I think the main premise of Kalam cosmological argument for God is that an infinite regress of human explanations is impossible. They sometimes use the word “causes” but it seems to have a more general meaning of “explanations” because the causal framework within which causes operate is of course part of the explanation—and all explanations are human constructs.

Here’s a Wikipedia giving historical background on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument

William Lane Craig has modernized the argument and made it appear compatible with modern cosmology (his interpretation) and with science more generally. He quotes noted cosmologists cogently but selectively. So the makers of that 28 minute YouTube can have fun with contradictory clips.

I found the debate on YouTube. It was actually kind of splendid. Craig is a strong debater—agile, quick-thinking, personable. Everybody including the official Judge (Michio Kaku) had some showmanship flair.

I also encountered a new 40 minute YouTube that is packed with statements by actual cosmologists (Alan Guth, Vilenkin, Roger Penrose, Hawking) played off against clips of theologians. It includes Muslim theologians and is quite interesting in a nunber of ways. The Kalam argument originally arose within Islam.

I will go get the link. I’d like to share it and hear other peoople’s reactions. The director/editor/narrator team goes by the handle Skydivephil. The narrator is a woman, she’s very good I think. Probably you could get it just by googling “Skydivephil Kalam” or searching with those two words on YouTube. But I’ll fish up the link and be back in a moment.

Oh, as I recall Sean Carroll is in it (along with Guth, Vilenkin…). There are clips of a number of cosmologists interspersed with clips of theological oration by Craig and and dynamic young Islamic speakers making the Kalam argument for the existence of God.

Yes. I tried “debunk kalam” on YoutTube search and got this one as the first hit! I also tried
“skydivephil kalam” and it was the first hit except for one promoted video.

Since you want to learn about particle physics, I’ll show you a brand new way: learn it by experiencing something for yourself, in a way that can’t be transmitted into words. That’s how I learnt it! What do I care if it has no correspondence with the version of reality that those stupid physicists come up with? I know from personal discovery that I have seen the truth. As you might have guessed, I can’t tell you about it myself; I can only hint at how you can get it too.

That way, the weirdos on this blog wont think of you as a troll wasting their time, and you won’t have to read all this embarrassing atheism crap.

It really isn’t about either one of us.

They have serious deniable issues.

I have no problem with you believing what you want. I have no problem with a society who believes that what you think is the same as your right to own personal property.

I’ve a problem with certain of my fellows who think they have a right to decide in what you should have a personal ownership interest.

In that way, they are no different then earlier generations of folks who believe like you.

I don’t hold that history against you. You weren’t extant at those times.

I don’t believe what you do, but I believe in your right to believe it.

Hell, smart folks around here still struggle with wanting to see the both of us in stocks and pillories to fit their own prejudices.

“String up the theist and the atheist. They both suck!”

Opinion is not science.

Opinion mud wrestling is not science.

Supposedly really smart people here express pretty adolescent behaviors.

===>IGNORE BUTTON<==== <—– Push there

“We exist because the non-existent might possibly, but shouldn’t, can’t, never could, impossibly exist; it’d better not, or we’re screwed.

Must. Not. Exist. If. We. Are. To. Exist. Free. of. Those. Who. Say. It. Does. Or. Something.

Hell, I’ve almost always wondered why ‘scientifically smart people’ might be an untestable hypothesis.

===>IGNORE BUTTON<==== <—– Push there

If a god wants me to be a capital-A, it’d damn well have to materialize before me and give me a real reason.