(August 7, 2015 at 12:30 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Exlax,  if you actually think that the God of Classical Theism is in anyway deistc then you really don't have a clue.

Hey, it's not my problem that what you're actually arguing for isn't what you purport to be arguing for. The problem you're having is that I'm not willing to nod my head and play along, as you argue for deism while pretending to argue for a specific stripe of theism, but my unwillingness to mute my bullshit detector as a special favor to you isn't a weakness, it's a strength. Sorry, but you're not going to get away with putting mindless pablum on a pedestal and calling it proof of god while I'm around.

Quote:Yes I am ignoring the question ‘How do you get from a deistic god to Jesus Christ?’. The reason I ignore it is because it is a dumb question for two reasons: 1) The God revealed by natural reason is not deistic and 2) it fails to distinguish the relationship between general and special revelation.
The deist concept of God is that of a Creator that ceases to influence the world He created. The God of Classical Theism, as best presented by Aquinas, remains involved at every level of His Creation by guiding and sustaining it.

General revelation makes the presence and nature of the Divine knowable to all by means of reason applied to experience. Natural reason supports a specifically Christian god that is both One and intelligible. Polytheistic religions, like Hinduism and the Greek Pantheon, do not satisfy the former. Allah does not satisfy the second. An unintelligible god cannot be known by reason. This does not necessarily mean that the Allah is not the one true god, but only that the special revelation of Islam is not supported by rational inquiry. In other words, the existence of Allah is purely subjective whereas the Christian god is objective. Buddhism also explicitly teaches that everything is subjective, to the point that everything is an illusion. In Buddhism people gain knowledge of transcendent reality by practicing austerities and rigorous training that still only provide subjective personal experiences.

Special revelation operates by God coming to us giving us knowledge of His nature that would not otherwise be available to us. That revealed knowledge includes the advent of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, and the Apocalypse, among other things (like the writings of Swedenborg). General revelation allows people to sort through the various visions, traditions, practices, and scriptures to determine, like I do above, which of those are reasonable. The Judeo-Christian concept of God is entirely reasonable and currently the only one of which I am aware that is.

Like here: do you just think nobody will notice that your "argument" is nothing but a collection of vague, handwavey assertions without any justification? You seem to think that "reason" is just some magical incantation you can appeal to that instantly makes the things you say true and cogent, like if you just demand that your specific god is revealed by reason, then you're done and you don't have to demonstrate that in the slightest. You're no better than any other apologist; all puff, no substance. The idea that you could adequately gauge the quality of any response you get, given the complete dearth of actual content in what you seem to think is a real position, is simply laughable.

Chad, Chad, Chad.

You actually had me busting up, laughing out loud.

A real LOL it was. Not just a keyboard LOL. A real LOL! Bwhahahahaha LOL!

Good one!

You don't have "knowledge". All you have is a bunch of made up nonsense, that you pretend to believe you know. You have words in a book and the super lucky believer gets a personal visit from Jesus/Moroni/Gabriel/FSM, indistinguishable from the gas caused by a bit of under-cooked potato or old meat from last night's stew.

None of you believers have more.

I think Anima needs to join the Lemon Party. It seems obvious to me.

Other than that, I won't bother with pigeons, but good show all around guys.

(August 7, 2015 at 1:23 pm)Esquilax Wrote: do you just think nobody will notice that your "argument" is nothing but a collection of vague, handwavey assertions without any justification?

That's a dishonest statement. You know very well that recently I have put forth those rational demonstrations in multiple places, including a formal debate, and you have responded to those reasons with your objections. My reasons may be wrong, but I definitely have not been hand-waving.

(August 6, 2015 at 10:19 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(August 6, 2015 at 6:03 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Good luck with that **sarcasm** I'm quite sure all your objections will be straw men based on modern misunderstandings of Classical philosophy. All of the sort Metis, the great and mighty Divinity Student, plagiarized from some dopey blog writer who clearly never actually read Aquinas.

Meh. The fives ways are just a symptom of the larger problem, this immense leap you all take to get from the vague, deistic-or-possibly-non-conscious cause you actually argue for, to the christian god you believe in. Your philosophy isn't unique enough to rate a mention, Chad: it's just yet another in a long line of intellectually barren theistic shell games that pretend to argue for a specific god, while arguing for some bland, undetermined cause in reality.

The fact that you've already decided I'm wrong before I've even finished writing the piece is just typical of your sort; for all your pretensions to intellectual rigor and deep philosophical analysis, you're really just shills for your presuppositions, mistaking bland dismissals for actual rebuttals. Because in case you didn't know- and the bulk of your postings do imply that you have not a clue about basic argumentation, when it comes to "defending" the collection of fiat assertions you have instead of justified beliefs- "you're misunderstanding that" isn't actually a rebuttal, it's a dodge.

Especially when you haven't read word fucking one of what the person you're disagreeing with has written. Trying to lump me in with Metis isn't even the slimiest shit nugget in your smug little post.

Incidentally, I did vote against Metis in the report regarding your debate; I was as disappointed in him as anyone else. It's not like the Five Ways requires much prep time to rebut; it's trivially easy. I could do it, despite your low opinion of me.

Quote: Uh huh yeah right. You must not have read the part where I talked about divine roles.

I took a look back through the entirety of your contributions to the debate, and found nothing in there that even seems to address my contention.

I tell you what. When you finish your blog post, PM me the URL. If it is anything other than what I said it would be I will publicly apologize. But if I am right I will start a thread based on that blog post and present my objections. Deal?

BTW I will not be able to reply until August 17 for personal reasons.

Even when the Newtonian cosmological model (universe always existed), scripture said 'In the beginning...' so even with that model God as first cause made sense. But now science has established the universe had a beginning some 13.77 bya (includes the cosmic timeline) which has established the 'first cause' principle. The causality principle doesn't apply before the timeline just as the physical laws don't; therefore, God by necessity wouldn't require a beginning.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
God identified Himself to Moses by saying 'I AM WHO I AM'. That identifies the 'first cause'.

(July 23, 2015 at 12:23 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(July 23, 2015 at 12:21 pm)robvalue Wrote: No. Energy/matter changes forms. 

The argument is about the universe though. The premise that the universe didn't begin to exist is shown to be wrong.

Says who?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gravity_theory

Forget the Big Bang theory. Looks like this might become the better one soon.

(July 22, 2015 at 8:13 pm)Dystopia Wrote: Why bother with complex explanations on how we know so little about the universe that we can't make too broad assumptions when you can simply counter it with some really simple questions?

The argument from causation, first cause or, as it is frequently called by sophisticated theologians, the cosmological argument, usually consists in the following two premises and conclusion:

1 - Everything that exists has or needs a cause

2 - The universe began to exist

3 - Therefore, the universe needs a cause

From the conclusion theists usually deduce that the only possible cause to the universe and all existence is god, given the amount of supernatural and unimaginable power required to create or just set in motion the events that lead to the creation of life, matter and our beautiful ability to breathe oxygen.

Here's how to refute it without needing to know any science at all:

Atheist asks ---> If everything that exists has or needs a cause, then god, whichever we are talking about, needs a cause as well. What caused god?

Theists replies --> God doesn't need a cause because he was always there, he is infinite, timeless, and exists outside of time and space - Hence only him could have caused the events that lead to the creation of the universe as we know it

Atheist asks - Then apparently not everything needs a cause, so why does the universe need one if god doesn't? I rest my case (And premise 1 is false)


TL;DR -----> If god doesn't need a cause then why the fuck does the universe need one? Answer - Special pleading.

sure Boss, maybe we need to fine-tune the argument a little to say:
1. everything in time had to have a beginning because time itself had a beginning (this is proven)
2. if something had a beginning, it needs to have had a cause
3. anything outside of time needs to have no beginning, and there fore no cause 

only things in space and time need to have a cause, because they need too have a beginning by definition

thanks for listening.

(September 7, 2015 at 4:41 am)Ronkonkoma Wrote:

(July 22, 2015 at 8:13 pm)Dystopia Wrote: Why bother with complex explanations on how we know so little about the universe that we can't make too broad assumptions when you can simply counter it with some really simple questions?

The argument from causation, first cause or, as it is frequently called by sophisticated theologians, the cosmological argument, usually consists in the following two premises and conclusion:

1 - Everything that exists has or needs a cause

2 - The universe began to exist

3 - Therefore, the universe needs a cause

From the conclusion theists usually deduce that the only possible cause to the universe and all existence is god, given the amount of supernatural and unimaginable power required to create or just set in motion the events that lead to the creation of life, matter and our beautiful ability to breathe oxygen.

Here's how to refute it without needing to know any science at all:

Atheist asks ---> If everything that exists has or needs a cause, then god, whichever we are talking about, needs a cause as well. What caused god?

Theists replies --> God doesn't need a cause because he was always there, he is infinite, timeless, and exists outside of time and space - Hence only him could have caused the events that lead to the creation of the universe as we know it

Atheist asks - Then apparently not everything needs a cause, so why does the universe need one if god doesn't? I rest my case (And premise 1 is false)


TL;DR -----> If god doesn't need a cause then why the fuck does the universe need one? Answer - Special pleading.

sure Boss, maybe we need to fine-tune the argument a little to say:
1. everything in time had to have a beginning because time itself had a beginning (this is proven)
2. if something had a beginning, it needs to have had a cause
3. if it had no beginning it needs to have no cause
4. the cause for the beginning of time is outside of time by definition and therefore needs to have no beginning or end and no cause.

thanks for listening.

No, it's not been proven that time itself had a beginning.

But even if that was the case, no entity, including God, could logically act in any way in the absence of time.

(September 7, 2015 at 4:44 am)Irrational Wrote:

(September 7, 2015 at 4:41 am)Ronkonkoma Wrote: sure Boss, maybe we need to fine-tune the argument a little to say:
1. everything in time had to have a beginning because time itself had a beginning (this is proven)
2. if something had a beginning, it needs to have had a cause
3. if it had no beginning it needs to have no cause
4. the cause for the beginning of time is outside of time by definition and therefore needs to have no beginning or end and no cause.

thanks for listening.

No, it's not been proven that time itself had a beginning.

yes, Stephen Hawkin: "The Beginning of Time" - he himself proved it.
But even if that was the case, no entity, including God, could logically  act in any way in the absence of time.