Responding to Cameron

Cameron from Capturing Christianity provided a response to my last post, and although it's taken me over a month to be able to write a response (work is rough), I felt Cameron deserved a reply.  While our exchange is certainly strong, I appreciate how civil things have been kept.

Responding to Cosmic Skeptic on the Kalam

Recently I saw an apologist I enjoy interacting with throwing some heat at a video by atheist YouTuber Cosmic Skeptic on his latest video about the Kalam.  Since I’ve got a deep history with the argument I wanted to check it out.  You can view the video here:



In short I think Alex is correct that the Kalam is unsound, but he’s right for the wrong reasons in a few cases, and he makes a few other errors along the way. I mentioned this to him on Twitter and he kindly asked me to expand – hence this post.

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.

Quantum Eternity and Young Earth Creationists

Yesterday's post about scientific evidence that something material having always existed got some interesting reactions off site.

Eventually I came across this Q&A by William Lane Craig to attempt to answer what Sean Carroll called the Quantum Eternity Theorem.

Here's the first part that truly struck me:

"Saying that the time variable t runs from −∞ to +∞ just implies that quantum time evolution is information-preserving: “given the current quantum state, we can reliably reconstruct the past just as well as the future.” In other words, we can extrapolate from the present indefinitely into the past or future. This allows us to describe a moment prior to a given moment if there is such a moment; but in order to know whether there is such a moment we must look to empirical evidence. "

- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith Q&A

This was very similar to an argument I got elsewhere that things like quantum mechanics don't really address whether or not material things were created or not, but rather describe "already existing systems".

This is part and parcel of how apologists will try to evade the kinds of points I brought up saying how we have some evidence that "something material has always existed".  It's effectively a way to insist that there is a metaphysical question that can't in fact be answered by any kind of scientific evidence.

In order to respond to this, it's very important to see exactly what the theist is claiming here.  As charitably as I can interpret them, it goes like this:

The material world is described by laws (or regularities) that make it look like it has always been there, if we assume those laws have always applied.  However, theism does not assume that those laws have always applied. Effectively there is no logical contradiction to believe that god created a universe that looks like it can't be created or destroyed once it exists.

So what are we to think of this?

Evidence that the Universe has Always Existed

This is a topic that comes up fairly often for me, given that the cosmological argument is what drew me into counter apologetics.  If you've followed my videos as well as the more prestigious debates on the topic, none of the information here is going to be new to you.

I've said before that both theists and atheists necessarily think that "something has always existed".  So long as you accept the axiom that "something can not come from nothing", you're going to be faced with the above conclusion.

Theists think a god has always existed.

Atheists (generally) think that something material has always existed.

What I wanted to do is provide the philosophical and scientific evidence that we have for the atheists conclusion.

Both the theist and the atheist agree that "something material" currently exists, and certainly theism is compatible with the idea that something material has also "always existed".  It is notable that the specific Christian dogma creation ex nihilo is not compatible, so they're going to have problems with the evidence I'm about to present.

So lets get to it.

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.

An Educational Video and Ammo Against Cosmological Arguments

The couple behind the SkyDivePhil YouTube account have produced another awesome educational video on modern cosmology that's well worth watching (as are their other videos).

In this video they discuss Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) model, which is interesting for those of us in the counter apologetics area since it supports the view of an eternal universe.




The video is well worth watching in its entirety, but something of particular interest shows up at the 20:05 mark, where they ask Roger Penrose about William Lane Craig's interpretation of the CCC model.  Suffice it to say that Craig isn't much of a fan of the CCC given that it would contradict the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

The summary of it is that Craig represents the CCC model as some kind of multiverse theory, or one where there's a singular origin point of two parallel universes.  Sir Roger is very quick to point out that this is not a correct interpretation of his model, and that he is proposing a sequential series of cyclic universes.

A bit of egg, nothing more

I don't want to make much more of this than there is here.  Craig is eager to dismiss the CCC for obvious reasons, but it'd be more than a bit uncharitable to claim he was intentionally misleading people.  I honestly don't think he'd do that.

What's far more likely is that Craig was simply wrong in his interpretation of the CCC.

Now it's kind of embarrassing to be quite so wrong on this given that:

1. One of the first papers on the CCC was titled "Before the big bang"
2. The book Sir Roger wrote explaining the model is called "cycles of time"
3. Sir Roger was on the Christian radio show "Unbelievable" which sponsored Dr Craig's debates and he was asked if the universes in his model could be eternal into the past, he said yes. 
4. Sir Roger has been arguing that there are signals in the CMB form before the big bang, verifying his model. If the universes were not chronologically prior, how could such a claim make sense?

Note: A special thanks goes to SkyDivePhil for providing these four points to me in an email.

 

That last point is potentially very important, since the data is preliminary, but it is quite possible that there is experimental evidence that could confirm the CCC model.

 

That all aside, other than Craig possibly having some egg on his face here, there's a pretty important point.

 

The Point

 

The point isn't that the CCC is probably true, therefore the Kalam is false. We don't yet know if the CCC is completely accurate.  There are competing models by other cosmologists that very well could be correct.

 

The point is that apologists are so very quick to assert that the entire material universe must have had a beginning in order to try and drill out a god shaped hole to stick Yahweh in.   The problem for apologists is that there's no evidence that all of material reality must have had a beginning.  What we have is simply an unknown in our current understanding, with numerous competing theoretical models that could explain the data we have. 

 

Right now the best apologists can do is try to read their preferred metaphysical positions into the Big Bang and make arguments from those assumptions, but it's nothing more than that.  

Actually, Quantum Mechanics does undermine the Kalam

I had a reader send me this article over at the Strange Notions blog with a request that I put a comment in given the work I’ve done providing a counter argument to the Kalam.

I find that the article brings up some good points on the theistic side to address objections from quantum mechanics, but it leaves out key points that would count most strongly against the Kalam.

First, there isn’t a direct difference laid out between efficient causation and material causation, the difference is effectively discussed, but it’s not made clear.

What we have in quantum mechanics is what appears to be an effect without an efficient cause. One can argue that there are interpretations of QM that will provide us with efficient causes for these effects, but the standard view currently is that these effects lack an efficient cause.

Given that the Kalam wants to argue that the universe has an efficient, but not a material cause, this is a fairly significant point that shouldn’t be understated.

What Trent rightfully points out is that even if these QM events lack an efficient cause, it’s not “something coming from nothing”, which he calls the main intuitive support for Premise 1. What this is pointing out is that we don’t have something coming beginning to exist without a material cause.

Combine this with the common interpretations of QM, and we find intuitive and evidential support for the idea that we can have things begin to exist with an “efficient and material cause” or “just a material cause”, but never any cases where we have just an efficient cause. This is again a very strong point against the Kalam, since it supports the idea that “something material has always existed”.

That line of thought brings us into premise two of the Kalam, which isn’t really at issue here, so I won’t say much more than there is absolutely no evidence that all of material reality was preceded by a state of “absolute nothingness” in cosmology or philosophy. The most we could say is "we don't know what happened before the first Planck second in the Big Bang".

But let’s get back to this issue of “something can’t come from nothing” since it’s another point where I think counts very strongly against the theist.

The idea that “something can’t come from nothing” is typically supported by the idea that “we don’t see things just popping into existence from nothing”. The QM objection that Trent is addressing here tries to challenge this notion, which he rebuffs by pointing out that “the quantum vacuum is not nothing”.

However in doing this, Trent undermines the only support he has for the premise that “something can’t come from nothing”. How does one know “something can’t come from nothing”? Trent cannot appeal to the common experience we have of things not just popping into existence, since he’s rightly pointed out that when we DO see things popping into existence from “seemingly nothing”, it’s not really the “nothing” he’s talking about in the context of the Kalam.

Let’s pretend that “something could come from nothing”, this notion is no longer problematic or at odds with our common experience, because we have absolutely no experience with the kind of “nothing” in question. This all boils down to how one defines “nothing”, and the definition required by proponents of the Kalam gives us a version of “nothing” that we have absolutely no experience with that we have very good reasons for doubting that a state of this kind of “nothing” could exist in the first place (the First Law of Thermodynamics says hi).

When it comes to cosmological arguments, atheists are generally left with the idea that “something material has always existed” or “something actually can come from nothing”. While I personally hold to the former, the apologist answer to the QM objection shows that the latter could very well be a live option simply because “something coming from nothing” doesn’t contradict any of our common experience.

I was on the Faith & Skepticism Podcast discussing Kalam!

This past weekend I was a guest on the Faith and Skepticism Podcast, and it was honestly awesome!  I was on there with ElijiahT who blogs over at Hashtag Apologetics. He turned out to be as cordial to interact with verbally as he is on Twitter.  I'd definitely class him and Jason (the F&S Podcast Theist Co-Host) as the type of apologist I can happily converse with on these kinds of topics.  They're strong in their positions, but are willing to recognize the validity of others opinions.  That always helps when you're going to go into a debate.  Nathan (the Atheist F&S Co-Host) was also a lot of fun to work with on this, and I recommend checking him out on Twitter.

I was on to debate/discuss the Kalam. I say debate since that's kind of the premise of the show, but in reality I think we had more of a discussion which I think was far more productive for all sides.  We were able to highlight most of the major issues with the Kalam and identified key points where the underlying assumptions of either side play a big role in whether or not someone will find the argument compelling.

I highly recommend checking out the Faith and Skepticism Podcast in general, but you should of course start with the episode featuring me!

Just in case you wanted some links, here's the total of my "Countering the Kalam" series, as well as a helpful video by YouTube Team Skydivephil on Loop Quantum Cosmology which helps answer arguments that reference the Borde, Guth, Vilenkin Theorem that gets brought up so often to try and support the Kalam.  Additionally, here's a great post detailing problems with William Lane Craig's arguments against actual infinites written up by ExApologist.

Misunderstandings regarding Craig, Kalam, and Relativity

Jonathan Pearce is having a "Why I am a Christian" series and in the inevitable discussion on Vincent Torley's piece it seems Vincent has done some criticism of my Countering the Kalam series.  Vincent alleges that I've gotten my science wrong and that I have misrepresented William Lane Craig.

I believe this is all based on a misunderstanding of some of the science involved and in a superficial reading of Craig's work in which he's talking about how different philosophies of time impact the cosmological argument.

William Lane Craig - Science Denial and Hypocrisy

Note: What follows is a transcript of the above video, but I've embedded links here since there's obviously no description box on my blog.

I wanted to make a short video pointing out some pretty amazing science denial and hypocrisy by William Lane Craig.  

The short of it is that Craig recently called Young Earth Creationists an embarrassment to Christianity on his Reasonable Faith Podcast.  Craig calls out the Young Earth Creationists because they are pretty much in explicit science denial.

Video Response to YouTube user StupidTheist

Note: What follows is a transcript of the video above.

This is going to be a video reply to YouTube user StupidTheist. Not to get all meta, but he left a video reply to my fourth video on the Countering the Kalam series and has been expecting me to respond in kind.  I’ll link both our videos in the description box, but this is kind of an “inside baseball” video; and I wouldn’t recommend continuing with it unless you’ve watched both my video and StupidTheist’s response. 

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.