Does the first cause theory depend on special pleading?

[achilles12604]

No less than 3 (cog,goat and duke) non -theists have accused me of using a logical fallacy of special pleading with regard to my idea of the first cause theory.

HISTORY:

From The God Hypothesis

Concerning this topic I put forth the following:

If the universe did begin, it must have had a cause. Nothing comes from nothing. If nothing happened or existed, then nothing would be the result. Obviously something happened because we are here. So something changed. Changes require causes.

This cause had to have certain requirements.

1) It must have been space less or at the very least outside of the confines of this universe.

2) It must have been timeless. Time it is shown by Einstein and others after him directly interacts with matter and space inside this universe. It is a factor which exists inside this universe. If there was no universe then there would be nothing to interact with. Hence the cause of the universe must be timeless.

I followed this with :

First you need to define a person. Then define the start of the person.

then you can identify the cause of that start. What you have done is list a series of results of different causes. But each of these steps had a cause which allowed it to be so. Likewise each of these steps would not have occurred except that something took place. Without that something, the step would not have occurred.

Lets say (because I am personally against abortion) that a person exists after conception. Before conception it is not a person but rather two sets of genes.

The genes come together and combine DNA which begins the growth process.

Strictly speaking the combining of the DNA is what caused the person to exist.

Quote:
Why must the existence of the universe have a cause? I'm not particularly well versed on universe theory, but I am aware that there is a line of thought whereby this universe is one in a long line of universes that expand, collapse, expand, collapse. Do they need a cause?


I am familiar with this theory. It is no longer accepted by scientists in every secular area of society (not to mention Christian).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory

Each step has a cause all the way back to the formation of the universe. So we are back at the "first cause".

I am making one assumption. That the universe did have a cause. However I am making this assumption based on 100% of the observable data ever collected or witnessed by mankind since our existence. There has never been an occurrence which did not have a cause.


If the universe was uncaused, and yet began, then you must explain how nothing changed, and yet the universe changed. It is a logical impossibility. Either the universe (or something which became the universe) changed, or nothing happened. But we know something happened, so something changed. Changes require causes. And around we go.

To this I received the following replies:

Cogitoergosum wrote:
What caused God to exist?
Or are you going to invent a special plea for GOD.

achilles12604 wrote:

Now if the universe began to exist and thus needed a cause, this cause had to meet certain criteria.

Criteria that you will invent to fit GOD.

Duke of Vandals wrote:

Cogitoergosum wrote:
What caused God to exist?
Or are you going to invent a special plea for GOD.

Cogi has asked an important question one which Christians do create special pleas for.

Goat Wrote:
You then declare God to be the one thing that 'always' existed, thereby giving
God an attribute that is not given to anything else. Because you say evertying was 'caused' to exist but god, you are using the logical fallacy of "Special Pleading".

From http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... ading.html

Quote:
Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:


You are giving the special attribute to God of 'not being caused', and evertying else to 'have a cause'. There is no reason to do that, except to try to 'define' god into place.

So lets investigate the possibility of me using a special pleading in my logic.


Using Goats link to special pleading fallacies we get the definition of special pleading.

Description of Special Pleading

Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Person A accepts standard(s) S and applies them to others in circumtance(s) C.
2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.
3. Therefore A is exempt from S.

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption. That this sort of reasoning is fallacious is shown by the following extreme example:

1. Barbara accepts that all murderers should be punished for their crimes.
2. Although she murdered Bill, Barbara claims she is an exception because she really would not like going to prison.
3. Therefore, the standard of punishing murderers should not be applied to her.

This is obviously a blatant case of special pleading. Since no one likes going to prison, this cannot justify the claim that Barbara alone should be exempt from punishment.

Using their breakdown I will hence forth apply it in this manner:

G = God
U = Universe
CTC = criteria for cause


The claim made by these three non-theists is that I am using special pleading in reference to God.

The case I made about the universe is that anything which begins to exist must have a cause. Despite goat's demands that I prove this, it is a universally accepted scientific theory. If goat wants to debate this universally accepted fact then start a thread on it and I would like Goat to back up his demand for proof with at least ONE scientific source (author, magazine, anything at all) which agrees with him claim that something can in fact come from nothing and that things spontaneously occur without any reason what so ever.

Moving on with THIS topic, I made the following claims:

1) Anything which begins to exist, must have a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.

So long as my one assumption (anything that begins to exist must have a cause) is correct, this logic follows along correctly. So there is no fallacy here.

Next I wrote that the cause for the universe must have several attributes.

(disclaimer: before beginning I would like to point out that I am aware of the multiverse theory and that this totally unproven theory allows for the cause of THIS universe to be within another space and time. But then the problem is simply moved out one more universe so for the sake of moving the topic at hand along, I am going to assume only this universe exists)

1) It must be space less. By this I mean it must be outside the confines of the universe it created. This is because the cause of the universe can not depend on the universe's existence. Since the universe (remember my disclaimer) encompasses all matter, anything without anything, (no matter, space,etc) can be defined as space less.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 0902a.html

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/as ... AST224.HTM
Author: janette l gubala
What is beyond space?

Response #: 1 of 1
Author: asmith
Nothing! Either space goes on forever (is infinite) or it comes back around
in some kind of closed loop, but the way we understand space right now, it
is impossible for it to have any edges, and so there is no direction you
could point and say "50 yards in that direction space ends". Since there
are not any ends, there is not really any way to understand what "beyond"
means. But there could be other things that "exist" that are somehow
outside our own universe - parallel universes!

2) It must be timeless since without reference to space, time is meaningless. Einsteins theories show us the direct correlation of time and matter.

Now the universe does not fit these two criteria for obvious reasons. Therefore going back to my original point, the universe (U) can not fit the criteria for the cause of the universe (CFC).


Christian theology presents a God which does fit these criteria however. We portray him as both outside space and timeless. Also the design of God came BEFORE the criteria for creation.

So the argument we are just designing God to fit the criteria isn't valid since God pre-dates the criteria.

We can not be molding the criteria to fit God because the criteria for the cause of the universe is fixed. For example I could not make the claim that being 5'5" was a criteria for the cause of the universe because it invalidates the logical order of things because for anything to be 5'5" it must have something to compare to and it must already exist, both of which are impossible without the universe's existence.

So we Christians present a God whose characterizes were in existence before the question about the criteria for cause of the universe was asked. It is just a happy coincidence that the criteria of God and the criteria for the cause of the universe are the same. (or is it?)



IS MY ARGUMENT SPECIAL PLEADING?

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption.

This is the key sentence in deciding if I am guilty of special pleading or not. The standards I have set for the universe and deny for God fall into my first premise:

[center]Whatever begins to exist requires a cause[/center]

I say that this premise DOES apply to the universe and it DOES NOT apply to God.

Here is my reasoning for this.

Why it does apply to the universe:

Within this universe, every experience and experiment conducted by mankind shows that if nothing happens, then nothing happens. If you do not plant a seed, then a tree will not grow. However if a tree does grow, then a seed MUST have been planted. There is no alternative. Since this rule is consistent throughout the entire universe, it is logical to think that this same law applies to the universe itself. In addition to this we have evidence of such a beginning. We have discovered the once hypothetical background radiation which would have followed an explosive beginning to the universe. Red light shift indicates that all other galaxies are moving away from us. This would be very likely if the universe did have an explosive beginning but unlikely if the universe always was.

Why it does not apply to God:

Did God begin to exist? Scientifically there is no answer. The only answer can be found in theology and that answer is no.

It is important to remember here that I am not changing or reinventing God so he fits with the criteria of this argument. The idea that God was eternal dates back to at least the writing of genesis which is well before the BCE./CE switch. So I am not fitting the facts to God, not am I fitting God to the facts. They are both the same.

Once again the CFC of the universe is fixed. If the universe began (which is an accepted analysis of science), then its cause must fall within certain guidelines, which I established. The fact that the God described in the bible happens to fit these guidelines is not the product of theology but rather of coincidence.


CONCLUSION:

With my reasons for applying the criteria to the universe and not to God in mind I can safely say that I have not committed the logical fallacy of special pleading.

The only case in which I would have done this is if God was supposed to be held to the same standards as everything else within this universe. From Goat's source :

[center]2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.[/center]

But the God of Christianity does not fit into the circumstances applied to the universe. The laws of the universe don't apply to God simply due to his nature.

Looking at this from the other side, if the laws of this universe applied to God, then god could not have been the first cause because he would be dependent on the universe. But then we are still left with the problem of the cause of the universe.

In essence what I am trying to say in as lengthy manner as possible is that whatever caused the universe, IS NOT bound by the laws of this universe. Therefore, I can not be guilty of special pleading because person A (God) is not in the circumstances described for and applied to the universe itself.

[Schweppes]

Look here is a logical guide for understanding why it's not special pleading.


this is called modus ponins.


if p then q

p therefore q.

this is a univserally recognized logical form that shows us that the consquent of a logical inference is also a logical inference.


the x-p statment I made above is a use of this prncple.

all X's are P. that is a symboic logic way of saying if you have something and all examples of it are one thing then all example of that thing conrom to the same properties.

but if the issue beign discussed is other than the properites described it wont have the same consequences.

that's expressed by saying "Q is not an X"

If Q is not an x then Q is not p.


all contingencies are caused (all x's are p)

god is not contingent (q is not an x)


therefore Q is not p (God is not caused).

of course it could be that things other than X are also p, but it is not necessarly so and that is not speical pleading.

speicial pleading is when you want a diffeernt conclusion wih the same rules and the same facts.


all x's are p but q is not p because q is a different kind of x to which p does not apply that would be speica pleading.

[Schweppes]

Is this statment speicial pleading?
"no air plane can surpass the sound berrier except the x-b70 because it's supersonic."

Well it is not because you are talking about actual airplanes that exist and that can be tested to know if they are supersonic or not. (There are a lot of supersonic airplanes by the way).

I know that dear. my argument would be sicentifically accurate n about 1960. XB70 was a real air plane it was the frist supersonic airplane.

It doesn't make any difference because the logic of the statment is true even if there aer no actual exmpales, but there are.It can't be special pleading becasue it describes real life.

is this special pleading?


"no starship can suprpass the light barrier except the Enterprise becasue it has warp drive."

this actually is special pleading. first if we assume starships exist and none of them beat the light barrier, if you are going to claim that enterprise has warp drive that makes it beat the light barrier, where is your proof? (and i'm not talking about the TV show). If you can provide proof i'll believe you, if you cannot it is special pleading.

Or this?


" all X's are P. But Q is not P because Q is not an X."


is that special pleading?

This is not special pleading, because you did not state that all P's are X's. And you did not specify the realtion of q to P or X. this statement is just silly.

I don't see your logic here yet.

you just told us the logic didn't ya? yes, you did. You said I didn's say all P's are X/s well no noe says God is a contnigency. WE say God is not contingent but the universe is.

so God is not X so God is not P.

that is not speaial pleading its a distinction.

1/All things need a cause (that is a premise that is not necessarily true)
2/There must be something without a cause that caused everything (this is a special pleading, you assumed something that does not have a cause after you had assumed that everything needs a cause, without proving that an uncaused thing existed and that is not bound by the first assumption)
You lost your argument here without going any further.
3/ That uncaused cause is GOD. You cannot do that, GOD has a meaning in our mind, it is believed that he is a supreme being with supernatural powers as described in the bible, nobody said the uncaused cause has to be him. This is equivocation. You should call that uncaused cause X.
4/ If you claim that X = GOD then you have to provide proof of that, or else it is just your hallucination.

all contingent things need causes that is abolustely ture.


all natrusltiic phenomena are contingent.

god is nto contingent God is not a natural phenomena. So God s different. that i not special pleading its the nature of the case.

[Goat]

Definition of special pleading is not when one thinks one thing is different from another. God doesnt' need a cause because he's eteranl, and therefore, not contingent. The universe has a begining and thus it is contingent and needs a cause. These two different things.

Now you've lost the argument, The rest is all just yamering to keep people from understanding why you lost.you have lost! The argument is over, you lost

If you want to be technical at the beginning of time the universe was there so it also is eternal and since it is eternal it is also not contingent. You need to remember that time is the fourth dimension of our universe.

NO, sorry, that is not what scientists say. The universe bean in the big bang. that is the prevailing theory of the day. It has begining it will have an end (and that is the previaling theory too, it will die of heat deth). therefore, it is temporal. begining and end.

Tisk. you are beginging to lose your spelling ability, and starting to spell like Metacrock too. amazing. You are also wrong about 'began to begin'. The time frame the universe is in began to begin at that point, yes.. and our time is
of 'begain to begin ' at that point. You fail to take into account 'imaginary time',
and you fail to take into account that more models have coem up, some of which avoid the 'big bang'

[FinalEnigma]

First of all, i am going to totally ignore everything that has happened since achillies' last post to me.

Schweppes, im sorry, I didn't like metacrock because of his refusal to correct grammer/spelling errors which made it difficult to understand him(yes i know he has dyslexia but he could run a spell check or something) and actually even more than that for his rediculous shouting claims of ".I WIN YOU LOSE SO HAHA" every time someone tried to disagree with him. Which you are doing just as much as he was(and even in the same gigantic red letters), as well as his endless Ad-hom attacks(which tradition you also seem to be taking on). If you do not cease this disgusting behavior i will completely ignore everything you post untill you do. That kind of behavior is not accepted in Academic circles, or for that matter, anywhere else, and i will not accept it here, nor will it win you any friend or even any arguments.

And by the way, a better analogy would be something like this; Nothing can move faster than light. God can move faster than light because (and no reason is given)


Anyway, on to my(Very civil and polite) conversation with achillies.

I had an afterthought. Since all evidence collected by science holds that entropy of the universe is becoming increasingly disorganized and without an outside source this pattern does not change, wouldn't the claim of sudden re-organization of the energy be in itself a special pleading by the definition attached to my argument?

Actually, probably yes. In that respect i suppose it would be relying on special pleading, However,(in my head at least) it is a not a fully-formed theory. I have yet to explain the problem of entropy(and even more so, friction).
My theory as it stands is thus;
Gravity never diminishes to zero, no matter how far away from the object you move, therefore eventually the effect of gravity has to overcome the initial velocity created by the big bang and cause matter to begin to converge on a single point. When this does it will create an enormous black hole, which will eventually destabalize and collapse, resulting in a very large explosion(I.E. big bang) causing the universe to effectively start over. The issue i run into is this; eventually amidst all this explosion/implosion of the universe you would run out of energy and mass to cause the explosions and they would become smaller and smaller every time untill eventually you run completely out of mass and have nothing left to cause the explosion.
I don't know how to solve this dilemma. I suppose i will have to admit that this points to some kind of beggining for our universe, else we would now be either non-existant, or inert blobs of mass gathered together at a single point.
I'm not ready to theorise on anything outside our universe, because i simply have no data. I don't however believe this neccesitates a God, or even an uncaused cause.

[Cogitoergosum]

all contingent things need causes that is abolustely ture.


all natrusltiic phenomena are contingent.

god is nto contingent God is not a natural phenomena. So God s different. that i not special pleading its the nature of the case.

So now the premise changed, now it is all contingent things?
ok i'll play along.
All contingent things need a cause: ok
All naturalistic phenomena are contigent: maybe who knows.
God is not a natural phenomena, god is not contigent: Are all phenomena naturalistic? if no, then there could be other non contingent causes beside god, if yes: then it is a special pleading: you invented an entity called GOD that is not bound by the previous premises without proof.
and if you claim that that GOD entity is the biblical GOD then this is equivocation.

Thank you, i'll be here all week.

[Furrowed Brow]

all X's are P. But Q is not P because Q is not an X."

Invalid argument here MetaSchweppes. Consider:

All X are P, and so might all Y be P too. If Q is not X that does not forbid Q being Y. So if Q is not P, it is not because it is not X. Because not being X includes the possibility of being Y, and all Y are P.

If you draw the argument out with Venn diagrams youll see you have got it wrong.

To be valid you needed to say:

All X are P and only X are P. Q is not P because it is not X.

or

All X are P. Q is not P because it is not P.

Applying this point to:

so God is not X so God is not P.

Using your argument we get.

All natural phenomena are contingent. But God is not contingent because God is not an a natural phenomena.

Sorry still invalid I'm afraid

[Cogitoergosum]

all contingencies are caused (all x's are p)

god is not contingent (q is not an x)


therefore Q is not p (God is not caused).

of course it could be that things other than X are also p, but it is not necessarly so and that is not speical pleading.

That is what is called "An argument from BS" especially because like you yourself noticed that Q not being an X could Still be P. Then even if god is not a contingency God can still be caused.
If you want to get around it you will have to use the "argument from special pleading".

[Confused]

Confused -

I am interested to know something.

If I did not believe in God and instead left my first cause argument without my own opinion as to the correct option, would you still have issues with the argument?

If yes then point out where and we can talk.

If no, then does the fact that I am simply pointing out the similarities between this and the biblical description, cause you to forget that I am not demanding this is solid evidence for the existence of God, but rather simply my own personal analysis based on what I presume to be true?

Remember that what a person percieves as "true" rests largely on their own prior experiences and therefore their assumptions.

Even the laws we all accept fall into this situation. Einstein's relativity is accepted today as genius. But once it was discarded as impossible. The reason was that it couldn't be tested and it was just to simple.

I don't have a luxury of testing God for you, but this doesn't demand my result is necessarily flawed and illogical. As FinalEnigma and I talked about earlier tonight, ANY cause for the universe is going to violate the laws of this universe simply due to its being outside, and therefore unrestricted by these same laws. So really, any explaination (God, infinate regress, et al.) is going to take some amount of faith since they are all equally in violation of logic and accepted physical laws.

I of course leave the door open for additional options if anyone has any to present. Perhaps someone has one with better evidence to support it, but I doubt it since we are discussing things which occured before science existed with its current laws.

If you were to leave out your opinion, you wouldn't have a debate. The problem is that you can't validate your opinion using the same standards you are using to validate the first cause of the universe. Faith need not apply to the laws of the universe, Einstein, etc.. Why? Because the scientific method starts with observations of "facts". These facts lead to hypotheses which leads to the testing for validity and reliability. You can't use scientific standards to logically conclude the universe had a first cause, then turn around and use your opinion that God had no first cause without using the same standards you apply for the universe. Here is where my major issue lies. When you change the standards used to measure/validate two theories, you create a special plea when you say that one standard must meet this criteria while the other doesn't. The only source we have for God is from the bible. I am not talking about validating the bible, but without the bible, we would have no criteria for God. Now, how can you apply the scientific method to determine God had no need for a first cause, that He has always existed?

[Confused]

Definition of special pleading is not when one thinks one thing is different from another. God doesnt' need a cause because he's eteranl, and therefore, not contingent. The universe has a begining and thus it is contingent and needs a cause. These two different things.

Now you've lost the argument, The rest is all just yamering to keep people from understanding why you lost. you have lost! The argument is over, you lost!

If you are so sure you have won, then:
1) feel free to quit posting

2) then you don't understand debating. It isn't about winning or losing, but learning and seeking the truth.

If all you have to offer is criticism in the form of insults, then why bother? Would not constuctive criticism be better? Then we could all learn together.

[Confused]

achilles12604 wrote:

I had an afterthought. Since all evidence collected by science holds that entropy of the universe is becoming increasingly disorganized and without an outside source this pattern does not change, wouldn't the claim of sudden re-organization of the energy be in itself a special pleading by the definition attached to my argument?

Finalenigma wrote:
Actually, probably yes. In that respect i suppose it would be relying on special pleading, However,(in my head at least) it is a not a fully-formed theory. I have yet to explain the problem of entropy(and even more so, friction).
My theory as it stands is thus;
Gravity never diminishes to zero, no matter how far away from the object you move, therefore eventually the effect of gravity has to overcome the initial velocity created by the big bang and cause matter to begin to converge on a single point. When this does it will create an enormous black hole, which will eventually destabalize and collapse, resulting in a very large explosion(I.E. big bang) causing the universe to effectively start over. The issue i run into is this; eventually amidst all this explosion/implosion of the universe you would run out of energy and mass to cause the explosions and they would become smaller and smaller every time untill eventually you run completely out of mass and have nothing left to cause the explosion.
I don't know how to solve this dilemma. I suppose i will have to admit that this points to some kind of beggining for our universe, else we would now be either non-existant, or inert blobs of mass gathered together at a single point.
I'm not ready to theorise on anything outside our universe, because i simply have no data. I don't however believe this neccesitates a God, or even an uncaused cause.

Entropy doesn't spontaneouls reorganize. So no, it isn't special plea. Entropy is reversed via gravity or some form of energy application to reverse it. Such as you making you bed in the morning, this decreases entropy (reverses it) but energy is applied to make such a thing happen.

Quantum jitters is the fluctuations in motion, the kinetic energy associated with quantum jitters is called zero-point gravity and it cannot be eliminated. So there will always be residual energy for the reversal of entropy.

A black hole represents a state of greatest entropy. However, there may still be particles present to make up matter. For matter there is antimatter. When an electron meets up with its opposite, positron, they cancel each other out, but the photon is released from the electron to meet up with another electron. So is it possible to completely remove matter if we know that matter consists of energy and we can never eliminate all kinetic energy?