MeThinks - 12 July 2009 12:06 PM

What brought about the universe?

Is that all you wanted? I was afraid you were asking to borrow money.

Your three statements are fine as long as you don’t inflate the word “cause”. I think any good “natural” philosopher would take a wait and see posture on your question. The good news is that we’ve stopped asking people in pointy hats and started examining Hubble data. I suspect that if we ever do find the answer, it will be after the question has evolved beyond our recognition.

What you have here is the Kalam Cosmological argument… there is tons of literature out there on it.  Its one of the most widely debated arguments of all time.

Its William Lane Craig’s (theologian/philosopher of some renown) staple argument.  In every one of his debates (where the existence of God is the core question), he will invariably use the Kalam.  You can find dozens of his debates online, on youtube and the like… though he is a good debater, and often his opponents do poorly against him.  On the other hand, many do quite well, and diminish the Kalam skillfully.

There’s also tons of articles, rebuttals, rebuttals to rebuttals etc over at infidels.org: just search for Kalam.

This blog also has a good series of posts on the Kalam… and the exchanges in the comments are very interesting: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?cat=28

I think in the end, the Kalam is somewhat defensible.  That is, one can probably prevent it from being dismissed as a possibility… but thats about all.  When you get neck deep into reading the rebuttals and counter-rebuttals etc, you will find that this argument relies on heaps and heaps of hidden assumptions and highly speculative cosmology… stuff that’s not obvious when just examining it shallowly, from the outside.  In the end though, I don’t think you can give it anymore weight than any other extremely tentative, highly speculative physics theory.

how does one proceed from the kalam to christianity?

I guess I could get his book, but somehow I doubt its worth the disappointment.

Matthew_F - 28 July 2009 08:08 AM

how does one proceed from the kalam to christianity?

I guess I could get his book, but somehow I doubt its worth the disappointment.

The Kalam is how they try to establish a personal creator (do note that the argument in the OP was just the first part of it).  In other words, it gets you to theism (or is supposed to). 

There are a bunch of ways Christians will try to move to Christianity from theism, but I’ll just talk about what I see Craig do, since he so frequently relies on the Kalam.

Craig likes to use historical arguments to traverse from theism to Christianity.  From what I have seen he focuses on the resurrection.  He seems to assume that the gospels are mostly trustworthy accounts in mundane matters, and tries to argue that the resurrection is the most plausible explanation for those things.  He likes to claim that Christianity was an impossible paradigm shift from Judaism at the time, and that the gospel authors wouldn’t have reported that women found the empty tomb, if they expected the sexist men at the time to believe the story, etc.

He also likes to appeal to personal experience…  “If accept Jesus into your heart, you will just be able to know that Christianity is true, etc”.

Ok, say I grant Kalam as true.

One way to disprove the improbable history line of argument is to show that human beings are naturally inclined to believe in the supernatural. Combine this fact with evolution and it’s easy to see Christianity is erroneous. God was intelligently designed to fit human needs not the other way around. The very large range of god belief points towards human beings having a very poor understanding of God, ie justified agnosticism. Which is the strongest position without ontology and epistemology, which god doesn’t offer anyway.

But why present a scientific position to someone who usually doesn’t care about math and empirical research? Should one instead point out other confounding prophesy?

Also, so many bible conundrums.

Why doesn’t God identify Jesus through his fingerprints all the while mentioning how unique fingerprints are in the bible? How can we tell God designed the cosmological constant when he doesn’t have the foresight to record the most important story in existence until a generation after God died? God is outside time but doesn’t behave this way in practice.

Right, I know, you aren’t the theist. But why doesn’t this line of questioning ever work with seasoned debaters? Positive evidence of God’s non-existence is found in the absence of evidence, in the gaps. The reason why debates go on and on is that people are inclined to believe such things.  What is bizarre is how imperfect and human stamped the bible is given its assumed importance.

Matthew_F - 28 July 2009 04:29 PM

Ok, say I grant Kalam as true.

One way to disprove the improbable history line of argument is to show that human beings are naturally inclined to believe in the supernatural. Combine this fact with evolution and it’s easy to see Christianity is erroneous. God was intelligently designed to fit human needs not the other way around. The very large range of god belief points towards human beings having a very poor understanding of God, ie justified agnosticism. Which is the strongest position without ontology and epistemology, which god doesn’t offer anyway.

But why present a scientific position to someone who usually doesn’t care about math and empirical research? Should one instead point out other confounding prophesy?

Also, so many bible conundrums.

Why doesn’t God identify Jesus through his fingerprints all the while mentioning how unique fingerprints are in the bible? How can we tell God designed the cosmological constant when he doesn’t have the foresight to record the most important story in existence until a generation after God died? God is outside time but doesn’t behave this way in practice.

You’re right, I don’t think the Kalam, or the other arguments are very rationally persuasive.. especially not someone who has an appropriately skeptical worldview.

But they do allow the Christian to flirt with reason enough to make them feel pretty justified in their beliefs, as if they have some good explanatory theories that support them… the arguments are probably more about defense, than offense.  But I think you are right.. our flawed pattern seeking hardware - which constantly steers our intuitions toward agency, design, and intent - is what really gives the theist a home-court advantage.  The theist is comforted - cracks in the dam mended - by nice, intelligent sounding, reason-mimicking arguments that tell them their suspect intuitions and personal biases are all true.

Their arguments cannot really do the trick for someone with a rigorous epistemology.  So that can be the response to the Kalam…. you can say its an interesting hypothesis… but why should you believe its conclusion (especially with the commitment that Christian theism demands) any more than you should believe in and live according to string theory, brane theory, or any of the multiverse theories?  Answer:  You shouldn’t.  The Kalam depends on piles of extremely uncertain cosmological claims.  Claims that are unverifiable by any known means, by anything other than a philosopher’s best guess.

Right, I know, you aren’t the theist. But why doesn’t this line of questioning ever work with seasoned debaters? Positive evidence of God’s non-existence is found in the absence of evidence, in the gaps. The reason why debates go on and on is that people are inclined to believe such things.  What is bizarre is how imperfect and human stamped the bible is given its assumed importance.

Well, debating live is hard… and when it comes to Craig, he is simply a very seasoned debater…. its an art he has mastered.  Its really as simple as that.

Well, I doubt rationally convincing atheists is his art. Is that what atheistic debators do also? I also doubt it.

Christianity has a gaping hole. The world is flawed yet fixable (not perfectible). But Christians are threatened by science and engineering. To go from “god exists” where god means something traditional to Jesus is pretty absurd while scientists and engineers learn how to fix the “design.”

It would be easier to see if nature wasn’t so damned brilliant at fooling people into thinking this was designed. It’s easy to see if one has a higher purpose. But atheism doesn’t lend itself to that. Atheism is far too much like chrisianity: both philosophies (as practiced today) imply apathy and/or disdain towards life extension and human enhancement. I can see why theists doubt the “progress” of science, but why would many atheists?

There simply isn’t any reason why a higher can’t exist. It’s just that it doesn’t.

edit: I of course realize atheism isn’t a philosophy. I am just saying that most atheists think there isn’t any reason to be optimistic or support research that fixes this damned planet and human nature.

Maybe just not having a logical, evidenced-based answer is answer enough to this question AT this point in time.  Unfortunately, that’s a tough pill for my ego to swallow.  Copernicus reborn or the singularity will happen and we may know then.

The singularity is a distant possibility, though not impossible. It’s easy to be a believer in the singularity much like christians have faith in god.

The kalam might be true.. I just don’t understand why it matters. The world and human nature is still crap.

Matthew_F - 29 July 2009 06:41 AM

The singularity is a distant possibility, though not impossible. It’s easy to be a believer in the singularity much like christians have faith in god.

The kalam might be true.. I just don’t understand why it matters. The world and human nature is still crap.

The existence (or non-existence) of a theistic God would very probably have some pretty major implications to consider regarding our lives and the universe… theists certainly think so, and many atheists do as well… I don’t see why you think it doesnt matter… seems to me it matters a great deal.

So apparently, because the world and human nature arent where you’d like them to be,  none of it matters?  Sorry, I don’t get it.

Anyone else notice that the OP was a drive-by?

No contribution to the discussion at all.

Jefe - 29 July 2009 09:24 AM

Anyone else notice that the OP was a drive-by?

No contribution to the discussion at all.

I think sometimes the less contemplative come into an idea by which they’re profoundly impressed, and aren’t prepared for the fact that more inquisitive types have been there and done that, and, based upon a far more rigorous analysis, are far less impressed. I suspect when such a person sees what we do with the point he or she has championed that person likely feels compelled toward a more cautious and quiet posture.

At least I think that likely describes some cases ...
Byron

SkepticX - 29 July 2009 11:08 AM

Jefe - 29 July 2009 09:24 AM

Anyone else notice that the OP was a drive-by?

No contribution to the discussion at all.

I think sometimes the less contemplative come into an idea by which they’re profoundly impressed, and aren’t prepared for the fact that more inquisitive types have been there and done that, and, based upon a far more rigorous analysis, are far less impressed. I suspect when such a person sees what we do with the point he or she has championed that person likely feels compelled toward a more cautious and quiet posture.

At least I think that likely describes some cases ...
Byron

Did you just call me a loud-mouth? 

oh, no Drjones. That wasn’t put together clearly. I mean simply this. Imagine the Kalam is true. What is the significance? The world still sux. God still doesn’t do anything important (or anything at all apparently) so who cares.

Didn’t mean i didn’t care, just the opposite. I am pointing out that this is still faith based position. Much like the belief in singularity is a faith based position. The faith comes in where the outcome is positive rather than neutral or negative. I couldn’t vote against greater than human intelligence.

MeThinks - 12 July 2009 12:06 PM

How does the Naturalist deal with this issue?

The argument seems to suffer from the same flaw as the one below:

Every point on the surface of the Earth is south of some other point on the surface of the Earth.
The north pole is a point on the surface of the earth.
Therefore, the north pole is south of some other point on the surface of the Earth.