" and a (badly-articulated) version of Russell's Teapot. I think Craig expected better. Pity he didn't get to rebut Ahmed's points.
Abc Bullshit! Theists are all deluded people..who get everything wrong logically and historically...God is just a man made assertion and expression not a fact or explanation!
@Jonathan Billings when I say "pioneer" I'm referring to those part of the scientific Revolution. I also never claimed that people who disagreed with them _were_ deluded..
The quantum gravity models can be broken down into four categories: Background Flucuation, String, Loop, and Semi-Classical. The first one involves vacuum fluctuations, and didn't outlive the 1980's for good reason. It is a hopeless model. The String options are all subject to the BGV theorem and/or cannot be extended into the infinite past. Trying to extend the Loop Quantum Gravity models into the infinite past causes problems with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, as the accumulating dark...
What a relief to hear such intelligent people speaking in terms complex and sophisticated...about a subject that is so often over simplified....makes me wish I could go to university....if I had any faith that i wouldnt be wasting my money in a politically biased institution hell bent on ramming its political worldview down my throat instead of teaching the subject id pay thousands to learn....am i wrong to worry about that? Sorry to say though...from what i've seen online...oxfords union hall (if thats what its called) is far cooler lol soz guys. Great arguments all round.
"why would a creator be past-eternal and not the Universe"? BECAUSE THE EVIDENCE SHOWS THE UNIVERSE IS NOT PAST-ETERNAL!! If the Universe WAS past-eternal, it too wold exist by necessity of its own nature. Thats why atheists through the centuries argued that the Universe has always existed by necessity and so needs no creator. Its only since modern cosmology disproved this, that they have had to abandon this argument.
I'm pretty sure Copson had everybody else beat on "appeals to emotion". His entire speech (which failed to address two out of three of the arguments Williams gave, and made no positive case at all for thinking God is a delusion) was entirely based on comparing theistic morality with "what we'd prefer to see". (Typical example 31:48 - 32:04).
Somehow your question about the "tie" (between "it is possible that God doesn't exist, and therefore He doesn't" vs. "it is possible that God does exist, and therefore He does") got deleted. If you still want an answer, the simplest answer is "possibility is the default position". In any questions of whether something is possible, the default rational position is "yes, until some impossibility is shown".
Vilenkin deals with the quantum gravity models that have been proposed. A model doesn't need to be successful already to have a flaw pointed out in it. Moreover, lots of other cosmologists have worked on these. Vilenkin (and Krauss and Stenger, etc) make use of quantum mechanics to explain the beginning of Inflation and then GR takes over. But there is still a beginning. No proposed model gets around the beginning successfully.
Irrational based on what? Last speaker just denies premise two, the moral argument, by using our human rational (which are immaterial laws of logic) instead of morals and still concedes it would have to be fine if someone didn’t come to the same conclusion as he.
(continued)... You argued that Craig's quote of Vilenkin is out-of-context, and not consistent with Vilenkin's own view. You were incorrect. Guth may feel otherwise.
In the post that I was responding to, you directly said that there was no problem with infinite inflation. The BGV theorem shows that there are HUGE problems with infinite inflation, such that absolutely did not happen. Now, whether there was some pre-inflationary period or not is sheer speculation, and there is no motivation for thinking there was.
The theorem does show that the inflation cannot be infinite in the past. And he doesn't say that future findings will be unable to escape the absolute beginning; he says that all attempts thus far have failed.
Actually Craig almost always mentions the attempts that have been made to get around the absolute beginning (you should see the chapter that he and Sinclair wrote about all these attempts in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology!), he just finds them unsatisfactory for reasons that he explicates.
For the record, neither Craig nor Williams defended Anselm's form of the argument. They were using something like Plantinga's Modal version of the argument.
Badly misplaced because of the specific points I mentioned about each available model. If you're only response is "I have more confidence in Carroll than in Craig", then there is nothing more to say. Time will tell, and I'm open to whatever.
[If a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is coming from non-being (as Craig asserts), then so are virtual particles.] Craig never asserted that. He only asked for a reason why only universes should pop into being uncaused out of non-being. On the other hand, we KNOW virtual particles come from the quantum vacuum, not from non-being, so who is being inconsistent here ?
Craig did NOT say that any quantum theory that will come will fail to address this. He said that all attempts have only moved the question back a step, and that it is "unlikely" that any future attempt will succeed.
"Coming into being" is hardly a univocal term. While I agree and pointed out to you, that it is literally synonymous with creatio, there are two forms of creatio that you are attempting to equivocate. creatio ex materia has been observed to occur all the time, following all the laws of causality.
Well, I shouldn't have made such a big deal about the philosophical points, when you were clearly more interested in Craig's use of BGV. It's just that I wanted to clarify that P2 isn't primarily based on the BGV, but on philosophical argument. That being said, the BGV theorem does show that the inflationary period cannot be infinite in the past. It is a big step toward showing that the whole past is finite, since all we have on some "pre-Inflation" period is highly speculative.
Dr. Craig is absolutely right in saying that this a simply terrible, terrible, etiquette/sportsmanship on the atheist side in their waiting until the final round to attack the arguments so that Craig wouldn’t have a chance to respond and answer. That was a cheeky, slimy, little tactic; like the kind you would find on wallstreet. It’s like beating a man who’s in a wheelchair-sure you “won the fight”, but you didn’t “win the fight”.
Go back and watch his opening statement during his debate with Peter Millican. He says exactly that: regardless of what any quantum theory does to describe the physical condition of early universe, the BGV conclusion (that he erroneously states is a proof for an absolute beginning) will hold, because it's entirely independent of such results.
No, you are saying that causality is defined as a causer acting on something else to produce an effect. That is wrong. Causality does not require the "something else", it only requires two events related in such a way that one is the consequence of the other.
P2 of the KCA does not rely on the BGV theorem. Craig has been arguing for that premise since long before 2003. The primary proof of P2 is philosophical in nature (demonstrations that an actually infinite series of events is metaphysically impossible). Scientific advances that indicate a beginning are only a secondary support for P2. Moreover, Vilenkin's book still makes a strong argument for a beginning, and the quote that Craig uses is from that book. It is therefore in-context.
1. That problem exists when we're talking about causality with regard to the *concrete realm*. Again, Craig himself states that abstract objects can't cause anything. He feels the only option left is an unembodied mind (which has 0 evidence) that affected nothing. 2. That doesn't mean the issue of beginning to exist (on "did I always exist"?) isn't contingent on material stuff. Craig can be a dualist, but even in doing so, there's still the *material* process involved in "bringing into being."
Actually, you committed a reverse composition fallacy. If a broad concept implies a cause, it doesn't mean that anything particular about its subdivisions entails a cause. The broad concept of coming into being requires a cause, regardless of whether the subdivisions have a special entailment of a cause. I don't insist that there actually are any other options, I'm just emphasizing how irrelevant such options would be.
1) Abstract objects can be effects (of each other), even if they can't cause anything in the concrete realm. 2) P1 of the KCA is not based on examples. TBS is making the same mistake you make. 3) Energy can begin to exist. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics only applies to closed systems already in place. 4) No one is talking about "affecting literally nothing" (an absurd phrase). I'm talking about the event of forming A, B, and C into Y being simultaneous with another event: Y beginning to exist.
They both state the issue of what came before inflation "doesn't have a satisfactory answer", "is very much up for grabs", and "we don't really know". And they're being honest. Whereas, Craig asserts their theorem has already shown there's an *absolute* beginning to the universe. Both men, in their paper, say otherwise. New, other physics and more work is required. An unknown in no way, shape, or form, consistutes a proof for an absolute beginning. And I think you know that too.
"Why special pleading?" If a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is coming from non-being (as Craig asserts), then so are virtual particles. On the other hand, if a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is not coming from non-being (because there was already matter/energy/space-time there before the horse appeared), then neither are virtual particles. I'm the one being consistent.
1. Yes and no. Quantum mechanics has forced us to think differently, with respect to classical logic. 2. In that clarification, he explicitly did say "we certainly cannot say this represents a beginning of space and time". Are you attempting to show that Vilenkin contradicted himself? Remember, I'm not saying Guth & Vilenkin haven't used the words "beginning" before, but rather that their paper (and opinions) don't reflect any such thing as a conclusive, absolute beginning.
Time "begins" there because we can't measure any further back in classical physics. But as cosmologist Sean Carroll points out: the theorem "starts with a classical spacetime - “classical” in the sense that it is a definite four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold, not necessarily one that obeys Einstein’s equation of general relativity... Most importantly, I don’t think that any result dealing with classical spacetimes can teach us anything definitive about the beginning of the universe."
Oh, I don't know. If they'd been using Anselm's argument, then the charges of using "existence" as a predicate would have been applicable. On Plantinga's version, this error is not made.
2) Actually, you have not been asking me for an explanation of the mechanism. You have been stating that any causal relation needs an "affector" who causes it, pre-existing stuff to be affected, and the subsequent effect. I have shown that that is nonsense. All you need is two events x and y, such that y is the consequence of x. 3) I never said there actually was a third option; all I said was that "coming into being" means the same thing regardless of "materia", "nihilo", or any other option
On what grounds was it mistaken? That's the whole point. What makes one answer morally right and the other wrong? And how do we even know there IS right answer or a wrong one? It is moral intuition. Plain and simple.
Craig is referring to generic "coming into being". Even if there were some third option, besides ex-nihilo and ex-materia (and I'm not saying there is, but even if there were), his statements would apply to it as well. He appeals to our intuitions about "coming into being" in general, and argues that, if things could just pop into being uncaused from nothing, we'd have a very different world around us (one in which science could not function).
... Here, I'll illustrate it for you. Let's say that delusional statements, when written, had a particular form to them (a certain ordering of the predicates, verbs, nouns, or whatever). Let's say that all theistic statements also had that same form. That would not prove that the CONTENT of the sentence was incorrect. Indeed, ANY statement (including true, non-delusory ones) can be made with ANY word ordering you like (even the one that is characteristic of delusional statements).
I couldn't stop laughing at 1:24:33 when I believe Ahmed compared the necessity for a piece of music existing (or lack thereof) being in no way related to its greatness vs. God being a necessary being in order to create the entire universe as a sign of His greatness, that was such a bad comparison I almost laughed myself into an aneurism. Was he drunk? Do you have any idea the level of complexity and care that would have to go into creating an entire universe that is not only capable of producing complex life such as our own, but is morally sufficient enough to provide each and every individual within that universe with the ability to believe whatever they choose to believe and to go wherever they choose to go (heaven or hell) without ever impeding their freewill or allowing others to do so either? Of course not. God's necessity as the "most high" and transcendent Creator of the universe, the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, is most certainly entirely attributable to greatness beyond comprehension. But of course no one will ever prove or disprove God's existence, because that would defy the very purpose of existence itself, which is to know God (i.e. True Love, 1st John 4:8), and to enjoy Him forever, because if either side ever forced the other side to believe what they believe, that would be forced intimacy in relation to personal identity, something that a God of love would never allow. Though we can attempt to persuade each other, we cannot ever prove our case, which is why God only reveals himself to those who are truly seeking Him, rather than those who are only claiming to seek Him while internally they are running from Him, Revelation 2:23 - "I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." Each and every person gets to choose what they believe, about God, about themselves, and about each other, and that will always be the case, until the end of this world, when the judgment comes, and the Truth is made known to all: i.e. What we have done, vs. what God has done. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love casts out fear, and perfect love is only found in Christ, and once his identity, his life, his death, as well as his burial and resurrection from the dead by the will of his Father (True Love itself) has finally been accepted, that infinite and eternal love is finally accessible to the person who accepts it. Without Christ, and without the glory of God being seen by the things that are made, so that we are without excuse, all of existence would be completely and utterly worthless. I cannot imagine how an existence which is made worth while by love could ever come into existence without love itself being the creative causal force that brought that existence into being, which to me is like saying I cannot imagine how 1 + 1 could equal anything other than 2. And yet over a third of the people in that room decided that I must be delusional in order to believe in God. That is frighteningly disappointing, especially considering the reputation and the caliber of the people purported to belong to such an establishment. But, there is still hope, a hope not found in doubt, but in faith, a faith that destroys the kind of doubt and unreasonable skepticism that eventually leads to intolerance and hatred, the kind of hope that moves mountains, that frees the captives, and that saves the children from living their lives without love, and his name is Jesus Christ.
"The constants can emerge at random" But, as atheist physicist Steven Weinberg explained, its possible for one constant to be extraordinarily fine-tuned "at random", but to get all 30 simultaneously fine-tuned for life "at random" is completely implausible. He says either there's an unknown physical law which makes them that way, or there must be a designer
1) That isn't analogous. The philosophical arguments in this case show an actual self-contradiction if an infinite series were to actually exist. You cannot have self-contradictions in reality. Therefore, science may tell us that there is no physical barrier against drawing a round square, but it remains logically impossible to do so. 2) Vilenkin "clarified" in an E-mail that he himself said wasn't indicate, and in which he said "read my book". Chapters 16 & 17 of that book support a beginning.
None of the arguments for God's existence are appeals to emotion. And the appeal at the end is not in favor of God's existence, but in favor of not calling people "deluded" for disagreeing with you.
I have listened to both of them on Closer to Truth, as well as Guth on "Cosmic Questions", where Guth explicitly states their find on Inflation has nothing to say about the issue of an "ultimate origin" of the universe, and that issue is "still very much up for grabs" in CtT. Vilenkin does posit a Platonic realm, but again, states all of this in speculation and also states that "there is still this question of what came before Inflation? Apparently I cannot give a satisfactory answer to that..."
That's not what I meant. I said Craig never mentions the fact that the theorem he relies on so heavily for his P(2) of the KCA does not itself establish an absolute beginning - only a past-boundary to inflation. And I'm glad you, unlike Craig and most apologists, concede to more work needing to be done. But that admission means P(2) isn't an actual valid premise. And interestingly enough, Vilenkin (in Many Worlds in One, pg. 181 I believe) argues against P(1) of the argument.
Glad you agree. The issue then is, why bother appealing to it all, if more work needs to be done? And not just that, but Guth also states that the issue is inconclusive. You seem to want to insert a conclusion where Guth makes none, but remains open. And this was Craig's problem. And on Premise 1, Craig equivocates on "begins to exist", as he appeals to intuition (citing examples at the macrolevel) that have pre-existing material causes to them... whereas the universe, according to him, doesn't.
And Carroll's quote is something that Borde-Guth-Vilenkin's 2003 paper agree with, stating "inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary. This is the chief result of our paper." Their theorem proves the moment of expansion had a beginning, not the universe/reality itself. Vilenkin thinks quantum tunneling from "nothing" brought about inflation, but it's speculation.
Necessary functions that are eternal and also caused the universe? A quantum behavior that is outside of time and space? Now if it's necessary, that sounds like something that has a purpose. And can something be the cause of itself?
I was referring to the Atheists *in this debate*. Their position in the debate entails a burden of proof. I'm not referring to the redefined form of Atheism that has become popular on the internet in the last few years that is supposedly a mere suspension of positive belief in God's existence. There is much to be said about that claim in itself, but I'm not going to say it here, because that's not what I was talking about.
1) No one is beginning with the claim "God's non-existence is impossible". This is DEDUCED from the Ontological Argument, based P1 being the default position (i.e. "it is possible that God exists" is the default position, as opposed to "it is impossible that God exists"). Then we deduce from His properties that if it is even possible for Him to exist, then He actually does exist. Again, reference the highest prime analogy and it will be clearer for you. 2) I've seen those interviews...
In the actual practice of deductive logic, however, the term is used to mean "having no contradictory entailments". It doesn't matter though, because "logically connected" works just fine. Calling X the "cause" of Y is just such a connection, and there is nothing logically incoherent about that.
And my response to that central position is: 1) P2 is based primarily on the philosophical arguments for the finitude of the past, and so would be valid regardless of current science. 2) Vilenkin has concluded that the Universe did have an absolute beginning (even if he's uncomfortable with the term), and he has been one of many cosmologists who have come to this conclusion, and have defeated all attempts thus far of averting that beginning.
The only models with any substantiation have Inflation as the beginning of time, and Guth and Vilenkin both refer to it this way. We're going in circles here, because I agree that Guth and Vilenkin use guarded language, but I disagree that the implication of their work isn't a beginning of the Universe via some unknown first cause.
There could be as many options as you can imagine, and it wouldn't change anything. Whether there are 2 or 100, Craig's first premise is totally unrelated to those options. It simply says that anything which comes into being (which I've given the explicit definition of) must have a cause, and he argues for that.
Not quite. As Guth pointed out: "While inflation does not go so far as to actually describe the ultimate origin of the universe, it does attempt to provide a theory of the [big] bang." He said this in the same article where he called the big bang "the beginning", but then expounded on why it's not really *the* beginning. And again, this issue of ultimate origins remains inconclusive, and more work in physics has to be done.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Don't even waste your time going into the comment section. It's like they all are - simple dismissals of theistic arguments, very powerful ad hominem attacks directly almost universally at WLC - as if he's the only person in this debate, taking arguments out of context, etc.
This type of comment ought to be at the start of every comment section on videos about the God debate.
+ClusiveC I think Ahmed is a strong debater but I was very disappointed with how he tackled the moral argument. Copson was very poor too. Having said that, I think the moral argument is very unsound and should not be respected.
Very unsound and should not to be respected...Should your comment be respected in light of the fact you don't give a reason why its unsound?
I don't expect respect for my comment , no!! :P But I can explain to you why the moral argument is unsound if you like. The main problem is that he (WLC) is not able to demonstrate that the intuitions that he appeals to to affirm objective morality cannot exist on naturalism and he isn't even able to make a probabilistic case for how the intuitions of right and wrong are less likely to exist on naturalism as they are on theism. That's a summary of my critique but I can go into more detail if you like! :) Thanks for your nice reply anyway :)
Yeah sure id like to hear more
I was listening to WLC speak about how this was one of his favorite moments of his career as an apologist. He spoke very respectably about Cambridge and it's history of debate and was honored to be invited. Like an excited child in his reflection of it, he loved all the pomp and style of the set up of this British style of debate.
He respected his colleague and noted how the room was already on the side of atheistic beliefs as this was during Richard Dawkins fever, but got up and did his WLC thing.
And was pleased with the outcome.
It’s also quite easy to think you don’t need any of this “God crap” when many in that room are in their early 20s, relying on a false idea of that you’re invincible, can party all night without having any health consequences. Nothing is taken seriously with life so you can just laugh at the theists for being stupid people when most at that time haven’t gone through any severe drama in life.
@@joachim595 They don't even need severe drama, they just need to go out of their dorms that isn't a gap-year in Thailand to see real events in the world and understand them. I was like them (earlier on), but I accepted theism after studying philosophy (in a great department) and I honestly couldn't resist changing my mind in the end.
Is there an atheist-theist debate where the atheist doesn't bring up the "god of the gaps" and the genetic fallacy in their opening statement?
Oners82 At least they aren't textbook fallacies or blatant strawmen... you could say the cosmological argument commits the composition fallacy, but that would itself be a strawman.
***** Well, they try to, although obviously you don't agree with the arguments they provide. They can't be faulted because you simply disagree with what they are saying. I could run with your reasoning and ask whether atheists ever provide "actual responses" to theistic arguments.
***** That's a bit of a semantics game there... the arguments theists commonly offer have premises which they try to support evidentially (again you can disagree, but that is no fault of them), and as the conclusion of a valid argument follows necessarily from the premises, the warrant for the premises is also a warrant for the conclusion.
***** If you disagree with the arguments that's fine, but that doesn't mean you can argue from there to say the arguments don't work.
+Christopher Johnson Do you think the moral argument is a good argument for God because I don't think it works.
From Pakistan, Craig always very logical with his arguments. God bless.
This crowd behaved like little kids from 6th grade, Dr Craig is a true christian and a very wise man, that´s why everything wound up being on God favor and always is going to be like that. God bless you all.
Fun fact: the audience got too vote on who won the debate and they chose WLC.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros I completely agree.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros It's the British parliamentary style mate. It's supposed to get rowdy and expressive! Hahahaha (I am a Dr. Craig fan and he just gave an interview on this with on WiseDisciple channel)
@@itachigrain4651which video was that?
William Lane Craig suffers from a a neuromuscular disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which is why his hand shakes. This is a hereditary disorder that involves the slow disintegration of the myelin sheaths around the nerves, resulting in progressive muscular atrophy.
so what has that got to do with his ability to mop the floor with others?
in God we trust, gacha tuber 🙏🏽😂😂😂😂
@@ingodwetrustgachatuber2747 this is Peter Williams he’s in the video!! I think he’s just letting us know because some people may think his hand is shaking because he’s nervous.
That is a cruel statement. You should be ashamed of yourself.
This is WLC in God Mode. So socially aware of his audience and completely disassembling his opponents arguments as he always does. There is a reason that the majority of students walked out of that "non-delusion" door despite them being obviously overwhelmingly skeptical about theism.
... what happens when you are endowed with the holy spirit. Good job WLC.
GOD bless you.
Servant of God mode
No, that's what happens when you are endowed with guidance from Allah. Checkmate.
Just because it is not possible to prove god's non existence doesn't mean god exists. Unfortunately, religions still have enough hold on societies that the norm is a belief in a god.
Many of those walking through the non delusion door did not believe in a god, according to WLC's instructions.
@Psicólogo Miguel Cisneros I don't have sufficient reason to believe there is a god; particularly the god of the bible.
I haven't gone any further, but where I am at in the debate right now, Ahmed has slyly taken the moral argument out of context by making it a situation where you have to believe in order to have moral values, which is *not* the argument at all. He has a habit of doing this. He did it several times in his 1 on 1 debate with WLC, even into the questioning period where he repeated questions asked slightly out of context. Sneaky version of setting up straw men if you ask me.
+ClusiveC Certainly, a lot of athiests make this mistake in debates but I actually believe that I think theists love it when they do because it means that the athiests are NOT spotting the actual fallacies in the moral argument which are pretty plain to see.
@@amugsgame9936 The argument that "moral subjectivism" is an objective assertion undoes any supposed fallacy. There IS a singular standard necessary to conceive morality and alternative systems and deviations. As for "torturing innocent children," we observe that cruelty by torturers of diverse kinds, not just psychoanalytical bad childhood types, but ideological greed-superpower types, fascisto-cultural types, and so on. A stronger argument is that evolution by natural selection by physical laws relates to the material explanation of human capacities to act kindly and fairly, say, in mother-child bonding, and marriage, and it is from that biological standard that deviations occur. Theistic standards prioritizing lovingkindness led to its derived morality of Human Rights, including allowance for varying moral systems. Islam, for example, has about forty nations that have formed an alternative Islamic Cairo agreement, while the US has failed to sign the Econ,Soc, and Cultural half of the UN UDHR Covenants. The USSR failed to sign the Civil and Political half when it existed.
May God have mercy on our wealthy nations. It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, but with God, all things are possible.
"In any case, Spencer, how much effort have you really made to understand these laws in the cultural context of the ancient Near East?"
- William Lane Craig
The opposition brought a butter knife to a gun fight.
56:41 WLC gets up and the smackdown begins
A triple X throw down
As a former Atheist myself, the final speaker, whilst intelligent is a perfect example of why the atheistic argument is so very dull....not for lack of complexity or genius, but because his obvious scrabbling to a "can we just get on with reality please" tone and scattered reasoning (constant interruptions of evident cognitive dissociation) belies a mind already made up with intuitive animus driving his internal supermarket sweep for arguments. Without realising it himself, he seems far more certain of what he is not certain about, than what he is certain about (something the atheist believes is THE ultimate defence of their intellect and proof of their dedication to facing up to Hard facts). Whilst I respect his position very much, especially given his background, his true convictions (i intuit from his conduct) lie at a much lower level of resolution than his arguments (in this case motivations matter). I think a better question for this debate might be, "is it possible, that a delusion, can also be true/a reality?" because if it is possible that someone who is presently deluded about a fact can still be holding to what is factual, if so then the motion is defunct and also "is love a delusion?" (especially since christianity for example claims that God IS love - in which case does it follow that love IS God or a god and so on and so forth in their world view). This was a good debate but I do think that WLCraig made a good point about the underhanded strategy of the opposition. Its also (again as a former atheist) very telling to see laughter where serious points are being made, perhaps if WL Craig had been waving a loaded gun at he audience simultaneously, they would not be so quick to ignorance, though sadly it would have the same effect in terms of their being unable to see what they have never truly taken the time to envisage....I wonder how many of them will later in life realise, as i did, how shallow their position really is.
Dream on
@@Resenbrink no you!
Praise God for you
Interesting place for a debate. Dr. Craig's last speech was pretty impressive! God Bless!
He is the Protestant St. Thomas Aquinas of 21st century.
@SHIBBYiPANDA Craig and Williams won. No surprise there, considering they did amazing.
Arif Ahmed trying use undetermined, undiscovered, future physics to disprove premise two of the ontological argument was essentially a bad joke. "We could find out that maybe the quantum vacuum is truly random" - and therefore things don't need causes. That's ridiculous. Further the principle of cause and effect is essential for physics, if not all science. If you somehow discovered some physics that violated the cause and effect principle, you would disprove the logical basis for doing science in the first place, which would immediately delegitimize your discovery. He's offered argument that 1) is self-refuting and 2) assuming future discovery... and that's the best atheism has against the ontological argument. Wow.
+orbdustFilms Why do you insist on reading William Lane Craig who is a religious scholar for accurate modern physics? It also confuses me why so many atheists read physicists for the best religious philosophy/history.
We did find something that violated traditional notions of cause and effect. It's called Quantum Mechanics and we found it in the 1920s/30s (so you are only just century out of date, not bad for a theist). Since then we've been confirming and finding reinforcing evidence for QM ever since.
Daniel Carter my gosh ... Qm is utter crap ... It almost all unsubstantiated guess work ...
Daniel Carter takes more faith to trust in QM with our almost hundred years of experience of it.
01:29:45 WLC mentioned the results from the bar on an episode of Unbelievable and mentioned the ringing bell too
Once again WIlliam Lane Craig dominates a discussion with logical arguments-- And at a college no less--
😂
Enjoyable format and arguementation. Thanks for posting.
In any case, I'll be fair and simply say that the "who designed the designer" argument is extremely weak (for the reasons I've given). I apologize for using more pejorative terms.
If the unfathomable complexity of God does not require a designer, how could something less complex than God require a designer? Correct me if I’m wrong, but is there any facet of the Big Bang or the universe itself that requires an explanation that does not also apply to God? Can you or anyone else explain what it means for an eternal mind outside of time and space to create time and space by simply thinking it or saying it somehow? Why couldn’t I skip all that extra baggage of theism and just say the universe has always existed in some form just as God has always existed?
In both worldviews, the universe exists, but in your worldview you have the extra burden of explaining why an infinitely complex being is required in order to have a universe. Yet you believe you do not have the burden of explaining why and how this being exists while demanding an explanation for the existence of the universe from the unbeliever. So based on ontological economy and parsimony alone, theism is strongly disconfirmed.
I don't care what the atheist argument for moral values without God is, when push comes to shove and when people's patience and tolerance is pushed beyond their individual human limits, those ideas, devoid of the saving power and grace of God, will fail in action. And that often marks the very difference between those of Faith and those without.
Belief in God is not a delusion.
[If by nothing you mean what does not exist, then the answer to the question for why there's something rather than nothing is that nothing does not exist.]
So Krauss hasn't demonstrated that something can come from nothing, since nothing does not exist, he doesn't have a starting point.
great format. well done!
This man is supposed to be the Head kf the humanist society and yet he brings up the 'god of the gaps' fallacy
WLC debated the entire room and still won
This debate was good but it would have been so much better if the question was phrased in a better way.
LOL can't believe people still use the same BS arguments for Jesus being a "Myth", even-though they've been corrected many times.
it's not an intellectual isssue, rather a heart's.
Corrected by whom, and with what evidence?
Osmosis
lol you have to resort to evasion, i do have a choice idiot.your not capable of shutting me up
mike jones
No just sick of you polluting my thread with your bottom-of-the-barrel bullshit.
Osmosis
so you say
He wasn't particularly persuasive because the speaker who preceded him (Andrew Copson) was so atrocious, that after Craig had swiftly demolished his points, he didn't have much to respond to!
Copson's first argument was guilty of the genetic fallacy, his second argument didnt even address monotheism, and neither of his arguments responded to Peter Williams's opening points.
Craig would have been better, as I said earlier, if he had the chance to respond to Arif Ahmed.
God is NOT, and can NEVER be shown to be a delusion. Period!
@karmaran
You haven't watched the video in full then, have you? Craig explicitly explains how Andrew's argument - about Gods being similar to us - works with polytheism but not monotheism, because the nature of the necessary, timeless, space, immaterial, transcendent being is UNlike us!
"They're not idiots in there"
Well, having heard some of their questions, I'm not sure I'd agree. One female student asked Craig how he can prove the Christian God exists, when that clearly wasn't the debate topic!
I was shocked to hear what are supposedly Britain's brightest and best students trotting out old fallacies like "if God created us, who created God?" and a (badly-articulated) version of Russell's Teapot.
I think Craig expected better. Pity he didn't get to rebut Ahmed's points.
People are hating on the god of the gaps argument, but all the theist arguments boils down to god of the gaps argument
hahahahhahahah everytime i need a good laugh. I listen to Copson and Ahmed getting spanked
Abc
Bullshit!
Theists are all deluded people..who get everything wrong logically and historically...God is just a man made assertion and expression not a fact or explanation!
@@rationalsceptic7634 yes we are all deluded. Nevermind those pioneers of science and Philosophy..
@@joshuaphilip7601
ruclips.net/video/d2M8Ld39TzE/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Em339AlejIs/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Em339AlejIs/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/B21-N5fbq-8/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/B21-N5fbq-8/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/B21-N5fbq-8/видео.html
@@rationalsceptic7634 sigh
@Jonathan Billings when I say "pioneer" I'm referring to those part of the scientific Revolution. I also never claimed that people who disagreed with them _were_ deluded..
The quantum gravity models can be broken down into four categories: Background Flucuation, String, Loop, and Semi-Classical. The first one involves vacuum fluctuations, and didn't outlive the 1980's for good reason. It is a hopeless model. The String options are all subject to the BGV theorem and/or cannot be extended into the infinite past. Trying to extend the Loop Quantum Gravity models into the infinite past causes problems with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, as the accumulating dark...
What a relief to hear such intelligent people speaking in terms complex and sophisticated...about a subject that is so often over simplified....makes me wish I could go to university....if I had any faith that i wouldnt be wasting my money in a politically biased institution hell bent on ramming its political worldview down my throat instead of teaching the subject id pay thousands to learn....am i wrong to worry about that? Sorry to say though...from what i've seen online...oxfords union hall (if thats what its called) is far cooler lol soz guys. Great arguments all round.
"why would a creator be past-eternal and not the Universe"? BECAUSE THE EVIDENCE SHOWS THE UNIVERSE IS NOT PAST-ETERNAL!!
If the Universe WAS past-eternal, it too wold exist by necessity of its own nature. Thats why atheists through the centuries argued that the Universe has always existed by necessity and so needs no creator.
Its only since modern cosmology disproved this, that they have had to abandon this argument.
Good watch. Tough crowd though.
I'm pretty sure Copson had everybody else beat on "appeals to emotion". His entire speech (which failed to address two out of three of the arguments Williams gave, and made no positive case at all for thinking God is a delusion) was entirely based on comparing theistic morality with "what we'd prefer to see". (Typical example 31:48 - 32:04).
It was funny watching the girl in the background laughing in the last 20 minutes of the debate lol
She's cute tho...
Somehow your question about the "tie" (between "it is possible that God doesn't exist, and therefore He doesn't" vs. "it is possible that God does exist, and therefore He does") got deleted. If you still want an answer, the simplest answer is "possibility is the default position". In any questions of whether something is possible, the default rational position is "yes, until some impossibility is shown".
Craig was right. Pretty sly tactic on the atheist's part to put their response to
the moral and KCA arguments at the end and protected from rebuttal.
You're probably joking, but I take delight in answering that Craig and Williams won. Skip to 1:30:38
1:20:34 She is gone.:)
Vilenkin deals with the quantum gravity models that have been proposed. A model doesn't need to be successful already to have a flaw pointed out in it. Moreover, lots of other cosmologists have worked on these.
Vilenkin (and Krauss and Stenger, etc) make use of quantum mechanics to explain the beginning of Inflation and then GR takes over. But there is still a beginning. No proposed model gets around the beginning successfully.
I couldn't follow Arif AT ALL just distracted by the laughting girl behind him :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Irrational based on what? Last speaker just denies premise two, the moral argument, by using our human rational (which are immaterial laws of logic) instead of morals and still concedes it would have to be fine if someone didn’t come to the same conclusion as he.
All I got from this is people need to eat more veggies! All I hear is constant f@cking coughing!!!
(continued)... You argued that Craig's quote of Vilenkin is out-of-context, and not consistent with Vilenkin's own view. You were incorrect. Guth may feel otherwise.
In the post that I was responding to, you directly said that there was no problem with infinite inflation. The BGV theorem shows that there are HUGE problems with infinite inflation, such that absolutely did not happen. Now, whether there was some pre-inflationary period or not is sheer speculation, and there is no motivation for thinking there was.
The theorem does show that the inflation cannot be infinite in the past. And he doesn't say that future findings will be unable to escape the absolute beginning; he says that all attempts thus far have failed.
Actually Craig almost always mentions the attempts that have been made to get around the absolute beginning (you should see the chapter that he and Sinclair wrote about all these attempts in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology!), he just finds them unsatisfactory for reasons that he explicates.
1:21:21- why is she laughing???? Is Arif's argument really that bad?
Yes. Arif is a total pillock.
For the record, neither Craig nor Williams defended Anselm's form of the argument. They were using something like Plantinga's Modal version of the argument.
Badly misplaced because of the specific points I mentioned about each available model. If you're only response is "I have more confidence in Carroll than in Craig", then there is nothing more to say. Time will tell, and I'm open to whatever.
[If a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is coming from non-being (as Craig asserts), then so are virtual particles.]
Craig never asserted that. He only asked for a reason why only universes should pop into being uncaused out of non-being. On the other hand, we KNOW virtual particles come from the quantum vacuum, not from non-being, so who is being inconsistent here ?
Craig did NOT say that any quantum theory that will come will fail to address this. He said that all attempts have only moved the question back a step, and that it is "unlikely" that any future attempt will succeed.
"Coming into being" is hardly a univocal term. While I agree and pointed out to you, that it is literally synonymous with creatio, there are two forms of creatio that you are attempting to equivocate. creatio ex materia has been observed to occur all the time, following all the laws of causality.
Sorry Ben I think comments got all mixed up earlier as I was using my mobile to make comments and the app had a few bugs in it. Now being updated.
does anyone know if that girl (white dress) left of the kilt man is Anna Popplewell (Susan from lion the witch and the wardrobe)?
Well, I shouldn't have made such a big deal about the philosophical points, when you were clearly more interested in Craig's use of BGV. It's just that I wanted to clarify that P2 isn't primarily based on the BGV, but on philosophical argument.
That being said, the BGV theorem does show that the inflationary period cannot be infinite in the past. It is a big step toward showing that the whole past is finite, since all we have on some "pre-Inflation" period is highly speculative.
Dr. Craig is absolutely right in saying that this a simply terrible, terrible, etiquette/sportsmanship on the atheist side in their waiting until the final round to attack the arguments so that Craig wouldn’t have a chance to respond and answer. That was a cheeky, slimy, little tactic; like the kind you would find on wallstreet. It’s like beating a man who’s in a wheelchair-sure you “won the fight”, but you didn’t “win the fight”.
Go back and watch his opening statement during his debate with Peter Millican. He says exactly that: regardless of what any quantum theory does to describe the physical condition of early universe, the BGV conclusion (that he erroneously states is a proof for an absolute beginning) will hold, because it's entirely independent of such results.
No, you are saying that causality is defined as a causer acting on something else to produce an effect. That is wrong. Causality does not require the "something else", it only requires two events related in such a way that one is the consequence of the other.
P2 of the KCA does not rely on the BGV theorem. Craig has been arguing for that premise since long before 2003. The primary proof of P2 is philosophical in nature (demonstrations that an actually infinite series of events is metaphysically impossible). Scientific advances that indicate a beginning are only a secondary support for P2. Moreover, Vilenkin's book still makes a strong argument for a beginning, and the quote that Craig uses is from that book. It is therefore in-context.
1. That problem exists when we're talking about causality with regard to the *concrete realm*. Again, Craig himself states that abstract objects can't cause anything. He feels the only option left is an unembodied mind (which has 0 evidence) that affected nothing.
2. That doesn't mean the issue of beginning to exist (on "did I always exist"?) isn't contingent on material stuff. Craig can be a dualist, but even in doing so, there's still the *material* process involved in "bringing into being."
I don’t know who that first guy was on the atheist side but honestly his opening marks were embarrassing.
Actually, you committed a reverse composition fallacy. If a broad concept implies a cause, it doesn't mean that anything particular about its subdivisions entails a cause. The broad concept of coming into being requires a cause, regardless of whether the subdivisions have a special entailment of a cause.
I don't insist that there actually are any other options, I'm just emphasizing how irrelevant such options would be.
1) Abstract objects can be effects (of each other), even if they can't cause anything in the concrete realm.
2) P1 of the KCA is not based on examples. TBS is making the same mistake you make.
3) Energy can begin to exist. The 1st Law of Thermodynamics only applies to closed systems already in place.
4) No one is talking about "affecting literally nothing" (an absurd phrase). I'm talking about the event of forming A, B, and C into Y being simultaneous with another event: Y beginning to exist.
They both state the issue of what came before inflation "doesn't have a satisfactory answer", "is very much up for grabs", and "we don't really know". And they're being honest. Whereas, Craig asserts their theorem has already shown there's an *absolute* beginning to the universe. Both men, in their paper, say otherwise. New, other physics and more work is required. An unknown in no way, shape, or form, consistutes a proof for an absolute beginning. And I think you know that too.
"Why special pleading?"
If a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is coming from non-being (as Craig asserts), then so are virtual particles. On the other hand, if a horse instantly popping into being right in front of you is not coming from non-being (because there was already matter/energy/space-time there before the horse appeared), then neither are virtual particles. I'm the one being consistent.
1. Yes and no. Quantum mechanics has forced us to think differently, with respect to classical logic.
2. In that clarification, he explicitly did say "we certainly cannot say this represents a beginning of space and time". Are you attempting to show that Vilenkin contradicted himself? Remember, I'm not saying Guth & Vilenkin haven't used the words "beginning" before, but rather that their paper (and opinions) don't reflect any such thing as a conclusive, absolute beginning.
Time "begins" there because we can't measure any further back in classical physics. But as cosmologist Sean Carroll points out: the theorem "starts with a classical spacetime - “classical” in the sense that it is a definite four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold, not necessarily one that obeys Einstein’s equation of general relativity... Most importantly, I don’t think that any result dealing with classical spacetimes can teach us anything definitive about the beginning of the universe."
Oh, I don't know. If they'd been using Anselm's argument, then the charges of using "existence" as a predicate would have been applicable. On Plantinga's version, this error is not made.
But who has jumped to an "unfounded assumption" in this discussion? Craig and Williams don't jump to any such assumptions or claims in this video.
The first debater has been watching WLC debates on You Tube.
2) Actually, you have not been asking me for an explanation of the mechanism. You have been stating that any causal relation needs an "affector" who causes it, pre-existing stuff to be affected, and the subsequent effect. I have shown that that is nonsense. All you need is two events x and y, such that y is the consequence of x.
3) I never said there actually was a third option; all I said was that "coming into being" means the same thing regardless of "materia", "nihilo", or any other option
On what grounds was it mistaken? That's the whole point. What makes one answer morally right and the other wrong? And how do we even know there IS right answer or a wrong one? It is moral intuition. Plain and simple.
Craig is referring to generic "coming into being". Even if there were some third option, besides ex-nihilo and ex-materia (and I'm not saying there is, but even if there were), his statements would apply to it as well. He appeals to our intuitions about "coming into being" in general, and argues that, if things could just pop into being uncaused from nothing, we'd have a very different world around us (one in which science could not function).
... Here, I'll illustrate it for you. Let's say that delusional statements, when written, had a particular form to them (a certain ordering of the predicates, verbs, nouns, or whatever). Let's say that all theistic statements also had that same form. That would not prove that the CONTENT of the sentence was incorrect. Indeed, ANY statement (including true, non-delusory ones) can be made with ANY word ordering you like (even the one that is characteristic of delusional statements).
I couldn't stop laughing at 1:24:33 when I believe Ahmed compared the necessity for a piece of music existing (or lack thereof) being in no way related to its greatness vs. God being a necessary being in order to create the entire universe as a sign of His greatness, that was such a bad comparison I almost laughed myself into an aneurism. Was he drunk? Do you have any idea the level of complexity and care that would have to go into creating an entire universe that is not only capable of producing complex life such as our own, but is morally sufficient enough to provide each and every individual within that universe with the ability to believe whatever they choose to believe and to go wherever they choose to go (heaven or hell) without ever impeding their freewill or allowing others to do so either? Of course not. God's necessity as the "most high" and transcendent Creator of the universe, the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, is most certainly entirely attributable to greatness beyond comprehension.
But of course no one will ever prove or disprove God's existence, because that would defy the very purpose of existence itself, which is to know God (i.e. True Love, 1st John 4:8), and to enjoy Him forever, because if either side ever forced the other side to believe what they believe, that would be forced intimacy in relation to personal identity, something that a God of love would never allow. Though we can attempt to persuade each other, we cannot ever prove our case, which is why God only reveals himself to those who are truly seeking Him, rather than those who are only claiming to seek Him while internally they are running from Him, Revelation 2:23 - "I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." Each and every person gets to choose what they believe, about God, about themselves, and about each other, and that will always be the case, until the end of this world, when the judgment comes, and the Truth is made known to all: i.e. What we have done, vs. what God has done. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love casts out fear, and perfect love is only found in Christ, and once his identity, his life, his death, as well as his burial and resurrection from the dead by the will of his Father (True Love itself) has finally been accepted, that infinite and eternal love is finally accessible to the person who accepts it. Without Christ, and without the glory of God being seen by the things that are made, so that we are without excuse, all of existence would be completely and utterly worthless. I cannot imagine how an existence which is made worth while by love could ever come into existence without love itself being the creative causal force that brought that existence into being, which to me is like saying I cannot imagine how 1 + 1 could equal anything other than 2. And yet over a third of the people in that room decided that I must be delusional in order to believe in God. That is frighteningly disappointing, especially considering the reputation and the caliber of the people purported to belong to such an establishment. But, there is still hope, a hope not found in doubt, but in faith, a faith that destroys the kind of doubt and unreasonable skepticism that eventually leads to intolerance and hatred, the kind of hope that moves mountains, that frees the captives, and that saves the children from living their lives without love, and his name is Jesus Christ.
"The constants can emerge at random"
But, as atheist physicist Steven Weinberg explained, its possible for one constant to be extraordinarily fine-tuned "at random", but to get all 30 simultaneously fine-tuned for life "at random" is completely implausible.
He says either there's an unknown physical law which makes them that way, or there must be a designer
1) That isn't analogous. The philosophical arguments in this case show an actual self-contradiction if an infinite series were to actually exist. You cannot have self-contradictions in reality. Therefore, science may tell us that there is no physical barrier against drawing a round square, but it remains logically impossible to do so.
2) Vilenkin "clarified" in an E-mail that he himself said wasn't indicate, and in which he said "read my book". Chapters 16 & 17 of that book support a beginning.
None of the arguments for God's existence are appeals to emotion. And the appeal at the end is not in favor of God's existence, but in favor of not calling people "deluded" for disagreeing with you.
I have listened to both of them on Closer to Truth, as well as Guth on "Cosmic Questions", where Guth explicitly states their find on Inflation has nothing to say about the issue of an "ultimate origin" of the universe, and that issue is "still very much up for grabs" in CtT. Vilenkin does posit a Platonic realm, but again, states all of this in speculation and also states that "there is still this question of what came before Inflation? Apparently I cannot give a satisfactory answer to that..."
Craig does not miss… If his arguments are not strawmanned he’s unbeatable.
Actually "Ex Materia" refers to the assertion that materials existed before God, and thus creation "came out of" materials which pre-existed God.
That's not what I meant. I said Craig never mentions the fact that the theorem he relies on so heavily for his P(2) of the KCA does not itself establish an absolute beginning - only a past-boundary to inflation. And I'm glad you, unlike Craig and most apologists, concede to more work needing to be done. But that admission means P(2) isn't an actual valid premise.
And interestingly enough, Vilenkin (in Many Worlds in One, pg. 181 I believe) argues against P(1) of the argument.
I feel the same way about WLC that some people feel about Baryshnikov.
Glad you agree. The issue then is, why bother appealing to it all, if more work needs to be done? And not just that, but Guth also states that the issue is inconclusive. You seem to want to insert a conclusion where Guth makes none, but remains open. And this was Craig's problem. And on Premise 1, Craig equivocates on "begins to exist", as he appeals to intuition (citing examples at the macrolevel) that have pre-existing material causes to them... whereas the universe, according to him, doesn't.
And Carroll's quote is something that Borde-Guth-Vilenkin's 2003 paper agree with, stating "inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary. This is the chief result of our paper."
Their theorem proves the moment of expansion had a beginning, not the universe/reality itself. Vilenkin thinks quantum tunneling from "nothing" brought about inflation, but it's speculation.
Necessary functions that are eternal and also caused the universe? A quantum behavior that is outside of time and space? Now if it's necessary, that sounds like something that has a purpose. And can something be the cause of itself?
I was referring to the Atheists *in this debate*. Their position in the debate entails a burden of proof. I'm not referring to the redefined form of Atheism that has become popular on the internet in the last few years that is supposedly a mere suspension of positive belief in God's existence. There is much to be said about that claim in itself, but I'm not going to say it here, because that's not what I was talking about.
1) No one is beginning with the claim "God's non-existence is impossible". This is DEDUCED from the Ontological Argument, based P1 being the default position (i.e. "it is possible that God exists" is the default position, as opposed to "it is impossible that God exists"). Then we deduce from His properties that if it is even possible for Him to exist, then He actually does exist. Again, reference the highest prime analogy and it will be clearer for you.
2) I've seen those interviews...
In the actual practice of deductive logic, however, the term is used to mean "having no contradictory entailments". It doesn't matter though, because "logically connected" works just fine. Calling X the "cause" of Y is just such a connection, and there is nothing logically incoherent about that.
And my response to that central position is:
1) P2 is based primarily on the philosophical arguments for the finitude of the past, and so would be valid regardless of current science.
2) Vilenkin has concluded that the Universe did have an absolute beginning (even if he's uncomfortable with the term), and he has been one of many cosmologists who have come to this conclusion, and have defeated all attempts thus far of averting that beginning.
The only models with any substantiation have Inflation as the beginning of time, and Guth and Vilenkin both refer to it this way. We're going in circles here, because I agree that Guth and Vilenkin use guarded language, but I disagree that the implication of their work isn't a beginning of the Universe via some unknown first cause.
There could be as many options as you can imagine, and it wouldn't change anything. Whether there are 2 or 100, Craig's first premise is totally unrelated to those options. It simply says that anything which comes into being (which I've given the explicit definition of) must have a cause, and he argues for that.
Not quite. As Guth pointed out: "While inflation does not go so far as to actually describe the ultimate origin of the universe, it does attempt to provide a theory of the [big] bang." He said this in the same article where he called the big bang "the beginning", but then expounded on why it's not really *the* beginning. And again, this issue of ultimate origins remains inconclusive, and more work in physics has to be done.