Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God

Does the Kalam Cosmological Argument convince you that God exists?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • No.

    Votes: 25 92.6%
  • I'm not sure that I properly understand the argument.

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • No opinion or would rather not answer.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
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I think he was serious. The totality of existence is a human construct. Suppose I say all Greeks are mortal. What does "all Greeks" mean ? Is it a thing ?
At another stage in the debate, Russell says that every man has a mother, but that doesn't mean the human race has a mother. It's a completely different concept.
Similarly, if we agree that everything in the Universe has a cause, it doesn't mean the whole has a cause. They are different logical realms.
 
Another problem is that in quantum mechanics, the idea of "cause" is considered an obstacle to acceptance of the facts that have been observed. Sub-atomic particles do strange things. They move about for no reason and can have affects that seem to imply speeds greater than light. Nobody understands this strange world, but it is fundamental and it might mean that there is a natural way for matter to pop into existence with no explanation that we can understand in our macro-world.
Very likely, all our arguments about causes are fruitless.
 
I neglected to mention that the debate is in chapter 13 of the book.
You can get it on YouTube, simply search for 'Russell Copleston debate".
Be aware that the original recording has been edited and doesn't include all the sentences.
It sadly does not include my first quote. So you'll need to get the book !
 
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I neglected to mention that the debate is in chapter 13 of the book.
You can get it on YouTube, simply search for 'Russell Copleston debate".
Be aware that the original recording has been edited and doesn't include all the sentences.
It sadly does not include my first quote. So you'll need to get the book !

That book is ....

The book author and title .
 
A man may look for gold.
If he finds it, all well and good, but he doesn't expect to find gold everywhere.

Similarly, scientists look for causes.
 
By the way, I first read the book in 1966 at Loughborough University.
A fellow student had a photocopy of the first essay that his father had given him.

After reading the essay, I rushed to the university's library and to my delight they had several books by Russell.

I was in heaven !
 
Is it possible to now find this book in print ?

Yes. Go to a large bookshop and visit the philosophy section.
Look for books by Bertrand Russell.

In Oxford last year, I visited their big bookshop and it had several copies.
Of course you can get it online too.

I just did a quick search online and found dozens of websites.
Some have text, others audio.
One I found has a robot voice reading the book.
 
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I must admit I had assumed he had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote that. Do you think it was intended seriously?

Ah you caught me messing about.
Pretending to be an apologist.
Well done.
Did anybody spot my deliberate spelling errors ?
By the way,what is a brane ?
Some of you were discussing branes.
 
Yes. Go to a large bookshop and visit the philosophy section.
Look for books by Bertrand Russell.

In Oxford last year, I visited their big bookshop and it had several copies.
Of course you can get it online too.

I just did a quick search online and found dozens of websites.
Some have text, others audio.
One I found has a robot voice reading the book.

So no particular title ?

Will do .. thanks

river
 
Yes. Go to a large bookshop and visit the philosophy section.
Look for books by Bertrand Russell.

In Oxford last year, I visited their big bookshop and it had several copies.
Of course you can get it online too.

I just did a quick search online and found dozens of websites.
Some have text, others audio.
One I found has a robot voice reading the book.
Blackwell's. I think the last time I was in there was when I attended a college retirement party given for my old tutor. I went browsing and came away with "Dawkins' God" by Alister McGrath.
 
Bertrand Russell debated the existence of God with Father F. C. Copleston in 1948 on BBC Radio. The debate was published later in a book entitled "Why I am not a Christian", which is actually the title of the first essay in that book. My quote, which is not exact, I confess, is taken from the point at which Russell says he doesn't ascept the idea that the Universe as a whole has a cause and it rather puts the brake on the progress of the debate. Referring to the concept of the whole, "...I do not think there's any meaning in it at all. I think the word 'universe' is a handy word in some connections, but I don't think it stands for anything that has a meaning."
Copleston replies "If the word is meaningless, it can't be so very handy...."
The book is still in print and is probably available online free.
Great fun and thought provoking.
Enjoy.
It rather sounds from the context you have provided that Russell was resisting the teleological predisposition of many religions, viz. that the universe has some sort of "meaning" in the sense of serving a purpose, aim or goal of its hypothesised creator. The word itself has a meaning, surely?
 
I think Russell had a certain view of what meaning entails, and that his comments stem from that rather than it being just a disagreement with the sense of serving a purpose.
To Russell, as I understand him, the meaning of a noun is an entity.
So to Russell "the glass is full of water" has meaning if and only if there is one glass in the observable location, and it is full of water.
If there is more than one glass (as it is then not possible from the sentence alone to know which glass is referred to) or it is not full of water (then there is no glass with water in it), then the the sentence has no meaning.
It may denote something, or refer to something, but not something with any meaning.

At least that is how I understood it.

So I think what Russell was arguing was that "universe" doesn't actually mean anything in that there is nothing in one's area to observe or experience that one can call "universe".
Similarly he would say that "God" is meaningless.
 
I'm curious about where he said that too.

http://homepages.uc.edu/~martinj/Ph...rtrand Russell The Famous 1948 BBC Radio .txt

Taking it on face value, I think that he's wrong. I think that it's clear that we can refer to particular things, and I don't think that it's a stretch to think of referring to a universal set that includes any and all particular things.

I'm inclined to agree more with Copleston than with Russell on that point. (I have the greatest respect for Copleston as a philosopher and have read several volumes of his truly extraordinary History. The best history of philosophy ever written, in my opinion, certainly the most detailed.)

Just because I don't believe in the existence of a Jewish/Christian/Islamic style God or in similar deities from other traditions, does not commit me to the position that the traditional questions of natural theology should be dismissed. (First cause, source of the universe's observed order, most fundamental irreducible level of being, why reality exists at all...) I think that these are exceedingly important, if unanswerable questions. They are the fundamental questions of metaphysics.

I count myself an agnostic regarding those issues. So unlike Russell, I wouldn't try to rule the questions out a-priori, but would attack instead the assumption that whatever their answers might be must somehow imply the deities of religious tradition.
 
Just because I don't believe in the existence of a Jewish/Christian/Islamic style God or in similar deities from other traditions, does not commit me to the position that the traditional questions of natural theology should be dismissed. (First cause, source of the universe's observed order, most fundamental irreducible level of being, why reality exists at all...) I think that these are exceedingly important, if unanswerable questions. They are the fundamental questions of metaphysic

The Andromeda Galaxy and our galaxy are rushing towards each other at an astronomical velocity. Some time in the far distant future they will merge and many suns will smash together. If our sun survives, it's only a matter of time before it runs out of hydrogen and expands to become a red giant. All copies of the Bible on earth will be vaporised.
What is the purpose of this design ?
 
Can anybody here name a thing that did not begin to exist, apart from God?
From Post # 1 original post I contend that "NOTHING" as a thing existed before the Big Bang. However I have been told (explained) it is impossible for NOTHING to exist. It appears that stuff was always flitting in an out of existence and it was the collision between some of the stuff which set off a chain reaction of the stuff which flitted in to existence but did not flit out

Religion puts the cause (the flitting in and out stuff colliding) down to god (who being god was exempt from ANY rules)

Science puts the cause down to physics which has fixed rigid rules NO exceptions allowed

So my thought bubble question becomes what reason makes physics have fixed rules and god have no rules?

My answer to myself boils down to

- for physics - it is impossible for physics to exist in any environment which does not have fixed unbreakable rules

- for god - god cannot exist in a environment which has fixed unbreakable rules (Religion gets around that with the unsubstantiated claim god is outside of space and time. Of course he is otherwise the whole house of cards collapses)

More later - now coffee :)

:)
 
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