Advice for Michael Nugent on Debating William Lane Craig

It was recently announced that Michael Nugent, the Chair of Atheist Ireland, will be debating Christian apologist William Lane Craig.

Michael reached out for advice over Twitter and while I gave him a quick bit of info, I wanted to put together a primer for him on a few key points he may want to use in his upcoming debate.  I figure this can possibly be useful for people looking for a quick overview on counter arguments to Craig's standard argument line as well.

Before I get into the grimy details, I wanted to note a few things.

I'm in a book again! "Did God Create the Universe from Nothing?" by Jonathan M.S. Pearce

I'm very proud to say that I contributed a chapter to another book by Jonathan Pearce and Dr. James East. 

This lovely book provides quite the response to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  My contribution was related to Craig's inconsistencies in applying science to the philosophy of time, but Jonathan has an very broad set of objections to the argument.

It was even good enough to warrant a foreword by Jeffrey Jay Lowder, one of the OG's of Internet Atheism.

You can purchase a virtual or physical copy of the book here from Amazon. It definitely would make a nice stocking stuffer for any infidels this holiday season.

Countering the Kalam (5) - Responding to William Lane Craig

Note: What follows below is the transcript/script of the video. 

I have to admit being surprised when I found out Dr. Craig did a podcast response to my Countering the Kalam series.  I am extremely gratified to see that I’d garnered enough attention online that he felt it worth his time to put out a response.  For that, I'm extremely grateful. Given the other two YouTube personalities he’s put online responses to that I know of, and how instrumental their content was in my own deconversion, I see this as kind of a badge of honor.  I’m speaking here of YouTuber’s TheoreticalBullshit and SkyDivePhil.

Following their lead, I feel the need to respond in kind to clear the air.  I feel that Dr. Craig  has left the door open to allow me to express some flaws in his arguments, and to further critique the Kalam.  It’s also been a long time since I’ve done a proper YouTube video due to work and life just getting more demanding in the past year since I started this online atheism thing. Who knew being a dad would take so much time?

In case you’ve not seen it, I have a link to Craig’s post/podcast right here, but I will be quoting the relevant parts as we go through my rebuttal.  I also hope Craig, if he’s listening, and anyone following the exchange don’t mind if I respond a bit out of the order Craig used to present critiques to me.

So with all that, let’s begin.

Countering the Kalam - Done in 5 Minutes

Another atheist blogger decided to be very friendly and recommended that I create a condensed version of my Countering the Kalam video series.

He had this crazy idea that there may be people who might be interested in what I have to say, but don't want to sit through almost an hours worth of detailed science and philosophy videos.

There are people who don't want to watch hours worth of science and philosophy videos!?!?

Countering the Kalam (4) - Circular and Unscientific

Special Thanks to RL friend ErikJ for all the help in creating this series.


The Kalam’s serious problems with modern science

Like any philosophical argument, the Kalam relies on a number of stances on other philosophical issues.  The main issue the theist is stuck with in the Kalam is that the argument requires two controversial positions on philosophical issues: Absolute Simultaneity and the “A-Theory of Time”.

While these are largely philosophical positions, we have good scientific evidence that both of these stances are at odds with General and Special Relativity.  Before covering how the positions are at odds with modern physics, first let’s go through why the Kalam requires these stances.

Countering the Kalam (3) - No Scientific Evidence

 

Special Thanks to RL friend ErikJ for all the help in creating this series.

The Big Bang Singularity

The first piece of scientific evidence that Craig will appeal to is the Big Bang Singularity Theorem.  Note that this is different from the Big Bang Theory.  This is because the Big Bang Theory actually says nothing about how the universe came into existence, and only describes how our space-time universe (note the distinction) expanded and evolved after the first “Planck second” (10^-43 seconds) of its existence. 

The Big Bang Singularity Theorem is an attempt to explain what happened before the first Planck second, assuming that general relativity holds at the scales involved at that point.   What results is a mathematical and physical singularity, where many of the physical properties quickly break down into infinities – including temperature, density, and curvature.  In an extremely odd philosophical move, Kalam proponents take this to mean that all of the matter and energy described in the Singularity Theorem must have come into being from nothing (more on this in the philosophy section).

Countering the Kalam (2) - Philosophical Objections

Special Thanks to RL friend ErikJ for all the help in creating this series.

New spin, Old problems

The first sign that there’s trouble here is right there in the name, the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  This is just one more spin on the flawed classical Cosmological Argument.  

All cosmological arguments basically try apply causality to the origin of the universe to try and prove god’s existence.  When you take cause and effect and go back to the origin of “everything”, you’re left with two options – an infinite regress of causes and effects, or with something that had to have always existed, something that has a “necessary existence”, which in the theists mind just has to be their particular god.

The classical defeater for this is to ask why can’t the universe itself be “necessary” or “always have existed”. 

The Kalam is just yet another variant of the argument that tries to give god a get out of jail free card by introducing the notion of timeless existence, and tying all of material reality to the existence of time.   Then it sprinkles on a bit of modern cosmology to make it seem like the argument has scientific support when it really doesn’t.

Countering the Kalam (1) - Intro and Definitions

Special Thanks to RL friend ErikJ for all the help in creating this series.
Note: This page has been updated on Feb 4, 2013 to fix the ordering error on some sections - no text was added or deleted. 
 
Introduction

This originated as a paper, but it's now become a video series and a blog compendium to provide what I hope is a thorough refutation to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  It will be broken up into four videos and posts.

The Kalam cosmological argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of god, with the twist that it is usually presented as having substantial scientific evidence supporting its conclusion.   This is problematic because it perverts the science in misleading ways and lends an otherwise problematic argument a false air of authority.

I have multiple goals with this series.  First is to highlight two main philosophical objections to the Kalam.  Next is to show that the two pieces of scientific evidence usually cited in support of the Kalam absolutely do not support its premises in the way the argument requires.  It will then be shown that the Kalam has substantial problems with modern science, and requires its defenders to take unscientific, non falsifiable positions on fundamental aspects of physics in order to maintain the argument.  Finally, it will be shown that the Kalam is circular because it requires one to presuppose the existence of god in order for one to accept the account of creation it argues for.