William Lane Craig Is Wrong about Cosmology

Quite a while ago, I made a video called "William Lane Craig Is Wrong about Relativity". As was noted by many, that's not all he's wrong about. Here's my long-overdue response to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. More to come!

[michaelgray]

Excellent video!

It seems that apologists like Craig are not interested at all in reaching out to nonbelievers, but are instead doing all they can to keep believers from falling away from the faith.

[TMMx]

There was something else that Craig said in that debate that I thought was interesting. At about 16 or 17 minutes in, he tried to respond to the assertion that the idea of time breaks down at the Planck epoch by asserting that it "can't be completely timeless, because it is in a state of constant flux." This seems like an equivocation to me.

[AntiCitizenX]

Something to remember about the BGV theorem (and this is something they even emphasized indirectly the quotes you provided) is that it's based on laws of physics *we know* to be incomplete.  The conclusions are only as valid as the premises, and the premises are only as valid as our current understanding of physics, and we know our our current understanding of physics falls apart when quantum mechanics meets gravity.  Craig is therefore basing his entire thesis on a theorem with known errors and limitations contained within it.  It's like trying to use Maxwell's equations to prove that all blackbodies emit infinite power.  Sure, I can "prove it" mathematically, but that doesn't mean anything.

[DrStorm]

I watched many of his debates and he was right once in each - when he said his name.

[QuantumOverlord]

Why do people keep saying WLC is a good debtor? He isn't, he uses dishonest child debate tactics. 

[nunyabisnass]

You have no idea how glad I am that you addressed "begins" to exist, as a transitional state. I've tried many times to explain how the bigbang wasn't a cause in and of itself, for the universe, it was an event from when the universe went from a previous state, into our current inflationary state. The singularity wasn't just some object of insignificance, or an infinitesimal speck, the singularity was the universe, at a different time.

[maliciousbloke]

So I suppose one could say that William Lane Craig's arguments are Kalamitous?

I'll be here all week :)

[andrewbutton]

Of course he is wrong, he is a doctor in philosophy and theology. Two fields in which there is quite literally no wrong answer if you can justify the answer.

[jursamaj]

WLC's *job* is not "philosopher". His job is "apologist".

[DjVortex-w]

Other unjustified assumptions WLC makes (not necessarily _wrong_, but definitely unjustified):

- The universe is completely deterministic.
- Every event has a deterministic cause.
- There's an arrow of time, and it flows swift and sure in one direction (to partially quote a great game).
- Things can begin to exist ex nihilo.
- It is possible for there to be nothing.
- There exists something else besides this universe (and, possibly, other similar universes).
- Something existed before this universe. There is an "outside" to this universe, in one way or another.
- This universe was caused, and this cause was supernatural (rather than, for instance, another universe, or some kind of "meta-verse".) It could not have been a chain of causes, or multiple causes.
- The cause of this universe still exists.
- We can know something about this cause. And we can know it via philosophical wordplay.

[TheCookiezPlz]

Man, science is harder than I thought...Is it too late to convert to creationism? :P

[s_bushido]

If there's one reason to desire immortality, it's so that I can be alive on the day that the beginning of the universe is finally explained...and to see where religion (assuming anyone still cares about it) tries to hide God after that.

[Flatscores]

I remember theoreticalbullshit making this exact point about transitions. He even tried to get his subscribers to pose this question to Craig en masse. He noticed it, but responded with a typical straw-man, not characterizing this counter argument respectfully. It was pretty damn disappointing. He is no honest philosopher, he simply spouts his line.

[Coastfog]

*Breaking News*
William Lane Craig is wrong about cosmology.
Scientists discover that red indeed is a color.
Dennis Rodman gets a piercing.

[EdwardHowton]

Correction: William fucking Lane fucking Craig (his true full name) isn't wrong about cosmology.

He's wrong about *EVERYTHING*.

[checkpoint]

I have a background in biology, not physics so a lot of this goes over my head, but I appreciate the sophisticated complexity of the universe as science is describing.

[kaprn]

I have to say listening to a Swedish person do a southern accent is fucking hilarious. Nice video!

[Koran]

Simultaneous causation does not work. The beginning of time cannot be simultaneous with a timeless state.

[joshporter]

If one has to go to such lengths to try (and fail) to prove that one's god exists, then you can't really claim that god wants people to know it exists without people laughing in your face. 

[jamesclifford]

It looks like you have no right arm at the start of the video.