Cosmological argument

William Lane Craig argues that we have good reason to believe that the universe had a temporal beginning, and that the Big Bang theory shows this. What that means is that the Big Bang theory, which in popular culture is presumed to be an atheistic theory, is actually embarrassing for atheism, since it agrees with the Bible that there WAS a beginning. [source]

Let's put aside whether Craig would agree to the above (I think he would), the problems with the argument are:

1. Layman's understanding of Big Bang Theory should be that at the Big Bang, it was a singularity. That is we have no physical means to know what was before the Big Bang. Stephen Hawkings have recently established that Big Bang will spontaneous appear under the law of Quantum Physics. Universe is not caused. Ignoring the latest understanding and cherry picking of Science to support a view is a logical fallacy.

2. The bible may be right at one thing - the universe has a beginning. That does not imply the rest of the bible is also correct. Take the sequence of creation as an example. The bible is complete wrong. To judge a claim to be right or wrong, we depend on evidence to support that claim. A lucky guess is just a lucky guess. Nothing special.

Craig maintains what whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist, the universe has to have something other than itself cause it to exist. On the other hand, God, according to the definition, never began to exist, so he needs no cause of his existence.

1. The claim that "what whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence" needs evidence and proof. To prove this statement is wrong, I only need ONE counter example. Here it is. From Quantum mechanics, we know that radioactive exists. The instance at which a radioactive nuclei decays cannot be predicted. We can only have statistical laws about radioactive decay. This is an example of event without a cause. If this event has a cause, we would understand precisely the moment when the cause is satisfied and would trigger the decay. Heisenberg uncertainty principle implies that it is impossible to know the cause and hence the event is strictly uncaused. Of course, the second counter example would be the appearance of our universe.

2. By definition god does not need a cause is another example which I could use to disprove the claim that "whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence". God, if exists, has existed. There is no obvious reason, except by the trickery of words, to define it as needing no cause. The fact is that we do not know whether god exists because of a cause. This would need to the recursive situation of a god' creator and ad infinite. This is an obvious logical impossibility. Either god exists without a cause OR god does not exist. This argument does not exclude the possibility that the god in our definition does not exist.

Steve Harvey Atheist Comments Debunked

Scientific Explanation?

atheists trying to establish science as the the only source of truth and access to reality. They go far as to claim that everything outside of science is irrelevant and even absurd. It's this same philosophy that has totally infiltrated our school systems.

While the above statement is a huge generalization as if atheists IS one person and only one voice, let me just assume that some atheists may be pushing the argument too far. Science, as a method of investigation, is order of magnitude more valid and relevant in terms of understanding truth. While the quote above complains 'this same philosophy that has totally infiltrated our school systems', the same can be said of the creationists' agenda of posing intelligent design as a science. This is simple politics of interested parties flighting for attention.

The post continues to give an example:

For example, there is a pot of water on the stove. If someone to pose a question "Why is this water boiling?"

The scientific answer would go something like this: The water is boiling because the temperature is excess of a hundred degrees, when that happens it has an effect on the molecules, and those molecules begin to react in a certain way and that's why the water is boiling. And that is a perfectly good scientific explanation.

But here is another explanation as to why the water is boiling, Because Dan wants to have a cup of tea. That is an explanation on a different level then a scientific explanation and yet it is completely valid and moreover, the scientific explanation itself, would be incomprehensible if you didn't put into the context as to why the pot got on the stove in the first place, because Dan is trying to make himself some tea. Thats why the set of events have been set into motion that cannot be described scientifically. [my emphasis]

The problem with this example is that Dan failed to realised the overloaded meaning of the word "why". In English, "why" seeks explanation of the phenomena, ie what makes water boil. At the same time, "why" also seeks the causality of who boils the water. Science does not, and has never, attempt to explain the causality of human initiated events.

Dan dismissed science from then onwards. However, it is important to note that in understanding human interactions, it is also important to be "evidence-based'. Someone is murdered. Can we just accuse a passerby of murdering? We need evidence to convict the murderer, right?

Faith, is not evidence-based. Claiming any 'truth' based on a set of old fictions is more absurd!