Curtis, My responses are shown in red below:
---In [email protected], <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Barry, Have you ever thought that atheism is also a belief-- and an unreasonable one at that? M: Couldn't help overhearing... Atheism is not a belief because it is not a positive assertion that there is no God. It is the assertion that there is no compelling evidence to support the belief. We don't need to have a belief that there are no unicorns. Maybe there are. We just don't have any evidence to support our belief in one. (Probably people made the story up, they tend to enjoy that being such creative creatures.) Atheism is defined as a belief in "no god", according to Webster's College Dictionary. By the suffix of the word "ism", the word is self-defined as a belief, according to the rules of the English language. It appears that the self-proclaimed atheists should understand what the meaning of the word "Atheism" means before saying that they are not "believers". As such, you have the responsibility to prove your case. You cannot rely on the theists to prove their case, while you take the contrary view. Jr: The Kalam Cosmological Argument should dispel any of your doubts. M: It does not for two reasons that come to mind. Here is a formulation (feel free to substitute your own if this is not the right one in your eyes..) You have restated the KCA correctly as shown in the following link: Kalām cosmological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument Kalām cosmological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument The term Kalām cosmological argument (sometimes capitalized Kalām Cosmological Argument, or abbreviated KCA) is used to refer to a modern defense or re-formulation of the historical cosmological argument for the existence of God by William Lane Craig, first propos... View on en.wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81m_cosmological_argument Preview by Yahoo Everything that begins to exist has a cause; Unwarranted assumption. We don't know if this is true at the scales of time and space involved in creation. It is a typical imposition of our limited view of the sensory world to scales that are completely unplugged from our ability to intuit about it. It is unnecessary and merely contrived as if to say : There must be a God so there must be a God. Logic is not a proof. It can preserve truth through proper syllogistic form, but it is only as good as the assumptions which must be proven another way. This is not a good start. It appears that you don't agree with the premise in 1 above. As such, prove to us that the premise in NOT true. Please, give us your argument and evidence that everything that begins to exist DOESN'T have a cause. Give us a specific instance in Nature that shows that statement 1 is incorrect. 2. The universe began to exist M: There are a lot a problems with this assumptions since it imposes sequential time assumptions on an event which by nature is beyond time and space. This is the realm of "you probably don't really understand it" physics. (Me either, the subject requires math waaaaay beyond my pay grade.) Can you prove that the universe did not begin to exist? Is it logical to assume that there are a lot of problems with statement 2 when you don't even have an example to disprove it? If you don't have any evidence, there's a very good chance your assumption is INCORRECT. therefore: 3The universe has a cause. Yeah, surprise surprise. This is no proof, it is an an assumption disguised as something logical as if that makes it less assumptive-y. It doesn't. By rules of logic, if statements 1 and 2 are true, then statement 3 must be true. If you don't agree, then you're not being logical. There's a very good chance that you're thinking is not thorough and is biased. I like the last image joke best. ---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
