Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 29, 2024, 10:19 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
#21
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
Hehe. Argument from incredulity.

Didn't someone say that science is taking seriously now an eternal past... I gotta find out some stuff about this.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#22
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
Nevermind my arguments before this point. Since Chadwooter is being too lazy to prove the more important claim that the first cause is a mind, I'm going to give two arguments against this based on self-evidence and intuition. I don't think these argument are knock down arguments but I think they give good reasons to doubt.
Argument one:
P1. If God is a necessary being, then there can't be a self-evident and intuitive reason for a possible world with only mindless automatons in it to exist.
Note: God is not a mindless automaton.
P2. There is a self-evident and intuitive reason for a possible world with only mindless automatons in it to exist.
P2.1 I can clearly and distinctly imagine mindless automatons.
C. God is not a necessary being.

Argument two:
P1. If God is a necessary being, then it would be self-evident to I at this point (temporal or atemporal) that a mind can't fail to exist.
P2. It's self-evident to I at this point (temporal or atemporal) that minds can fail to exist.
P2.2 It's self-evident that minds can fail to exist.
P2.3 If minds like my mind are necessary then they are not contingent on a God existing.
C1. God a kind of thinking mind is not a necessary being.
P3. If C1, then all arguments for "God is a necessary being" are unsound.
P4. C1.
C2. All arguments for "God is a necessary being" are unsound.

(February 25, 2015 at 4:11 pm)robvalue Wrote: Hehe. Argument from incredulity.

Didn't someone say that science is taking seriously now an eternal past... I gotta find out some stuff about this.
Yeah, because it's debatable if time exists apart from observers.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot

We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
Reply
#23
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
(February 24, 2015 at 9:10 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: You are correct that the First Cause 'only' establishes a deistic or impersonal God. Additional arguments, like Aquinas's Fifth way flesh out the rest.

Aquinas's Fifth Way is an infantile argument that denies that the natural world can operate without a designer and mover.

It's time to leave Aquinas with the other children's stories.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Reply
#24
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
(February 25, 2015 at 4:15 pm)Pizz-atheist Wrote: Yeah, because it's debatable if time exists apart from observers.
Where does that leave, or what implications would that have, for the apparently successive events that occurred prior to conscious entities? And isn't time believed to be related to entropy which does have a definite beginning in the Universe's very, very early history?
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#25
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
I can't stop reading that as aquarium. Aquarium proves god using a fish and some pellets.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#26
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
(February 25, 2015 at 4:26 pm)Nestor Wrote:
(February 25, 2015 at 4:15 pm)Pizz-atheist Wrote: Yeah, because it's debatable if time exists apart from observers.
Where does that leave, or what implications would that have, for the apparently successive events that occurred prior to conscious entities? And isn't time believed to be related to entropy which does have a definite beginning in the Universe's very, very early history?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time

FYI: I don't know.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot

We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
Reply
#27
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
(February 25, 2015 at 4:30 pm)Pizz-atheist Wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time
Actually that reminds me of a book on my shelf that I recently bought, which I plan on reading in another month or so: Julian Barbour's "The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Our Understanding of the Universe." I'm guessing that should clarify things a bit.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#28
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
(February 25, 2015 at 4:10 pm)Nestor Wrote:
(February 25, 2015 at 3:24 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I guess it is your choice if you want to engage in hand-waving rather than address the issues.
I think the person who is engaged in hand-waving is the person who says, "The past can't be infinite. THAT'S INCONCEIVABLE. It must be an eternal, necessary, non-temporal Something which acts in time."
Who said the past cannot be eternal? The first cause argument doesn't have anything to do with whether the universe always existed or not. That just shows that you don't understand the argument.
Reply
#29
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
At best the five ways prove or support an unconscious mind creates, designs, and sustains the universe.

Another point for secular theism.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot

We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
Reply
#30
RE: Gaps in theistic arguments. Secular theism vs religious theism
The Fifth Way of Aquinas demonstrates intentionality which is clearly associated with the intellect.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  On theism, why do humans have moral duties even if there are objective moral values? Pnerd 37 3091 May 24, 2022 at 11:49 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Good Arguments (Certainty vs. Probability) JAG 12 938 October 8, 2020 at 10:30 pm
Last Post: Sal
  Best arguments for or against God's existence mcc1789 22 2718 May 22, 2019 at 9:16 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments? vulcanlogician 223 28104 April 9, 2018 at 5:56 pm
Last Post: KevinM1
  Ask a Secular Humanist! chimp3 44 8352 March 20, 2018 at 6:44 am
Last Post: chimp3
  Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency datc 386 41283 December 1, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Last Post: Whateverist
Video Do we live in a universe where theism is likely true? (video) Angrboda 36 11288 May 28, 2017 at 1:53 am
Last Post: bennyboy
  Valid Arguments for God (soundness disputed) Mystic 17 2037 March 25, 2017 at 2:54 pm
Last Post: brewer
  Arguments for God from a purely philosophical perspective Aegon 13 2861 January 24, 2016 at 2:44 am
Last Post: robvalue
  Hume weakened analogical arguments for God. Pizza 18 5886 March 25, 2015 at 6:13 pm
Last Post: Pyrrho



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)