This is not a well structured response, by any means. I just wanted to vent, because smarmy academic elitism, especially religious based, chafes my waddles. I refer to the cad sometimes in the second person, sometimes in the third. So pardon the poor form, if you would.
SCHOLARLY VIDEO ON INFIDEL WEBSITE
Craig answers objections, as he sees them, formulated to easily refute. He has plenty of straw to pack in the gaps, while simultaneously switching the load bearing to that straw.
He starts off by intimating that he's wasting his time. This is just an attempt to disparage any criticism that he deems not worth his station. After all, he's a scholarly professional. This is the sense I got from his opening remarks-
~Firstly, I'm a professional. I'm wasting my time~I was sooo surprised by objections I hadn't considered~I lower myself to address these objections, because the merit of an objection is judged not by the quality of the counter-assertion against the lack of account for it in the premise it objects to, but by the station of the medium on which a person happens to bring the objection. "Popular" websites! Not journals. Youtube! Not "scholarly"! Oh the "infidel websites"! My argument should stand, because I'm a professional, and I am presenting it! What? You're not even going to accept the premises of the argument?! But I'm a professional! You're supposed to just swallow what I say as sound! How dare you actually consider the elements of the argument, instead of evaluating them, these premises, put forth by me, a professional? Otherwise, if you don't "presuppose" with me, how is my Presuppositional Apologetics shaped nonsense pill supposed to slip down your throat and allow the encapsulated incoherent contents of the argument to pretend to stand? Oh the infidel websites.~
"I've never given this talk before!"
Goes on to rehash, without actually addressing the more serious objections to Kalam or its premises. ~If I say the objections are *bad*, *squirrelly* (irony), *misguided*, and *off the wall*, a sufficient number of times, all objections become bad, and I don't actually have to address them.~ But hoh, I shall appear to address them, when actually addressing sidecar strawmen that I imagine the objections to be! Or even better, easy marks that are easily answered~
"The crucial second premise of the argument is supported by both philosophical arguments against the infinitude of the past.."
Certainly, no one is claiming infinity, either in a spacial or temporal sense, since these are qualities observed of an expanding universe, and not, in any sense, attributable to a non-relative singularity. Objection not addressed.
"..and by scientific evidence for a beginning of the universe.."
This is simply not true. Science, i.e. the "Big Bang" theory, describes the expansion of the universe from a singularity. It does not describe the "beginning", or inception of that singularity, nor can it, so far as we know, describe anything beyond that singularity. Craig is making an unfounded assertion.
"Having arrived at the conclusion that the universe has a cause..."
Yeah No. We haven't arrived there by any stretch of the imagination. Craig even jumped completely over premise one, and started with two.
"..one may then do a conceptual analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe."
Aside from having unfound premises, his analysis is hilarious. So many unconnected dots.
Hey, let's start ascribing and attributing all sorts of *universe-dependent properties and characteristics to our 'cause'! Why, you may ask? So that we can try and stretch a tenuous to untenable bridge between this concept and a character of our pet religious delusion!
".. And one discovers that one is thereby brought to.."
How one is "brought to" the following, he never describes. And why should he? It is, after all, to his advantage to simply state this as the obvious result, without going into how, when in fact, they do certainly NOT follow.
"..an uncaused.."
What about serial causation? (one thing causes another thing, causes another thing, and so on.) Yeah. As long as we're being unreasonably hypothetical, and ascribing universe dependent concepts outside where they might be applicable, let's continue to extrapolate, on the same grounds that WLC does.
Causation interaction in the form of serial causation is observed in the universe.
Causation interaction has been reasoned (at least according to WLC) between an extra-universal concept and the universe.
Now what's to prevent an extrapolation of that serial causation, rendering your universal cause one simple link in a who-knows-how-long chain of causers and causees? Would that perhaps be, that such an idea would go against an attempt to rationalise your pet deity? Bottom line. How do you know that this is where the buck stops? How do you know that this cause is uncaused? Is it because you can't ascribe universe-dependent concepts, like serial causation, outside the universe? Well then, why ascribe any of the other characteristics to it?
"..beginning-less.."
Same objection as above. If your cause is outside the universe, then by all current knowledge, it would indeed be unsubstantiated of a timespace dependent concept such as "beginning". However, we've already jumped the fence on unreasonable hypothetical ascription of characteristics to your cause, so why do you then think this is the place to draw the line? Perhaps your cause resides (another timespace dependent concept) in a superverse, structured of its own timespace.
"..change-less.."
Same objection as above.
"..time-less.."
Same objection as above.
"..space-less.."
"..immaterial.."
Same objection as above.
"..enormously powerful.."
OK. Here's where you really jump on the loony train. Power, as a function of work/energy and rate, is a conceptual product of multiple universe-dependent elements. Even if all those elements could be shown to exist in a superverse, or outside our own universe, how the hell are you going to suppose to know the proportion of their interaction across a universal boundary. Yeah, this is just another thorn in the side of the elephant in the room. The mechanism of the cause across the apparent universal boundary has not been shown. We can show how one thing causes another "thing" inside the universe. Postulating cause from outside the universe, without a described mechanism for such causation, is nothing more than imagination.
"..personal.."
Did I say you were just on the loony train. I'm sorry, like the superverse, I failed to see the super loony train onto which that loony train was capable of jumping. How the flying fuck do you come by "personal" at this stage. You show yourself to be doing nothing more than stretching unwarranted apron strings between your "cause" and your pet deity now, WLC. If I wasn't familiar with you, or your silly Kalam argument before, this is where I would most certainly abandon any possible respect for you or that argument.
"..creator.."
The word "creator" ascribes unwarranted, undemonstrated intent, where the word "cause" does not. Such fail. Where did that intent suddenly come from?
Objections to the General Form
1) Reference to WLC's Even if no Kalam/holy spirt in heart slip-
This is not an objection to Kalam. Yes. It's an objection to WLC. Addressing it here is a Red Herring on top of a Red Herring, as well as a bit of a homeless straw man. Craig's citation of it within this list, to refute objections to Kalam does not consequently strengthen the standing of Kalam in some sort of default sense, nor does it impede other objections to Kalam by its inclusion here, as he wishes it to.
Indeed, because it's included here as an objection to Kalam, without being directed by anyone as such, shows Craig to be hand-waving. Who said they were using this against Kalam, and not specifically against WLC himself? Who is it that states the paragraph shown in the slide, including the assertion, "This is blatant hypocrisy on Craig's part."? WLC's concentration of this "objection" to himself, and not to Kalam, as an Ad Hominem, instead of the simple Red Herring that it might be, if in fact it was directed by some unknown person as an objection to Kalam, instead of to himself, shows him also simply to be playing the victim card. WLC, you do not equal Kalam, so why are you including it here, without referencing who directed this objection as one for Kalam? The paragraph you show as Objection #1 doesn't state that Kalam is wrong because you don't base your belief on it. It simply states that you don't base your belief on it. This is not an objection to the General Form of the argument.
"So, what does make for a sound, deductive argument? The answer is, true premises, and valid logic."
Well, there you go. The premises are not sound.
"The argument was, after all, defended by the Medieval Muslim theologian Al-Khazali 1000 years before I was born. If the argument is sound, it was sound then. If the argument is sound, it was sound during the Jurassic period, before anyone had propounded it."
Yeah. If it were sound. But given our increased knowledge, through science, about the universe, it can be shown not to be sound, or at the very least, not accepted without questions based on that knowledge.
WLC goes on to expound on the necessity of evidence and plausibility above and beyond the soundness of an argument. Good point. This is him shooting himself.. or rather Kalam, in the foot. The evidence simply doesn't support it, as I clarified earlier by detailing our knowledge and lack of knowledge about the singularity.
2) Kalam is question-begging, circular reasoning.
The presupposition for question-begging is that the "cause" is the Christian God, not that the logic is not sound for concluding a "cause".
This isn't a principle on which I need to object to the basic argument. However, Craig is missing the point. From what I understand, people who object to the argument on the basis of question-begging are doing so because of the presupposition by WLC, and Christian Kalam proponents that the "cause" is exactly equatable with their God. The conclusion is for a "cause", alone. The unsupported extrapolation to the Christian God, is ridiculous. Given the supposed nature and characteristics of their god, it is more than far-reaching, and the gap is not bridged. They are invalidly applied to the "cause" on the basis of that list of "thereby brought-to's", above.
Craig goes on to spend quite some time arguing against what he sets up to be objection #2.
3) Equivocation of the term "cause".
This objection is still valid. Craig's argument for efficient cause does fail to account for material cause. Even if there is efficient cause, you need mechanism and material described to substantiate the causation of a product.
My objection is in his definition of "thing", examples of which we only have within the universe, which invalidates the application of premise one to the universe as a whole. This, therefore demolishes premise two.
"The charge of equivocation immediately evaporates."
No, it doesn't. Just because you narrow your definition for one component of causation, doesn't mean that you've accounted for the other constituent elements.
Objections to the Premises
Premise One
4) The fallacy of composition
Craig admits that to argue the fallacy of composition for the universe would be "manifestly fallacious", and says he's never done so, but then fails to alleviate this objection by actually doing so, and delineating a further list of invalid reasons for premise one, leaving him in the bed he's made by his admission.
Reasons he believes premise one true:
1) Something cannot come from nothing
What an interesting claim. Please show me any examples of "nothing" we have ever had the pleasure of evaluating? And then go on to show how you know what can and cannot "come out of" it.
"To claim that something can come into being out of nothing is worse than magic."
No one made that claim. You're the one who brought up "nothing". Ever so much straw. And fancy you should bring up "magic". What again was the mechanism by which your "Go..".. I mean "cause" "created" the universe? Oh, it didn't need a mechanism/ material cause? Well, later on in your talk you show yourself to be the purveyour of magic.
"If you deny premise one, you've got to think that the whole universe just appeared, at some point in the past, for no reason whatsoever."
What?! So, WLC is saying, 'if you deny premise one, you've got to [accept premise two]'? And then adds the entirely unrelated concept of necessity of reason, as if it somehow strengthens the contention that premise one is true. That's ridiculous. It is unwarranted to assume that everything has a reason, much less the universe. This also begs the question that the universe is to be classified as a "thing". Craig shows himself to be inextricably bound to his notion of intent and a personal nature for his "cause". He conflates the terms "cause" with "reason", and extrapolates intent. Tut tut.
"But nobody sincerely believes..."
Argument from incredulity, blah blah blah. Argument from ignorance, blah blah blah. Gives examples of universe-dependent subsets, i.e. things, and tries to use the unreasonableness of their "pop[ping] into being" as grounds that, supposedly, a singularity could not possibly do so.
2) If something can come into being from nothing, then why doesn't everything
Incredulity, Ignorance. Therefore God. Gives examples of universe-dependent and human defined concepts of "things", and tries to leverage incredulity to apply their characteristics to the universe as a whole.
Continues to reference the unfounded and undefined concept of "Nothing".
"Nothingness doesn't have any properties!"
Great observation, WLC! Then why are you assigning properties to it?
3) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise one.
No, they don't. Firstly, common experience as presupposed to mean human sensory experience is one of the most flawed and inaccurate of systems for confirming truth. That's why the scientific method and independent verification with objective substantiation has been so valuable to us. Science. And science, does most certainly NOT go so far as to confirm premise one. You, WLC, are either mistaken, or a liar.
"Premise one is constantly verified and never falsified."
Sun comes up, Sun goes down. Never a miscommunication. How about, WLC, you don't extrapolate beyond what is reasonable. Just because all whales in the ocean were birthed, doesn't mean the ocean was birthed. We live in such a small portion of the universe, and have knowledge of so little. How do you know everything that begins to exist has a cause? How can you pretend to extrapolate that from the speck of existence the entire human race has experienced, to the universe as a whole?
Craig goes on to totally gaff inductive reasoning as applied to classes. He assumes the class of "thing" for the universe, without warrant.
5) If the universe began to exist, then it must have come from nothing.
I've never heard anyone claim this. What again, WLC, is this "nothing" you speak of? This appears to be an obese strawman.
Craig goes on to try and define his use of the word. Goes into a stand-up routine that would make Abbott and Costello proud, but fails to give any practical examples of "nothing". We have, in this universe, seen examples of things, and other things, but never of nothing. Why is he applying this concept? It certainly hasn't been advanced in science. Straw.
"Metaphysically absurd.."
Sure, why not. After all, isn't everything claimed metaphysical, absurd? Since there has never been any examples of the "metaphysical" either, this measure has no meaning.
"..truths of metaphysics"
That concept is just as meaningful as "the flavour of magic".
Craig cites Plato and expounds on how old and wise premise one is. Just because something is old, doesn't make it true, or wise. Plato asks a question, and is premature with an answer, just as Craig is.
Premise two
6) Nothing ever begins to exist.. So it's not true that universe began to exist.
Again, putting words into the mouth of the objector. The objection stands, for the first part, but you misrepresent the second part. it should read, "..So, it cannot be claimed that a beginning is substantiated for the universe." We, or at least I, don't claim that the universe began to exist or not, that it is true or not true that it did so. I simply state that there is insufficient grounds to accept a definitive claim that it did.
Craig claims this is his favourite, as it's "patently ridiculous". He then goes on to show himself to be ridiculous. He completely misunderstands the concept of classification and the dependent nature of the definition of the word 'thing'.
He goes on to ask questions in the same vein as "If Earth is round, then why don't we fall off?"
"Did I exist before I was conceived?! If so, where was I?"
Your constituent parts existed, and the parts which make up those parts existed, in combination and recombination for the existence of the universe. Matter is of energy and energy of space, and space of the expansion of the universe. Trying to mine incredulity again is simply disingenuous.
He summarises in the completely back-assward position of stating, "Just because the stuff of which something was made has always existed, doesn't imply that the thing itself has always existed." No one is claiming that it does. The reasonable conclusion is the other way around, however. Just because you define a thing as a thing, at some point, and assign meaning to it, doesn't mean that the entirety of the material that comprise all things was "caused" to exist, much less "made".
"The objector could save himself the embarrassment of claiming that he has always existed..."
You really want to suck as much juice as possible out of that strawman, don't you, WLC. No one claims they always existed. You could do well to save yourself embarrassment, but I know that's not going to happen.
Craig continues and goes down the tangential path of mereological nihilism, because he'd rather not address the actual objection, and he imagines nihilism to be the only other option, if we don't accept his worldview of intrinsic meaning.
Finishing up, WLC dishonestly conflates conceptual existence with practical existence, to obfuscate the position of a straw objector. Time well-spent(!)
I had lunch.
"There's no sort of metaphysical absurdity involved in something's having an efficient cause, but no material cause.."
Did you really just say that, WLC?! So something can come from whatever you mean by nothing, after all? Great, so a magic man (efficient cause) can magic stuff (object) without material cause (source material). This is what I was referring to before, where you would bring out your own pimp-bag of magic. Oh, Craig, what hurts more, your stomach from digesting your brain, or your brain from being digested by your stomach?
7) Equivocation of "begins" in relation to material and non-material states.
A side note: It's interesting to see, at this point, how Craig has surreptitiously switched the term "cause" out for the proper noun, "God". Blatantly dishonest.
"By 'begins to exist', all I mean is, 'comes into being'."
Yeah, that doesn't help at all. You haven't defined it at all, univocally or otherwise, We're back in the same boat we started in. What do you mean by "being"? You haven't addressed the difference between a universe-dependent "thing's" coming into being from previous material, and the coming into being of a universe from something you haven't even bothered to define yet.
Seven is a convenient extension of WLC's conflation of conceptual existence with practical/empirical existence.
Instead of addressing the actual objection, again, he chooses to redefine and talk about what he wants the objection to entail. The objection hinges on the absurdity of a claim for a "non-material" state, not an the equivocation of one verses the other, as if both concepts were valid. What do you mean by non-material state? "nothing"? What is that?
He also doesn't address the temporally dependent nature of the term "begin". He simply states that there's no problem with it, without really saying why.
"..It would allow even time itself to begin to exist."
It would even allow Bugs Bunny to pick himself up by the ears. Craig so horribly FAILS in his understanding of the concept of 'time'. It's as if he thinks it's an independent "thing" or "stuff".
When WLC confronts himself with the problem of an intercession by his "God" making his god time-dependent, instead of doing the honest thing (because that would be "wrong-headed"), and contemplating the possibility of a temporal-spacial cause, he changes his analysis to allow for the characteristics that he already fancies for his god. This is, therefore, not an "analysis", as he's been calling it.
"..if He enters into time from a moment of timelessness.."
Holy flying fuck! He doesn't even realise how stupid that sounds. This is why I call him a clown. Clown's would be funny if they weren't so tragic. Moment of timelessness indeed.
Objections to the Conclusion
8) Kalam is logically self-contradictory. Everything has a cause, but concludes a first uncaused cause.
"Man, how do people think these things up?!"
This clearly shows that Craig has opted for the low-hanging fruit to respond to, as far as objections are concerned. He obviously includes this only to try and make himself look better from his tower of condescension, and objectors to look foolish. Cheap tactic. Yeah. I'll just sit back and watch you play with all the cheat codes turned on.
"The atheist has typically said that the universe itself is eternal and uncaused..The problem is, that supposition has now been rendered dubious in light of the strong arguments in support of premise two.."
What part of 'only extrapolated back to the singularity' doesn't Craig understand? Evidently, the entirety of it. Premise two lies as floppy as it always has.
..Oh, we're done with the eternal universe concept? Nothing else to offer except your assertion for "strong arguments"? Well, that was disappointing.
9) "Cause" might as well be nothingness, because of the characteristics shared with Nothingness, of time-, change-, space-lessness.
Let me guess. He's going to try to shimmy in the "enormously powerful" quality he imagined before. Yep, that was it. He doesn't even see the problem that power for cause needs a mode of transfer. And that mechanism is not shown to be possible, much less defined and described. Even more damagingly, all of the -lessnesses that he postulates for his Go.. mmmm 'cause', would, by definition, preclude "power".
In his rant against negative predicates he wholly misses the fact that his 'efficient cause' without 'material cause', falls exactly into that category. Something from nothing. It's just tweaked to 'Something from nothing, by someone.'
"The attribution of negative predicates.. to this entity.. is enormously informative, and metaphysically significant. From [these attributions].. we can deduce its personhood."
Let me guess again. It has the exact attributes that you fancy for your god. Skipping over what the hell "metaphysically significant" might mean, The idea that 'timelessness' and 'immateriality' can be used to deduce personhood, is feverish. What kind of person ever, anywhere, could possibly be conceived of as being timeless and immaterial? The very nature of personality is defied by those qualities. WLC, can you deduce the personality of my pet rock?
10)
Richard Dawkins- "Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God.."
WLC makes sure, right out of the gate on this one, to mention that Dawkins doesn't dispute either premise of Kalam. He would be more honest in saying that he doesn't need to. Or simply hasn't. That doesn't mean that Dawkins accepts the premises, or the argument. In fact, we've most of us heard Dawkins make humorous quips about it.
Because Dawkins goes so far as to construct a hypothetical, WLC, dishonestly jumps to claim that Dawkins concedes that Kalam proves a first cause, replete with all the bells and whistles that Craig would fancy to endow it with; to prop it up as his god.
Craig points out that Dawkins' quote doesn't address Kalam specifically. But again, Craig misses the point. Dawkins is simply not playing WLC's little game. He sees the whole spiel for what it is. An attempt by a Christian apologist to dishonestly wedge his god in the door of a more general argument. Dawkins just addresses the ultimate unwarranted conclusion that desperate christians are hoping to make. So, Dr. Dr. Spacecaptain Craig. You wouldn't have any trouble at all conceding that the primal cause in your Kalam argument might be something akin to Satan?
"A being, as described, must exist."
Oh, now it's a "being". Now there's a loaded term.
"These represent the level of discourse that pervades the internet and YouTube. I hope you can see how worthless they are."
"I think the culture's always been kinda dumb."
"It's just that we need to help a lot of these infidel types to realize that they haven't mastered the literature."
I guess my paltry 3 decades of religious study and degree in comparative religion just doesn't cut it. I'm sorry to have visited any discomfort upon your Lordship. We're not worthy to find fault with his Grace's pronouncements! It's easy, when you pick out the worst, isn't it? That's the nature of the internet. It has everything. And it has some pretty good shit too. Shit of a higher quality than what you're excreting. And so, the internet, and YouTube are worthless. Hmmm. I guess I didn't just watch this video on YouTube. I guess you'll be going to live in Western Siberia now, so as to rid yourself of this pesky internet, and the unwashed masses who dare to question your professional scholarlyness. Well, good luck with that.
