My rebuttal to Kalam, posted to NAMB Apologetics

Here's what I posted over at NAMB's Apologetics Blog:
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Dr. Craig states the Kalam's first premise as follows:
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." 

There is no evidence that anything has ever "began to exist", except in the sense of rearranging pre-existing atoms.
Rearranging pre-existing atoms is seen every day, cars, babies, books, etc.  These all 'come into existence' only in the sense that they make use of pre-existing matter.   

But that is not the sense Craig and most apologists intend in Kalam's first premise.  Otherwise they'd merely be saying rearrangements of pre-existing atoms requires a cause, which is hardly controversial and proves nothing. 

The sense they intend is "the beginning of the existence of new matter must have a cause".
THAT sense is not confirmed by any scientific evidence.  We have no evidence that matter itself was ever created, or ever once didn't exist; we only have evidence that matter, already existing, rearranges itself into new configurations.  

Therefore, the first premise of Kalam appears certainly false, and as such, the whole of the argument topples, and as such, Kalam does not require a beginning to the universe.  Our intuitions about things needing a beginning never arise from observed instances of creation of new matter, but only arise from observed instances of pre-existing matter being continuously reconfigured.  Hence, our intuitions do NOT tell us that matter *itself* ever had to "come from" anywhere.

Cold Case Christianity: Who Created God? Answer: mankind

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Who Created God?

Posted: 20 Sep 2017 01:00 AM PDT

If the intelligent design theory be true (i.e., that which is complex cannot exist except by being created by a prior equally if not more complex production-agent), then assuming God created us, we only have our degree of complexity because God himself possesses at least this degree of complexity.  So if our own complexity implies we were intelligently designed, why doesn't God's own complexity imply He was intelligently designed?

Apparently, the only reason you stop the "complexity requires intelligent designer" argument before it starts asking questions about God's complexity, is because you need to stop it at that point for the sake of theological convenience, nothing more.   Well if "complexity implies design" is a safe rule of thumb, your gonna need something more than theological convenience before you insist that there are cases of complexity where the rule doesn't apply.

 287Richard Dawkins, the famous English evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist, revived an objection related to God’s existence in his book, The God Delusion. In the fourth chapter (Why There Almost Certainly Is No God), Dawkins wrote, “…the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable.” In essence, Dawkins offered a restatement of the classic question, “Who created God?” On its face, this seems to be a reasonable question. Christians, after all, claim God created everything we see in our universe (all space, time and matter); He is the cause of our caused cosmos. Skeptics fail to see this as a satisfactory explanation, however, because it seems to beg the question, “If God, created the universe, who (or what) created God?”

Part of the problem lies in the nature of the question itself. If I were to ask you, “What sound does silence make?” you’d start to appreciate the problem. This latter question is nonsensical because silence is “soundless”; silence is, by definition, “the lack of sound”. There’s something equally irrational about the question, “Who created God?” God is, by definition, eternal and uncreated.

Then you are avoiding the skeptic's objection merely by defining it out of existence.  You insist your god is eternal, therefore, there can be no questions about where he came from. But you don't know your god is eternal, you simply trust a book full of fairy tales which says as much.

It is, therefore, illogical to ask, “Who created the uncreated Being we call God?” And, if you really think about it, the existence of an uncreated “first cause” is not altogether unreasonable:

It’s Reasonable to Believe The Universe Was Caused

Famed astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “The Cosmos is everything that ever was, is and will be.” If this is true, we are living in an infinitely old, uncaused universe that requires no first cause to explain its existence. But there are good scientific and philosophical reasons to believe the universe did, in fact, begin to exist. The Second Law of Thermodynamics,

No, this law does not teach that the energy in the universe is running down.  Energy is nothing but matter in motion, matter doesn't disappear into nothing when it is converted to energy, it just changes its physical form.  The first law of thermodynamics prevents the creation or annihilation of matter, logically requiring that what's here, has always been here, and new things are just recombination of the same original atoms.  I am made of the dust of the stars and the oceans flow in my veins.

the expansion of the universe,

 That's based on the Doppler interpretation of the red-shift (stars moving away from us).  Wouldn't matter if it was true, the Andromeda Galaxy is blue shifted (moving toward us), and your big-bang theory, if true, would not allow for an entire galaxy to do a complete u-turn while racing away from us, and start coming back toward us.  There's not enough matter around the Andromeda Galaxy to explain how it managed to slow down from the initial big bang thrust, do a u-turn, and start heading in the opposite direction.  The proper conclusion is that movement of celestial bodies in the cosmos goes in all directions, which of course contradicts the "expanding away from each other" theory required by a big bang explosion.  Guth's Inflationary theory does not fix this problem and remains speculative nonetheless.

the Radiation Echo,

This is likely misinterpretation, see
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/big-bang-echoes-that-proved-einstein-correct-might-just-have-been-space-dust-admit-scientists-9461699.html

http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/do-we-have-the-big-bang-theory-all-wrong

And of course, who doesn't know that the conservative evangelical young-earth scientists over at two creationist websites deny the big bang theory and explain this radiation echo otherwise:

https://creation.com/echoes-of-the-big-bang-or-noise
http://www.icr.org/article/big-bang-theory-collapses/

You can hardly say spiritually dead skeptics/atheists "should" know the scientific truth proving your god, when your own spiritually alive brothers and sisters in the faith disagree with your interpretation of the scientific data.  Does it makes sense to tell you to avoid trumpeting from the rooftops until God's like-minded ones get their act together?  Or do you care somewhat less about divisions in the body of Christ than Paul and Jesus did?

and the problem of Infinite Regress cumulatively point to a universe with a beginning.

No, if the universe is indeed infinite, as appears likely,an infinite regress of causes would be real and would correctly explain any currently moving object.   And your God's eternal nature logically requires that the list of his past actions goes on forever, as a real and true infinite regress.  So you cannot say infinite regresses are logically impossible.

In the classic formulation of the Kalam cosmological argument: (1) whatever begins to exist has a cause,

This assertion is stupid, we have no scientific evidence that anything ever came into existence in the sense of being composed of new previously non-existent atoms.  A baby begins to exist, of course, but this is only a recombination of previously existing matter.  You probably don't mean "begins to exist" in the sense of "using preexisting atoms to produce a new shape" when you talk about God creating the universe.  You probably meant "begins to exist" in the sense of "brand new atoms that didn't previously exist".  And there you go...we have no empirical evidence that any material thing is composed of atoms that previously didn't exist.  its just a cosmos wherein the same atomic sub-structures that have existed for infinity continually combine and recombine.    If you think some of the matter in a log disappears into literally nothing after the log has burned up in the fireplace, you are sorely mistaken. ALL of the matter that was once part of that log, still exists after it has burned up, it is just that the application of heat caused it to change chemically and physically and for some of its matter to depart from it.  The heat that comes out of the chimmney is made of atoms that continue to exist even after the heat cools down.  Matter is eternal, just like the 1st Law of Thermodynamics says.

(2) the universe began to exist,

that logically requires the logical absurdity of a beginning to time itself, so your second premise is assuredly false. What fool talks about things that happened before time itself?

therefore, (3) it is reasonable to believe the universe has a cause.

Nope, see above.

It’s Reasonable to Accept the Existence of An Uncaused “First Cause”

This “first cause” of the universe accounts for the beginning of all space, time and matter.

Only if you ignore the serious problems that attend the concept of a first cause, such as this first cause logically existing temporally prior to time itself, your God being intelligent without a physical brain,  and the other problem previously stated, that your god has at least as much of the complexity that humans have, which you say implies an intelligent designer, but you blindly insist no intelligent designer is implied by God's own an infinitely greater complexity. 

You just stop the "complexity implies intelligent design" train where you need it to for no other reason than theological convenience, not for any logically compelling reason.   You either ride that train all the way to the end of the logic line and admit God's own complexity proves he himself was intelligently designed, or admit that because you know of at least one case of complexity that can exist without being intelligently designed, your rule of thumb that complexity implies intelligent design is not as logically forceful as you wish.

It must, therefore, be non-spatial, a temporal and immaterial.

Yeah, about as believable as something existing "beyond nature".  But I certainly agree that your god is immaterial.

Even more importantly, the first cause must be uncaused. If this was not true, the cause of the universe would not be the “first” cause at all. Theists and atheists alike are looking for the uncaused, first cause of the cosmos in order to avoid the irrational problem of an infinite regress of past causes and effects.

No, the atheists who think the universe is infinite, like me, no longer search for a first cause since that logically wouldn't exist in the infinite universe.

It is, therefore, reasonable to accept the existence of an uncaused, first cause.

It’s Reasonable to Believe God Is the Uncaused, “First Cause”

Rationality dictates the ultimate cause of the universe, (even if it isn’t God), must have certain characteristics. In addition to being non-spatial, a temporal, immaterial and eternal (uncaused), it must also be powerful enough to bring everything into existence from nothing.

No, creation ex nihilo is a logical contradiction.  We have no empirical evidence that zero could ever produce something, and the mathematical impossibility of this strongly argues the notion doesn't work anywhere else either.  SO if God really did create matter, than it can only be pieces of God or God's power, and thus pantheism is logically implied.

 The apologists who say quantum theory allows for virtual particles to be created from nothing and disappear back into nothing, are being dishonest by failing to inform you that this is only the Copenhagen school of quantum theory, there are several schools of quantum theory, and some of them deny that particles can come into existence from nothing. 

Finally, there is good reason to believe the cause of the universe is personal. Impersonal forces cannot cause (or refuse to cause) at will.

Stuff in the universe was never proven to have been put here by a will anyway, so no dice.

The minute an impersonal force exists, its effect is experienced. When the impersonal force of gravity is introduced into an environment, for example, its effect (the gravitational attraction) is felt immediately. If the cause of the universe is simply an impersonal force, its effect (the beginning of the universe) would occur simultaneous with its existence. In other words, the cause of the universe would only be as old as the universe itself. Yet we accept the reasonable existence of an uncaused first cause (one that is not finite like the universe it caused). For this reason, a personal force, capable of willing the beginning of the universe, is the best explanation for the first cause of the cosmos. This cause can be reasonably described as non-spatial, a temporal, immaterial, eternal, all-powerful and personal: descriptive characteristics commonly reserved for the Being we identify as God.

The universe was never caused, its always been here, obviating any need to refute your above-cited statements which stand on the falsified premise of the universe having a beginning.

All of us, whether we are atheists or theists, are trying to identify the first cause of the universe.

Count me out, the universe is infinite, there is no such thing as a "first" event in an infinite universe.  I've stopped looking.

The eternal nature of this non-spatial, a temporal, immaterial cause is required in order to avoid the problem of infinite regress.

Infinite regress was never a problem in an infinite universe.  Ever see the Hubble deep field?  The farthest we can see into space, there is no outer limit to the field of stars, it just continues on indefinitely.  There's no reason to think we'd ever reach the farthest star if we flew in a rocket ship in a straight line for 99 trillion years, we'd still see endless stars in front of us the whole time.  But we'd have to have eternal life to make this observation, and Lord knows, I don't want that.