End of the End of the Kalam? (feat. Matt Dillahunty) (William Lane Craig response)
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- A popular atheist declares the end of the Kalam. Dr. Craig has a response. And that atheist, Matt Dillahunty, joins me for a response to that response.
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Funny he won't debate Matt but is happy to rebut him when Matt's not there to defend himself. Thanks Paulogia for giving Matt a voice against Craig.
Matt would clean his plate. That's the real reason.
Even in his prime, I coulda demolished Mike Tyson as long as he wasn’t in the ring.
Well… if he wasn’t in the arena
….
State
WLC should never lower himself to someone at Matt Levels. I have seen children out debate matt. Matt's a joke.
@@ceceroxy2227 stay mad troll.
@@lestern71 I am as mad a bullfrog with no shoes.
I do love the argument "more people have disagreed with me than anyone else in recent history therefore I must be right"
also not close to being true. Most people have never even heard of him.
Even in Apologetics there are others that get laughed out of the room more often than WLC. Just look at Lee Strobel or Frank Turek.... or (i can understand if you'd rather not look at anything he did) the worst detective in history, Jay Warner Wallace. But obviously WLCs Ego is bigger than his familiarity with debunkings of bottomcreeping apologists...
@@scambammer6102 "Most people have never heard of him"
AND
"more people have disagreed with him than (with) anyone else in recent history"
Are independent.
It is perfectly possible that only 5 people have heard of him, all 5 have disagreed with him and there isn't anyone in the world with whom more than two people have disagreed.
@@oscargr_ While true that they are independant, the fact that most people have never heard of him greatly reduces the pool of people who can potentially disagree with therefore greatly reducing the probability that "more people have disagreed with him than with anyone else in recent history". (Also, I would need some precisions with "recent")
@@Tyranastrasza The pool of people whom many people have heard of... is also very small.
Edit, almost nobody has heard of either me or you.... That effectively takes us out of the pool of people with whom more people can have disagreed.
I'm always kind of surprised at how definite philosophers can be about non-philosophical arguments. I have a degree in philosophy, but I wouldn't presume to use that degree to explain nuclear physics or biological evolution or even literary theory because even in the case of the more closely related field of literary theory, they're STILL DIFFERENT THINGS.
Its pretty common to see educated people speak about things they know nothing about. Knowledge in one field can produce over confident ignorance in others. Its stereotypically common with engineers.
I have a degree in neither philosophy nor any of the sciences. When I hear them kind of arguments, my thought is often, 'Cool hypothesis; what have you done to confirm it?'
@@robertwrigley6950 yes, exactly. Arguments are not valid without the evidence to back them up.
Craig isn't really a philosopher, though. He's a theologian who specializes in the philosophy of religion. His degree in philosophy from the UK was a 'philosophical' discussion of a theological subject.
@@stueyapstuey4235 My starting assumption is anyone who uses the title 'Doctor' and is neither a medical professional nor a science PHD is full of shit.
This assumption seldom proves false.
I own a car.
My car shares many of the qualities of a Blue 1967 Ford Mustang.
Therefore my car is a Blue 1967 Ford Mustang.
... is a better argument than Craig's twisted version of the Kalam, and it's still wrong.
Even better one.
P1) I own a car.
P2) All cars have engines.
C) My car has an engine, and therefore can compete in NASCAR.
He's completely missing a huge chunk of the fucking argument because he wants to jam HIS interpretation of a "cause" into the argument.
@@Cross_Malaki . I think you can go further, like airplanes have engines, therefore my car can fly.
Except blue 1967 Ford mustang exits and can be verified. Where exactly is this timeless, spaceless, personal bla bla bla.... to compare the "cause" to?
@@justanormalday7251 Which is why I say my argument is better, even though it's still a terrible argument. My car could actually be a blue 1967 Ford Mustang, because such cars exist and we can verify their existence.
My car is red.
@@ziploc2000 I was agreeing with you with my comment.
I am going with the Universe Farting Pixies that Matt Dillahunty has previously suggested started our universe.
I'm going with Universe sneezing fairies 🧚 💥✨
Especially as the fairies at the bottom of my garden assure me that I am beautiful, clever, and still a pristine virgin 🧚🌻🧚🏵️🧚💮🧚🙆🏼♀️💁🏼♀️
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 Reminds me that another student once told me that (in their uni math lecture) they had spent about half a semester (accidentally) proving theorems about the elements of the empty set (because they got their starting definitions wrong). Every theorem about the elements of the empty set is true - there isn't a single element for which they are false, no matter what they say!
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 Meh, I never understood this obsession with virginity... Some good experience is so much more appealing 😋
@@mcwolf1096 it's a joke based of the Sir Sic's expression about being handsome, famous, and good at the sex.
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 Ah, okay, I might have missed that bit (having listened to this while doing some other stuff 🙃)
About 29 minutes in, Craig pats himself so hard on the back that he nearly explodes with smug self-satisfaction. He exemplifies "being famous for being famous".
The Kalam is a fallacious argument - specifically, proponents of the argument commit the fallacy of composition.
The fallacy states that it is impermissible to infer that something is true of the whole simply because is it true for some part (or even every part) of the whole.
When the Kalam states that “everything which begins to exist has a cause,” the argument must be referring to things WITHIN the universe (parts of the universe) because, as of right now, we have no access to anything outside our local universe. Specifically, it is referring to macroscopic patterns of cause and effect which describe TRANSITIONS of matter and energy that we observe WITHIN the universe. The Kalam then goes on to assert that “the universe began to exist,” and wishes to conclude that therefore, the “universe must have a cause for its existence.” But the origin of the universe itself is NOT merely a transition of matter and energy within the universe, it is the supposed inception of space-time, matter, and energy from some state of affairs OUTSIDE the universe (the whole). By observing patterns of cause and effect, regarding transitions of matter and energy WITHIN the universe, and then drawing the inference that those patterns must necessarily apply to the inception of the universe itself - an event OUTSIDE the universe - the Kalam clearly commits the fallacy of composition.
Logic demands the removal of this fallacious inference, and upon its removal, the conclusion of the Kalam becomes nothing more than an un-evidenced assertion. This is because the Kalam contains no independent premise to establish that things OUTSIDE the universe require causes, and even if the argument did contain such a premise, we have absolutely no evidence to support such an assertion because we have no access to anything outside our universe. As the universe must have begun from some state of affairs outside itself, such a premise, and the evidence to warrant its acceptance, is required when the second premise cannot rely on the fallacious inference from the first premise in order to arrive at the proposed conclusion.
Yes, the Kalam really ought be dead.
My ancestors soundly rejected all religion and helped found a secular United States of America NOT a christian country...
Kalam falls apart with it's very first word: "everything".
If by "everything" Craig means "all things that actually do/can exist", then the first premise is untenable because humans are not aware of everything that does or can actually exist. Thus the first premise cannot be deemed true.
If by "everything" Craig means "all things that we know to exist", then the first premise is untenable because that does not take into account things that do exist but who's existence humans are unware of. Thus the first premise cannot be deemed true.
On a related note, I wounder if Craig and his ilk think that "causality" began to exist?
I know I'm late to the party, but you should do a video with Dr. Arif Ahmed (philosopher featured at 22:30.) He's been an outspoken critic of religion for many years
love the analogy of a court case. I've thought of that myself and I always think, dude you're evidence is so weak it wouldn't even get past the bare minimum of what you need to proceed, let alone win. It's a bummer that these people are SO confident though, but damned if that confirmation bias isn't strong!
Just ask them, “How long was god doing nothing before he decided to create everything?”
being omniscient, god would know that he would change his mind at some point. (mind blown).
I don't understand how Craig believes a mind can be timeless. Consciousness, as we are aware of it, is defined by a temporal series of experiences. If you are not conscious, it generally feels like time was not experienced at all, such as anaesthesia. In order to justify a decision being made, a mind must be in one state that causally precedes another state, and this is only evident in temporally and physically constrained beings.
I first encountered the Kalam in high-school. I worked to see if I could find it convincing, and it failed. Didn't become an atheist for 20 years after that, but even when I wanted it to be sound, I couldn't be convinced.
When listening to apologist always listen for appeals to emotion, it's written on our heart, and false dichotomies, it can only be one of these two things. See if you can find in any of their arguments that they don't do one or both of these tactics.
It is not dismissive to refer to someone as an apologist, if that's what they are. If you seek to defend your beliefs, rather than seeking what is true, you are an apologist.
If something can't come from nothing, what did god make the universe FROM? If God is the only eternal thing, the causer of all effects, where did he get the stuff he made the universe from?
"He's attempting to dismiss these people in a very condescending way. I think our listeners know this is just bluster."
-Matt Dil... wait no, WLC said this?! BAHAHAHA! Oh, the projection!
Apologists are uniquely unable to accept peer review, even from one another. "If they think my argument is bad, they must not have read enough of my work." is a dead giveaway that your mind is an island, impenetrable to any idea that did not originate there.
This Kalam argument might be amusing in medieval times, but today it is obsolete. The first premise: "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." has just been taken for granted, without any evidence. Is this first premise really the correct description of reality, or do we just perceive it that way? We already know, from physics, that what we experience as humans is not actually how the Universe works. Who is to say the same thing does not apply to "causality"? Until we demonstrate, without a doubt, that everything that begins to exist must have a cause, this argument is not valid.
Problem is that the Kalam cosmological argument started dead and buried, and Billy keeps digging it up and propping it up on a stick.
To follow up on Matt's statement the argument also does not give us an uncaused cause.
William Lane Craig was recently arrested for abusing a corpse, beating a dead horse is illegal in most states, the court has to decide if he loves this horse or hates it, intent is crucial. What does the audience think?
Dat Millahunty's da bomb, lol (I STILL say we need a Matt plushie) lol.
1 I reject both premises
2 I therefore reject the conclusion
3 In any case, the conclusion has nothing to do with any god
And to base any non-syllogistic argument on this syllogism is dishonest attempt to make it sound more logical than it is.
Great argument bud, all you have to do is say I reject the argument, well I reject your rejection. Kalam is successful
@@ceceroxy2227 Not how logic works.
@@goldenalt3166 thats what the first guy did. Not sure you really are using the word logic in its proper context.
@@ceceroxy2227 Rejecting a premise does make an argument unsound. Not rejecting the premise does not make it sound. So negating the negation doesn't work.
Craig being dishonest, manipulative and deceptive?? Nahhhhh! 😂
No, he would never do that. Right?😂
Craig is engaging in post-hoc rationalization, the Kalaam doesn't mention a god then he post-hocs his god after the argument. Then the argument still has all of the problems with special pleading, etc. Amazing he's been able to construct an apologist career on this.
Craig creates excellent word salad for an audience that is largely unprepared to parse what he's saying or think critically about it even when they have. Boom. Successful apologist.
@@adamchristensen8566 Shapiro and Peterson, Hovind and others come to mind.
@@adamchristensen8566 Couldn't have put it better myself. To be fair. Their are plenty of atheists who fall into the category of "largely unprepared to parse what he's saying or think critically" That used to be me. But I put alot more effort into it since I realized I'm quite dumb generally. lol
He doesn't have to convince atheists, he just has to persuade Christians that the game's not over (which it is).
@@kenbrunet6120 That's the difference between these apologists and those of us living in the real world; we can admit that we don't know everything and actually put forth the effort to better learn and understand.
As I like to say:
"The Kalam is Special Pleading, with Extra Steps."
Im stealing this one. Thanks.
Hmm… The Kalam proper is, in fact, only cosmological and not theological. WLC uses extra steps to try to tie in a personal god and _calls_ it (with the extra steps) the Kalam, but it is not.
So, you might want to say: “William Lane Craig’s misrepresentation of the Kalam is Special Pleading, with Extra Steps.”
Yeah, I’m a little pedantic, but if you don’t give an inch, they can still take a mile, but you have more clear justification when you call them on it.
It's not special pleading not really if you say the universe itself had no begging your kind of saying the universe caused itself but for it to do that it must have existed prior to it to cause it before it began and also although this argument doesn't argue for an active principle i will have to ask why is the universe so intelligently designed? in before reeeeeee mu-h entropy or look at all the cosmic death none of this points towards design well tell me why do things in nature tend to self assemble themselves to form substructures? similar to RNA which then eventually leads to DNA if there was no design that wouldn't happen naturally if there was no active principle evolution wouldn't be possible naturally because the amount of change over such a long period of time is still infinitely unlikely to produce life.
And if there is an active principle for the sake of the argument then we can say nature itself is goal orientated and intelligent similarly there are tons of things in the universe that can go wrong at any moment but they still aren't this too would be explained rationally by an active principle this is not the conceptualization of a jeduo Christian god this god the god I'm arguing for isn't personal.
In my world view there is no heaven or hell there are infinite universes and the hell equivalent is reincarnation through bad karma for every bit of rape you do that will be returned to you in another life of course the idea that God needs prayers is an insult as Xenophanes says god is wholly unlike us we are imperfect thoughts in gods mind off course however our purpose according to the Hindu tradition is to achieve moksha i've interpreted that to mean the ideal purpose for every 1 is to reach the platonic world of the ideal forms eventually so that we may become at the very least the platonic perfect of our selves.
In my world view, 2 realms exist.
1 The platonic world of ideals (Here all the gods which are really just idealized versions of emotions are formed and also the ideal version of you.
2 Physical reality which is here and now this universe and all the multiverse.
God exists in his own realm cause we all live in gods mind so for god to have a mind that implies there is something outside his mind so I don't know what to call it but I call it the platonic world of the perfect infinite.
It's a long rambling but my worldview makes more consistent sense than other forms of religion
WLC: “I think it is _offensive_ that he calls us apologists. A term that has been used for defenders of faith for centuries!”
they call themselves that lol
Only an apologist can call another apologist, apologist?
@@outhousephilosophies3992 No true apologist? ;)
I called myself an apologist, and I am *sorry* I did that.
The religious rarely make sense. For I don't know how long christians have called that pastors, shepherds and their congregations, a flock. 'The shepherd tending his flock' is a common saying for a pastor leading their congregation. A shepherds is one of the oldest occupations, a sheep herder. For at lest hundreds of years christians have been proudly calling themselves sheep. Yet now christian try to paint others as blindly following others by mockingly calling them sheep?
They proudly call themselves sheep, and try to call others sheep as an insult.
They proudly call themselves apologists, and now they want to pretend that others calling them apologists in an insult?
"the Kalam is an attractive argument because it is modest in that it doesn't argue also for the moral properties of god"
Spoken like a true apologist, and a demagogue.
The purpose of apologetics is not truth finding, but finding convincing/attractive arguments (for a preconceived conclusion)
Literal sophism
He's right, of course. It doesn't argue for the moral properties of a god.
It also doesn't argue FOR A GOD
they don't argue for the moral properties of god, those get smuggled in later alongside all the other yahweh baggage
@@FighterDoken 😲
@@FighterDoken Yes it does. Or rather Billy Boy and his sycophants exclusively use it to argue for their specific brand of a sky faerie.
The Kalam has been a zombie for a long time. I think it's going to keep shambling for a while yet.
yep. mostly because the believers are desperate for auguments to throw on the table for their opponents to have to unravel. its a numbers game for them. and craig has admitted it in many conversations. classic gish galloping
Still many theists cite Kalam and similar arguments as support for their belief. They often refer to it as Thomism, after Thomas Aquinas, who included a version of the Kalam (and not much else) in his Five Proofs for the existence of god.
Isn’t rejecting Matt because he’s not an academic simply a version of appealing to authority?
I'd say it's rather an attempt to dismiss an argument by appealing to characteristics of its' author, which is obviously fallacious
Dude got wrecked by Dr. Carroll who has a degree, but doesn't debate regularly. Matt is confrontational and debates professionally. Craig isn't dismissing an argument because he looks down on Matt for not having a relevant terminal degree. He doesn't want the mitts.
More like an ad hom. He doesn't need to respond to Matt's position because of who Matt is.
If you take it at face value, yes. But that's not why Craig refuses to debate Matt...
Craig is scared.
The biggest problem with Craig basically rejecting Matt because he's not an academic is like rejecting a person's artwork because they didn't go to art School. Philosophy isn't like biology where there are concrete answers so I very much disagree with the idea that you have to go to a university to be able to speak on philosophy just like how you don't have to go to a university to make artwork
I would like to summarise in lay terms:
“If we accept the Kalam cosmological argument is bunk, I am out of a job ... and won’t get to say ‘preposterous’ as often.”.....
.....”and buy my book.”.....
......”because the world revolves around me - I’m so smart.”
You keep saying that word. I don't think it meas what you think it means.
@@zoranocokoljic8927 you’re right .me using it is absurd.
What I’ve learnt from Dr Craig is impact words, intonation and presentation are more important than the strength of the argument.
I am so smart...S-M-R-T...S-M-R-T...
@@liarspeaksthetruth 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Doh!
Same as WLC's moral argument: if there is no god, there would not be objective morality. I am sad if there is no objective morality, therefore... God?
He never has any reason why something might be objectively good or evil, it's just 'well, I wouldn't like that world'
I think because we’ve all been exposed to WLC so often in the internet apologetics discourse, we’ve been desensitized. It struck me watching this video just how pompous the man truly is in almost every way - his arguments, his use of a constant condescending “teaching voice,” his refusal and inconsistency on whom he will engage with in debate (saying “not anyone without a terminal degree”), the list goes on. Whenever I hear him talk, I envision him sitting on a very high horse and talking about how he is the “very model of a modern major philosopher.”
If my ego ever gets this bloated, please grab a pin and pop it. 📌 🎈💥
I've wondered whether Craig's voice actually sounds like this in normal conversation or if he's actively tries to sound extra-annoying and condescending when he's debating...
@@joshlipay9713 it’s the same thing as the extra-earnest preacher voice. It just sounds contrived to me, but some people assume these contrived voices after many years of using them. They become second nature to them.
thinking from a neutral perspective or other perspectives that inst your own helps you out so you dont get "desensitized" from your own or others
For me, the most annoying thing about Craig is the way of he uses a condescending tone and a baffled expression to dismiss any idea he knows he can’t rebuttal. He definitely has the most annoying voice in the apologetics circuit.
It must be said that WLC's degrees have not been of much use to his career as an apologist. He is horrendously ineffectual at crafting concise, informed and cohesive arguments. He is also notably sloppy in his use of language, a deficit he masks with amateur theatrics and rhetorical sleights of hand.
I'm sure he struggles with concrete tasks such as grocery shopping or assembling IKEA furniture, but he might best pursue such ventures, in the hope of becoming connected to the world that is, and even contributing something of worth to society.
As it stands, he is, currently, utterly useless, superficial and needy, a cocooned coward who refuses to engage the world.
WLC believes an "unembodied mind" is possible, because he begins with the tacit assumption that God exists, and is an "unembodied mind". I've said it before, in every argument for God's existence, premise zero is "God exists".
premise minus infinity is "unembodied mind." By definition that can't exist. The brain is a biological organism within a body, and there is no "mind" without a brain.
Yeah, exactly. Every argument for god when stripped bare of all the fluff just consists of “god exists”.
As Pinecreek rightly observes the purpose of the arguments for god is not to provide evidence for god to non believers, rather it’s to reassure believers that they are not stupid for believing something without evidence.
In all fairness, classical logic is non-ampliative.
not just unembodied minds, but unembodied minds that can will things to happen!
As I mentioned before: He does not want that intelligence is material aka active, healthy brain architecture that evolved long after planets formed, cells developed and also long after multicells evolved. In his idea magic minds shall deny the order of causality itself. The order of historical events. By a "mind" coming first upfront atoms even...even before space time expansion...because magic magic blahblah magic. What does timelessness even mean there EXACTLY? Chains of thoughts are time events. To think from one thought to another thought is actually the thinking as process within time. It is not detached or above or sideways of time. To proceed thinking as a process is hellbond to time to exist to begin with. A mind as core term without thinking processes aka chains of thoughts changing from one mood to another mood to another is like claiming square circles and married bachelors and other logical self-contradictions.
Craig's ideology is a direct flat out denial of logic and reality itself. Like there would be a "squaredcirclist" and he would be defining his faith in denial of round circles and claiming the "squared circle" to be a possibility. So is his unembodied mind a denial of how minds actually work and are in reality. It is even worse than flatearther in denial of the globe, because at least flatness is a thing.
Calling the Kalam "modest" was one of the funniest things I've heard all day.
The KCA is currently in heavy rotation because it is so simplistic any apologist can attempt to make it and any one else who cares to can dispute it relatively easily.
It really doesn't help them at all... the universe had a beginning, therefore it was God therefore god. Well, 1, they still can't provide any evidence that god was the beginner, and 2, most apologists don't understand the difference between the big bang and the universe, the universe existed "before" the big bang, so that's a false premise anyway.
@@SnakeWasRight To me it falls down right out the gate. "Everything that began had a cause and that cause is God who is uncaused" is a useless argument.
But yeah get your point as well.
It's a nonstarter that people won't stop trying to argue.
@@dethspud yeah, show me god exists and is uncaused. They can't. All they do is just DEFINE him as uncaused. Okay, great, talk to me when you have some evidence that your definition actually exists outside your head lol.
@@SnakeWasRight And then they accuse athiests of circular reasoning with a straight face.
While asserting not being religious is a religion. Truly they have a dizzying intellect.
@@SnakeWasRightthat’s just it. Even if they were able to prove a god with the KCA, there is soooooooooo much other baggage that comes with that should he try to provide theistic attributes to it.
SAD that Craig still uses it as a proof of gods existence since his sound beating by Dr Carroll. Carroll stomped kalam (for the existence of god) into a mud hole, then walked it dry. Craigs inability to recognize this speaks more to his cognitive dissonance than whether or not his god exists.
Craig gets paid for lying about science and religion. How can he change his mind?
Willie has said, out of his own face, multiple times, that he doesn't debate, he evangelizes. He knows it's bullshit but he thinks it's OK to lie for Jebus.
yea, when you get paid for not recognizing something it's pretty easy to do. But hey, we don't have a terminal degree in bullshitting, how could we criticize wlc.
Lying for Jesus. A time honored tradition. See martin Luther...
Craig is on record saying that even if evidence irrefutably proved god did not exist, he would persist in his Christian faith.
That is a fundamental hypocrisy for someone who claims to use evidence as a basis for his faith.
3:34 _"... defended by prominent ... physicists..."_
wha...? seriously?? which physicists, ffs??
the debate between Sean Carroll and WLC that covered the Kalam was enough that WLC should have given up on it forever after that. just goes to show how far motivated reasoning will take you...
It does not matter, like for Flat Earth the message that WLC distributes is meant for the cult bubble. And they believe it, they are conditioned to believe everything from everybody that claims that he speaks for the ultimate unquestionable institution, their imagination how God should be.
Here's the problem, WLC doesn't really care for the phycisists opinions. He's already convinced that time must have a beginning from his idea that infinite regression is impossible. He only brought up physics and cosmology because he thought he could add physical evidence to his philosophical claims. Even if he ends up accepting that cosmology doesn't back up his claim about the whole "universe had a beginning" thing, he will still put it aside and keep going with his infinite regression impossibility. The fact that both Guth and Vilenkin disagreed with WLC's usage of their theorem in his own face and he's still repeating the same BS clearly shows that he does not care for physical evidence at all.
@@rodoxag9117
you're right about that, but I think it's even worse: he doesn't care about physicists' opinions or about physical evidence, but he continues to act as if he does. citing a _"constellation of very prominent ... physicists"_ as he does later in the video suggests a really deep dishonesty when he's been told that Guth asserts the opposite of what he asserts that Guth asserts.
I wonder what it would take to get him to switch off of this? perhaps there's nothing.
This is where I find it really hard to respect Craig. He comes off as respectable and a nice person to deal with, which on the surface is deceiving.
The minute you critique his work or position, he oftentimes doesn’t engage the critique itself, but rather side steps it or deliberately misses the point. That, and he sometimes engages in subtle insults.
It’s as though he knows he’s not going to listen to any responses to his rebuttals and just says what he wants. His followers will smile and nod, blankly.
All 'good' apologists do that. They have to. Otherwise they will go from apologist to apostate.
He responds to all of skydive phils arguments against the kalam on his own channel, you should watch, he engages all the critiques, seems he engaged matt's critiques also, which really arent serious ones.
@@ceceroxy2227 never said he doesn’t. I said he resorts to insults, if you bothered to read the comments.
Why aren’t they serious responses? What qualifies as serious in your world?
So basically WLC thinks his assumptions are facts
He probably agrees with Jordan Peterson and the ancient Christian elite Eusebius that if a lie is useful for personal gain then it must be true (or true enough for them to lie about). We will have to be more careful and prepared against such attacks, both mentally and physically; at least for the better meant of all mankind and the end of all false religions that would hurt the rest of good humanity to gain the slightest benefits towards the cronyist ingroup or their leadership elites.
The sad thing is he doesn't think they're assumptions at all.
No, I think he makes arguments in all his books and papers for things like causation and the beginning of the universe. There are quite a few arguments for both.
@@ceceroxy2227 arguments founded on assumptions, so yes
@@uninspired3583 arguments based on science reason and logic, if you want to call those assumptions, ok
William lane Craig sounds like a child who thinks they know everything talking to adults who know they know nothing
Craig is a highly respected philosopher in his field, when people on the internet post comments attacking him like he's some young earth creationist who jus dun' rolled off the pick up truck, they rarely sense the irony.
@@andrewwells6323 😂😂
@@andrewwells6323 Well, the irony seems to be that this "highly respected philosopher" engages in highly dubious arguing. But then again, I've seen that reference adjusted to "theological philosophy". Might be an important point there.
@@andrewwells6323 . Problem once WLC started milking KLA he stopped trying and has become disingenuous.
@@robertt9342 Someone disagreeing with you doesn’t make them dishonest or disingenuous.
*This argument will continue to be discussed*
Yes, Bill, because we know motivated reasoning - not to mention outright dishonesty - will continue to be a part of the human condition.
It's often difficult to change positions on a premise that one's financial stability is built on...
Yes, Bill, because *you* and your lemmings won't drop it even after the many flaws have been pointed out.
Whatever pays the cheques for WLC and the rest of the Apologetics cohort.
@Oswlek: That's your take from it? I thought he was admitting that he's never going to shut up about it.
WLC: "Matt calls Kalam's proponents apologists in an attempt to be dismissive."
Matt: *literally has a video where he says being an apologist isn't necessarily a bad thing*
Might wanna familiarize yourself with Matt's published work before engaging in these arguments, Will.
In general, I'd somewhat disagree - but considering that Craig basically demands that Matt should read _all_ of Craig's works, the fact that he hasn't watched some of the most obviously relevant videos by Matt just shows his utter hypocrisy...
I like how Craig's "timeless, changeless mind" somehow changed its mind about creating a universe at some point in time. Even the slightest amount of critical analysis reveals that his arguments are bizarre and self-defeating.
Well if it was timeless it must have immediately decided to do something as no time could pass in which not be intending to do so. :P
So technically making the universe is not change as it would always have been that timeless somethings nature ;)
The FUNNY thing is that for his FIRST premise Craig goes out of his way to make it look and sound physically sound by appealing to observations of things INSIDE the universe "beginning to exist" (which always is a transmutation of things already there, so a bit comparable to the creation work of the biblical god, but not to the pseudo scientific creation WLC asserts in *this* argument by referring to the universe beginning to exist... which is not something the bible god has been reported to cause!) and he gives examples.
Where are his examples for bodyless minds? For timeless beings? For existence outside of our observed reality at all?
HERE he suddenly presupposes possibility based on his presupposed belief in the god of his church. That seems a tiny bit inconsistent and dishonest. ;)
And then after a few thousand years god changed his mind again and decided to almost destroy his most precious of creation, humans, because they disappointed him...
You can't make this s41t up.
What I don't understand, is how can a mind be changeless, or even timeless. Doesn't a mind have thoughts, decisions, observations? Don't all of those require time and change???
@@leob3447 Yeah .. but that's not what philosophers like WLC mean by "mind"... Their definition makes it possible... It's just an abstract thing...
I am afraid you are going to have to read Billie's books 😉😁
@@oscargr_ He is creating and abstract definition of mind that fits into his argument, but doesn't translate at all to his Christian god - one that thinks and feels. So basically - spaceless, timeless, and meaningless.
"Kalam only points to a generic cause"
"Yes, a first cause that's spaceless, timeless, personal, all-powerful, one that believes that-"
"Wait where on Earth are you getting all those other parts?"
+Scoffs+ "Clearly you haven't read my books~"
Gee Craig, rather than just whining about how many people haven't read your book, why don't you just engage in an honest discussion and just, _explain_ how you got your nonsense conclusions? Rather than just _assuming_ you're automatically right because you totally, for real, take my word for it, made a super amazing argument in one of your damn books.
It's always funny to listen to him rattle off the list of qualifications for a cause for the universe and never include that the cause must be something that exists. If he did, it would be obvious to all that he's engaging in circular reasoning. In his full argument the need for a cause demonstrates existence, but at the same time existence is a requirement for causality even if he doesn't say so. For his argument to work, he needs to demonstrate the existence of his timeless, spaceless, personal agent first. If he could do that, the entire argument would be moot.
@@bobbun9630 Exactly that, yes. It comes across as so flimsy, made to look impressive by word salad or, more commonly, just making bold-faced claims.
I mean, if someone was trying to convince me that they had a pet dragon, and all they ever did was describe all the aspects of their dragon and how 'When you really think about it philosophically, my dragon logically _has_ to exist', then shock-horror I'm not gonna end up believing they have a dragon, I _am_ gonna think they're talking out their rear however.
Superb content, as always. Thanks Paul and Matt!
You know someone is nothing more than a salesperson when they keep referring to their own works unsolicited 🤣
It's basically a self-interested appeal to authority.
My argument is right, because I have sold thousands of books saying so.
Correct, that's why people with a small penis boast about the size of their penis 24-7. No one else does, so they feel they have to.
Funny how Craig always complained Dawkins didn't want to debate him and now used exactly the same reason Dawkins did. Dawkins didn't consider Craig to be relevant enough to be debated and also said he only debated priests and theologians, not any popular apologist.
A hypocrite like always.
Also Dawkins objected to Craig's approval of the slaying of the Canaanites, as ordered by Yahweh, in the Bible.
@@tonydarcy1606 WJC may have changed his position on that, since he is now chucking the OT.
@@tonydarcy1606 But I thought as dawkins said there is no good no evil, just pittiless indifference, seems like that is contradicting his position on the canaanites.
Well you have to then say its acceptable Craig doesnt want to debate Dillahunty, because Dillahunty has been dying to debate Craig, Dawkins didnt want to debate Craig, thats his choice, Craig not interested in debating Matt, thats his choice, but actually Craig and Dawkins did debate in a group debate in mexico.
I have no reason to believe in an invisible sky wizard and plenty of reasons not too.
I think wizard is innacurate. my research shows that it would be an invisible genie.
Sorry, I'm just bored and wanted to argue with someone today lol
@@kenbrunet6120 Universe creating Pixies just make it look like an invisible universe creating genie exists to throw us off. Just like fossils.
Especially an invisible sky wizard who wants to be in a personal relationship with you, but refuses to offer proof of his existence.
I thought the xtian god was a lich?
Craig seems really emotionally invested in the Kalam, it's like his own little pet argument.
It's his life's work, his pinnacle accomplishment. He isn't as popular and successful at creating and maintaining christians (and their money) as Ken Ham or Joel Osteen, he isn't as academically sound as a physicist or a philosopher who isn't dedicated to defending God. The Kalam is his way to be exceptional.
He created the best proof of God. Well, he popularized it. Maybe shored up the foundation and formalized it a bit on the way. Anyways, it you take that away from him, you take away his life's work, and that is just sad. Almost like he would have a brain dead philosophical career.
it is as simplistic as he is
My thoughts...
Impressively, Craig has made a career out of beating a dead horse even after Sean Carroll demonstrated how dead the horse really was. See, there are maggots and vultures on it, and beating it isn't going to bring it back to life. Craig seems to believe that it's not only carpenters from Galilee that can be resurrected.
Having published works says nothing about your qualifications or the validity of your argument: flat earthers have published works. Sadly, Craig makes more assumptions and commits more fallacies than they do.
It would be hysterical it Matt would refuse to debate Craig on the grounds that his doctorate is from an unaccredited institution.
I very much agree with you. The Kalam has been stated and debunked so many times I think this horse has pretty much been beaten to a pulp by now :-D
In reality WLC doesn't use Kalam to prove god. He uses many, many other arguments about non infinities and timelessness to explain his belief in god as the cause. And those arguments far and away have been defeated by experts in those fields, and Craig is no expert. Craig's argument that god must be the cause is erroneous and even childish at face value. Just like an argument for any creation story. Just one of the few gaps left.
The major point is that he does not want that intelligence is material aka active, healthy brain architecture that evolved long after planets formed, cells developed and also long after multicells evolved. In his idea magic minds shall deny the order of causality itself. By coming first upfront atoms even...even before space time expansion...because magic magic blahblah magic. What does timelessness even mean there? Chains of thoughts are time events. To think from one thought to another is actually thinking as process within time not detached or above or sideways of it. To proceed thinking as a process is hellbond to time to exist. A mind as term without thinking processes aka chains of thoughts changing from mood to another to another is like claiming square circles and married bachelors. Craigs ideology is a denial of logic and reality itself. Like there would be an "squaredcirclist" and he would be defining his faith in denial of round circles and claiming the squared circle to be a possibility.
He uses the impossibility of actual infitnites to show the universe can not have an infinite series of past events, He uses timelessness to show that the cause must be timeless.
@@ceceroxy2227 we don't know that the universe had a beginning. The big bang is not the beginning. Actual infinities are possible. WLC trying to prove a cosmologist or physicist wrong with their discipline is silly. He is stuck with a philosophical argument that doesn't add up.
@@johnelliott5859 Actual infinities are possible, wow please explain your evidence for that, are you saying that its possible to have a quantifiable discreeet infinite number of things. The arguments for the impossibility of forming an actual infinite through successive addition or traversing an infinite are how we philosophically can come to the concusion that the universe is finite into the past, if you would like to demonstrate why these are fallacious, I would love to hear your arguments.
@@ceceroxy2227 You have added 'discrete' to your requirement for infinities. Not all conceivable sets are discrete.
The WLC argument you seem to be referencing is about how it would take an infinite number of discrete steps to get from an infinite past to the present.
Fallacy: assumes time is discrete and advances in discrete chunks.
Such an idea is not to be found in Schroedinger's equation which is the basis of the well tested and highly applicable theory of quantum mechanics. The discrete energy levels of quantum mechanics are the time invariant solutions to that equation as applied to atoms and molecules and it happens that those time invariant solutions provide the central values of the measurements we make on atoms and molecules. Nowhere in there is "time changes in discrete amounts".
There are infinities which have no isomorphism to any naturally occurring phenomenon, but that is far from saying that all naturally occurring phenomena are discrete series and as such finite.
Isn’t it extremely telling how Craig runs away from any and every debate with Matt (Organised by reputable and respected institutions and Churches mind you)
But from the safety of his echo chamber he’ll fling 💩 at Matt while patting himself on the back at the fact that ironically Richard Dawkins doesn’t think *HE* is worth his time.
WLC's jump to a personal being is self refuting. This timeless cause must be personal because it must make a choice to create the universe at a specific moment. However, if it is actually timeless how can any choice be made? Choice involves a change from one moment another. That necessitates the existence of time and therefore can not be timeless.
I think he tried to refute this at some point by saying that the decision to create the universe, and the creation of space-time were simultanoeus, that is to say, there's no gap between those two "events", so he can still maintain timelessness. More special pleading of course.
Time was my initial awakening from religion. If god is timeless and unchanging, then why did God suddenly change after Christ? There is no way you can read the old testament and new testaments and say that is an unchanging god, yet people do. And if God's existence as Christ is what caused the change, perhaps through experiencing the world as a human would, then god is not all knowing. There's a huge contradiction in there between the common definition of what God is and the "evidence" of God in the Bible.
They love to use the word "personal" because it sounds like "Jesus loves you" personal God instead of the "existing as an entity" that they are actually claiming.
@@rodoxag9117 If God made the choice to create, that's still requires it to be affected by time. The only real argument to get around this is some kind of temporal dimension beyond our universe. But that opens the door to a greater cosmos.
a choice doesnt seem to need time, but an action does. Doing something needs time, if the first action was silmataneious with the beignning of the unverse and time itself then we have silmutaneous causation.
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2: The Universe began to exist.
Conclusion: The Universe has a cause.
That’s the relatively uncontroversial part… but here comes the silly part where the magic happens:
The cause must be immaterial, timeless, spaceless, extremely powerful and personal.
It’s very telling that people who make this silly argument spend 99% of their time defending the first part of the Kalam and then simply pretend as if those impossible abilities and attributes, for which we have no examples in our reality and no evidence that they are even possible, are just so obvious that they don’t require any further justifications.😂
Actually it is a very controversial part. "Beginning to exist" is already something extremely arbitray and a useless term in physics, only used colloquially. The second premise is also without basis. The reality is, we do NOT know. The universe might very well be eternal.
Both those premises are assumptions though with nothing backing them up that why the whole thing is controversial.
“The cause must be immaterial…” that’s deductive reasoning, no?
@@page8301 wouldn’t an eternal universe entail an impossible infinite regress in time?
@@glucasme Yes. And?
In overview, it is quite obvious that this argument for god was intended to shift the goalposts. It is no better than saying "god must exist, because you can't prove that god doesn't exist". The lack of any evidence to support the assertion that "god exists, and god did stuff by magic" points to the fact that god was never anything more than a fiction.
It's no different than saying;
1: I think God exists
2: Existance exists
3: therefore God exists
@@GRAHFXENO That's a fair appraisal. It is obvious that the god concept was a human invention to start with, so there's practically zero chance of it being a reality. All that these religious charlatans do is to try to make it harder to disprove, by pushing god beyond the realms of testability.
If he were to prove the existence of "god"-he would still need to prove the god to be his god,and then,a trinity.
@@shriggs55 Absolutely correct. The Kalam Cosmological argument is incredibly weak, especially given that it cannot identify who, or what, the creator might be. It's just a method of shifting the goal posts. Creationists like to circumvent the problem of proving that god exists, by asserting that god must be the reason for the existence of everything else.
@@clemstevenson Sometimes it's not about accumulating knowledge on any subject(s)-but what a person WANTS to believe is true.Often times it has an emotional attachment.
Sigh... I have my bachelor's and master's in philosophy, and during my time at the university the overall vibe was kinda the same, questions regarding natural sciences explained through philosophical concepts. We even had a priest teaching the fricking epistemology course, who talked of course about how Darwin and evolution are wrong because some philosophical principle. And tough luck to bring other disciplines into your study, like I did with the historical evolution of Satan and was told that "atheists try to revision history today", so I understand Matt's frustration...
Craig going on about lots of people talking about his argument, reminds me of people intentionally putting forward controversial statements solely for attention.
Sometimes lots of people address a claim because it's so obviously false.
Personally I think the Kalam is dead before Craigs added on assertions. At least if taken as a proper philosophical argument, and not some implication, or emotional appeal to intuition.
Or at least it should be dead.
I suspect Craig took this personally, as he has put so much weight behind that argument.
Maybe like the disciples putting so much weight behind Christ's so-called resurrection.
I love the fact that William Lane Craig will debate science and yet he has no relevant degrees in ANY scientific field and will quote scientists even when those scientists are in attendance and point out that he is misquoting them or doesn't understand their conclusions. WLC is and always will be a joke.
Ya got that right! Craig wants to play in the "big field" and he just can't. He has managed to insert his name but that's about it.
He has wanted to debate Dawkins and Dawkins WON'T for the exact same reason that Craig won't debate Dillahunty!
Which scientist did WLC misquote?
@@draftsman3383Dawkins
@@rickkwitkoski1976He warned to debate Dawnkins on what topic?
This is a stellar takedown of what Craig is up to, especially in pointing out his own populist instincts.
Whenever I hear him talk about what the *nature* of a creator must be, I amuse myself by imagining a cosmic Alexander Fleming who created the universe by accident when he left a petri dish out one weekend: "I certainly didn't plan to create the universe, but I suppose that was exactly what I did. Neat!"
What always gets me about the whole "timeless, spacless, etc." thing is that not only have they not established these as requirements, it's very easy to conceive of them _not_ being requirements. I'm a software engineer, and I can create a world that has both time and space, despite me being neither timeless nor spaceless.
The universe and time are a lot more than the concept of a word. It follows that something timeless and space less can create something like a word (which is technically just shapes or strokes of ink/graphite unless there’s a reader/observer). That makes sense. But creating time and space in and of themselves would have to be made by something outside/beyond the two.
@@DnalorNibuldoes space need to be made? Is the question "who made space?" relevant in this context?
Time doesn't easily exist. It's an aggregate simplification of other phenomena
The Kalam runs into difficulties in the very first word of its first premise, 'everything'. Every THING. For the rest of the argument to follow from that, it has to be shown that the universe is a 'thing' and I don't think this has ever been done. The universe is a framework that allows things to exist, or the set of all things, or some concept like that. It is not necessarily a 'thing' itself, and it does not necessarily have the relevant properties of (if you will) thing-ness that makes it possible to apply the Kalam argument to it. So rather than getting us to some conclusion-which-isn't-God, the Kalam doesn't even begin.
Did the Kalam Cosmological Argument ever have an actual _beginning,_ though? *THAT’S* the question! 🤔 🤓
In the beginning the Kalam was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move
@@tonydarcy1606 According to Wikipedia, the counter-arguments are about as old as the Kalam itself. They write:
_The kalam cosmological argument is based on the concept of the prime-mover, introduced by Aristotle, and entered early Christian or Neoplatonist philosophy in Late Antiquity, being developed by John Philoponus.[7] Along with much of classical Greek philosophy, the concept was adopted into medieval Islamic tradition during the Islamic Golden Age, where it received its fullest articulation at the hands of Muslim scholars, most directly by Islamic theologians of the Sunni tradition._
_Its historic proponents include Al-Kindi,[8] Al-Ghazali,[9] and St. Bonaventure.[10][11][12]_
_One of the earliest formulations of the kalam cosmological argument in the Islamic philosophical tradition comes from Al-Ghazali, who writes:_
_"Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a being which begins; therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning."[13]_
_Between the 9th to 12th centuries, the cosmological argument developed as a concept within Islamic theology. It was refined in the 11th century by Al-Ghazali (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), and in the 12th by Ibn Rushd (Averroes).[14] It reached medieval Christian philosophy in the 13th century and was discussed by Bonaventure, as well as Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (I, q.2, a.3) and Summa Contra Gentiles (I, 13)._
_Islamic perspectives may be divided into positive Aristotelian responses strongly supporting the argument, such as those by Al-Kindi, and Averroes, and negative responses critical of it, including those by Al-Ghazali and Muhammad Iqbal.[15] Al-Ghazali was unconvinced by the first-cause arguments of Al-Kindi, arguing that only the infinite per se (that is an essentially ordered infinite series) is impossible, arguing for the possibility of the infinite per accidens (that is an accidentally ordered infinite series). He writes:_
_"According to the hypothesis under consideration, it has been established that all the beings in the world have a cause. Now, let the cause itself have a cause, and the cause of the cause have yet another cause, and so on ad infinitum. It does not behove you to say that an infinite regress of causes is impossible."[16]_
_Muhammad Iqbal also stated:_
_"To finish the series at a certain point, and to elevate one member of the series to the dignity of an uncaused first cause, is to set at naught the very law of causation on which the whole argument proceeds."[17]_
Giggle
@@Forest_Fifer Ah! A fellow member of _The Amalgamated Union of philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons_
It does. You begin by assuming god exists then you attempt to fool someone else int9 believing
Craig defines a god as a thing that does not need a cause.
I define the universe as something that does not need a cause.
So WLC won't debate you because you don't have a doctorate, yet he is willing to claim better understanding of physics than those who have doctorates in physics. The pretentiousness of this guy is off the scale. Anyway, he fails to see the forest for the trees.
I never thought the Kalam to be convincing.
And Craigs performance against Sean Carroll just confirmed what i originally thought and gave me more reasons to not accept it.
I wouldn't say the Kalam is sound. It's valid in form(if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true), but that's only half of the criteria for soundness.
But of course Craig has to spin every little piece he can find to lie about the soundness.
Craig has the choice.
Be honest and change his opinion.
Or be like Ken Ham and be a dishonest piece. Stop. Lying. About. Science!
YEP!!!!!!!! exactly. Carroll demonstrated that using kalam as an argument for god is classic god of the gaps. old 2000 year old thinking (i think Carroll called it outdated aristotellian thinking) that our current knowledge of the universe, makes obsolete.
I'd argue the argument is only valid if we're talking about the "short" version of it, the one that stops at "the universe has a cause".
It's actually false, as in a non sequitur, if we go with the full argument of "it has to be non spatial non temporal" and all that garbage.
@@nathanjora7627 no it is fully valid.
A valid argument is an argument, the conclusion of which is true, if all premises are true.
Since both premises are wrong, the argument is valid, but not Sound in the slightest.
@@BluePhoenix_ I think you missed the part where I said that I didn't think *the extended* version of the argument isn't sound.
Ie : (as I've also explicitly stated) the part where premises are added in order to conclude that this first cause has to be a personal free agent with great powers that transcends time and space.
It's, apparently, ok to lie if it saves a doubting christian from hell 🙄
Did the Kalam cosmological argument "begin to exist" or is it just a rearrangement of previously existing arguments?
Man it is hard hearing Craig "argue". He is ever dancing around the issue never answering, always deflecting... the obvious things someone with Truth(tm) on his side should do.
And he is lauded as among the best and the brightest apologists alive today.
Ouch. Good thing Craig haws god on his side. ;)
That's because if he ever actually answers a question he would have to defend his answer and he just can't do that. He even refuses to answer if he believes in a god, instead he says that he acts like he believes. . . Well I don't care if he sacrifices goats on a full moon, I want him to answer what he believes. If I lived in a country where being an atheist could get me killed, then you are damn right I would act like I believed, but that doesn't mean that I actually believed.
"Philosophy
A route consisting of many roads starting from nothing and leading nowhere."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
I like that
@@Paulogia thank you 🙋🏼♀️🙆🏼♀️😘💋
Here's another one from memory.
"Faith.
Belief without evidence, of things without parallel, told by people without knowledge."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
How
@@BatmanArkham8592 how?
It's a joke 🙄😒🙎🏼♀️🙍🏼♀️🙇🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 ok
Kalam seems like a God of the Gaps argument.
Something exists (the Know Universe). No one knows for sure what started the process that formed the
Universe.... Therefore a God started it. and if you're Christian, the God of Abraham did it.
Oh no, it's much worse. God of the gaps is just "nobody knows, so I'll assume it's a god"
Kalam is the opposite: it's two hard claims that "everyone knows", while they're completely unsupported, so _specific_ god.
WLC is selling an argument he developed. He, obviously, is incapable of being objective in the matter. Kalam is an absurd waste of time.
3:50 "you can be pretty sure he's bloviating"
I would take that accusation pretty seriously if I was Matt, after all WLC is an expert in bloviating XD
LOL
I would challenge even the core premise: "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." Does it? By what reasoning? Because it doesn't seem obvious to me.
In fact it makes no sense. What happened before the first cause? And what is "cause" anyway? It's a human tool for describing apparently related events, that's all.
That’s where my problem with the Kalam starts. I see no evidence that the first premise is true. I’ve never seen everything and I don’t know anybody who has seen everything. It could well be that there’s something that began to exist without a cause. It could be that there’s a dozen of them. Or thousands. It’s an assumption without proof and so the rest of the kalam is pointless.
the only thing that could have possibly "begun to exist" would be the universe because everything else is a just a rearrangement of energy.
so premise 1 is nonsense
@@natew.7951 Theists don't even agree with the Kalam. They think god had no cause.
Another point about the Kalam is that it suffers from a fallacy of composition -
even if we accept the first premise, the correct way it should be stated is "Everything **In the universe** that begins to exist has a cause"
Which then makes it clear how the jump to the conclusion by combining p1 and p2 is unjustified.
So I would argue Kalam isnt even VALID if stated correctly, much less Sound.
i always love the fact that they are trying to sqeeze thier gawd into the gap in knowledge of a few millionths of a second after the big bang (where our knowledge stops)
its kinda pathetic really
i have commented this idea before but William Lane Craig is a master of verbosely say nothing
I despise the way WLC uses philosophy and science in a ministerial role to his theology.
@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 my point more or less.
The kalam is the oldest bit of nothingness. Keep in mind that the kalam started as Islamic apologetic. Islamic culture has a habit of implying god with out saying. So with that in mind. It would have been understood the implied role of god.
Still it does not work if then.
Had a high school history teacher introduce me to the phrase "ambiguous verbosity" for which WLC is the poster boy!
Comment for the UA-cam algorithm
merci
How can the statement "everything that came into being has a cause" be valid? Everything is such a vast grouping that surely any argument that uses it cannot be confirmed to be valid. Until we have observed 'everything', it is illogical to state that everything has a cause. And this is one of the minor problems with the Kalam
That's just a premise, so I don't think anyone called it valid. What was called valid is the Kalam as a whole.
* Valid means an argument would be correct if all its premises were true.
* Sound means it's not only valid, but we also know the premises are true.
Premise 1: Pink fairies are the only causes of universes.
Premise 2: Our universe exists.
Conclusion: Therefore pink fairies exist.
My argument IS valid because the premises (if true) would mean the conclusion was true.
My argument IS NOT sound, because we don't know the premises are all true.
Its a metaphysical principle, that everything that begins to exist needs a cause. Thats like saying well I need to investigate every square and circle to say we cant make a square circle.
@@ceceroxy2227 that comparison is apples and oranges. Squares/circles are mathematical definitions and thus can be proven exclusive. This is the problem with philosophy, I'm not sure I'll ever be convinced, without evidence, that in the realm of quantum physics spontaneous, random, uncaused events aren't possible. Then there's the whole 'came into being' problem, which someone a God can avoid but the universe cannot. The random assertion that a consciousness can exist formlessly and timelessly is nonsensical. Our consciousness is formed by electrical patterns. It isn't even a fundamental thing. I propose that inside this hypothesis, energy is a far more fundamental concept that can be placed as the timeless cause.
@@ceceroxy2227 Did you agree with Toblexson's explanation of your mistake? Squares and circles are by definition mutually exclusive. With things and causes, there is no logical reason why a thing _must_ have a cause.
If your desired conclusion is an uncaused god, _you're forced to agree!_ If everything has a cause, then uncaused gods are impossible. If not everything has a cause, then Kalam has no basis for claiming our universe had one.
@@ceceroxy2227 Another “metaphysical” principle is that everything has a natural cause, too.
holy crap! paulogia is gonna break 100k soon. good stuff everyone
Matt points out that when he attacks the Kalam, Craig treats it as though he is attacking all the work Craig ever did.
Matt also notes that Craig, like many others, uses the Kalam as a Trojan horse to bring in other unfounded assertions.
Putting these two together, the rest of Craig's work (towards proving gods) really is useless once the horse that it all rides in on us broken. So, yeah. There's probably a good reason Craig treats it like his whole life's work is at stake.
Craig is the most overrated intellectual in this sphere, and either one of the most obtuse, or least honest, when responding to critics.
You forgot to put "intellectual" in quotation marks
@@GinEric84 Oh, he has the creds, he once WAS respected as intellectual.
He just went into the Jordan Peterson trap and talked so much about his own brililance that anybody interested can see it's the Emperor's new Talks.
@@Ugly_German_Truths a degree does not an intellectual make
KALAM falls under the category Christopher Hitchens did when flattening Dinesh D'Souza trying this in a debate: "trying to slip God through customs without declaring him."
I'm confused. Even IF the universe had a beginning, and had a cause, cause does not immediately mean INTENT. If an old tree dies and falls in the forest, there was a cause (death, decay and erosion to cause the tree to fall), but no intent is needed. Cause does not need intent.
Why does anyone think this argument proves a God?
Because they want to prove a god.
One thing i never quite understood is how is bill defining "begins to exist"
If you define X begins to exist at t0 as:
X exists at t0
and
it is the first time that X exists
then even God began to exist, so it'd follow that God has a cause by the kalam.
Now every way i can think of which defines "begins to exist" by avoiding God to begin to exist seems to me incredibly ad hoc to the point where its obvious the claim is just being cherry picked to avoid it
I've said this before and I'll say it again. Matt is a beast. He's one of my favorite debaters.
I love how clearly and concisely Matt speaks.
the universe must have been caused by God - it says so in some book what I wrote.
If there wasn't already a concept of "god", would the Kalam argument lead one to come up with the concept of a god of some sort? When I look at the Kalam argument, all I get out of it is that if it is true, there was some undetermined cause of the universe. I can't see how Craig's cause of a "personal creator" can be logically derived from it. He has to apply his already existing concept of god to support his conclusion. I think it was Matt who had another possible cause of the universe that is just as logically valid as Craig's "personal creator" that was something like "a pixie that farts universes". I wish all human beings would accept that "I or we don't know" is a valid answer to questions we can't give answers to using evidence. "I don't know" is the primary motivator in the quest of knowledge, and it is what drives scientists to try to find accurate answers.
such good content. you keep us athiests both entertained and help those of us who feel very much alone with our beliefs. i am constantly surrounded by Christian everything here in kansas and after becoming athiest, it felt like i was playing we happy few and got off my joy. the doomsday blood cult as seth andrews has described it is more apparent than ever and it feels good to know there are smart, kind, funny people in my corner with just as cool, if not cooler tin foil hats on with me. thanks Paul!!
How does fhis argument arrive at a christian god? How can a god exist "outside" of time? Finally, arguments are proof or evidence!
Can WLC complete saying anything without “read my published works”? We get it, you want to sell books, now get to the argument.
Whether or not something is "still being debated" says absolutely nothing about the quality of the argument The question of whether or not vaccines cause autism is still being "debated." Whether or not the Earth is flat is still being "debated." Craig's point is completely meaningless.
When Craig conflates ‘accepting [agreed upon terms] for the sake of a single, set argument’ with ‘I accept that the [agreed upon terms] describe Truth, full stop’…it became abundantly clear why most people refuse to even concede minor points that conflict with their personal truths…quote-mining and strawmen run amok.
My reformed Kalam goes like this:
P1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
P2. My iPhone began to exist.
C. My iPhone had a cause and that cause is God.
😂
No your I phone had a cause, youre right on that one, the cause of the Iphone could not be the iphone, is really only as far as you can go unless you believe things cause themselves.
@@ceceroxy2227 Therefore, God is the cause of my iPhone. Right?
@@mako9579 Well maybe the indirect cause. He is the cause of all contingent reality. Just like mother caused me, I made some cookies, did my mother cause the cookies because she caused me.
@@ceceroxy2227 Can you logically prove that?
@@ceceroxy2227 Reality isn't a thing or object that could be contingent. It's a collective noun to sum up that which is real. You once again epically failed.
"I have this argument, that let's say we ignore what physicists say, says the universe began to exist, and I think the universe began to exist, and a casual glance at the physics behind the big bang, proves I'm right, therefore the universe has a cause!"
"Now, watch as I wave my magic wand (I'm not a witch though, because that carries the death sentence in my religion, that I'm totally not using this flimsy justification to smuggle in) and suddenly, this cause has all kinds of nifty attributes that mysteriously line up with *my* god!"
Convenient isn't it?
These are but wild and whirling words, my Lord.
I am ashamed to say this. I simply cannot stomach the patronizing, smarmy quality of Craig’s voice. It has nothing to do with the subject, but there it is. My weakness not his.
You're not alone.
Thank you for an other great episode. Seeing Craig triggered on an obviously personal level by Matt's facts is r e a l l y funny. He has nothing to win in a debate with Matt, yet he obviously would risk his status as a serious party with strong arguments in the discussion. He is obviously too afraid to risk it.
WLC has always been shady, but these days he seems to really be degrading mentally. Also, many of the 'arguments' are more along the lines of what children do when extrapolating how stuff works in the imaginary worlds while playing or trying to come up with how stuff they don't understand yet works. It's a bit more guided because the apologists have an end goal, and they have guardrails they need to keep between to keep their story alive, but its a similar process. No evidence/knowledge for what they are trying to piece together but they know their superhero can do it and that makes him super awesome.
This Craig dude is constantly assuming that his assumptions are correct, and that having 'published works' somehow makes him an expert and correct in his assumptions, plus, he uses $10 words to make himself sound intelligent
Well, his favorite apologetic is the argument from lots of arguments. That's a big red flag.
His entire belief structure relies on information that he could not possibly possess.
He doesn't need published works to make him an expert. He's obviously an expert. It's just that he's an expert in religious apologetics, which isn't exactly an area of expertise the world should be seeking out.
Also: What is North of the North pole? The same thing that was before time started.
God and Santa Claus.
same as what is east and west.