The Counter-Kalam Cosmological Argument

Psalm 19:1 states, "the heavens declare the glory of god..." If the creationist argument is that something cannot come from nothing, meaning that the universe must have been "created" then how does the universe reflect god's "eternal" nature? It seems to me that if god meant for the universe to reflect certain aspects of his nature then shouldn't it be without beginning or end, like himself? When we consider the harsh nature of the cosmos and the difficulty of life as we understand it, how does any of this reflect the glory or character of god? Unless we are to conclude that god does not care about life at all and only considers it an afterthought to everything else he "created".

You can debunk more easily by defining the terms:

Universe is defined as "everything" or "all things in a theistic perspective which poses a problem.

Premise 1 : Everything that begins to exist has a cause
-Commit the fallacy of black swan. You can't claim that everything or all things that begins to exist has a cause if you have no causation data of all things that began to exist.
-it is a circular argument since if you will replace the word "everything" with the "word" universe in premise 1 it will appear like this: Universe (Everything) that begins to exist has a cause. Premise 1 is premise 2 and 3 combined. Remember theist definition of universe is everything

Premise 2. The universe begins to exist
-this also commit fallacy of black swan since the universe is defined as "all things" or "everything". You can't claim that all things began to exist if you have no causation data of all things that began to exist. Especially all our observation is predicated only on the 5% observational data since those are things that emit and reflect light, the 95% which are dark matter and dark energy don't emit and reflect light. So we can't claim that all things (universe) began to exist if we only observed few 5% of things. That is far from a quarter.

So the Kalam is like this:

Everything ( universe) that begins to exist has a cause
The universe (everything) begins to exist
The universe ( everything) has a cause

Or

All things that begin to exist has a cause
All things begin to exist
All things have a cause

Or

Universe that begins to exist has a cause
The Universe begins to exist
The Universe has a cause

Or

Everything that begins to exist has a cause
Everything begins to exist
Everything has a cause

That is the problem if we will apply the definition of the universe in the argument.

(P1) Everything that is sentient has a cause.
(P2) The Abrahamic god is (said to be) sentient.
(C) Therefore the Abrahamic god has a cause.

dumb

Thumbs down for this nonsense.

And I call it nonsense because "QM and other theories in physics do allow for the spontaneous creation of universes out of nothing" This is exactly what Kalam's first argument says: universe came into existence because it was caused by laws which we describe as QM. So the question you could not ask is why laws of physics exist in the very first place? Why not total randomness, total chaos but an order we can beautifully express with very high level mathematical precision?

And there are not other theories in physics other than QM which allows randomness to a degree. You've made this embarrassing video because of your ignorance of laws or physics or your lack of required capacity for a deeper thinking.

Kalam Cosmological Argument is another scam used to sell books to unsuspecting gullible people. Everything that begins/ceases to exist has a cause, but the cause could be some unknown mindless laws of physics. There is no proof that this cause has the ability to think, plan, hold emotions, or have intentions. It's possible that multiverses have eternally and mindlessly been popping in and out of existence. No efficient intelligent creator would create a universe with 100s of billions of galaxies each with 100s of billions of planets so that a tiny planet earth can have humans evolve on it after 4 billion years.

Not that it probably matters, but I could just as easily follow P1 to P3 of your argument and conclude Pantheism (God is the Universe) and cut your argument off right there. P4 is unnecessary, and weakens your overall argument by only refuting the God of the KCA, not God as the Creator (or Prime Mover if you prefer Classicist terms). So, while this might be an effective Counter to the Kalam, were you to use this against me in a debate setting, I would simply turn it around and use it against you. So, in the end, your argument is a double-edged sword.

Very clear and concise. Thanks

Hi Underlings
Kalam Cosmologica Argument from QM(you mentioned in your video it does not require a cause):
1) there are no hidden variable in the quantum state.

2)No information can transfer faster than light

3)No interference(No observer - no information of a quantum state is known)

4)entangled particles always carry information correspondence to the choice of the observer.

5)Because of 4) another material agent determining the outcome of quantum event would only implies infinite regress. There must be non material agent causing such correspondence of information.

Conclusion: In order to avoid infinite regress on how physical reality is to become from a quantum state, the only reasonable conclusion is non-physical conscious mind which determine what is to become reality.

It is bullshit therefor god does not exist.

So far you failed to refute the first premise of the Kalam cosmological argument, essentially nothing is something, not nothing. Why believe something there is no evidence for, that is that something can come from nothing?

XD I can slightly twist this in saying that, since god is changeless, timeless, immaterial and so on, he is by definition nothing and since it is distinctly possible universes SOMEHOW come from nothing, therefore god, defined as nothing, did create the universe, but to be honest I don't understand that universe from nothing concept. Nor do I even know if it is accurate or possible since there are so many different ideas for how universes come to be. Some people even positing that the matter and energy that make up universes is in fact eternal, thus making universes in a sense eternal, even if their form is not static.

Actually, science does not say 'the universe began to exist.' It merely says that observational evidence is consistent with the universe having had all matter/energy in a very, very dense state about thirteen and a half billion years ago. It doesn't make claims about what happened before that.

God exists or not.

Not that it matters apparently.

There are two fundamental flaws that arise in most discussions about the beginning of The Universe.

The first flaw is in the definition of The Universe. In primary school we learn that The Universe is everything. But we have no good reason to believe it is more than just our little bubble of matter, energy, and physical properties, in an infinite reality that may contain infinite universes. That's a mistake of human-centric, simplistic thinking.

The second flaw is in the assertion that somehow there was a default state of nothingness at one time, and that at some point in the past that nothingness somehow became populated with matter, energy, and physical properties. Nothingness is a nice, human concept, but we have no reason to treat the default state of existence as being filled with nothingness any more than to assume that it was filled with infinite matter and energy, or something in between.

Existence, and The Universe as we know it is filled with something in between fullness and emptiness (as far as those simplistic human terms can take us), and we have no reason whatsoever to assume (other than the weak-minded human need to see existence in terms of our tiny personal experience of small-scale Newtonian physics) that the existence in which The Universe exists was ever, or will ever be, anything other than 'full' to the degree it is now.

Kalam really is just a huge fallacy. Why does the universe need a cause? Because we have never observed anything existing without a cause. Why doesnt God need a cause? Well because of a bunch of unjustified stuff im about to make up, oh and because he didnt "begin" to exist--well, how do you know that? More importantly, how CAN you know that? You cant. You cant just define your God into existence the moment observation becomes inconvenient.

Well, the claim that the universe began to exist is based on scientific observation: redshift, background radiation, age of stars/galaxies, etc. And causality is also based on such observation. Thus it is reasonable to say that based on everything we've observed, everything has a NATURAL cause. Granted, there is no evident cause for quantum particles or radiation releasing particles, but there's no reason to assume it's anything but natural.

I suppose you could say that. Except we have never actually observed something coming into existance. (except perhaps quantum mechanics). Or what do you mean by a natural cause exactly? Surely hurricanes and Tsunami's are caused by natural phenomenons, but he atoms they persist of themselves were not created when the hurricane was.

Thanks! Another good one: Everything that begins to exist has a NATURAL cause of its existence (based on everything we've ever observed), thus the universe most likely has a NATURAL cause of its existence.

Best counter argument I've ever heard. ty.

The Counter-Kalam Cosmological Argument

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