God exists as per the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA)

It isn't the same. In the case of the KCA there are things we don't know.In the case of the SPA premise 1 (everypoint on the planet has something north of it) is not an assumption with it's answer actually unknown. It is false by definition of "north". The North Pole is precisely the point that by definition has nothing "norther".In the case of the KCA both of the assumptions that begin the logic are not known to be true or false. That is why RCH's cut at it with replacing the supernatural part is just as useless as a proof of anything as his first formulation.

Actually, that whole bit wasn't about Stile's SPA, it was about Rueh's argument for natural causes. I agree with you though. Yep.

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I hunt for the truth

The premise that "everything has a cause" is known to be false, as Subbie demonstrated. Some things spontaneously form without any actual cause.

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Well, we'll see.

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Indeed.

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This is really nothing more than, "I believe it because I think it's so." Either that or, "I can't imagine it not being true."
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No not at all. And I described why. Its true because the principles of cause and effect are true. That is not an assumption but a fact. Premise two is correct because scientific theory tells us it is true, again not something I said , the prevailing scientific theory of cosmological origins said that. Your claims simply are not valid. I have covered everything I have said here several times and may not respond to anything I have covered more than twice, fair enough?

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Certainly simply making a declaration does not provide us with knowledge.

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Yes that is exactly what I said! Here my quote ; “If we are to declare, "That event happened just because it did", we are certainly not gaining knowledge of how the universe works!”

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(This is a curious statement for you to make since your entire argument is nothing more than a series of unsupported declarations, but there you are.)

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Every claim of mine is supported, and the argument in whole is a valid cosmological argument. Please get your facts straight. Or if you disagree just provide some examples (instead of making unsupported claims).

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However, if instead of simply declaring, we investigate and come to that conclusion based on the evidence, then we in fact have gained knowledge of how the universe works.

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Again; examples please? Any evidence of this fact?What do you want for evidence? Anyone in the field would tell you that. In fact most high school students would tell you that. Cosmology The Big Bang Theory: Famous Dissident Scientists on ...
Simple Solutions to the Problems of the 'Big Bang' Theory of Cosmology ... although the Big Bang remains by far the most widely accepted theory of cosmology. .... We support 'Fair Use' of these pages for Academic & Non Commercial use. ...
Cosmology: The Big Bang Theory: Famous Dissident Scientists on Problems of the Big Bang. Arp, Lerner, Mitchell, Haselhurst

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Even if true, science never decides truth by majority vote. And the fact that there are scientists who do not accept it is evidence that the truth of the matter cannot be established.

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I will take the theory that has empirical evidence any day. The BB has it the others don’t.SUBBIE WRITES (AND VIOLATES THE SPIRIT OF THIS DISCUSSION, AND THE GUIDELINES IE NEEDLING)I seriously doubt that this is something you understand yourself. I think it's more likely that you simply prefer to accept the math that supports your preferred belief. In any event, math supporting it doesn't really get very far. Math is only as accurate as the facts that it operates on. If the facts are wrong, the math will be, too.I will answer the rest of your post when you remove the derogatory comment. You have no way of determining my mathematical ability. I may have many doubts about your eduation etc but would not insult or puff you up by you by suggesting this or that.If there are other derogatory comments I would ask you to remove them as well. Your remark was borderline insult but I do not want to start down the slippery slope to rankle land.
Thanks in advance!;{/}>

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"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.""I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.""God is subtle but he is not malicious.""I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."Albert Einstein

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1...Anything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence

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Are you sure that this is true? How? Is it just "obvious"?

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I have already defended that premise, but its an observation. Please have a look at why this is a rational concept. Am I sure? As in 100%? Nothing is 100% certain, absoulty nothing.; {>

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"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.""I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.""God is subtle but he is not malicious.""I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."Albert Einstein

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I asked for evidence. You provided none. A curious refutation.

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Well lets be sure what we are talking about. What do you want evdience for? Please be specific.; }>Time for work (for an .05 hour or so to open the mail)...

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"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.""I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.""God is subtle but he is not malicious.""I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."Albert Einstein

You are using an extremely odd notion of cause, and also one which completely undermines your argument. Suppose I posit "The cause of the universe is the twin of the universe" and - bam - there's no reason to follow your argument to your desired conclusion.Also, I note you gave no response to your argument being based on the fallacy of composition? I don't need ten, or two, I need one. With just one example your premise is shot. You've presented a logical premise regarding all events; if just one event does not have a cause, your premise is false.As it happens we know of a great many examples of uncaused events (note, here, I use the normal definition of cause, not the bizarre notion you put forward above); quantum mechanics spits them out all over the place, and they go on all around us. Physicists do not look at time how you think they do. But let us accept that a cause need not be temporally prior to its effect, then your argument again crumbles. If causes do not need to be prior to their effects, then there is no reason to suppose that the cause of the universe is prior to it, and without a timeline to staple your argument to it fails because any cause can happen any time we do not need a cause outside of the universe. Maybe the universe caused itself?

You do a fine job getting in your own needling comments, e.g., this from Message 42: The police don't pull people over for going a few miles per hour over the limit. They don't have the time, it wouldn't contribute significantly to traffic safety, and it would raise a howl from the public.In the same way, moderators at EvC Forum don't have the time to moderate every slight, it wouldn't significantly improve debate, and it would annoy everyone so much the place would empty out.Discussion is like traffic. On the way to work everyday we all invariably get passed by people going over the limit, we get cut off, we see drivers who roll through stop signs or through right turn on red. It isn't personal, it's just the way people drive. Trust me, when the moderators here see people do the equivalent of going 100 mph or driving down the sidewalk, they'll definitely take action.My suggestion here is to just ask Subbie to explain where in his opinion you have gone wrong in applying the mathematics appropriately.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Really?Really?!?You think it's derogatory for someone to question your ability to understand an argument you are making in order to determine if you really understand the argument or are simply parroting something you heard somewhere else?Wow.I can think of two times here where someone questioned my credentials regarding an argument I was making. I responded by providing them. It's the fastest way to shut up someone raising the issue. You know what's not the fastest way to shut someone up? Pretend to be offended and ignore the issue.If you get offended every time someone asks, "How do you know?" you really need to stay away from internet fora.BTW, totally off topic, so feel free to ignore this completely.Go to many Twins games? The wife and I saw one last year, we vacation in the Great Smokies every year and last year made it to Elizabethton to take in a game. We live in Jackson.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Hello RCH, I agree it is an assumption. However, so is the initial argument. The argument assumes everything that begins has a cause. Vacuum density fluctuations would seem to be counterintuitive to this assumption. Though I will grant you that, quantum fluctuations may indeed have a cause that is merely unknown at this time. Not only that but, by re-wording your argument to include natural cause's all you have to do to prove it false is to provide one event that has a supernatural cause. A daunting task indeed, I believe.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

It may look like, or even be a rational concept, but that doesn't make it necessarily true. It has already been mentioned that quantum theory suggests that uncaused events are real possibilities. You may doubt this, but quantum theory is one of the best supported scientific theories we have, as the degree of precision to which observations agree with its predictions attests.But let's, for the sake of argument, assume you're right: your premise #1 is a rational concept. It's very strange then to see you dismiss a further qualified statement, namely that the cause is a natural one, as merely an assumption, whereas I would say it's an even more rational version of the original. The only alternative to a natural cause is a supernatural cause. So by dismissing the qualified statement as "failed", and at the same time upholding the unqualified original premise, you implicitly state that the cause is a supernatural one. So effectively, your syllogism combined with your subsequent apologetics commits the fallacy of begging the question.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

And herein lies the problem, you have not been answering anyones questions. You've been reiterating your premise; i.e.,Twice this 'answer' assumes its own correctness without support.

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The KCA being a valid cosmological argument relies of deductive reasoning.

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Until such time as you have established your premise entails the conclusion KCA can not be defined as valid. And that is one of the arguments; but not the one Hunter asked you about.

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If the argument is logically sound the argument demands that a 'cause' for the universe to begin to exist.

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suffers pretty much the same problem. Whether the argument is logically sound is in question; but not the one Hunter asked you about.

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It follows that this cause is atemporal ie outside time if not before time (for reasons given that is not an accurate statement).

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It follows from what? Nothing that you've said in the last few sentences. You seem to be confusing Ā⇒Ā with Ā⇒B. Though is does move (erroniously) toward Hunter's question. The problem is, it's not an answer. It's your premise.The question is: Do you have evidence of "out of time" being real rather then just words that can be put in a row?In Message 31 I read:

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While it may sound grossly counter intuitive to say that cause and effect does not require time, it is an accurate claim. Physicists do not look at time in the same way as most laypeople. In reality an egg should break as easily as it ”un-breaks’. Physical processes at the microscopic level are thought to be either entirely or mostly time symmetric, which means that the theoretical statements which describe them remain true if the direction of time is reversed. So cause and effect is not time dependent. With all due respect I don’t think you have supported your rebuttal very well.

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What's wrong with this as an answer?Do you think physicists haven't noticed that time only moves in one direction in reality? Doesn't that give you a clue that you might be misunderstanding something?Have you heard the tail about engineers once having pronounced that bumble bees, as designed, couldn't fly? Actually the engineers were pretty sure that bumble bees could fly. They used that insight to conclude that their model didn't apply to bumble bees."Use the insight, Luke. Use the insight." This is blubbering. Quantum fluctuations are observable fact. The Casimir effect is a direct result. If two plates are spaced closer together then the wave length of a virtual particle that particle can not be expressed between the plates. Those particles that "materialize" outside the plates causes a diffusion pressure that can be measured. The discovery or non-discovery of the Higgs has nothing to do with it.I think it goes without saying that erroneous information can't be considered an answer to anyones questions.To be fair to you, your English isn't too good so I might be misinterpreting much of what you're trying to say. I'd like to apologize if that is the case. We're all comrades together, right? Another false premise BTW. Most of us don't believe you have any evidence so it's kind of hard for us to tell you what that evidence should be. But as you have claimed to have evidence you should be able to let us in on it. I am, however, of he impression that you don't understand what the parameters of evidence entail, so will, in a spirit of chumminess, do what I can to assist you where I can.AbE: Just wanted to add this, which any high school student could tell you: By the time nanoceconds had passed by all the interesting bits about the big bang were ancient history. So you're wrong again fail!Edited by lyx2no, : No reason given.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

So because nothing uncaused has been observed to "begin" you conclude that nothing can "begin" that is uncaused*? Yes?(Ignoring for the moment that this may not actually be true) Have you ever observed anything that is eternal? Following the same logic you apply to your first premise above, is it rational to conclude that eternal things exist? Or not? Well we agree on that at least. But I am not interested in certainty. I am interested in the claimed rationality of your flawed conclusions.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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You are using an extremely odd notion of cause, and also one which completely undermines your argument. Suppose I posit "The cause of the universe is the twin of the universe" and - bam - there's no reason to follow your argument to your desired conclusion.

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Extremely odd yes wrong no!Anyway ~There is no twin universe virtual particles have twins. I will agree that it may involve a gray area because the particle is allowed to exist for a short time VIA Heisenberg's uncertainty principle while its twin suffers. Still its an accurate statement. This was a specific example, of course other quantum events would have other causes.

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Also, I note you gave no response to your argument being based on the fallacy of composition?

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I did answer but maybe you missed it. I don’t repeat answers after I have answered the question several times but maybe I misunderstand you. My argument does not qualify for a fallacy of composition. To begin with none of the premises have been shown to be incorrect. Yes there have been attempts but I haven’t seen any good rebuttal to any premise. So it’s a valid logic syllogism. Its three premises construct one valid conclusion.

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I don't need ten, or two, I need one. With just one example your premise is shot. You've presented a logical premise regarding all events; if just one event does not have a cause, your premise is false.

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It would substantiate your argument instead of scratching around for even one example to prove your case! This isn't my first rodeo of philosophical debate. Nevertheless was fairly confidant you couldn’t provide ten or five or even one. I was simply pointing out how unreasonable and irrational your claim is. No disrespect meant its simply a fact.

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As it happens we know of a great many examples of uncaused events (note, here, I use the normal definition of cause, not the bizarre notion you put forward above); quantum mechanics spits them out all over the place, and they go on all around us.

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Every quantum event has a cause for the event. So name one that is spat out! I will show why your logic is faulty. I notice that you did not name any only bluster and claim that you know of some.

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Physicists do not look at time how you think they do

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Tell me how do I think that Physicists look at time?.

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But let us accept that a cause need not be temporally prior to its effect, then your argument again crumbles. If causes do not need to be prior to their effects, then there is no reason to suppose that the cause of the universe is prior to it,

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Whoa there I see fallacy after fallacy! We arrive that the universe has a cause by a valid deductive argument. Need I keep going over this?

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and without a timeline to staple your argument to it fails because any cause can happen any time we do not need a cause outside of the universe. Maybe the universe caused itself?

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No all wrong. You might ought to Google the arrow of time. While time does have an arrow in the temporal universe it isn’t required to! Where cause and effect not being effected by time helps me is before/outside the Big Bang, when the cause caused the universe to begin to exist.; {>MESSAGE. HOW MANY PEOPLE AM I RESPONDING TO NOW? I MAY HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE PERSON OR TWO MAX TO DEBATE. ITS TOO MUCH OF A WORK LOAD TO RESPOND TO FOUR OR FIVE OR MORE PEOPLE. ITS EASY FOR YOU GUYS YOU ONLY HAVE ME TO RESPOND TO.BE THINKING ABOUT PICKING A SECULAR WARRIOR FOR YOUR GROUP. I DON'T KNOW ANYONE ON THE PROFESSIONAL DEBATE CIRCUIT THAT DEBATES FOR OR MORE ON ONE!;{>

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"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.""I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.""God is subtle but he is not malicious.""I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."Albert Einstein

THE ADMIN WRITES

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RevCrossHunger writes:

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SUBBIE WRITES (AND VIOLATES THE SPIRIT OF THIS DISCUSSION, AND THE GUIDELINES IE NEEDLING)

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You do a fine job getting in your own needling comments, e.g., this from Message 42:

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He said himself it was laughable I agreed. However I did not intend it as an insult. I will delete change or take what ever action to fix the problem. This was all I asked him to do. Thanks for your consideration.; {? Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.

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"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.""I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.""God is subtle but he is not malicious.""I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."Albert Einstein