What is the Christian rebuttal to Dan Barker’s arguments against the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
It has been kind of a dumb argument and used only to fool the naive. Why do atheists use such tactics so, so very regularly?
“If EVERYTHING must have a cause, then God must have a cause.”
As was stated hundreds of years ago, “everything” in that statement refers to the physical universe, the creation, not that which creates it. Pedantic arguments don’t hold water.
Kalam Argument
And though many there are, this statement;
“If the series of temporal events is infinite, we never could have traversed it to arrive at the current moment”
…is only uttered by morons.
And “Dan Barker’s Cosmological Kalamity” seems to be a kalamity merely because it is he, exposing his own ineptitude.
“No”. There are an infinite number of entities/objects that never began to exist such as a perfect circle or a true law of physics or thought (logic).
There is only one “candidate” for the prime cause of the universe, by definition. Whatever is the cause of the universe, is by definition, God. A perfect circle, although never created, is not that cause.
The “logic of Kalam” doesn’t apply period.
A senseless question, unrelated to its followup question.
Of the top of my head, he doesn’t know anything about set theory. The idea that a set becomes synonymous with it’s member if it only has one member is crazy talk- a set doesn’t have to have more than one member to be discrete from it’s member, it has to be defined in a way that more than one member is possible. So for example, “Capitals of Arizona” is identical to Flagstaff, because we know by definition that there can only be one capital. But if it so happens at some point in time that there is only one creature in the world with three legs, “Creatures with three legs” doesn’t become synonymous with that creature because there’s nothing in the rules of the set (definitions of the words) that implies there can only be one member. This is clearly seen if we look at the original argument:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe begins to exist
The universe has a cause.
It is entirely possible, given the above, that there is more than one thing that doesn’t begin to exist. Hell, it’s entirely possible given the above that there aren’t ANY things that don’t begin to exist (infinite regress needs more premises to be established). A universe in which God is the only thing that never began to exist is consistent with the Kalam argument, a universe in which there are many things that never began to exist (maybe numbers and ideas) is also consistent.
That’s why “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” is not at all identical to “Everything that isn’t God has a cause”.
When he talks about things like theists needing to accept that the cause of the universe might be naturalistically explained, he's way out of bounds of the above argument- he's not criticizing the argument anymore, he's criticizing conclusions drawn from it.
Reading on…he picks a definition for ‘universe’ that suits his needs, and then deconstructs the argument based on that definition. Typical atheist tactic, but it should be obvious to anybody who is reading the Kalam with the intent to understand it that ‘the universe’ means something like ‘"the network natural objects that come into being, hang around for a little while affecting each other, and go away again’. The person using Kalam is obviously not obligated to a definition of the universe as ‘everything there is’ including numbers, logical relations, moral rules and other things which may or may not be co-eternal with God.
Indeed, if Barker insists on using “Everything that exists” as his definition of ‘the universe’, then that would obviously include God if there is such a Being, and thus him talking about whether or not the universe has a cause or not says absolutely nothing at all about theism. Indeed, any theist using his definition of ‘the universe’ would happily conclude that the universe never began to exist- so the writer of the Kalam argument must be something else.
As new knowledge is really very good. I’ve never heard of before. I feel that I read this post I’m making, I pace the world to me. hahaha +
How can you know that
A) a god exists?
B) A perfect circle isn’t the cause of the universe?
Then substitute “reasoning” for “logic”. Ask, Does the reasoning of Kalam apply only to temporal antecedents in the real world?
Why is it senseless?
Do you think the universe is a member of itself?
If jumping from step 3 to step 4 reveals that God must have been the cause of the universe, then God is the only permissible thing in the set of NBE. Therefore, “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” is identical to “Everything that isn’t God has a cause”. That’s why it’s called begging the question.
I think this is why most who wish to respond to the KCA feel it’s necessary to be on common ground with respect to definition of terms.
With respect to the KCA, what do you think each of these terms mean:
- Universe
- Begins to exist
- Exists
- Cause
The simple truth is that the existence of the universe cannot be explained with our current level of understanding. 
We do not know how or why the universe exists.
Exactly. Which makes us wonder how Christians could know.
God revealed it to them through angels and prophets. 
In other words, they don’t know.
Just what is the advantage of pretending to know things you don’t know?
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In other words, you have no interest in what Christians believe/know. Nor do you have any interest in how they arrived at that belief/knowledge.
Why do you keep asking these questions of Christians if you don’t care about the answers? 
Most Christians don’t pretend to know. That’s why they call it FAITH.
Christians accept that a set of holy books is a revelation from God. The books explain the creation of the universe in general terms. They do not explain where God came from or who created God.
You can call it faith or belief without evidence or belief based on evidence or knowledge.
You don’t have to agree with it. You can come to the conclusion that the books are a work of human imagination. Others think differently.
Are you watching gib try to defend SRT? 
…another faith based religion. 
I don’t read the Science section any more. As far as SRT goes, I think that there is enough experimental evidence to support it.
As I said, faith based, void of thought, void of philosophy or questioning, merely blind faith in misperception; “I Believe!! Glory Hallelujah!!”. Remember all of those witnesses to religious miracles. All of which would be fine if it was at least honest enough to admit to its superstitious, religious status and not lie by claiming that it is true science.
Experimental evidence and anecdotal evidence are two different things. How is experimentation devoid of thought or questioning?
The only difference is that you never get to see experimental evidence, only the anecdotal tales they tell you later. You hear their excuses (superstitious reasoning) and assume that they know so much more than you that there is no point in questioning them. All of that complicated math proves that you know too little to question them.
That is called religion.
The math generally lays the groundwork for the experiment. We take what the math suggests then test it. The experiments themselves are empirical. You can literally observe and replicate them if you so desire. If you don’t have the resources to do so, you have the means to research in great detail what was worked out mathematically, how it was tested, and what the results were. The fact that all of this needs to be communicated somehow does not mean all evidence is anecdotal.