Kalam Cosmological Argument: Proof of a Single, Transcendent Creator God?

[Xavier2024]

Hi friends. Hope you'll are doing well.

I am a Christian Theist. I am curious as to how Atheists answer the Kalam Cosmological Argument:

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2: Now, the Universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
Corollaries: Therefore, a Cause of the Universe exists outside time and space that created the material universe out of nothing.

The properties of this First Cause that we can deduce would thus be that it is (1) Eternal, as it exists outside time, (2) Omnipresent, as it exists outside space (3) Almighty, as only an Almighty Power can create ex nihilo or out of nothing. That will do for now. How would Atheist Friends answer these arguments? God Bless.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Premise 1 is unsupported. Instant fail.

[Xavier2024]

Unsupported? It's a basic logical Truth. Human beings, planets, stars and houses don't come into being without a cause. There are plenty of examples of the premise and hardly any to the contrary.

[Unbeliever]

The second premise has not been demonstrated to be true.
The universe may not ever have "begun to exist."
It may be that the universe we inhabit is but the most recent iteration of a cosmos that has existed for an infinite amount of time. There have been put forward several cosmological models that show how this could be the case.

[Blackleaf]

The first premise is doing a lot of heavy lifting, trying to justify the special pleading required for your conclusion.

"Whatever begins to exist." Why not just say, "Whatever exists?" It's because you need your god to be an exception to the problem you're trying to solve.

You're trying to assert that God is the prime mover. Naturally, the first question we'll ask then is, "What about God? What created him?" So you try to get people to agree with the assumption that God didn't begin to exist, to try to circumvent this problem. We've seen this a million times. It doesn't work on us.

The truth is God adds nothing valuable to the discussion. If God can exist without a creator, so can the universe. You're not explaining anything. You're just throwing in extra steps. You're making things more complicated, not less.

Frankly, the idea of a timeless being just existing with a predetermined personality and goals is just inherently ridiculous. Where did his personality come from? I can tell you that mine is a mix of nature and nurture. My experiences combined with my genetics made me who I am. What makes God the way he is? If he exists outside of time and cannot change, it's not experience. And if he's incorporeal, then it's not genetics either. So why is your god the way that he is and not any of the infinite other ways he could be?

And why does he have goals? What does he have to gain? A god with all of the omni traits assigned to him would have no need for anything. He would want for nothing. He would be self-sufficient. So what would motivate him to create anything in the first place? To do so would imply an unmet want or need in his existence. What void could a timeless, unchanging, omnipotent, omniscient god be trying to fill?

[the_antithesis]

I am curious as to how Atheists answer the Kalam Cosmological Argument:

It is an admission of defeat. That god not only doesn't exist, but cannot exist. You can't find god anywhere, so you are forced to use the origin of the universe to prove it's existence.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument makes me feel bad for you. It is the equivalent of a boxer who lies down when the bell rings.

It isn't worth even mentioning the actual argument. It is puerile.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Human beings, planets, stars and houses don't come into being without a cause. 

So, you were there, saw it happen that way. OR some nutbar wrote a book and you liked it. I'll go with "2".

[aitm]

Is there a particular god you wish to promote? I don't think anyone has an issue with the concept of an accidental god.....something just strutting around outside the cosmos shitting universes in his wake as he goes on his way to a tennis match never to look back. But if your on about a god such as the Judeo god....gook luck with that because that is absurd. Really, one idiot god there, for a omnipotent being he is the most incompetent god...next to the other ten thousand that man has conjured up, in a very very ignorant world.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

OP is yelling for help right now. "They're not FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT YOU GAVE ME!"

[Xavier2024]

The second premise has not been demonstrated to be true.
The universe may not ever have "begun to exist."
It may be that the universe we inhabit is but the most recent iteration of a cosmos that has existed for an infinite amount of time. There have been put forward several cosmological models that show how this could be the case.

Very well. Happy to oblige. Here's Proof of Premise 2:

Proofs of Premise 2:
"The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded. Most astronomers use the Big Bang theory to explain how the universe began. But what caused this explosion in the first place is still a mystery." Taken from: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/astronomy/how-did-the-universe-begin
And: The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) Theorem also confirms the Universe once had an Absolute Beginning:
"The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, or the BGV theorem, is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary. The theorem does not assume any specific mass content of the universe and it does not require gravity to be described by Einstein field equations. It is named after the authors Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, who developed its mathematical formulation in 2003. The BGV theorem is also popular outside physics, especially in religious and philosophical debates."[3] Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde%E2%80%93Guth%E2%80%93Vilenkin_theorem

I will skip the other proofs for now. You can also ask yourself, "What existed 100 BN years ago?" If the answer is "nothing", or at least, "nothing material", then you have your answer. The Universe is not infinitely old, but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago in the past. The very finite age of the Universe shows the same.

[Mr.Obvious]

You know, I also take argument with what 3 things you deduce.

What is eternal, when talking about a state of ´existence´, for a lack fo a better word, where time or matter  may not have even been?
Is it even a valid terminology to talk about eternalness, outside of the boundaries of time? One might say external is ´for all of time´. But if there is no ´before´ or ´after´ time, What would eternalness even refer to in that context? What if there is? Does it even have a place?

I can make similar objections to your two other deductions.
You seem to want to use terminology that are already hypothetical attributes in our own universe, and seem to think they would logically apply ´outside´ a place where those physics and logic would adhere.
I can´t disprove that, but you can´t make a logical claim for it. It is like saying you can define the will of God. Like you can understand the supernatural.
It seems arrogant to me. And missing the fact that it maybe a nonsens question or moot point altogether, in the first place.

And then there are further objections.
Is something that can create the universe all-powerful? What if i were to create a universe-creating machine. Would that make the machine all powerful? If all it can do is churn out universes? If that is all it can do, it is actually limited in it's function
Would it make me all powerful?
I mean I could create any universe I wanted. But I would need the machine to do it. I myself might be  far from omnipotent.
And what if god could only create this universe, and no other? What if he is bounded to the rules he set out for himself?

And then again, you might have further objections.
Can you be all knowing and all powerful at the same time? Can you know what you will do in advance, for all of your eternal ´life´? And if so, can you choose to change your choice that you know you´ll make? If you can´t, can you be called all powerful? If you can, then doesn´t that mean you failed to foresee what you would do?
One might argue to that: the omni-traits are limited to what is logically possible. But then don't give your god attributes fundamentally impossible to unite.

[Unbeliever]

Very well. Happy to oblige. Here's Proof of Premise 2:

Proofs of Premise 2:
"The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded. Most astronomers use the Big Bang theory to explain how the universe began. But what caused this explosion in the first place is still a mystery." Taken from: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/astronomy/how-did-the-universe-begin
And: The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) Theorem also confirms the Universe once had an Absolute Beginning:
"The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, or the BGV theorem, is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary. The theorem does not assume any specific mass content of the universe and it does not require gravity to be described by Einstein field equations. It is named after the authors Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, who developed its mathematical formulation in 2003. The BGV theorem is also popular outside physics, especially in religious and philosophical debates."[3] Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde%E2%80%93Guth%E2%80%93Vilenkin_theorem

I will skip the other proofs for now. You can also ask yourself, "What existed 100 BN years ago?" If the answer is "nothing", or at least, "nothing material", then you have your answer. The Universe is not infinitely old, but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago in the past. The very finite age of the Universe shows the same.

The universe may well have existed before the big bang  according to various cosmologists, such as Roger Penrose, Paul Steinhardt and others.

[aitm]

Very well. Happy to oblige. Here's Proof of Premise 2:

Proofs of Premise 2:
"The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded. Most astronomers use the Big Bang theory to explain how the universe began. But what caused this explosion in the first place is still a mystery." Taken from: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/astronomy/how-did-the-universe-begin
And: The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) Theorem also confirms the Universe once had an Absolute Beginning:
"The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, or the BGV theorem, is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary. The theorem does not assume any specific mass content of the universe and it does not require gravity to be described by Einstein field equations. It is named after the authors Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, who developed its mathematical formulation in 2003. The BGV theorem is also popular outside physics, especially in religious and philosophical debates."[3] Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde%E2%80%93Guth%E2%80%93Vilenkin_theorem

I will skip the other proofs for now. You can also ask yourself, "What existed 100 BN years ago?" If the answer is "nothing", or at least, "nothing material", then you have your answer. The Universe is not infinitely old, but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago in the past. The very finite age of the Universe shows the same.

You may think you can suggest that one thing can alway exist but two cannot. It's not just a logical absurdity, it's a simple absurdity. In our limited knowledge of our universe, singularities are extremely rare, if they exist at all.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A singularity is a black hole. We have minis and monsters and all between. Just sayin'.

[Blackleaf]

Very well. Happy to oblige. Here's Proof of Premise 2:

Proofs of Premise 2:
"The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded. Most astronomers use the Big Bang theory to explain how the universe began. But what caused this explosion in the first place is still a mystery." Taken from: https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/astronomy/how-did-the-universe-begin
And: The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) Theorem also confirms the Universe once had an Absolute Beginning:
"The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, or the BGV theorem, is a theorem in physical cosmology which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary. The theorem does not assume any specific mass content of the universe and it does not require gravity to be described by Einstein field equations. It is named after the authors Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, who developed its mathematical formulation in 2003. The BGV theorem is also popular outside physics, especially in religious and philosophical debates."[3] Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borde%E2%80%93Guth%E2%80%93Vilenkin_theorem

I will skip the other proofs for now. You can also ask yourself, "What existed 100 BN years ago?" If the answer is "nothing", or at least, "nothing material", then you have your answer. The Universe is not infinitely old, but had an absolute beginning a finite time ago in the past. The very finite age of the Universe shows the same.

The Big Bang is what happened at the beginning of the universe, yes, but that model starts with the universe as a singularity. It does not start with nothing. We don't know what, if anything, was before the Big Bang. We could make blind shots in the dark and maybe one of us will get lucky, but your reasons for why you came to your conclusion are just as important as the conclusion itself. There's a world full of conspiracy theorists. Some of them may be right, but they're all nuts, and we no reason to take them seriously. So tell us, why should we entertain the idea of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, timeless god as the cause of the Big Bang over any other possible explanation?