First Cause Arguements

Hello one and all, so firstly, I was browsing YouTube and fount this video by Rationality Rules… https://youtu.be/bdhDIGULJWY

Here he is debating Kalam.

Now I know there a lot of first cause logical arguments, like the kalam cosmological and others similar…

But there is something I’d like to know, how do theists get to god? How does it get inserted?

So firstly, let’s use an example of one of the arguements…

WLC has used the following syllogism,

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

And followed from the last premise with…

  1. The universe has a cause.
  2. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
  3. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

Now let’s say we accept that all things have first cause (despite what quantum mechanics lead us to believe…) why must a first cause be a personal creator?

I never get how they smuggle God into it… i could perhaps concede that maybe something caused or lead to where we are at now.

But no one can say what that is, especially theists.

They are privileging their own beliefs, without any evidence to demonstrate a personal creator is even a viable options… in fact it is as viable as an non personal entity, or an immoral entity or a purely evil entity.

It utterly staggers me.

Am I missing something? How does God get inserted into the argument? It does not logically follow for me and can be replaced with anything…

I.e.

  1. The universe has a cause.
  2. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal puff of smoke of the universe exists who the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
  3. Therefore, an uncaused puff of smoke of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.
  • The universe has a cause.
  • If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, Fairy GodMother of the universe exists who is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
  • Therefore, an uncaused Fairy GodMother of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

You are soooo wrong Random -
READ YOUR BIBLE
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This is where they inject the “god of the gaps” fallacy.

But for me personally, I do not accept the first premise, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.”

It’s easy. They smuggle God into it. You could just as easily smuggle any universe creating entity. Blue universe creating Bunnies, The Big Magical Universe Creating Yellow Banana. I think I heard an argument for the Universe Creating Cockatoo once. You can make the exact same assertions about any of these as you can about the Magical Universe creating God.

You are not missing a damn thing. THE MISSING LINK IS STILL MISSING.

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In some ways this is very smart of them. If you are going to just make shit up, you might as well make up a bunch of shit and get your money’s worth.

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LOL… NyarlathotepAtheist

I think you just said… “If you can’t convince them with evidence, baffle them with bullshit.”

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That was exactly how I read it! Lol

But yeah, I just struggle to see how we jump to the conclusion of a god, or causal agent etc… that slips into the syllogism.

I would concede everything has a cause, therefore there must have been a first cause, purely because theists are still up shit creek without a paddle…

Its this bit that gets me…

" 1. The universe has a cause.

  1. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, ‘personal Creator of the universe exists’…

Woahhhhhhhh there!

WLC has gone rogue here! That in no way follows, it could be batman for all we know.

I would still argue that IF the universe did have a first cause(and i am by no means convinced it did), it will follow a natural causal link.

That seems like a contradiction. Since the first cause would need a cause (you told us everything has a cause). If a first cause itself has a cause, it seems it isn’t a first cause.

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Oh i totally agree Nyar, I meant I would conceed it in order just to watch them dig a rather deep hole!

I’m genuinely not convinced there needs to be a first cause.

I personally think WLC is still stuck in a world of aristotelian causality and classical mechanics.

“The universe has a cause.” Where in the hell did that come from? Here is the problem. When the theist says cause, he or she means creation. An apple seed is the cause of an apple tree. There are causes and causes. There is nothing preventing the universe from simply being a natural result of matter that happens to exist and has always existed in the form of Einstein;s energy. Where there is energy there is mass.

Where does the matter come from? How is that not the wrong question? Where in the did all the matter go to? How do you get from what is, to nothing in the natural world? How does all this something change into nothing? We know something exists… demonstrate nothing.

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Except of course, that “everything that begins to exist” has observably had a “cause” rooted in testable natural processes, which means that the attempt to smuggle in a magic man waving its magic todger about is null and void.

A couple of months ago, I came across the so-called five ways proving the existence of god, proposed by Thomas Aquinas. (1225-1274)

Each argument has been thoroughly discredited, over centuries. The 'first cause argument is one of the five.

Below a very brief introduction. Imo the full article is worth reading

The Quinque viæ (Latin " Five Ways ") (sometimes called “five proofs”) are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica . They are:

  1. the argument from “first mover”;
  2. the argument from causation;
  3. the argument from contingency;
  4. the argument from degree;
  5. the argument from final cause or ends (“teleological argument”).

Aquinas expands the first of these – God as the “unmoved mover” – in his Summa Contra Gentiles .[1]

I know they are asserted as logical, I’ve yet to read one that doesn’t involve at least two logical fallacies. Usually a special pleading fallacy to exempt a deity from their initial premise “everything that has a beginning must have a cause”, though they simply assume their deity is infinite here, which they claim is impossible elsewhere, which of course is a begging the question fallacy, as are all unevidenced assumptions in first cause arguments about that first cause.

It needn’t be, this is pure assumption again, based on a begging the question fallacy, where WLC and others make assumptions about the nature of the very thing they’re arguing for.

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Excuse me for stumbling in here long after the discussion seems to have waned…

There is NO SUCH THING as a (rational) first cause argument.

Why to adults waste time masturbating about it ?

Really.

An argument may be untrue but perfectly rational.

The first cause argument was first argued by Aristotle as far as I know. In the 13th century it was one of Aquinas’ ’ Five Ways’ . Latterly it’s been used by William Lane Craig, an intelligent and subtle thinker.

Simply dismissing opposing thoughts as irrational is no more than a facile ad hominem imo.

Perhaps have a go at outlining how you reached that conclusion.

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An issue i have with the creative designer is direct causality…

So, WLC does appear to play by the rules at first but then expresses that the universe must have some kind of intelligent designer.

Why? The Earth was ‘created’ from an accretion disc… is the accretion disc intelligent? Did it purposely intend to create Earth? Or was it dumb luck of random natural events?

I also feel there is too much worth attached to humans, as if we are special.

Perhaps to a degree in our local vicinity yes, but in the context of simply our solar system, let alone the universe, we are almost nothing.

An asteroid could wipe us out tomorrow and the universe will continue.

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With great certainty, the Abrahamic religions all use the ego. God created man, we live in the center of the universe, god answers our prayer, and when we die, we go to a very special place. The Jews are god’s chosen people.

Anyone wonder why god made man and decided to allow us into heaven? Just because we’re so special and wonderful?

That represents objective evidence, WLC like all theists is looking for gaps in our knowledge to insert his deity into. Which is what first cause arguments are, a god of the gaps polemic, using an appeal to ignorance fallacy.

I agree totally, and this kind of arrogant hyperbole might have been forgivable to our illiterate ignorant ancestors, but now that science has shown beyond any reasonable or rational doubt that we are one species of evolved ape, and the youngest one at that, we ought to show all other species a lot more respect.

Well one could argue of course that a simple virus seems to have put even that idea to the test and found us very wanting.

Not like it would be the first time either, imagine it for a moment, the entirety of human history & knowledge, along with every single religion and deity they have created, extirpated by the random trajectory of a chunk of frozen ice and rock. Yeah we’re the reason everything was created all right…

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Well I’M important!

In fact I’m the most important person in my world. The rest of you, not so much.

OF course we’re important to ourselves. Survival is our most powerful instinct after all. Overall, We’re just another species which has been here for a blink of the eye. I gather it’s pretty unlikely we’ll still around when our sun finally dies. I suspect our extinction will be a good thing for the environment and other species.