Kalām cosmological argument

(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.

(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.

Therefore:

(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.

Therefore:

(5) God exists.

The argument fails at point 4, point 1, and point 5.

1) the false assumption that god exists in the first place destroys the argument

2) it doesn't take into account the possibility of an infinite regress (the universe expands then circles around back to the point of origin and big bangs then repeated ad nauseum)

3) the basic idea of "god done it" is just as likely as "a mad scientist of an alien race mad a dooms day device that made the big bang"

anyone care to retort?

So how is the 18th century, nowadays?

@OP

1 and 3) If God is defined as "whatever caused the universe to exist", and if the universe was caused by random fluctuations, then the something in which those random fluctuations occurred is God.

2) An infinite regress can arguably still be a valid "cause". If the universe produces Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who create a new universe in a lab accident, and then another race of Sufficiently Advanced aliens evolve in the second universe and create a new universe and so on, each universe still had a cause.

• Stephen Hawking has a different arguement, that a cause is not necessary if the beginning of the thing occurred at the first instant of time.

Edit: wording fix.

edited 22nd Aug '11 10:41:40 AM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

we just talked about it in logic, this was my answer, and and i was wondering if anyone could retort me because i know their are some hard line Christan's here

edited 22nd Aug '11 12:33:35 PM by vanthebaron

So you started a thread to rile up Christians?

That's called trolling.

"(the universe expands then circles around back to the point of origin and big bangs then repeated ad nauseum)"

So in the end Buddhist cosmology wins! MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Now...more seriously...how are we defining "hardline Christian" here?

edited 22nd Aug '11 11:50:25 AM by Aondeug

You mean "heard line."

not trolling talking about what is a common argument for the existence. of god on philosophy.

anyone that believes in creationism

lol typo

edited 22nd Aug '11 12:34:15 PM by vanthebaron

All right then. I will observe this and respond when I have something.

x4 basically

Not all Christians (or theists) believe that you can "prove" that God exists. I don't. I think I've heard all the arguments, and none of them really work, including this one.

I might be able to second Aon, although the science is still pretty sketchy.

If everything that exists has a cause.

And the universe exists

and thus is must have a cause

and that cause is god

and if god exists

then what is the cause of god?

edited 22nd Aug '11 6:48:26 PM by Baff

The ignorance of the uneducated human mind

One fairly orthodox Christian answer is that God, being omnipotent, causes himself. I believe the Mormon answer is "another God" (turtles all the way down!), but don't quote me on that.

edited 22nd Aug '11 7:05:25 PM by silver2195

That's another fun one to science up. It's believed by some that future computers will be capable of storing literally infinite data thanks to quantum something-or-other (I didn't understand it even at the time.) If one of those computers runs a simulation, and the simulation contains another computer running a simulation, the probability that our entire universe is itself a simulation becomes (infinity - 1)/infinity.

Creepy thought.

Or the probability that you could look at a computer and think that all that an equivalence of all that we are here today is going on inside that computer.

I lost their logic at #4, "It must be God" is the equivalent of saying "I give up" when it comes to explanations.

I don't see why people really want to know what started the universe so badly. I don't care about if the big bang happened or didn't happen, people get so intimate with such a trivial subject.

Some things... just "are".

That's an astonishingly Buddhist answer to this problem...

And yet we have our models of how the universe works.

Make up your god damned mind, Sidhatta.

1) the false assumption that god exists in the first place destroys the argument

You're wrong, so your logic is bad? That's not true. You can have a perfectly argued statement and still be wrong.

2) it doesn't take into account the possibility of an infinite regress (the universe expands then circles around back to the point of origin and big bangs then repeated ad nauseum)

In that case, the Universe caused the Universe, which is as wrong as 'God created God'

3) the basic idea of "god done it" is just as likely as "a mad scientist of an alien race mad a dooms day device that made the big bang"

No it isn't, because a mad scientist would have to be part of a universe to take that action (showing the same circular logic above), whereas God can exist outside of the universe.

Whoever said that Mormons believe another God created God: This is true, they believe that if someone does all the right things during life, they will become a God and can create their own universe, and there is speculation among them that God is one of those people, as he is stated to have a body of flesh and blood, which is shown to only be possible by living as a human.

^ Two quibbles:

I'd consider the two equally plausible, and since "the Universe caused the Universe" is simpler than "God caused God and then caused the universe," I prefer the former unless we find better evidence for the latter.

It depends on how you define "universe." If you define it as "this plane of existence," then a mad scientist could very well be outside it. If you define it as "all of existence," then it would be a contradiction in terms to say that anything exists outside of it (though admittedly, this messes up the argument for the mad scientist more than it does the argument for God.)

I'd consider the two equally plausible,

Which is why I said 'as wrong', not 'more wrong'. It was previously stated that God can't cause God, so if that is wrong, this is wrong.

and since "the Universe caused the Universe" is simpler than "God caused God and then caused the universe, " I prefer the former unless we find better evidence for the latter.

It actually isn't, considering the fact that by definition, God is capable of creating a universe. If he exists, and we are there to observe that, it means God has created a universe. There is no other possible means for the universe to be created, except on purpose by him (that is, if there is a God, he created the universe).

It depends on how you define "universe." If you define it as "this plane of existence, " then a mad scientist could very well be outside it. If you define it as "all of existence, " then it would be a contradiction in terms to say that anything exists outside of it (though admittedly, this messes up the argument for the mad scientist more than it does the argument for God.)

It could just be me, but I find God far more plausible than extradimensional aliens with the power and the care to create an entire universe from scratch.

I'm not saying that it is "all of existence", but it very well could be. I'm calling the universe "everything we can observe", and there are a lot of people (probably at least four billion, and that's a conservative estimate) in the world who'd tell you they have observed God.

It's more simple because there are less steps. It requires that there is a God which exists outside the universe, and that he created the universe, as opposed to the universe being all there is. There are plenty of other possibilities- That there is a God and that he claims to have created the universe, or that people claimed he did, or that he is the universe, or that he's only as powerful as say, a Greek God, and only runs a few aspects of the universe, or a host of other things.

edited 23rd Aug '11 7:52:11 AM by Wulf

Nobody is perfect.

And I am a nobody

Then I am perfect

But Only god is perfect

So I am god

and God is love

but Love is blind

Stevie Wonder is Blind.

Thus I am Stevie Wonder

And to all the Atheist out there... you cant desprove I am Stevie Wonder

edited 23rd Aug '11 8:01:47 AM by Baff