First Cause

http://thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/america-religion-and-the-new-atheist-writers-26911.html

Claim: The cosmological argument doesn’t actually talk about a “first cause.”

“Very good questions, it might seem—except that (as everyone who knows something about the philosophy of religion is aware) that is not what the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God says. In fact, not one of the best-known defenders of the Cosmological Argument in the history of philosophy ever gave this stupid “everything has a cause” argument—not Plato, not Aristotle, not al-Ghazali, not Maimonides, not Thomas Aquinas, not John Duns Scotus, not G.W. Leibniz, not Samuel Clarke, not Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, not Mortimer Adler, not William Lane Craig, not Richard Swinburne.”

After looking into the cosmological argument I’d dare to say that it depends on who you ask the question to. I suspect that most people will associate it with the “everything has a cause argument.”

I will accept that the argument did not originate as the first cause argument, though that is what it has become.

“In the scholastic era, Aquinas formulated the "argument from contingency", following Aristotle in claiming that there must be something to explain why the Universe exists. Since the Universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably not exist (contingency), its existence must have a cause – not merely another contingent thing, but something that exists by necessity (something that must exist in order for anything else to exist).[6] In other words, even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an Uncaused Cause,[7] although Aquinas used the words "...and this we understand to be God."[8]

Aquinas's argument from contingency is distinct from a first cause argument, since it assumes the possibility of a Universe that has no beginning in time. It is, rather, a form of argument from universal causation. Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If this is so, there would exist nothing that could bring anything into existence. Contingent beings, therefore, are insufficient to account for the existence of contingent beings: there must exist a necessary being whose non-existence is an impossibility, and from which the existence of all contingent beings is derived.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument#The_argument_from_contingency)

However, today we do have proponents of the argument who word it as the “first cause” argument:

“According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.

In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was set forth by William Lane Craig[5]):

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The Universe began to exist.
Therefore, the Universe had a cause.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument#The_argument)

William Lane Craig, isn’t he one of the names Keser lists as not speaking of the “everything has a cause” argument? Keser can dance around this all he wants but it is clear. Today the cosmological argument does stand for “first cause.”

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Assuming the cosmological argument is valid, how then does this make the case for a god of let’s say, the Roman Catholic faith? It doesn’t. Congratulations, you’ve proven God. You have not however, proven why this God gives a damn about what I do with my life.
Keser actually addresses this argument:

“Richard Dawkins is equally adept at refuting straw men. In his bestselling The God Delusion, he takes Aquinas to task for resting his case for God’s existence on the assumption that “There must have been a time when no physical things existed”—even though Aquinas rather famously avoids making that assumption in arguing for God. (Aquinas’s view was instead that God must be keeping the world in existence here and now and at any moment at which the world exists, and that this would remain true even if it turned out that the world had no beginning.) Dawkins assures us that Aquinas gives “absolutely no reason” to think that a First Cause of the universe would have to be all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, etc.; in reality, Aquinas devoted hundreds of pages, across many works, to showing just this.

The “he wrote a lot on the subject” argument is a logical fallacy. I could devote hundreds of pages showing how homeopathy works. Scientists would still rightfully call me a quack.

Keser doesn’t like the refutation of the cosmological argument from the perspective of the “first cause”. He prefers to take the views of people such as Aquinas. As noted above, Aquinas gave the contingency argument, which despite Keser’s claims that it is different from the “first cause” argument, shares similar problems. “The idea that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence is completely unfounded. Even if it was founded, this would not imply that everything (existence) has an explanation for its existence, which seems to be a logical impossibility” (http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Argument_from_Contingency)

Proponents of the cosmological argument are pretending to know more than they, or anyone else for that matter is capable of knowing.

From there Keser goes on to criticize the “new atheists”. Really what’s the difference between an atheist today and one from say, 50 years ago? Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens have received plenty of criticism. I’m not going to debate here whether or not they deserve it. Keep in mind though that criticizing the “new atheists” by quoting other atheists is not a refutation against atheism nor does it do anything to prove god, which seems to be the central purpose of going after the “new atheists.”