Are you into The Great Debate?
You might want to read this argument
If you are a person that holds to theistic views about life in general. Then you have probably come across an opposing Atheist who has the complete opposite views to yours. Often this means engaging in some sort of lengthy debate as to what your reasons are.
Almost 100% of the time the argument ends in frustration either due to a miss-communicative problem or due to poor argumentation.
This article will address the problem of poor argumentation and show you how to construct a good argument in defence for your beliefs.
Im not endorsing any Atheistic or Theistic belief systems. Im simply offering some help to the theist on how to argue on a reasonable wave length. That means reasoning in a way that the Atheist will understand you, (not necessarily agreeing with you).
Im going to present one argument that will offer you enough weight to at least show that you are a reasonable person and provide a strong defence. However, Ill point out a few factors that will be required for the argument to stand strong.
Lets begin!
The Kalam Cosmological Argument.
I present to you the three vital points!
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist.
2. Therefore the universe has a cause.
At first glance you may think what sort of argument is this? Especially if you are new to it of course, but let me elaborate.
The argument is powerful because it invokes the idea that there must be a cause for everything that exist. This immediately begs the question about the nature of that particular. This blinks out loud, the idea that it has to be God, because God is the only possible hope for an uncaused entity that could cause anything at all. Otherwise we would fall into infinite regresses of causal objects that would lead to nothing being caused at all.
It is similar to calling God the prime mover, that is to say that he was the first to flick the switch or kick the ball rolling
There is one crucial requirement for this argument to stand firm and that it depends on your view of time. The argument hinges on the A-Theory of time. There are two theories of time, the A-Theory and the B-Theory of time. So it is vital to establish to your opponent that you are basing this on the A-Theory of time, otherwise you risk falling into a miss-match. Most Atheists are B-Theorists, because that allows some room to escape from arguments like the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Arugment). There are some hybrid theorists but were going general thought for now.
It may boil down to an argument then, over which theory of time is the correct one. That obviously provides for another interesting topic, but lets stick to our guns here. Theyre blazing!
So back to the KCA, the reason why it is so powerful is that it is based on strong evidence. That is, we now that the universe did have a beginning. This is due to strong evidence of the Big Bang! We can confirm this by means of the cosmic background radiation, the Big Bang afterglow. Coupled with the fact that the universe is expanding naturally implies that it was once smaller, so small that it would be reduces to an initial beginning sparked off with the Big Bang. So the science tells us that premise 2. (the universe began to exist) is true.
Looking at premise 1 (everything that begins to exist has a cause), well this is also elementary science. Cause and effect observed throughout the natural world. Everything is determined by a previous determining mechanism. Such as my hands are producing this texted by means of brain activity, they dont just type away on their own. You can apply this to anything that exists and explain its existence by means of a prior cause.
These two premises are backed soundly with evidence in science, which naturally follows that the universe had a cause, once again, A-Theory only.
Have fun!
