Originally posted by Jake EllisonMy aim is not to posit a Christian God per se, but to explore the nature of self-existence. What we can explore is how such a 'thing' would have to be in order to be a First Cause.
I'm sorry, where does 'namely god' come from? Even ignoring any arguments against theism, (theism as in the philosophy and not as solely a belief in 'God'😉 no have no reason to name this 'being' god. You don't know it is a being, that its aware, that it has any sence of morality or that it cares or knows about your existance. This argument has no real b ...[text shortened]... ps we won't. Assuming the existance of god is just as useless as any guess work.
Originally posted by epiphinehasWell, since the conclusions of two arguments deriving from the same single premise yield a
Yes, that is a valid argument utilizing my own premise.
contradiction, this should tell you that either the formal parts of the argument are wrong or
the premise is wrong.
Either way, discussion is over with St Thomas Aquinas.
Nemesio
Originally posted by epiphinehasWhat is interesting is that it is possible to have infinite regresses in a finite amount of time. Event A is caused by a previous event B which occurred halfway between the time of event A (T2) and a given time previous to that T1. This idea could be regressed infinitely without ever reaching T1.
If we trace phenomena backwards, we delineate a history of cause and effect. How far back do you go? If you have no first cause, then you are stuck with an infinite regress.
Of course all cause/effect arguments fail to recognize a number important issues:
1. They are only known to occur within the universe so applying them to anything external to the universe or the universe as a whole is just guesswork not a logical conclusion.
2. They are not even known to apply to everything in the universe. The vast majority of events in the universe have no known cause.
3. The big bang is a singularity and physical laws do not apply in the same way to singularities as the do to other events. Cause / effect may not even apply within other singularities such as black holes.
Originally posted by ahosyneyOk fair enough, logic can tell you nothing of the nature of God. So yes, Islam is just as logical as Christianity and requires contact with god.
[b]Didn't quite understand the first part of that. Could you rephrase?
Quran tell us a lot of attributes about GOD, how did he created everything and why? What he wants from us, and so on,
For example it tell me that his name is Allah, he knows everything, he is able to do anything, and many more.
My phrase was to say that logic can't lead to a ...[text shortened]... have been spoken to by God, why would any religious person consider them invalid?[/b][/b]
However, take a look at every religion, not all of them have the same routes as Christianity. Sure Islam, Christianity and Jewdaism have common routes, but religions such as Hinduism have vastly different teaches, gods and ideas about the afterlife, reincarnation for example.
I do agree with you that logic cannot tell you about God, I just disagree that we have been contacted by a god. Obviously there is no point arguing about that.
Originally posted by epiphinehasWe can say nothing of what such a thing would have to be, because we know nothing of what 'outside' the universe would be.
My aim is not to posit a Christian God per se, but to explore the nature of self-existence. What we can explore is how such a 'thing' would have to be in order to be a First Cause.
Originally posted by Jake EllisonThe inspiration behind such works as the Koran or CG Jung's "Seven Sermons to the Dead" is surely worth discussing.
I do agree with you that logic cannot tell you about God, I just disagree that we have been contacted by a god. Obviously there is no point arguing about that.
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesI find the whole idea of someone being slated and marginalised quite fascinating. History shows us that quite often it is the discredited and and marginalised minority who are often right. Truth lives in the far flung corners not in the middle ground. I don't personally give a fig about whether Aquinas is trendy right now or not. Trends come and go , reason remains.
Anybody who cites any argument of Aquinas as being exemplary of valid reasoning ought to be embarrassed. His arguments are among the most frequently refuted in textbooks on elementary critical thinking. To cite Aquinas is like wearing a T-shirt to a debate that says "I don't have any idea what I'm talking about."
You don't really think the cited argument is sound, do you?
Originally posted by knightmeisterNow, come now. You don't seriously believe this, right? Yes, history reports of a handful of people
History shows us that quite often it is the discredited and and marginalised minority who are often right.
who were discredited and marginalized and turned out to be right. But it's by far the exception not
the rule. Those people get extraordinary attention because of the extraordinary nature of their
experience. When people are discredited and marginalized because they were misguided or stupid,
it doesn't get the same kind of attention.
It's not 'often,' by any stretch of the imagination, anyway.
Nemesio
Originally posted by knightmeisterLogic doesn't change.
I find the whole idea of someone being slated and marginalised quite fascinating. History shows us that quite often it is the discredited and and marginalised minority who are often right. Truth lives in the far flung corners not in the middle ground. I don't personally give a fig about whether Aquinas is trendy right now or not. Trends come and go , reason remains.
If his arguments are logically wrong, they're logically wrong, and will remain so.
My first problem with the “first-cause” cosmological argument (as well as the version based on sufficient reason for coherency), aside from such things as question-begging, is that it treats the “universe-itself” as an entity—another “thing”—in need of an external cause. It treats the universe as if it were like a jar containing bugs: “Now that we’ve explained the causal complex for all the bugs, we still need to explain the cause of the jar.”
But just because we have a noun—“universe”—does not mean there must be a corresponding entity. Universe is the designation for the collectivity (things, forces and their relations), the totality that has no edge. It is not like a jar containing bugs; it is neither a “thing in itself,” nor, as Dr. S. pointed out, a “part” of itself.
Analogy*—
I employ the rules of addition to the following numbers: 1, 2, 3, and 4. The result I can state as—
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10.
So, you ask me: “Where did you come up with those numbers?”
“I pulled numbers 1 through 4 from a bag.”
“But where did the number ‘10’ come from?”
“It simply reflects the specification of the additive relationship of the numbers that I pulled out of the bag. It is just the sum.”
“But don’t those other numbers exist in 10?”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘in’. But perhaps the problem is the level of abstraction (just as can happen with language). So, let’s move to a more concrete level. Suppose each of the numbers 1 through 4 represents a group of bananas: 1 banana here, 2 bananas there, etc. Let’s suppose that the single relational rule that connects both the individual bananas and these groups is additive. I add up all the bananas in all the groups, and the total number of bananas is 10.”
“Where did the smaller groups of bananas come from?”
“I pulled them out of a bag, and arranged them in groups of 1, 2, etc.”
“Okay. So you have explained where all of the bananas came from, and the nature of their relationship to one another. But I want to know where the total group—the ‘10’—came from....”
“Once I have specified the elements of the whole group—let’s call it the universe—and their relationships, I have fully specified the universe called ‘10’* or ‘10 bananas’.”
“But doesn’t the universe itself need to come from somewhere? Like—being pulled out of the bag?”
“Yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas today...” (Old song.)
_______________________________
* Apologies for any violations or misstatements of number theory. I have implicitly assumed that there are only positive integers; that only these particular four integers “exist” in the bag; and that addition is the only process for relating them.
Originally posted by Jake EllisonMuch like the Big Bang, no one can go back in time and see it, they
Saying God created the universe is making things up because then you are applying a personality to something that we could never hope to understand even if it existed. you make it a person even though you accept it could be energy.
can say it happened by looking around at the univrse right now and
say, "see this, this is proof" while a believer says "read this, this tells
us" and everyone sitting in the back yard looking up at the night
sky simply ponders. It is what it is, and 'making things up' is what
we do from time to time on a lot of things.
Kelly
Originally posted by Jake EllisonIs it logic if I say to someone else, you and I met on the street and
Right, but now you are moving from theism to religion which hasn't even got a srap of logic behind it. Remember, God contanted us through Mohamed, but for some reason that I can't understand we just ignore what he said then. And some times the person who contacts us is completly different. Sometimes there are more then one. How does this make any sence?
talked? You are looking at experiences, not a formula in many cases,
which will not hold to a logic query since we are not building a case
for something we can "prove" by running the numbers.
Kelly
Originally posted by MarinkatombAre you assuming it was not created in an instant? I don't see how you
Sorry, i don't have time to address your whole post, but i've seen you use this argument before and i have thoughts so forgive me for only taking you up on this...
You are assuming that the Universe was created in an instant? It was not! It is still being created now. You mentioned infinty. Infinity is 'the largest number you can have +1' ...ad infini ...[text shortened]... haps you are talking about something that Can exist without a cause? Help me out here...
can claim error when you too are just as in the dark as the next guy
in his beliefs.
Kelly
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesI believe the universe is filled with a lot of things that are bound all
Let us then explore what exactly you think it asserts.
Propositionally, it is of the form:
For all x, where x is in the domain of "things," x has the property of "being caused".
In order for the proposition to be true, it must first be meaningful, which means that the domain of "things" must be specified. What do you understand to be inclu ...[text shortened]... from the domain in question? That is, to what sort of stuff can the term "thing" refer?
by the same rules and laws as all other things within the universe,
such as matter, energy, and so on; however, with regard to God
He isn't bound to the rules and laws of the universe, He wrote them
as creator.
Kelly