My challenge to Evan Minton Cerebral Faith on the big bang

Evan Minton is doing pretty much what Frank Turek is doing, and is pushing the big bang as if it is the only "valid" theory of origins and that it obviously implies a spaceless timeless immaterial personal god.  See here.

I posted the following rebuttal to him:

Three objections:

First, how can you acknowledge that running the tape backwards gets us to a point of "infinite density", when in fact elsewhere you cite the "infinite" nature of something as a reason to reject it?  If reeling the tape backwards potentially shows us a point of actually infinite density, well, you insist that an actual infinite cannot exist because we cannot traverse it.  Since the density of an infinitely dense point could never be traversed, your own logic would require that you deny the possibility of a point of infinite density as strongly as you deny the possibility that the universe is an actual infinite.

(this is to say nothing of the fact that you believe your god is a case of real existing actual infinity that we cannot traverse...so apparently, by your own standards, you don't seriously believe that actual  infinites are impossible, otherwise you'd be saying your god, by being a case of actual infinitity, is thus impossible.)

Second, plenty of creationists and anti-evolutionist websites, usually run by classical theist Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy, assert that the big bang theory is contrary to Genesis 1-2.  What do you say to your brothers in the Lord who find the big bang equally as unscriptural and unscientific as some atheists do?   Is confession of the big bang a test for orthodoxy, or is asserting the unscriptural nature of the big bang a position that is within the range of biblically allowable alternatives?

Third, every biblical description of god's activities in heaven would give the ancient reader the distinct impression that events happen up there in temporal chronological progression no less than they do on earth.  They would never have gotten the idea that the "eternity" god lives in is some sort of 'ever present now' or "other dimension" that is impossible for finite creatures to comprehend.  The bible talks about what goes on in heaven no less plainly than you'd talk about what happened at bible camp last year.

That being the case, how long do you suppose the list of god's prior acts is, and why doesn't your argument about the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite compel you to say the list of god's prior actions is limited?  If our inability to traverse an actual infinite proves the infinite is a faulty concept, then our inability to traverse the entire list of god's prior acts would, under your own logic, prove the notion to be a faulty concept.

The way i see it, the bible itself forces you to one of two conclusions, either of which do violence to what you currently believe:  either a) because the list of god's prior acts is infinite, the impossibility of our traversing an actual infinite does nothing to disprove the infinite, it merely speaks to our current inabilities, or b) the list of god's prior actions is NOT infinite...and at that point you can kiss your classical theism goodbye.  You suggest the list of god's prior actions is finite, and you wind up with a finite god and thus that much closer to Mormonism.

By the way, the Court has decided to allow my libel lawsuit against James Patrick Holding to go forward, so if you did in fact pray about this, you might consider that it was God who opened that door, when in fact the earthly judge was initially threatening to dismiss the case.  If prayer works, then thanks for your prayers. 

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Minton also asks whether we have examples of things beginning to exist.  See here.

Minton failed to deliver the goods, the for the reasons outlined in my rebuttal, which was:

    barry
May 8, 2019 at 1:05 PM

    No, Mr. Minton, things beginning to exist in the sense of new atoms popping into existence, is NOT "self-evident". Those closest you could get is the Copenhagen school of quantum physics, but even that is too tenuous to be taken seriously in your effort to "prove" something.

    The only type of "begin to exist" we have any evidence for, is where the new thing is merely a rearrangement of pre-existing matter. You have no evidence that matter itself ever came into existence, and unfortunately, that's the precise sense you need to justify, in your effort to justify Kalam's first premise. Kalam doesn't say everything that begins to exist, was a re-arrangement of pre-existing matter. But its nice to see that you've pretty much admitted you don't have any serious evidence of anything popping into existence from nothing, rather, you have to "get around" the temporal-origin of things by bringing up the general bb theory. That is, you have no real-world analogies to show Kalam's first premise to be true, outside of the already-questionable and unconvincing BB theory.

    You challenge the atheist reader with:

    "If you, my dear reader, disagree, then let me ask you a question. Where were you the night the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor? Were you lying back in a canopy sipping coconut milk? Now that I think of it; where was I when that happened? I have no recollection of seeing the meteor wipe out the dinosaurs. Maybe the presupposition behind these questions is wrong. Maybe we weren’t there at all. Maybe, just maybe, we didn’t exist yet."

    -----I reply, correct, we did not exist in the days of the dinosaurs. But that doesn't mean our current existence implies creation of new atoms. We are STILL nothing more than a rearrangement of previously existing matter. This is rather obvious, while at the same time, your theory that some of what makes up a human being is "non-physical" has no compelling evidence whatsoever. Just read Moreland's treatment of the subject, and see what ridiculous warps the brain needs to entertain in order to continuing telling itself that thinking comes into the brain from another dimension. Nothing is quite as crazy as the efforts of Christian apologists to "prove" that the mind is different than the brain. When we say thoughts are always influenced by physicality such as brain damage or drugs, you can give nothing in reply, except that these proofs do not absolutely exclude the possibility of mind/body dualism. Well gee, the power of muscles doesn't absolutely exclude the possibility that the muscular power originates in another dimension and merely comes into the body using the muscle as an interface. Do you think the non-absolute nature of this proof is a compelling reason to leave open the option that the ultimate source of muscular power resides in another dimension (!?)

    You then argue "The reality is that we actually have a lot of examples of things coming into being; cars, trucks, galaxies, planets, people, houses, computers, telephones, animals, etc. These things didn’t always exist even if it were true that the matter these things were made of always existed."

    ----I reply, no; car, truck and galaxy did not come "from nothing", so they do not suffice to support your specific contention that things can come into existence "from nothing". When you say matter itself popped into existence from nothing, you are talking about something that has no analogy to how cars, trucks and galaxies come into existence. Creation ex nihilo is obviously quite different from the case of the auto manufacturer who takes pre-existing iron ore and turns it into a car.

    Either come up with real world examples of objects popping into existence without the help of preexisting matter, or we are rational and reasonable to deny that any such thing has ever happened.

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