Brian Behn DISMANTLED

The following article was written by a Mr. Brian Behn. It's claimed by the author that it defeats TEA (The Elliott Argument), and has proven the argument to be invalid.  In this blog we will thoroughly disprove this notion and offer our refutation to the many errors it has presented.

If you don't know what TEA is, it can be seen here. http://theatheistkilla.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-elliott-argument-official.html

We have decided to respond to the article line for line, word for word. Everything inside // BLUE // will be directly copied from the Behn article and will be followed with our refutation in black. God Bless. If anyone thinks they can defeat TEA please contact us.

LETS BEGIN.....

//TEA proposes atheist have two choices, STE or SCPN.//

This is true. Atheists only have two options for the existence of the Universe.

//Here is how The Elliot Argument actually proves that STE is the only possibility for the existence of the universe.//

Fail. The Elliott Argument shows that atheists have two options (STE and SCPN) for the existence of the Universe, not just one. Both of these options are illogical, irrational, incorrect, and have no evidence. Premise 2 of the argument actually reads, "Atheism is a position which leaves you with only TWO incorrect options."

//Starting with the position that the existence of pure nothing is impossible, a position both Mr. Elliot and myself agree upon.//

As previously stated SCPN is one of the two atheist options. STE and SCPN are both irrational, illogical, incorrect, and have no evidence. One of the reasons SCPN is flawed is that there is no good reason to believe it can ever be achieved. Here are the others

A. No reason to believe that PN has ever existed or could ever be achieved.
B. PN has no creative powers.
C. PN cannot be Discriminatory. If something can come from PN then everything can.
D. Certain mathematical absolutes cannot be undermined. 
E. There is NO EVIDENCE to support the claim that something can in fact come from PN.

//1. Pure nothing is impossible; it is impossible and has never existed as it cannot. COL is in agreement with me on this premise as this quote shows;//

This is correct. As previously stated, there is no reason to believe that Pure Nothingness has ever existed. I stand by this claim. If you have any reason to believe that PN has ever existed you would need to present it. However, even if that was accomplished it still would not validate SCPN for the other reasons stated above.

//2. We can agree there has never been a time where “nothing” existed. There has never been a time of “no-thing”. //

This is correct.

//3. Any state besides nothing would mean something exists. In order to not be pure nothing, there would have to be something existing. //

This is correct.

//4. If there has never been a time of “nothing” there has always been something. If there has always been something it has existed eternally. //

This is correct. Something must exist eternally in the past, but that something cannot be STE or SCPN, as both of those options have been proven by TEA to be flawed. It's my personal opinion (not a claim by TEA) that this thing which exists eternally in the past must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial and personal. That thing is known as the UC option (an option which atheists deny or disbelieve in), however, TEA makes no claims about the existence or validity of this option.

//Remember the word "eternally" is used in the quote above. Here is the definition of the word "ETERNAL": lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning. //

Fail. The following is from the official BLOG - [[Eternal]] - Eternal is defined as existing forever without beginning or end. However, as it pertains to The Elliott Argument and the acronym STE, the word ''Eternal'' is ONLY in reference to past  eternity, or ''time without beginning''. It makes no claims or reference to ''time ending'' or the future state of time.  Many people often get this confused.

//Please note the language COL uses when they concede my point "something must exist eternally in the past" to exist eternally in the past is IN time. This would be another way of saying something has existed for ever, without a true beginning. //

TEA makes no positive claims about anything existing eternally in the past. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All TEA says is a position which leaves you with only two incorrect options cannot be correct, and atheism is a position which leaves you with only two incorrect options. It is just my opinion that whatever does exist eternally in the past without a true beginning must also be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and personal. That would be known as the UC option. An option which by definition atheists must deny or disbelieve in. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with someone trying to defeat TEA, as TEA makes no such positive claims about the existence or validity of God or a UC option.

//COL argues that the UC is timeless, hence not IN time. But for something to exist in the past it is clearly IN time.//

Wrong. Time is a measurement of events. A spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal being can exist eternally in the past without any events occurring, and therefore considered to be timeless. Moreover, we have already explained that The Elliott Argument makes no positive claims about God or the UC option so any such objection offers no valid rebuttal.

With that being said, the following information about the UC option can be found on our official blog.

[[The Timelessness of the UC option]] - If you go back beyond the beginning of time itself, there is simply eternity. By that, I mean eternity in the sense of timelessness. God, the eternal, is timeless in his being. God did not endure through an infinite amount of time up to the moment of creation; that would be absurd. God transcends time. He’s beyond time. Once God creates the universe, he can enter into time, but that’s a different topic altogether.

God, existing changelessly, alone without the universe, is timeless. Time comes into existence at creation and so has a beginning and is finite in the past. God, in virtue of  his real relation to the temporal world, becomes temporal at the moment of creation. So God exists timelessly without creation and temporally since the moment of creation. For example, a man sitting from eternity could will to stand up; thus, a temporal effect arises from an eternally existing agent. Similarly, a finite time ago a Creator endowed with free will could have willed to bring the world into being at that moment. In this way, God could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes His mind but the He freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.

1) There is no moment prior to creation. Rather time begins at creation. This is the classical Christian view, as defended, for example, by Augustine. On this view, it is logically incoherent to ask, “What was God doing prior to creation?” because “prior to creation” implies a moment before creation, which the view denies. So the question is asking, “What happened at a moment of time before the first moment of time?”, which makes no sense. It’s like asking, “What is the name of that bachelor’s wife?” Now some theists have disagreed with the classical view. Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics, for example, believed that time is infinite in the past and never had a beginning. For Newton absolute time just is God’s duration. Because God has always existed, time goes back and back and never had a beginning. So on Newton’s view, it makes perfect sense to ask, “What was God doing prior to creation?” In fact, the philosopher G. W. Leibniz, who held to the Augustinian view, tormented Newton’s follower Samuel Clarke in their celebrated correspondence with the question, “Why (on Newton’s view) didn’t God create the world sooner?” This question is very difficult to answer from a Newtonian point of view (see my discussion in Time and Eternity [Crossway, 2001]). Whichever view you take, I think you can see that there’s a huge difference between holding that God exists timelessly without creation and holding that He has endured through an infinite past time prior to the moment of creation.

2) Yes, speaking of a moment “before” the moment of creation does imply time before time, which is incoherent on the Augustinian view I defend. But notice that I don’t use that word in your quotation from my interview with Lee. In my early work, I thought people would understand, once I explained my view, that the expression “before creation” is just a harmless façon de parler (manner of speaking), not to be taken literally. But in light of the confusion engendered by the phrase, I have since been very careful to avoid it, speaking rather of God’s existing without (or sans) creation or existing beyond, though not before, the Big Bang. One nice way of expressing God’s priority to creation is to say that God is causally but not temporally prior to the beginning of the universe.

3) My thought experiment (about the man sitting in the chair) is meant to illustrate a point about freedom of the will. A person can exist changelessly and then freely execute a certain intention because free will doesn’t require any antecedent determining conditions. The very nature of free will is the absence of causal determinants. So a free choice has the appearance of a purely spontaneous event. The man can simply freely will to stand up. Thus, you can get a temporal effect from a changeless cause, if that cause is a free agent. Now in God’s case, God exists changelessly without the universe. Creation is a freely willed act of God that, when it occurs, brings time into being along with the universe. Thus, to say that “a finite time ago a Creator endowed with free will could have willed to bring the world into being at that moment” does not imply that there was time prior to that moment.

4) What timelessness entails is that one doesn’t do anything different, that is, that one does not change. Timelessness implies an unchanging state of being. Now some activities don’t require change and time. For example, knowing something doesn’t require change or time. God can know all truths in that timeless state without any change. Similarly, one can have unchanging intentions. So long as one’s intentions don’t change they can be timelessly held. That’s why I said that God can exist without the universe with a timeless intention to create a world with a beginning. One can love someone else without change. Here we have insight into the nature of the love relationship between the three persons of the Trinity in that timeless state without creation. There exists a perfect, changeless state of mutual of knowledge, will, and love between the persons of the Trinity without the creation. (The wonder of creation is that God would bother to create a world of creatures and invite them to freely enter the joy of that fellowship as adopted children!)

5) Yes, by “choose” I mean that God has a free intention of His will. Its timelessness does not negate that this is, indeed, a choice. For one can conceive of possible worlds in which God has a quite different intention, namely, to refrain from creating a world at all. Initially, I thought that this was all that was needed to explain the origin of the world; but reflecting on agent causation leads me to think that in addition to that timeless intention there must also be an exercise of causal power on God’s part. That act is simultaneous with the moment of creation - indeed, it just is the act of creating - and brings God into time. If you ask, “But why didn’t God execute His intention sooner?”, you’ve fallen back into the Newtonian view of thinking of God as existing temporally prior to creation. On the Augustinian view, the question is unintelligible.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/creation-and-time#ixzz2HejWTkQg
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-time-and-creation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt2lueTLHF4

So if God is timeless, he is also unchanging, but it does not follow that he cannot change. I’d say that He can change and if He were to do so, He would cease to be timeless. And that’s exactly what I think He did. Whether God is timeless or temporal is a contingent property of God, dependent upon His will. What is impossible is changing while remaining timeless. But it seems to me that a timeless being can change and thereby cease to be timeless. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/god-and-timelessness#ixzz2CEarjqjd

This is to say that God is timeless and has a timeless intention to create. When his will, and timeless intention to create is realized, he is no longer unchanging. Therefore at that very moment when this intention manifested is when time essentially begins.

Brian Leftow argues that a temporal God could not be the creator of time and that therefore God should be conceived as timeless. Leftow's first argument, that there is no time at which a temporal God could act to create time fails because God could act at any time t to create t or, alternatively, could act at t in such a way as to be responsible for time existing prior to t. Leftow's second argument, that a temporal God could not have decided at any time t whether time should have a beginning or not fails because Leftow erroneously presupposes that in order for God to be responsible for time's topological properties, there must have been a time at which He made such a decision

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/timelessness-and-creation#ixzz2CEdIkIcm


//Existing carries the connotation of being real, being material as something could not be immaterial and be said to exist. //

Again this has absolutely nothing to do with defeating TEA, as the argument itself makes no claims about the existence of validity of God or a UC option.

With that being said, it's still important to note...We agree that existence does carry the connotation of being 'real' to a certain extent. The second part of your claim however is 100% false. There is no mechanism that would prevent an immaterial personal being (as defined) from existing.  Furthermore, there are plenty of things that exist, which are also are immaterial... such as propositions (information in complex sentences), mathematical truths (numbers), scientific laws/forces (gravity), properties/universals, certain fictional characters (such as characters you read about in a book), musical compositions, the equator, etc. Being immaterial does not = non-existent. One cannot conclude from this that because something is said to be immaterial, that therefore it cannot exist. Here we see that even Richard Dawkins admits God is a possibility. http://youtu.be/dfk7tW429E4

While Mr. Behn never asserted it was impossible for an immaterial being to create, he did assert that immaterial things cannot exist. This was proven invalid, but we still feel some of our readers can gain insight and benefit from reading about other similar objections.

The following is from the Reasonable Faith website

From Dr. William Lane Craig - He asserts that it is logically impossible to have a creation of a material world by an immaterial being. Well, I simply invite him to give me the proof. That is an enormous claim that he is making—to say that it is logically impossible. I can certainly conceive of this happening, so how can he show me it is logically impossible?  In fact, I suggested that we have an analogy to this in the mind-body relation. In the mind-body relation we do see an immaterial entity acting upon a physical reality. And he seems to suggest that he doesn’t believe in the existence of minds as mental substances. But let me just point out that facts like the freedom of the will, intentionality, and so forth are inexplicable on a materialistic, reductionistic basis. I think that that is a far less plausible theory of mind than a substance dualism such as I am defending tonight. Let me suggest, thirdly, again, that we do see — I can make a suggestion as how the universe could originate without a material cause: many scientists say that perhaps the positive energy in the universe and the negative energy in the universe exactly cancel out, so that on balance there is no energy in the universe. In that case you wouldn’t need to have a material cause to bring the positive and negative energy into being. You could just have an efficient cause.
So, first, is this first uncaused cause changeless? The answer is “Yes,” if my arguments against the possibility of an infinite regress of events are sound. Since you don’t dispute those arguments, we can agree that there is an absolutely first event. Since a change is an event, the cause of the first event must therefore be changeless.

To this you object:
3. When God created the universe, a change occurred from a timeless state of affairs to a spatio-temporal state of affairs, which shows that timelessness does not imply changelessness.

I agree that God changed in creating the universe. But that only proves that He’s not immutable. Don’t confuse changelessness with immutability. A timeless being must be changeless, but that doesn’t entail it is immutable (incapable of change). You’re confusing a de facto property with a modal property. God can be changeless but mutable sans the universe.
So now we know that the cause of the universe is changeless sans the universe. A couple of important properties follow. First, its immateriality. Anything material is constantly changing, at least on the molecular and atomic levels. So we’re dealing with an immaterial being here. Second, its timelessness. On a relational view of time, time does not exist in the utter absence of events. So a changeless state must be a timeless state. Even on a non-relational view of time, time could at best be an undifferentiated time in which literally nothing happened; no change occurs. Third, its spacelessness. Anything that exists in space must be temporal, as it undergoes at least extrinsic change in relation to the things around it. So our cause must transcend space and time, at least sans the universe.

This immediately disqualifies your objection:
2. The cause could have existed in other regions of space-time outside of the universe.

For they are not characterized by changelessness, immateriality, timelessness, and spacelessness. Moreover, this speculation was already undermined by the arguments against an infinite regress of events (including in other regions of spacetime) and rendered improbable in light of our discussion of multiverse scenarios.

So we’ve got an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful cause of the universe. Already, there’s nothing like this in a naturalistic worldview, but it fits right in with classical theism. But there’s more! Consider now whether this cause is personal. I give three arguments for the personhood of the first cause.
First, the argument, inspired by the Islamic Principle of Determination, that only a free agent could explain the origin of a temporal effect with a beginning from a changeless, timeless cause. (See the exposition of the argument in either the Blackwell Companion, pp. 193-4 or in Reasonable Faith [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2008], pp. 153-4.)

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-the-cause-of-the-universe-an-uncaused-personal-creator-of-the-universe#ixzz2wd3hR62BAlso, an opponent of TEA may try and make the claim that the UC option falls under the definition of Pure Nothingness. Let me remind our readers why the UC option is not considered to be Pure-Nothingness (literal non-being). To keep it very simple, the UC options does not fall under SCPN because the UC is not literal non-being, rather a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, supernatural, personal mind which in some way influenced or had a part in the existence of the universe. If you look at the definition from our official blog you quickly see that under "PURE NOTHINGNESS" it says no energy, matter, laws, constants, structure, supernatural beings, minds, etc. The UC option is not only a supernatural being, but is also a personal mind. Therefore clearly the UC option cannot be said to be 'PURE NOTHINGNESS'. This shouldn't be a hard concept to grasp, but defeating TEA has become such an impossible task, that atheists are now trying to act like they cannot understand definitions. 

Mr. Behn cannot therefore prove an unembodied mind is logically or metaphysically impossible/could not exist. Here again see people like Richard Dawkins admit this logical truth http://youtu.be/dfk7tW429E4

Philosophers have tried for centuries to disprove the existence of God, no one has ever been able to come up with a successful argument.

//5. In order for something to exist is has to be in space and time, or at the very least have a relationship to space and time the way a seed has a relationship to a tree.//

Again this has absolutely nothing to do with defeating TEA, as the argument itself makes no claims about the existence of validity of God or a UC option.

With that being said, Mr. Behn's assertion is simply untrue as we have already discussed (in exhaustive detail) the timelessness of God and the UC option in this article. There is no reason or grounds to believe that if something does not exist in spacetime, that therefore is must not exist. There is no mechanism that would prevent a spaceless, timeless, immaterial being from existing. This is why everyone, even atheists, must admit that not matter how small the probability, the possibility still remains.

//6. Something has always existed; in order for it to exist there must be space and time which must have also always existed.//

Fail. While it is true that something must have always existed (eternally in the past without a true beginning), that something must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial and personal. Again this has absolutely nothing to do with defeating TEA, as the argument itself makes no claims about the existence of validity of God or a UC option. We have also proven that there is no need to believe that space and time are a requirement for the existence of a supernatural, immaterial, unchanging, personal mind. Moreover, to say that only things which are in relation to spacetime can exist is patently false. There is no mechanism that would prevent a supernatural, spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal mind from having the capability to exist.

//Therefore space and time have always existed.//

If space and time always existed that would be what we refer to as STE. That is one of the atheist options presented by TEA for the existence of the universe. STE has been proven irrational, illogical, incorrect, and without evidence. If you would like to have a live debate with me on the topic of STE and it's validity I would be more than happy to intellectually humiliate you in public.

//This may occur in regions not available to us, as the in the eternally existing, self-reproducing inflationary universe model, or in the model that the atheist killer proposes where time and space existed prior to the big bang / expansion of "our" singularity. //

From the official blog: The first option is known as STE, which stands for [[Space Time Eternal in the past without a TRUE beginning; not limited or confined to our known universe, but any other voids, dimensions, multiverses, etc.]]. If space and time existed eternally in the past without a true beginning that's STE, it doesn't matter what model you are talking about. Once this is accomplished, any such model would be proven illogical, irrational, and incorrect (once shown to be STE).

Examples:

[[Multi-Universe Theory/[[String Theory]] - ''Mr. Elliott'' claims every proposed option will in fact fall under one of his two provided categories (either STE or SCPN).  Opponents of this argument frequently bring up Multi-Universe or String Theory as proposed new third options. Mr. Elliott's response is that if these theories are simply eternal cycles (of universe creating universe, creating universe, creating universe, without beginning) that thus would fall under STE.  Since in each of the previous universes there would in fact be ''some form of space'', and also there would certainly be events occurring. Mr. Elliott also claims that the very act of 'universe creating universe' is also evidence of events occuring, and that all the universes ''would be casually connected'' if responsible for creating one another. (http://youtu.be/tOGFWYHHMqc) There is  also another type of Multi-Universe theory where there is some mechanism that is randomly spitting out an infinite number of universes all with different properties. The question then becomes is that 'mechanism' eternal in the past or did it begin to exist at some point? If its eternal in the past then that falls under STE because the act of creating universes eternally would be an event (thus there would be time) and also the mechanism would require the potentiality for itself to exist (thus there would be some from of space for it to exist in while its spitting out these universes.) If the claimant says the mechanism itself came about on its own from pure nothingness by nothing, then that falls under SCPN.  So again we see here that no matter what the atheist goes with, they are proven irrational and illogical. Not to mention there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for other universes actually existing.


[[Big Bang|Big Bang Theory] – From Wikipedia.com. "The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe.[1] According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. "Proponents of the [[Big Bang Theory]] may claim they are perfectly justified in holding to their position. The author of The Elliott Argument is known to immediately bring up the ''singularity'' in this model to prove this reasoning invalid.
The ''singularity'' in the Big Bang Model is widely defined as a super condensed, extremely hot/volatile, pin point of matter and energy, with infinite density and infinite spacetime curvature, which is at the center of a [[black hole]]. Physicist Paul Shestople from Berkley writes, "It is hard to imagine the very beginning of the Universe. Physical laws as we know them did not exist due to the presence of incredibly '''large amounts of energy''', in the form of photons. Some of the photons became quarks, and then the quarks formed neutrons and protons. Eventually huge numbers of Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium nuclei formed. You can read more about that here:: [http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/IUP/Big_Bang_Primer.html).

At big-bang-theory.com they say, "A singularity is an infinitely dense, infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, zone." Proponents of this theory will claim that all space and time which currently exist were simply products of this singularity's expansion. There in fact was no space or time prior to this event. This is well documented in the [[Hartle-Hawking state]].[[James Hartle]] and [[Stephen Hawking]] claim that, "the universe is infinitely finite: that there was no time before the Big Bang because time did not exist before the formation of [[spacetime]] associated with the Big Bang and subsequent expansion of the universe in space and time. Hartle and Hawking suggest that if we could travel backward in time toward the beginning of the universe, we would note that quite near to what might have otherwise been the beginning, time gives way to space such that at first there is only space and no time. Beginnings are entities that have to do with time; because time did not exist before the Big Bang, the concept of a beginning of the universe is meaningless."

However, ''Mr. Elliott'' asks two fundamental questions here which unsettle this line of logic.

1.) IN REGARDS TO SPACE EXISTING PRIOR TO THE EXPANSION OF THE SINGULARITY::

        How can a singularity (or super condensed energy, matter, and moving particles) exist without having the ''initial potential to exist'' (space)?? He goes on to say, "Clearly it couldn't. Without some form of space, the potential for the singularity itself to exist would not be present. This proves that space ''did exist'' prior to the expansion of the singularity." If you missed it, in the above paragraph Stephen Hawking also agrees with the fact there was space prior to the expansion. "We would note that quite near to what might have otherwise been the beginning, time gives way to space such that at first there is only space and no time."

        So then the issue becomes, was there also time prior to this expansion?? This is where Mr. Elliott readily disagrees with Hawking, and says fundamentally yes, there was time!! "The concept of time was certainly in play, and physicists such as Hawking and others can no longer postulate otherwise," he says.

2.) IN REGARDS TO TIME EXISTING PRIOR TO THE EXPANSION OF THE SINGULARITY::

       This is quite possibly the most important part of the entire argument so lets break this up into sections. Please forgive me if this gets kind of long, but we really have to make sure that atheists can no longer make the claim that time did not exist prior to the big bang. 

First lets start with a simple question which I think everyone can easily understand. How can energy, matter, and moving particles (such as the singularity is defined) , even if infinitely dense, exist without any events occurring whatsoever?? In other words reaching an absolute stillness?? The claim by the author here is that ''they certainly cannot."  Reaching utter absolute stillness, in either an infinitely hot zone or at absolute zero (something we know is not possible http://io9.com/5889074/why-cant-we-get-down-to-absolute-zero), without any change in temperature, increase or decrease in potentiality, no transferring, no motion, no movement, no pressure increase or decrease, etc. cannot be done. Even something as seemingly insignificant as change in potentiality, or pressure increase/release in any way, prior to the expansion of the singularity in the BB model, suggests that events were occurring.  Absolute stillness and complete absence of events in moving particles, energy and matter, is not possible and there is no reason to believe it could ever be achieved.

Secondly, let us ask another question that I think everyone can easily comprehend. What change occurred, that made the singularity in the BB model go from its non-expanding state, to a state where it expanded? The atheist will undoubtably respond with, "Something cannot 'happen' or 'change' if there is no time." At which point we will happily say...EXACTLY....Only a free agent or personal mind can achieve this (we will get into that later)!! Time was existing prior to the expansion of the singularity or no change could have occurred, and the atheist has just supported this fact. So even if all there was space, and some infinitely dense singularity (which Hawking pleads), how did it go from its non-expanding state, to the point where it does expand?? Something had to change, as time is necessary for change to occur within space. That change, prior to the expansion, which resulted in the singularity doing what is proposed, shows us that events were occurring. Therefore this proves that not only did space exist prior to the expansion of the singularity (as we found in point #1), but also that the concept of time was in play because ''events'' were in fact occurring.

Thirdly, Roger Penrose from the University of Oxford, has published a new paper saying that the circular patterns seen in the WMAP mission data on the Cosmic Microwave Background suggest that space and time perhaps did not originate at the Big Bang. His paper also refutes the idea of inflation, a widely accepted theory of a period of very rapid expansion immediately following the Big Bang. Penrose says that inflation cannot account for the very low entropy state in which the universe was thought to have been created. He and his co-author (Gurdzadyan) do not believe that space and time came into existence at the moment of the Big Bang, but instead, that event was just one in a series of many. Penrose and Gurzadyan say they have identified regions in the microwave sky where there are concentric circles showing the radiation’s temperature is markedly smaller than elsewhere. These circles allow us to “see through” the Big Bang into the aeon that would have existed beforehand. these circles don’t jive with the idea of inflation, because inflation proposes that the distribution of temperature variations across the sky should be Gaussian, or random, rather than having discernable structures within it.
(http://www.universetoday.com/79750/penrose-wmap-shows-evidence-of-%e2%80%98activity%e2%80%99-before-big-bang/#ixzz2JIjaBMSD)

Also, California Institute of Technology professor Sean Carroll urged cosmologists to broaden their horizons: "We're trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don't know whether there was anything - or if there was, what it was."  Carroll, along with Caltech professor Marc Kamionkowski and graduate student Adrienne Erickcek have created a mathematical model to explain an anomaly in the early universe, and it also may shed light on what existed before the Big Bang. “It’s no longer completely crazy to ask what happened before the Big Bang,” said Kamionkowski. The problem with inflation, however, is that it predicts the universe began uniformly. But measurements from Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) show that the fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) –the electromagnetic radiation that permeated the universe 400,000 years after the Big Bang — are about 10% stronger on one side of the sky than on the other.
 
Carroll urged cosmologists to broaden their horizons: "We're trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don't know whether there was anything - or if there was, what it was." 
 
“This is an interesting time to be a cosmologist,” Carroll said. “We are both blessed and cursed. It’s a golden age, but the problem is that the model we have of the universe makes no sense.”  “The WMAP snapshot of how the early universe looked shows it to be hot, dense and smooth [low entropy] over a wide region of space,” said Carroll. “We don’t understand why that is the case. That’s an even bigger surprise than the inventory problem. Our universe just doesn’t look natural.”Carroll said states of low-entropy are rare, plus of all the possible initial conditions that could have evolved into a universe like ours, the overwhelming majority have much higher entropy, not lower. But the single most surprising phenomenon about the universe, said Carroll, is that things change. And it all happens in a consistent direction from past to future, throughout the universe.  “It’s called the arrow of time,” said Carroll. This arrow of time comes from the second law of thermodynamics, which invokes entropy. The law states that invariably, closed systems move from order to disorder over time. This law is fundamental to physics and astronomy. One of the big questions about the initial conditions of the universe is why did entropy start out so low? “And low entropy near the Big Bang is responsible for everything about the arrow of time” said Carroll. “Life and earth, memory, the flow of time.” Events happen in order and can’t be reversed.http://www.universetoday.com/22400/more-thoughts-and-now-math-on-what-came-before-the-big-bang/#ixzz2JImKvxgq

Recently, as early as January 2013, there was a major discovery in this field. Scientists at University of Munich in Germany created a quantum gas which some were claiming went below zero kelvin. This was not the case. At absolute zero, atoms would occupy the lowest energy state. At an infinite temperature, atoms would occupy all energy states. Negative temperatures then are the opposite of positive temperatures — atoms more likely occupy high-energy states than low-energy states. "The inverted Boltzmann distribution is the hallmark of negative absolute temperature, and this is what we have achieved," said researcher Ulrich Schneider, a physicist at the University of Munich in Germany. "Yet the gas is not colder than zero kelvin, but hotter. It is even hotter than at any positive temperature — the temperature scale simply does not end at infinity, but jumps to negative values instead." Why are we talking about cold temperatures when the singularity in the BB model is supposively hot? Because as previously noted by Mr. Schneider, the two seem to coincide with one another, and infinitely hot temperatures reach a point where they seem to flip and take on negative values. Energy will always flow from objects with negative temperature to ones with positive temperatures. In this sense, objects with negative temperatures are always hotter than ones with positive temperatures. The article then goes on to provide more evidence for Mr. Elliott's assertion that events were in fact occurring and that utter atomic stillness was still not achieved. Thus the concept of time is certainly in play. "Temperature depends on how much atoms move — how much kinetic energy they have. The web of laser beams created a perfectly ordered array of millions of bright spots of light, and in this optical lattice, atoms could still move, but their kinetic energy was limited."  Another interesting note: Temperature is linked with pressure — the hotter something is, the more it expands outward, and the colder something is, the more it contracts inward. To make sure this gas had a negative temperature, the researchers had to give it a negative pressure as well, tinkering with the interactions between atoms until they attracted each other more than they repelled each other. But for some reason proponents of the BB model believe the singularity was an infinitely HOT infinitely dense zone (not cold). If it was infinitely hot and infinitely dense, how was it just sitting there without expanding if it had all the pressure on it? Wouldn't it have just expanded immediately after coming into existence? If it was just sitting there in such a state why did it not expand immediately? And also why then is the universe expanding now at am increasingly rapid rate although it is much cooler than it was in its past? This seems to go against all logic and scientific theory.

And Finally, there are even further issues with claiming time didn't exist prior to the expansion. According to quantum physics, there is no "absolute stillness" (but always some "quantum noise"). This seems to be one of the implications of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (because if there was absolute stillness, then you could know both the position and momentum of a particle). This is further scientific proof that absolute stillness be reached.

In regards to ''Space-time Curvature'' in a [[Gravitational singularity]], Wikipedia says, "there are freely-falling particles whose motion cannot be determined beyond a finite time, being after the point of reaching the singularity." Mr. Elliott points out that, "Even though the particles motion ''cannot be determined'', that doesn't mean that the motion of these particles cease to exist. If these particles have motion, which they do, then the concept of time is still in play even if we wouldn't be able to measure their length. It's simply special pleading, and a weak attempt at dismissing the concept of time to try and make your model fit a specific worldview." We also know that conscious observers need not be present for the concept of time to still be in play. If events are occurring in any manner at all, which they were, then you cannot claim the concept of time did not exist. This is proven by the tree falling in the forest when no one is around to witness it. Clearly time itself did no cease to exist simply because no one was in the forest watching the tree fall. The question really becomes, where did this proposed singularity come from?? Where did all the space and time come from that existed before the singularity expanded?? Did they come from pure nothingness on their own, or were they eternal in the past without beginning?

Essentially bringing us back to the initial claim that atheists only have two options for the existence of the universe. ''STE'' and ''SCPN''. Both are irrational, illogical, incorrect and have no evidence.

 //Conclusion; P1 is false as STE is proven true. //
Lol excuse me?? What? Can we all hold hands and say, "Fail!!" Nowhere in this article did you prove that spacetime is eternal in the past without a true beginning. Nowhere in this article did you offer any scientific/philosophical evidence to support your claim that spacetime is eternal in the past without a true beginning. No where in this article did you refute any of the existing scientific/philosophical evidence which proves the contrary view of STE. Again I remind you, if you would like to have a live debate with me on the topic of STE and it's validity, I would be more than happy to intellectually humiliate you in public.

Some of the problems with STE that Mr. Behn didn't address.

The first based upon the impossibility of an [[infinite regress]] infinite number of past events. In other situations it can be shown to be self contradiction and present logical absurdities. There is also absolutely no evidence that space-time is in fact eternal in the past (without a true beginning), rather all the evidence points to space-time having a finite beginning.

[[Time]] - Time according to ''Wikipedia'', is a dimension in which [[events]] can be ordered from the past through the present into the future, and also the measure of durations of ''events'' and the intervals between them. Also one must remember that space and time are woven together as one. If there is space there is time, and if there is time there is space. This is known as the space-time continuum. Also it is important for one to remember that conscious observers need not be present for the concept of ''time'' to still be in play. For example if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to witness it does that mean that time stopped? Clearly not. There was a ''before'' (tree standing), and an ''after'' (tree down) which proves [[events]] were occurring and time was still passing. Also there had to be some form of space for the tree to have the potential to exist and fall.

[[Eternal]] - is defined as existing forever without beginning or end. However, as it pertains to The Elliott Argument and the acronym STE, the word ''Eternal'' is ONLY in reference to past  eternity, or ''time without beginning''. It makes no claims or reference to ''time ending'' or the future state of time.  Many people often get this confused.

[[True Beginning]] - This is defined as a single ultimate beginning or [[true beginning]]. A true beginning would be different than many successive beginnings of the same thing.

For example: Imagine a pencil exists. If that pencil was on some kind of eternal cycle or loop where it begins to exists, then ceases to exist, begins to exist, then ceases to exist infinitely into the past, then we can say that it has demonstrated different beginnings, but it never had a single True Beginning or ultimate beginning which kick started the process. If however a person claims there was a single pencil which began this cycle, and that was the first time a pencil ever existed, then it could be said that pencils had a True Beginning. The same can be said for spacetime in accordance to STE.

Imagine if you will our universe (spacetime) exists, then dies. Then our universe (spacetime) starts over again, then dies. Now imagine this cycle is eternal in the past without a true beginning.  This would fall under the acronym STE, as spacetime would not possess a single true beginning, and there was never a point at which one could say "further beyond this point there was no spacetime." Spacetime would have existed eternally into the past without an initial spacetime to kick start the process. A demonstration of this is for a person to imagine the Universe where they exist. If that eternal spacetime cycle which produced their Universe has no True Beginning, then the persons existence never becomes actualized.

If you are at the Drs. office and there is an infinite amount of people in front of you, do you ever get a chance to see the Dr.?? No!! Because there is no first person or no beginning to the line. Even if you cut forward in the line a zillion people, there is still and infinite amount ahead of you. So your time to see the Dr. never becomes actualized.  In this hypothetical situation, each person in the line is represented by a new universe (spacetime), part of the eternal cycle, which began to exist (see the Dr. for themselves).  The problem is you cannot get to the front of a line that has no true beginning, the same way you cannot traverse an infinite amount of past events. To suggest that there have been an infinite regress of past events is to suggest that we would have had to come to an end of an infinite series. An infite series however is by definition is a series with no end. This is logically incoherent. 

In other words if there is no True Beginning to the cycle, then no point in the cycle ever becomes actualized.

Remember STE is defined as [[Space Time Eternal in the past without a TRUE beginning; not limited or confined to our known universe, but any other voids, dimensions, multiverses, etc.]]

[[Infinite/Infinity]] - Freedictionary.com defines ''infinite'' as
1.) Having no boundaries or limits
2.) Immeasurably great or large; boundless. Wikipedia defines ''infinity'' as "without any limit." [[David Hilbert]], considered by some to be the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century,stated in“[http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/HowManyAngels/Philosophy/

Philosophy.html On the Infinite]”, in Philosophy of Mathematics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, 1964, pp. 139, 141:) “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.” Mathematicians realize that an actual ''infinite number of things'' leads to self-contradictions. ''Mr. Elliott'' points out this apparent dilema when he says, "if there was an infinite number of subsequent causes and events in the past eternity, we can never arrive at our present moment. We would have had to traverse an infinite number of events to get to today and you cannot traverse an infinite number of events. If there is an ''infinite amount of time'' in the past eternity we can never arrive at our current position in time."

[[Infinite Regress|'''Infinite Regress''']] - According to Wikipedia, an ''infinite regress'' in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, and the truth of proposition Pn-1 requires the support of proposition Pn and n approaches infinity.

To suggest that there have been an infinite regress of past events/moments, is to suggest that we would have had to come to an end of an infinite series. An infite series however is by definition is a series with no end. This is logically incoherent.

Other well known and highly respected philosophers such as [[Al-Ghazali]] write, "it is impossible that the universe be beginningless. If the universe never ''began to exist'', then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But this is impossible, because an actual infinite number of events cannot exist." [The Incoherence of the Philosophers].

Also [[William Lane Craig]] tells us that, "If you can't have an actual infinite number of things, then you can't have an actual infinite number of past events. That means that the number of past events must be finite." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrFwGvWlJnc).

''Mr. Elliott'' follows suit here when he says, "Space and time would have to had started somewhere or we wouldn't be having this discussion at all." Another key scientific discovery to point out here is the The [http://creationwiki.org/Borde-Guth-Vilenkin_singularity_theorem Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem].The BVG Theorem states that, "Any universe which is on average expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past, but must have a finite beginning and space time [[boundary]]. Even if the universe is just a part of a wider [[multiverse]], then that multiverse itself must have had an absolute beginning."[[Vilenkin]] then goes on to say, "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men, and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the [[proof]] now in place, cosmologists can no long hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe." (http://youtu.be/4KgpHx8JZR8)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And in closing it is MY OPINION (not the claim of TEA) that God or a  UC option did not create  ANYTHING that is eternal in the past, as it would be illogical. It is MY OPINION that God (the UC option) exists alone without space or time, changelessly, and eternally in the past without true beginning. At his first act of creation (the first thing he ever creates), he becomes temporal. This is explained in detail in the above article under the heading "Timelessness of God." Again, as with 85% of this rebuttal, this has absolutely nothing to do with defeating TEA, as the argument itself makes no claims about the existence of validity of God or a UC option.

 

In conclusion we are confident that this rebuttal falls flat and has not shown TEA to be invalid or unsound in any form. Mr. Behn has presented a failed rebuttal in which he attempted to show a UC option cannot exist. This was proven incorrect. He used and presented the wrong definition of 'Eternal' in a weak attempt to knock down a pathetic strawman. He asserted logical absurdities about immaterial/abstract things requiring space and time to exist which turned out to be nothing more than a nonsensical assertion which he could not prove...And finally and probably worst of all, he claimed that STE was proven to be true, while never once answering any of the objections concerning it. This rebuttal was a complete and utter failure and one of the worst I have ever responded to. Quite frankly it was a waste of time and filled with sub par logic on the part of Mr. Behn. 

 

We look forward to responding further objections to TEA as they become available. We remain undefeated and enjoy posting these responses on COL (our official website) for the public to view. Thank you.

 

-The Atheist Killa-