Beginnings and beginnings

One of the most common and most persuasive arguments for the existence of God is the Kalam cosmological argument. William Lane Craig is perhaps its foremost proponent.

The argument has been formulated at a high level by Craig as follows (according to Wikipedia):

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

He then goes on to argue why this cause must be God, an argument I find unconvincing but won't get into here.

This argument is usually attacked by tackling the first premise with quantum mechanics, where events do not necessarily have causes per se, however Craig counters this by insisting that the laws of quantum mechanics themselves serve as the cause.

Premise number two is often attacked also by raising the possibility that the universe, or at least time, has always existed. Craig responds with all the evidence for the big bang (which is not actually in dispute) and with some unconvincing arguments attempting to prove that an infinite series of past events is impossible.

I propose to attack the argument from another angle. Again, I attack premise two, but not by denying the big bang or the beginning of time, but by arguing that there are beginnings, and then there are beginnings.

And another thing!

Before leaving the subject of The Moral Landscape completely, I want to write a post specifically to defend Harris's idea against one particularly bad criticism.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was quite annoyed by a howler of an error made by William Lane Craig in a debate he had with Sam Harris on the topic of whether there could be an objective basis for morality without God.

What was even more annoying was that Dr. Craig was convinced that he had unambiguously proved his argument with this ridiculous misunderstanding. Unbelievably, Harris never bothered to challenge this, resolutely ignoring Dr. Craig and evidently concentrating on all the points he had scripted for himself well in advance of the debate.

After the jump, Dr. Craig's bogus argument and why it's so wrong.

The implications of religious morality

In continuing the discussion of morality, let's have a look at the claim made by many that morality has an objective existence emanating from God or gods.

As this is leading up to a discussion of the morality of Sam Harris, I think it's relevant to post a link to a video of a debate in which Harris and William Lane Craig debate the proposition that there can be no objective basis for morality without God. Many of the arguments I will touch on come up. Surprisingly, I think on balance I agree with Craig, however he makes at least one major logical blunder which I hope to address in a later post. For those of you without the time to watch the video, there is a transcript here.

The religious view of morality, held by the majority throughout history and today, is that morality was handed down from God(s), and as such it can be viewed as a type of moral realism. Good is simply that which is approved of or mandated by God. Evil is that which is prohibited. Disagreements among believers about what is moral arise only from uncertainty about the will of God.

In this view, for example, one must acknowledge that religious terrorists are motivated by morality, however mistaken they may be in their interpretation of God's will.

After the jump, some questions raised by using religion as a basis for morality.