Why YOU should believe...

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This.

When do we start to have a Kalam cosmological argument (TM)?

The premise I used literally appears in Wiki and many sources. The definition of cause is the common sense one i.e. temporal cause with cause preceding consequence. Only under these definitions the premise 'everything that has a beginning has a cause' is relatively apparent and does not suffer from infinite regress like 'what caused god'.

Even you came up different definitions for the term 'beginning' (remember it is you who explicitly add 'necessary existing' in the definition of beginning and changing the argument to essentially the contingency argument) and WLC uses different variants of the argument. It is the 'Christian thinker' who move to new definitions of 'beginning and 'cause' when the old one is debunked. It is the 'Christian thinker' who is moving the goal post.

Late in the game I will throw in tuppence.

Too often, it seems to me, we equate faith with the outward practice of doctrine. This error occurs on both sides of the religious/rational divide. Rationalists see ritual as empty, scripture as inconsistent with scientific fact and doctrine as inconsistent with a contemporary, pluralist, humanist world. Religionists, too, make the error by adhering uncritically to doctrine and ascribing irrational significance to ritual.

But nowhere do we approach the more imporant question: what is the value of faith separate from doctrine? Let me be clear that I am taking a large and liberal view of faith. Faith can be belief in a personified, supernatural deity (or more than one, for that matter), but it can also be faith in more abstract concepts. It can be, simply, faith that the world (writ large) follows a pattern and that events that occur are simply part of that pattern. From that perspective, much of our scientific knowledge is built on faith. We can't see an atom, but we have faith that the research of others teaches us how they function.

I see the value of faith all the time in clinical practice. There are diseases we can't cure. There are injuries we can't heal. At some point, the science and art of medicine fails us. Patients who have faith--whether it be religious faith or faith in the well-ordered nature of the world--find it much easier to be reconciled to terminal conditions. But people who don't have some perspective on the transient nature of life within a larger system have a much more difficult time when a doctor says, "there is nothing we can do."

we all put faith in something, that something however can have more or less of a connection to the objective reality.

91, Telekon is only saying "You had set up a strawman by recasting the conclusion of a philosophical argument as a conjunction. " as the dishonest part. Basically, he's claiming that stating:
P1) Everything that has a beginning has a cause
P2) The universe has a beginning
C) Therefore the universe has a cause, and we call it god

is dishonest because C) is wrong. That's the only conjunction. The problem is that binary only attacked P1 and P2. C was irrelevant. P1 and P2 are not contested though. This means that what's being criticized is window dressing to binary's point. I really don't consider this a material objection if binary could have made his point without referencing C.(and he could have!)

I am not misrepresenting anybody, 91. I am not YOU. Frankly, your statement

Is incorrect, and people KNOW it is incorrect. I've criticized M_P for using the argument from the inability to have causal interaction because I believe that is a bad argument. Binary has promoted things very close to igtheism because of a view on the meaningfulness of theistic language, and I've opposed this on the grounds that this is based upon a misunderstanding of language and how it works. The fact that you claim I misrepresent someone as a habit, and THEN you misrepresent me is frankly a bit bizarre. I've also criticized ValentineWiggin for her minimalism on the possible meanings of the term "atheist" also as a misunderstanding of language, even though this terminological shift does provide some rhetorical advantages to atheism. There are witnesses to all of these.

As well, you just misrepresented binary in a grotesquely obvious manner. Here's what he states:


Binary doesn't hold to the obviously false view. He admits it is obviously false. You did an OBVIOUS quotemine. He constructs two possibilities and shows that one of them is false. His ultimate point is that the term "beginning" conflates our intuitions between definition A and B, and so P2) actually is looking artificially strong because of definition A, when under definition B, it's not as clear.

I am not seriously interested in debating against a side that is obviously wrong to the point of outright folly. In order to have a strawman, you have to have a misrepresentation that is material for your argument, and binary's representation of C) is not material. End of story. 91, you defend every single theist on every single point of criticism, regardless of how valid that is. You defended philologos for his utter misunderstanding of the point of a thread, when he didn't give a good, solid, complete argument as was the implicit intention of that thread, as every poster before him understood. This is an absurdity, 91. I don't even know what your problem is, but the degree of intellectual dishonesty you display, that you displayed just now with a material misrepresentation and an easily revealed one is just appalling.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 24 Dec 2011, 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes I think you have a purposeful ignorance when it comes to the definitions used in philosophy. You are correct that there is only one conjunction, you are wrong however in claiming that Binary's argument has nothing to do with it. Conjunctions, especially within established formal philosophical arguments are established by the supporting evidence within the premises. When binary challenges the Kalam argument, he must and does present an argument against certain premises within the argument. The reason it is a straw man is that he misrepresented the affirmative case, avoided the arguments in favor and presented an argument that no one who I know is associated with the argument, would ever defend. Telekon, being a person who understands philosophical arguments, understands this, you do not. Binary is claiming that 'if' his argument is true then (x) premises of the Kalam are false, that is the basic conjunction of an argument and it is one that exists within the Kalam (the Kalam simply claims that (x) is true, it is the oppose of his argument, not a separate argument); the Kalam contains this, because it is an argument, not a undisputed series of propositions. If you do not get this, then give up now, because you just made a claim that shows you know little about formal arguments.



Yes he does. His position stands in total opposition to the established rules of causality. The definition of time he used in his argument is not even the definition used within the Kalam. That is about as straw as a strawman gets.



Nonsense, I have had good discussions with AngelRho on doctrine, Mormons on creation, JW's on just about everything and fellow Christians on creationism.

And what did Telekon say?



Telekon is not making the argument binary is misrepresenting the affirmative case, and avoiding the arguments in his favor. He's at best only making an argument that he's not presenting the KCA correctly. The issue is that binary's arguments, whether they are valid or not, do not rest on whether he states the KCA properly. This is obvious.


91, I don't think what you wrote has an actual meaning to it. I think you just rambled a bit, as I get the feeling that this is just a run-on sentence with sloppy word use.


91, that's a different argument than Telekon's argument. It's not really relevant to Telekon's claim. Also, if by definition of time, you mean that B) suggests the B series, then I don't think that's even an invalid approach.


You mean that you'll criticize them on periphery issues, but remain dogmatic against the outsider atheists? Fun.

^^^^
If Telekon thinks I am incorrect in my discussion of his complaints, I will defer to him; the rest of my complaint against your statement stands and you have not said anything of value on it.

What are you serious? The description Binary put forward of the Kalam discussed the argument made in favor of the premises of it. When he detailed the claims of the Kalam, he was discussing the truth or falsity of the premises; which is the only way one discusses an argument. Therefor, how one presents the premises and their underlying supporting claims is absolutely key when discussing the soundness of the overall argument. The way one deals with a conjunction, and you still don't seem to get this, is by weighting the premises with evidence for and against. For an argument to be successful, the must be logically valid and the premises must be more likely to be true than false, then the conclusion is warranted. When binary discussed the underlying arguments behind the first and second premises, he was discussing the conjunction of the argument. What made it a strawman was that he did not engage with any argument that has been put forward in support of it. He did not even use the argument's accepted definition of time. He introduced a new definition of time into the argument and then claimed that based on this definition, it was unsound. Surely, you can see this and how it relates to the argument's conjunction?



Of course you don't think it does, you just lecture on conjunctions and throw around hominem about my brain function, you don't seem to know much about them.

http://www.maartensz.org/philosophy/Dic ... nction.htm



Nonsense, creation, justification, creationism and foreknowledge are not periphery issues. I have taken issue with theists on major philosophical arguments in the past, or do you not remember my rather major battles with Orwell? With other, more reasonable posters, I tend to be a bit more subtle in my criticism, mostly because chaps like yourself jump all over any weakness in theist positions around here. They don't need me chasing them off this site, there are plenty of atheists to do that.

His statement is sufficient.

I am not going to comment on whether or not binary represented the KCA well. That's beyond my particular point or interest, especially since that thread is nearly a year old. I only had criticism towards Telekon, and anybody who agreed with him, that the misrepresentation of C) was material enough to declare binary dishonest on that ground alone.


The issue is that a statement of an argument does not have to be logically sound to still validly attack the premises of that argument.

As for your statement on what makes it a strawman: "What made it a strawman was that he did not engage with any argument that has been put forward in support of it. He did not even use the argument's accepted definition of time. He introduced a new definition of time into the argument and then claimed that based on this definition, it was unsound. "

Frankly..... this doesn't prove anything on intellectual honesty which is Telekon's point. Most WP members, even members of PPR are not going to be fully familiar with graduate level discourse. They might not have even taken an undergraduate class on the subject. Pretending that they have to have knowledge at a graduate or undergraduate level to communicate really doesn't leave anybody still on the forum. Telekon was simply objecting to a misstatement of C), but.... C) doesn't have to be properly stated for the premises that C follows from to be properly stated, or attacked.


Ah, philosophical conjunction. It's not an ad hominem. Learn what an ad hominem is: http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

In any case, it's still not relevant, as the empirical results are the same. In either case, C) not following is the central issue. My claim is that C) does not have to follow because a proper statement of the philosophical argument is unnecessary for a refutation of the premises within a properly stated form of the argument. Yes, sure, the actual conjunction used in the philosophical argument will follow from the premises, but... that's not relevant to the criticism.


I do remember your battles with Orwell. He thought you were incredibly dishonest. He and I had the same opinion on you, actually. He also agreed with some of the arguments and criticisms I made against you and your positions that you blustered against. I'm simply the one who believed you were biased in favor of certain posters, and I consider the treatment of philologos very clear on that.

The conception of time in general relativity or even the Hartle - Hawking model is nothing 'new'. The fact is you twice defended the KCA with different definitions of 'time', 'beginning', and 'cause'. And in both instances you were defeated and you left the thread when key questions being pointed out. Your support of Telekon (strangely you did not do so in the original thread) just make you look desperate.

Is that important?

I choose to have faith in the well-ordered universe, but am I any happier than the person who has faith in a personal Jesus?

I firmly believe that a person who believes in a supernatural, active deity is believing in something that does not exist. But that does not invalidate the comfort or benefit that this person receives from that faith. Neither does this invalidate the moral teachings of that faith.

When the atheist calls upon the theist to drop unreasoned belief and take up the belief of reason, is the atheist being any different from the theist who proclaims that there is only one valid route to salvation? Surely if the freedom of thought, belief and opinion is to have any meaning, it must mean that we are free to be wrong, and for each of us to govern ourselves accordingly.

Surely. Yes.

a) The atheist is not using any threats. Nobody is going to atheist hell for not starting to reason.
b) The atheist actually has lack of evidence to back his argument up.
c) The atheist is offering the theist to lighten up whilst a Christian asking for conversion wants to add a load to you.

On top of it. There is no "belief of reason" this looks like a deliberate misrepresentation of positions.


You are as free to be wrong as I am free to say that you are wrong.


Sorry, but something that does not exists cannot really give any "moral teachings". "Do this Because god says so" is not really a moral teaching. "Don't harm others because you wouldn't like that to happen to you" sounds more like a teaching, because it at least tries to bother explaining the reason why you should take the moral stance. "Because god says so" is in fact, the opposite of a moral teaching, it is more like a moral ass pull.