Cosmological Argument for God (What is Nothing?) | Brandon - Australia | Atheist Experience 22.41
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I'm kind of enjoying the idea that Brandon actually thinks he's talking down to them.
precisely
Me too. He’s so convinced that he’s smart…
You formulated that greatly.
This is the longest, most convoluted and painful argument from ignorance/incredulity I've ever had the misfortune of sitting through.
A whole lot of talk about nothing XD
Keith Quixley I very much like this comment
One of MANY, when it comes to these debates
Keith Quixley I feel your pain. He has the balls to say “I think you’re confused “ arrogant twat.
@John Watkins Caller's premise that everything has a cause is false. Linear causality only exists within time and entropy. So if our universe has a cause, which is possible, that doesn't mean our universe is the only thing that exists. If something exists outside our universe, it exists outside of time, so it doesn't have to have a cause. Therefore, no intelligent design (a creator) is necessary for our universe to exist.
I wonder where Brandon's multiple Nobel Prizes are for his self-evident discoveries about the Universe.
if you just listen to him speak, they (his Nobel's) become self-evident
I love Tracie. She always cuts to the core of bs by asking “what the hell are we even talking about here? What’s a spirit? What’s nothing?” It’s great.
Physics does not work on an intuitive level. This caller Brandon does not seem to understand this. He keeps saying "this and that is self evident" and using every day analogies. Physics, and especially quantum physics, is NOT intuitive.
And he doesn't seem to understand that the laws of Physics as we know and understand them today, do not apply before the Big Bang, because they didn't exist yet.
jinxi 72able: We don't know for sure that the 'big bang' was the also start of physical laws. Current theories suggest there are multiple universes with the same laws but different values for the fundamental constants constantly evolving as a foam-like structure. That 'multiverse' is eternal as far as we can tell.
If there’s ANY area of science that is counterintuitive, quantum physics is it!
Bingo.
As soon as I hear "self-evident," I hear "look at the trees!"
talks about quantum physics
says it's "self evident"
richard feyman: "if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics."
This was my first thought. There is NOTHING that is self evident or intuitive about quantum physics.
"If someone says that he can think or talk about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood a thing"
- Murray Gell-Mann
Nor do you as we dont have a unifying theory, but we know that relativity does not prove accurate at the quantum level. Size does matter.
@@adamestep5146 can I ask what you're attempting to say?
@@Vyral714 I am referring to Matthew's comments above.. is statement draws the conclusion that he understands the quantum realm and others do not. The fact is relativity cannot explain the apparent randomness of space, time, motion, and etc. No one understands the quantum realm including myself. It is laughable to hear people disparage others on this topic when all we know is that we don't know.
Brandon is one of the biggest jerks I’ve heard on this show, and I’ve listened to hundreds of episodes. Brandon needs a lesson in humility. I imagine he thinks that he’s never wrong.
Totally agree. There's nothing more toe-curlingly cringy than someone who comes across as arrogant and condescending ("I think you're confused", etc) when it's obvious he's the one that hasn't paid any attention to the idea that is being argued.
I've met condescending jerks like him and I think Tracie totally shut him out and he is not used to that. Happens with me all the time, but no matter what, these jerks still manage to make you feel stupid. Tracie doesn't back down. Good for her.
Go listen to Matt Slick. This guy is awesome, polite, kind and a genius in comparison.
I disagree. In my opinion, he's quite well informed, and made some very good points that the hosts struggled to deal with. As far as I know, he's the best caller ever. Wrong, of course, but not obviously.
I got that same vibe. Probably because I have members in my family that act this same way. Actually. They all pretty much do. Needless to say, we only visit them when we have to. It's not that fun being the only secular liberals in the family. The entire family. (Talking about my married into family. I don't have one on my side) I don't know how my husband survived growing up and becoming an empathetic liberal atheist. It's amazing.
T: "So, everything that exists has a cause"
A: "OK"
T: "Does the universe exist?"
A: "Yes"
T: "So, what caused the universe?"
A: "We don't know"
T: "Sure we do; God!"
A: "So, you say everything that exists has a cause"
T: "Exactly"
A: "And you say God exists?"
T: "Yes..."
A: "So, what caused God?"
T: "Nothing, God is beyond time and eternal."
A: "Then not everything that exists has a cause, thus there is still no need for a God"
morfanaion you missed one crucial word... “begins.” they claim everything BEGAN to exist except god. that’s their response
Nail, meet head. :)
That logical fallacy is called special pleading
@Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Maybe time is self causing
@Dr. T.J. Eckleburg That seems to be a philosophical statement along the lines of, if a tree falls and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound.
Just because we needed a mind to label something, does not mean that thing ceases to exits if there is no mind to label it.
However, I was just being glib.
I thought that if you could special plead for a God, then why not something else like time or energy.
Funny to me how the caller gets confused and starts telling Tracy she's the one that's confused
Tracy doesn’t buy the hippy-dippy nonsense.
Gotta love her!
She was annoying as hell on this one, she kept talking like those crazy religious babbling when they don't have any arguments.
@@IronFreee How do we have arguments for nothing?.
@@velbowbruce4810 Can't you conceive an absence of anything? Western culture didn't came up with the zero because of people like you...
Yep
@@IronFreee um, no, they came up with zero to fill the mathematical gap between - 1 and 1
My three problems with the cosmological argument:
1) First premises hasn't been demonstrated since we've never observed nothing, and it may even be a logical impossibility
2) Second premises hasn't been demonstrated since the Big Bang only explains the expansion of our local universe. It's completely unknown what happened before the plank time.
3) Even if both premises' are agreed upon, it says nothing about the actual cause of the universe. All we'd know is that the universe has a cause. To claim that the cause was a god or some sort of conscious entity requires further evidence to support such a specific claim.
1) I've observed so-called "nothing" countless times. It's a logical impossibility to a moron.
2) I thought to myself that you're a moron before the Planck time. You should feel honored _(not really)._
3) It doesn't require _any_ evidence that _you_ are _some sort of conscious entity,_ as attempting to acquire it would be a futile task.
@P Sigh Ko Because it takes an eternity to have you reach the predestination of the moronic state that you are in and conclude that you're not going to evolve any further, and so "might as well begin here".
Actually you can observe nothing through meditation. It's called emptiness in buddhism. When you try to find what the self is and cant get an answer...its nothing, emptiness
4) even being as forgiving and passively lenient as possible, not a word of it approaches anything resembling a thinking, intelligent being or deity, let alone the farcical Christian god.
@@davidruss718 Meditation is like the cosmological argument: pointless!
This guy is frustrating and very annoying
Mostly the fact that he's calling THEM confused on what the physics points to. Its incredibly condescending to imply that people who have thought honestly about this know LESS than you on the topic. "Hey they haven't come to my conclusion yet so they must not understand it."
@@SilentMott yeah that drove me nuts "...uhhh I think you're a bit confused" omg
He’s what we call a “fuckstick”.
@@SilentMott ugh god you worded this perfectly. So fucking irritating. He's the worst kind of idiot. The kind who is completely ignorant of his own idiocy
34:23 I love that you can here Matt in the audience yell "Bullshit!".
Omfg 😂😂😂
Creationism - The belief that a magic invisible man of unknown origin, existing in nowhere-land, created everything out of nothing, using materials that didn't exist.
God's a real Nowhere Man. Thank you John Lennon.
Bubba Tao well put mate .
Hey, Brandon, do you want some mayo with your word salad?
I think your comment is unfair. Whoever tries to deal with the beginning of what we call "reality" is bound to sound as a word salad. But some salads are more palatable than others. Brandon is very articulate, and his statements pose a real challenge to the naturalist position.
@@Godslayer1975 Hahahahahaha I love that Tracie gets the whiny theists THIS furious about a woman humiliating some theist moron.
Don't like being reminded that Tracie is exponentially smarter than you'll ever be... "HellBringer"? (Maybe change it to "WhineBringer".)
@@ProfRonconi What challenge exactly?
@@homericteacher We are only capable of understanding what our brains are capable of processing. Who is to say that our brains are capable of understanding everything? Can a chimp understand Hilbert spaces? Can a chimp understand quantum gravity? Human beings are mostly chimps: why should we be capable of understanding the foundations of what we call reality?
@Dave Males Fair enough. But even a stoned person can make meaningful statements. Hell, I do it all the time!
Matt yelling “thank you” in the background was just gold
34:23 He yells bullshit!!
That was actually God in the background. Even HE is sick of Kalaam.
Matt sitting in the back room loudly losing his mind is the best part of this episode.
So glad we get a break from his tantrums.
The "Laws of Physics" do not cause virtual particles to exist. The laws of physics are descriptive, not proscriptive.
This is a very good comment, super under-rated. But perhaps one of the very best arguments I have seen on the channel.
That is not what the point should be anyway, the OG quantum flux itself is _something_ , that is what Tracie was arguing, for there to be a god and as per William Lane Craig's own argument on Kalam, he proposes that "GOD" created whatever things needed and created _everything_ and then everything else just fell in place.
What Tracie is saying is, that argument solves the case by proposing an even more complex thing.
Which is _fine_ ;) the rational answer at the end of our or one's understanding should always be, I don't know.
Forces of physics achieve virtual particles corresponding to laws of quantum mechanics. The laws of nature calibrate, describe & determine reality -- the forces of physics achieve all reality corresponding to the laws of nature. These scientific facts are why God is what scientists call the complete set of all fundamental & emergent laws of nature and forces of physics.
The laws of nature do not calibrate anything, everything we have observed falls in place exactly with chance -- life calibrates itself in order to survive, in fact almost 100% are trying to kill us. That said, scientists invoke god (some of them) in a philosophical sense, not in an answering / rationalization sense.
23 minutes in she NAILS it. "This is a physics question. Why don't physicists believe this?"
Brian Tyler
Indeed.
Which model best reflects the universe we observe?
If you go to any university physics department, listen to the talks they give or the papers that they write, go to any biology department, go to any neuroscience department, any philosophy department - If you ask people whose professional job it is to explain the world and come up with explanatory frameworks that match what we see - no one mentions God.
There’s never an appeal to a supernatural realm by people whose job it is to explain what happens in the world; everyone knows that the naturalist explanations are the ones that work.
Clearly, religions speak to people for reasons other than explaining what happens in the world, with cosmology, biology, neuroscience, etc.….
People turn to religious belief because it provides them with purpose and meaning in their lives, with a sense of right and wrong, with a community, with hope.
So, we can't go mixing up the peanut butter of theology with the chocolate of science - It turns out the two don't taste so great together.
@@peet4921 az
Mark Doldon
And what does that mean ?
@@peet4921 you should have used different foods other than chocolate and peanut butter because they actually taste amazing mixed together.
@@MrGeemonty Really? Gotta try that then.
I showed this to my wife, firs time I've ever seen her question her Christian faith
Isn't the theistic position precisely that everything does just pop into existence? By magic no less?
@Matt Toner / Quite right, Universe cannot come from NOTHING!!!!! [EXCEPT] My god can make it come from NOTHING, so there! (cries of Halleluah and Pass the Godmunition)
godmagic™
Theism just pops up in existence and IS magic because it's a miracle and then they convolute the material in a way that suits each individual to what they want to believe. It's a win win
@Matt Toner - Not necessarily. Most theists believe God is eternal. And some believe that the Cosmos is eternal. So, that the idea of the "creation" of the universe is a non-issue.
@@phazelvosfreqdetector7580 I don't see how God being eternal changes anything if he's distinct from the universe - he still has to magic it out of nothing right?
I'm not aware of any theistic position that claims the cosmos is eternal - can you give an example?
“This is a very simple concept of nothing...” after 8 minutes of failing to explain it coherently.
Nothing is one of my favorite mindblowing subjects. I also don't see how there could be nothing. Even if there was no quantum foam, no fabric of space-time, just a completely empty, lifeless, motionless void, then there's still the void - a *place* where something could pop into existence.
it's all self evident. that's his argument.
No. That's _your_ argument.
My God created nothing, therefore it doesn't exist. Lol.
There may be a phenomenon, though currently unknown, that initiated the Big Bang... If we agree to call that phenomenon a God, then a God may exist.
Then the definition of "god" would most certainly have to different than all the religious self-serving manmade ones.
The god would be different in the details and doctrine to most religions, but basically still a God of the Gaps, as all gods are.
I’m still waiting for a caller that can make a reasonable point.
Still waiting!
"Oh nothing stopped the car"
Well, if nothing stopped the car, then the car did not stop. If the car *was* stopped by nothing, then that "nothing" was actually something.
Nothing is difficult about that.
Dude. That's the best explanation I've heard to describe "nothing"
It's amazing how people who know the least are the most arrogant. Saying that the presenters are "confused"...cheeky bugger....
Dunning-Kruger Effect is strong with this one
Brandon; "I think you're confused"
(less than a minute later)
Brandon: "Sorry...I misspoke"
Dude - stop.
No one ever defines what it means to " begin to exist". As far as I can tell everything is simply a combination of preexisting matter.
this guy has no real idea of quantum physics.
I've never heard anyone explain the argument AGAINST the Kalam as well as Tracie just did. Her questions on "nothing" are just awesome.
That's the fault of a language which is ill equipped to describe abstract concepts without analogy or metaphor, and the hosts who have decided to completely trash everything he says before he even speaks. Not the fault of a person who is simply trying to describe a 'null state' - which is also not a good way to describe what he is actually trying to say. Most modern languages will have the same problem with abstraction. How does that make anything he said invalid?
Brandon's inability to describe a 'null state' is not the fault of the concept itself nor of Brandon's understanding - it's impossible to describe a state of negation IN ENGLISH without saying things like 'was nothing' or 'be nothing' because our language is ill equipped for describing these concepts - the ancient Greeks had a much better language for this kind of thing, but again, it's not Brandon's fault that the hosts are ignorant. It has nothing to do with a god because gods aren't real, but a state of 'null' which can not 'exist' because by its very definition it 'is' non existent, is still a valid conceptual postulation. I don't understand why this is so difficult to conceive of for you guys ...
I love it when Tracy loses her mind and just responds in pure befuddlement. She's got a ton of patience.
This was like an Abbot and Costello bit.
God's on First.
Or maybe God's "I dunno" (shortstop?)
Maybe life is a short stop.
"it's self evident because I have already been convinced it couldn't be anything else than the god I was indoctrinated into believing"
God of the gaps
Brandon tried the clever route of being an authority on physics with varying degrees of success (the "you're confused" accusation is a dirty debate tactic, but it works) and then sneaking in a Catholic god at the last minute.
After all this, it still does not get me the talking snake I always wanted. Get me a talking animal and then I'd say you got yourself an argument.
He specifically rang in when Matt wasn't there
This guy just can't deal with Tracey getting him off his script. And it's hilarious.
Which is what happens when theists try to put forward arguments created by creationist con-artists to someone who will actually challenge it.
Matt's approach to Kalam is better in my opinion. Grant the whole argument up front for the sake of argument, then point out that it doesn't get you to God. The cause of the universe could be the same as the 'cause' of virtual particles. Add to that the fact that the sum energy of the universe may in fact be 0 then an insignificant cause may be sufficient.
This is why the Kalam is so obviously bunk; not only are the premises not demonstrably true, even if you grant them, it gets you nowhere.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) is this:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Ergo, the universe has a cause.
This is basically a minor re-formulation of the classic cosmological argument, or First Cause argument. But in the original argument, the distinction of things that 'begin to exist' was absent, leading to a conundrum: you can't say that everything has a cause, then claim that God has no cause.
So it was tweaked a bit to clarify that it means, well, everything that isn't God.
Because, presumably, God exists eternally and uncaused.
If you found that assertion a little presumptuous, well, you'd be right. But the Kalam isn't immediately concerned with what the cause actually is.
There are other arguments for that.
The Kalam itself aims simply to establish that the universe requires a cause.
Simply put, it's an unsound argument because it commits a fallacy of composition.
"The universe", regardless of how it's defined (multiverses, etc.), is not the same kind of thing as objects within the universe.
The fact that causality is observed to affect matter, energy or objects within the universe does not imply that causality must apply to the universe itself.
Indeed, it doesn't make much sense to talk about causality without time, space, matter, and energy; nor does it make any sense to talk about things "beginning to exist" without respect to time - a property of the extant universe.
That's really all that needs to be said to demonstrate the argument as unsound.
Theologians have ways of trying to dodge these things though, so read on for a more detailed explanation if you wish.
Premise 1
These kinds of arguments are tricky because they involve words that can have multiple meanings; to address the argument, we have to specify precisely which meaning of the words we're using.
"Everything"
What, exactly, is meant by "everything"?
We can't be talking about supernatural things, because we don't know whether they exist.
They might, but that's speculative, and you can't use speculative things as the basis for the premise in a logic proof.
And we obviously can't be talking about the universe itself, because that would be assuming the conclusion in the premise - aka circular reasoning.
So we have to be talking strictly about things within the physical universe, because we can observe them.
"begins to exist"
Here the argument runs into a problem.
Little within the physical universe truly 'begins to exist'.
You may decide that 'you' began to exist at the moment of birth, or conception.
But the atoms that compose you are many billions of years old, forged in the crucibles of ancient stars that exploded in supernovae.
What we think of as 'beginnings' are usually just arbitrary constructs.
Matter and energy simply change.
It's much more accurate to say the following: "all events and effects are the outcome of prior causes".
The problem though is that this isn't always the case - in a quantum vacuum, virtual particles pop in and out of existence without a prior cause. This is sometimes dismissed by the theist with the assertion that a quantum vacuum is not 'nothing', thus it has not been demonstrated that something can come from nothing.
But it's a moot point - the argument is not that virtual particles are coming from nothing, but that they are coming into existence without a cause.
Ironically, their instantaneous materialization is perhaps the best example of something 'beginning to exist'!
"cause"
What is meant by the word "cause"?
Causality is a physical phenomenon which we only know to exist within the universe.
But just because causality works within the universe, it doesn't mean causality applies to the universe.
For that to work, we have to posit some kind of 'supernatural causality', unbound by the physical laws of our universe.
But again, such a causality, while possible, is purely speculative.
If it does exist, how would we know?
If it isn't constrained by the laws of the universe, why assume it's anything like physical causality at all?
Because speculative phenomena cannot be used in the premise of a logical proof, the first premise must be strictly limited to observable physical causality.
Based on the everything above, we can re-formulate the first premise to be both linguistically and scientifically accurate, but theists aren't going to like it:
''All effects within the universe observed at Newtonian scales are the outcome of a prior physical cause.''
Premise 2
How do we know that the universe began to exist?
Well, point of fact, we don't.
Theologians use the cosmic singularity - the moment at the epoch of the Big Bang when all the laws of physics break down - as the moment the universe began to exist.
But it's not that simple.
Beginning and time as Stephen Hawking has pointed out, it only makes sense to talk about the 'beginning' of something in reference to time.
The universe cannot begin to exist because, if the universe did not exist, there would be no time in which it could begin to exist!
The theistic objection is that this is only valid if we are using physical measures of time.
But as with causality, this only introduces another speculative quantity: 'non-physical time'.
Perhaps it exists, but what is it?
How might it work?
How might it differ from physical time?
Again: speculative things are not valid premises for a logical proof.
The use of the cosmic singularity as the 'beginning' is misguided.
From Wikipedia: "Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past. This singularity signals the breakdown of general relativity."
This distinction is pivotal: it is not the 'laws of physics' that break down, but the equations of general relativity. If we use the equations of quantum theory instead, the infinities of the singularity disappear; instead, the universe becomes smaller and smaller, eventually reaching the Planck epoch.
And until we have a theory of quantum gravity, we won't know what was really going on.
We can see clearly that the second premise is entirely unfounded.
But, to be charitable, we can re-frame it in a way that more accurately reflects the science, and complete the argument:
''All effects within the universe observed at Newtonian scales are the outcome of a prior physical cause. ''
If we go backward in time, the equations of general relativity yield infinities when the universe reaches the end of the Plank Epoch, requiring us to formulate a quantum theory of gravity to understand the nature of the universe.
Ergo, the universe has a cause.
Obviously, once we phrase the argument in a way that is clear about the meanings of the words and is scientifically accurate, it becomes a hilarious non-sequitur.
The reality is, we do not know how the universe got here.
Atheists are often accused of arguing that something came from nothing, but we have no reason to believe the universe came from anything else at all.
Perhaps the universe doesn't truly have an 'origin'.
It may be, per Hawking's No Boundary proposal, that the universe simply is.
Per some ideas in string theory, it may cycle infinitely in expansion and contraction.
But we just don't know yet, and there are still some very big hurdles in physics to overcome before we'll even have a chance at knowing.
In countless discussions with theists I've had over the years, they've asserted that, in the absence of God, the burden is on the non-believer to provide an alternative explanation. This is false.
The fact that a naturalistic explanation is either unapparent or unknown does not render a theistic or supernatural explanation valid by default.
The skeptic's only burden is to demonstrate (as I've tried to do) that an argument like the Kalam has failed to prove what its proponents claim it proves.
"I don't know" is an epistemologically valid alternative.
That's actually one of the most liberating parts about being a non-believer: realizing that it's okay to say, "I don't know!"
Beauty!
That was a very good read thx
Not only beautiful, but actually concise.
What an excellent post - I really appreciated it.
You've shown many fallacies in KCA. I think your post also shows the strength of KCA - it's simple and seems intuitive. In order to see the problems with it takes a level of nuance, some understanding of fallacies, and an understanding of some science that often gets glossed over (like knowing that the big bang is not necessarily the absolute beginning of our universe but just the local representation of it). Many people are unable or unwilling to follow the debunking.
KCA is a bit of a pet hate of mine because it is so flawed, and so many people find it compelling. I often write long posts debunking it too, but generally stick to simpler language. Like you, I like to rewrite it replacing the premises with true ones. Eg:
P1) Things in this universe that begin to exist have a cause (or, even more accurately: Things in this universe never begin to exist but are just the rearrangement of pre-existing atoms)
P2) We don't know if the universe itself began to exist
C) ???
With true premises there really is no way to get to a conclusion.
Wow. Thank you for that brilliant reply. Enjoyed that!
This caller is a perfect demonstration of someone who has studied a concept in depth completely oblivious that it is fallacious from the onset and when this is pointed out to him he realizes that everything he has studied is for naught.
Tracy nailed it in the last ten years plus of my atheism I haven’t really heard this basic argument that if you state nothing existed then nothing would be a state of existence hence it’s not nothing. This stops the argument in its tracks once establishing that what he thinks is nothing is just another state of existence that we are not aware of we can only be talking about states of existence as the concept nothing can’t apply to states of existence.
34:12 John encapsulates it all.
And Brandon confirms it with “I didn’t assume that. I *concluded* that.”
I love it when theists fail to understand why we reject the first premise of their precious Kalam.
Tracie's face, priceless! Brandon has to be so indoctrinated, he just cant understand such a simple concept, nothing, is nothing. Then, Brandon proceeds to say, "oh well, God was before the universe...." This is what religion does to people. Thanks Tracie and John!
34:20 Matt in the background: “Bulls**t” ..... Lol
I heard it at the same time I read your comment. Lol
"I have an argument, but it's self-evident"
i love how he said "this is a very simple concept" talking about nothing. A concept that has been debated for 2000 years.
“We don’t expect things to just pop into existence….” Except for a god..
When he can't answer a question, he lies.
"Whatever started the universe had to be powerful" how do you know that? He keeps pulling things out of his ass.
I am not a physicist and this has nothing to do with physics. A god must be comprised of something, otherwise it is nothing. Apologists assume, based on an extremely narrow interpretation of an extremely tentative scientific hypothesis, based on wholly inadequate data, that there was nothing before our universe. Even so, they contradict themselves, when they say that a god was here before. A god, by definition is not nothing. They are trying to have it both ways.
I think that you are misrepresenting the theist position. You say that theists simultaneously claim that there was nothing before the universe and that there was a god before the universe. That's not accurate. They actually claim that the only two alternatives are that nothing or their god existed before the universe. The problem is that it's a false dichotomy. No one actually claims that there was nothing before our universe and there are proposals about multiverses and the like. There simply is no basis to claim that a god did it other than "you can't explain it, therefore god".
@34:21 Matt Dillahunty yelling "Bullshit!" in the background... classic.
"How could you have a state of NOT ANYTHING?!?!?!"
lol tracies funny. Lol
Dear Brandon: "The interest you have to believe a thing, is no proof that such a thing exists."
- Voltaire
I love when Tracy gets heated. She's the best.
Agency needs to be demonstrated not just asserted.
“A negation is something, is it not?” I loved that line
He almost said "there is a state in which nothing exists"
😂😂
I
LOVE
Tracy
SO MUCH!!
Her logic is so crisp, it's almost tangible :)
At least she is not a 'Karen '...
She's the best
The general problem with the universe "needing" a cause/creator is that:
a) if what we call time is a property of this universe.
b) if what we call the universe had a state where the universe didn't exist, then in that state, what we call time didn't exist because it is a property of the universe.
c) if in that state where time didn't exist, since time doesn't exist, it cannot have the "n-1" time that causality requires for an action to cause a reaction.
So the premise that the universe "needs" a cause/creation appears false because the premise lacks the existence of time which is required for causality.
When you add "timeless" to your premise then it is a rejection of linear causality because causality requires time.
If you reject linear causality, then theoretically something at time n or even n+1 could cause the event which permits the universe (or a part of the universe or an external reality/universe) to create itself or even something in the future that will exist within this universe to go back and start itself thus negating the need for an external creator.
This is yet another good point seldom made.
I've heard all the empty arguments. Now i spend my time counting how many times Tracy and Matt use the phrase "At the end of the day".
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” - Winnie The Pooh
This is indeed a perfect example of how the same term can have similar but different meanings that people fail to recognise. Theists love using the same term to mean different things, even within the same sentence, and pretend that they are referring to the same thing each time.
Brandon's logic exists only in his house.
34:57 "If we accept a conclusion we can make other conclusions based on that with pretty good certainty."
Yes if you accept a baseless assertion you can dishonestly make other baseless assertions.
It’s a true dead end. There is no sense in beating the dead. If you are at a divide, drop the bias when considering the solution/answer. Otherwise, you will by default cherry pick what “feels” closer to home. That is a very common recurrence… just remember that it would not belittle you to say “I don’t know!”
It's strange how someone so confused can think others are confused. It's bizarre
Self-evident, huh? I don't think that word means what you think it means...
I remember when I realized that nothing can't be a physical state. It changes quite a lot, because if before the universe there was something - then that's just another state for the universe.
~ Nothing is a concept. It takes about 23 minutes just to come to this simple conclusion. These videos are so interesting even as they cause frustration in the viewers/listeners. This is fun and amusing and it is hard for me to articulate exactly why, and I keep watching. So, thank you all TAE people! Cheers, DAVEDJ ~
I am only sorry about Tracy getting so enraged.
Instead, they should have remain calm and at peace and let HIM define 'nothing'.
Twenty minutes of him thinking it was the hosts that were confused XD
“The expert” that was going to explain things get stumped on the first question 😂😂😂
* when you feel like you e been listening for half an hour and you’re only thirteen minutes in...
Kalam has been shown to be flawed many times:
1. Nothing in our universe actually begins to exist. It is all just changing state, or arrangement of matter and energy. And some things happen seemingly randomly, without an apparent cause (virtual particles, radioactive decay, etc). So premise one is questionable.
2. We don't know if our universe began to exist either. We are fairly certain its current state and physical laws began about 14 billion years ago, but beyond that point in time we cannot see. The concept of causation is temporal, and time as we know it began at the singularity. So causation prior to time is a non sequitur. Applying the rules inside our universe to the conditions external to it is an unwise category error.
3. Even if the universe has a cause we eventually find, that cause does not have to be divine, sentient, aware of us, have a plan, or even still be existent (if that even means anything absent time). It could be that some cosmic hippo farted and died in another universe, and our space-time bubble formed in a new dimension from the resulting energy release. So even if there is ultimately a cause to our universe, you still don't get to GOD, Jesus, and the holy scriptures.
So as a foundation for Christian belief, it fails on every count.
"This is a very simple concept"
Proceeds to be incapable of explaining it
A prime example of a person who thinks they are smart, coming into contact with two people who actually are smart.😂
This guy can't be too smart if he's a Christian believer. There's many logical problems with Christianity and no evidence for it.
Hey now, degrading a whole group of people for having a position is being a dick.
I think Tracie had one too many coffees at this stage.
The dead coffee mugs are stacked on the shelves behind.
"I don't know for sure, but I can prove it...."
was there ever a more telling line?
He’s so confused and doesn’t realize it lmao
I think Brandon is under the influence of promiscuous teleological intuition. There is no current method to explore or understand what the conditions were prior to the big bang and this gap of knowledge is conveniently filled with agency. Conveniently placed at a location and time where examination is impossible.
It's funny how this guy thinks that stacy is just unable to grasp these concepts. Meanwhile...
"Are you saying you guys don't want to bask in my brilliant glow?"
Physics + KCA +WLC + Langan...
Nothing, by definition, does not exist.
Since nothing cannot exist, what is left is existence.
I looked at the Wikipedia page on Kalam and the caller is just following it like a script and skipping the criticisms.
That's cheating but a good test for the host.
What do your mean, its self evident, lol
I don't understand why the conversations even goes in this direction. The simple question is: What have we ever known to come into existence? The first premise claims that everything that begins to exist has a cause but all I would say truly begins to exist is the universe. Everything else is just a rearrangement of particles that came when the universe began to exist. If that is the case the first premise just says that the universe has a cause which is circular.
@@ryleighs9575 I agree you could argue against the second premise but then you often get bogged down in definitions and other things that don't really matter in the arguement. I think it's easier to point out that even if you agree with the second premise the arguement turns into "the universe has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause". No reason to even touch the second premise.
@Traveling Potato
"Particles rearranging" is not an adequate description of reality or causation. It is utter insanity to suggest otherwise. You're sad.
@@Loddfafnisodr can you explain more what you mean? All I am showing is that things don't begin to exist but everything that exists has always existed since the beginning of the universe. Do you disagree?
@Traveling Potato
You're not _showing_ anything. If you want to say or show that _particles_ don't begin to exist and have always existed, that is one thing. Claiming that they are _everything_ is another, utterly asinine thing.
And that brings us to your definition of _everything_ which is clearly skewed. I cannot tell you whether _everything_ has always existed or not until I make you understand what _everything_ means.
@@Loddfafnisodr I am not the one making claims about everything. The point is that they claim everything that begins to exist has a cause. I am asking for one example of something beginning to exist. Do you have an example of that? I am not claiming to know what everything is. I am not sure what you are assuming my definition of everything is because I didn't define it in any comment.
While listening to Brandon's desperate but futile efforts to define his "god" into existence, I found myself thinking of another brainless line: "Let's go Brandon!"
The funny part about most apologist arguments of ‘something can’t come from nothing’ is of course big bang theory doesn’t say everything came from nothing.
However the real irony is their entire belief system is based on something coming from nothing when a deity created everything. So not only do they still have everything coming from nothing they also have this deity figure that is unexplained.
Speak above a growl, Brandon or I'm gonna have to bail...
I know I'm late chiming in on this, but Tracie is right, the concept of nothing is a philosophical, metaphysical and somewhat nonsensical concept. The closest we humans can relate to the concept is a void, which we now know (as per Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss) that the void of space is not empty. So we have no instance in our material universe that such a thing exists or is even possible.
That said, let's review the first premise of The Cosmological Argument: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause" - We literally have no reference to this concept since there is no example of material things coming into existence from "nothing". In fact, as per the Law of Conservation of Mass, matter can be neither created or destroyed and thus debunks this notion right off the bat. But for the sake of argument, I'll humor the notion and suspend reality for a moment to examine the second part of the premise "The universe began to exist and therefore has a cause" - There is a huge misunderstanding by people that the universe came from "nothing". There was no actual "Big Bang" rather a hyperinflation of matter that IS our universe. Technically speaking, there was no"void" that was filled by our universe. Think of it like a balloon suddenly being filled with air and ever-expanding bigger and bigger.
What our current knowledge of the universe is, is that physicists, following the evidence back to the point of a singularity, can't tell us for certain (at this time) what was before this moment. However, if we apply what we already understand about the universe, we know that the universe must have come from something. We also know mater can collect into gravity wells, "black holes" that bend and distort space-time so extream that normal physics seem to break down. It has been proposed that if enough matter were to enter a "black hole" that it could potentially cause a rupture in time-space dumping its contents and forming a new universe. It is speculated by many physicists that our universe was formed in this manner. This would dissolve any need for the concept of a universe from nothing and be in complete balance of the Laws of Conservation.
This nullifies any of the remaining premises to the Cosmological Argument, and thus, no need for a creator.
As a final note: If it is necessary to use philosophy and "word salad" to attempt to prove the existence of a god, then there is no material reality to it and thus I invoke Hitchens's razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".
Wow, this was fun!
I love the remark: "i 've looked into it "
But cannot explain his definitions.
😁😂🤣
A timeless cause is an absurd concept.
I'm quite confident that's what Matt was frustrated he couldn't argue.
Acid that’s the answer
The caller thinks the universe "has to come into existence" is why he is wrong.
5:40 Brandon is the one not understanding the question, yet doesn't realise it and gets all sarky: "You're on a talk show. You have to understand these big arguments". Meow! I bet he's a great surfer.
We do know what causes universes,
.. its univerese farting Pixies!
Matt said so
You are a blasphemer. Eric made it, read it in his book.
Has anyone observed anything coming into existence? I've seen a lot of things change forms and states, but I've never seen something go from nonexistent to existent.
You just have to assume it because it feels right. Then you assume premise 2 as well (the universe had a beginning) and *presto* the conclusion seems reasonable.
Welcome to theist logic.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih , it's typical theistic equivocation. They love using the same term for two similar but different things, even in the same sentence. "Faith" comes to mind.
Just discovered Kalam, and thinks "ooooh, they've never heard this before. I'm gonna call in and stump them."
The reason he doesn't go to physicists to discuss his amazing argument is that they would throw him out of the building and tell him to go and seek education. This is pure armchair sophistry. It adds NOTHING of value to our quest for knowledge. It ends with GOD. The three letters that explains everything!