(November 28, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: Actually i don't see why their must be a first cause . This assumes to much about causes.

Or, let's go further.
What if it turned out to be something like.... A causes B, B causes C, C causes D, D causes A?
That could be waved away as silly nonsense and fantasy, but the reality is that, while there's no indication at all that this occurs inside our universe, there is nothing in our current understanding and knowledge of physics or time that say this can not occur. And that's only inside our universe. If there is an outside to it, who knows how time, physics, or cause and effect work out there.

(November 28, 2017 at 12:32 pm)LostLocke Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:30 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: Theist assert their can't be a infinite number of actual things . But they have yet to back it up . They simply resort to long refuted garbage like Hilberts Hotel and other false analogies .

Ugh, Hilbert's Hotel. To me, that always comes out sounding like a long winded version of 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'

Slap an apologist upside the head and you'll have an adequate answer for both.

(November 28, 2017 at 12:38 pm)Hammy Wrote: Either way it doesn't matter, because there's no reason to think that the first cause is God and to say that the first cause must be God is just special pleading.

That shows about how much you know (or rather don't). The nature of God, in the 1W for example, is the extreme end of a continuum from actuality to potential or in the 3W from possible to necessary, not unique categories unto themselves.

(November 28, 2017 at 12:38 pm)Hammy Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: Actually i don't see why their must be a first cause . This assumes to much about causes.

The only thing we have to assume is that everything has a cause and the universe is finite, and there must be a first cause.

If the universe is infinite then the causes may indeed go on forever.

Either way it doesn't matter, because there's no reason to think that the first cause is God and to say that the first cause must be God is just special pleading.

While all the above is true  . I don't think everything must have a cause i think that things within the cosmos tend to have causes but that says nothing about the cosmos itself. Finite or not .And yes even if i admit for arguments sake both are assumed that still does not get us to god .

(November 28, 2017 at 12:40 pm)LostLocke Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: Actually i don't see why their must be a first cause . This assumes to much about causes.

Or, let's go further.
What if it turned out to be something like.... A causes B, B causes C, C causes D, D causes A?

Well backwards causality would only make sense like that if time ran backwards, and the notion of time running backwards doesn't seem to make any sense either. And it's worse than that because you seem to be expecting causality and time to run BOTH ways. D cannot cause A if D's existence depends on being caused by A. That's just circular logic and it makes a mockery of the very idea of causation in the first place.

I think there are only two ways to argue against the notion of a first uncaused cause, and the 1st is to deny that the universe is finite and the 2nd is to deny causality. What you're talking about doesn't seem to be any logical sense of causality at all.

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(November 28, 2017 at 12:41 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:38 pm)Hammy Wrote: Either way it doesn't matter, because there's no reason to think that the first cause is God and to say that the first cause must be God is just special pleading.

That shows about how much you know (or rather don't). The nature of God, in the 1W for example, is the extreme end of a continuum from actuality to potential or in the 3W from possible to necessary, not unique categories unto themselves.

It shows no such thing. You don't seem to even understand how logic works. Logic actually has to make sense and follow logically, logic doesn't just have to seem smart and result in a conclusion you like the sound of. I am correct because the argument indeed does NOT show that the uncaused cause must be God.

(November 28, 2017 at 12:50 pm)Hammy Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:40 pm)LostLocke Wrote: Or, let's go further.
What if it turned out to be something like.... A causes B, B causes C, C causes D, D causes A?

Well backwards causality would only make sense like that if time ran backwards, and the notion of time running backwards doesn't seem to make any sense either. And it's worse than that because you seem to  be expecting causality and time to run BOTH ways. D cannot cause A if D's existence depends on being caused by A. That's just circular logic and it makes a mockery of the very idea of causation in the first place.

I think there are only two ways to argue against the notion of a first uncaused cause, and the 1st is to deny that the universe is finite and the 2nd is to deny causality. What you're talking about doesn't seem to be any logical sense of causality at all.

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(November 28, 2017 at 12:41 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: That shows about how much you know (or rather don't). The nature of God, in the 1W for example, is the extreme end of a continuum from actuality to potential or in the 3W from possible to necessary, not unique categories unto themselves.

It shows no such thing. You don't seem to even understand how logic works. Logic actually has to make sense and follow logically, logic doesn't just have to seem smart and result in a conclusion you like the sound of. I am correct because the argument indeed does NOT show that the uncaused cause must be God.

That or time runs two different ways at once

(November 28, 2017 at 12:54 pm)Tizheruk Wrote:

(November 28, 2017 at 12:50 pm)Hammy Wrote: Well backwards causality would only make sense like that if time ran backwards, and the notion of time running backwards doesn't seem to make any sense either. And it's worse than that because you seem to  be expecting causality and time to run BOTH ways. D cannot cause A if D's existence depends on being caused by A. That's just circular logic and it makes a mockery of the very idea of causation in the first place.

I think there are only two ways to argue against the notion of a first uncaused cause, and the 1st is to deny that the universe is finite and the 2nd is to deny causality. What you're talking about doesn't seem to be any logical sense of causality at all.

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It shows no such thing. You don't seem to even understand how logic works. Logic actually has to make sense and follow logically, logic doesn't just have to seem smart and result in a conclusion you like the sound of. I am correct because the argument indeed does NOT show that the uncaused cause must be God.

That or time runs two different ways at once

I don't see how you can get away from the above, if you are postulating an infinite regress.

(November 28, 2017 at 12:54 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: That or time runs two different ways at once

Which is a nonsensical concept because the future is what happens next and the past is what has already happened. If A came first and A causes B then B cannot cause A in the same sense, because B's ultimate cause is A if A truly came first.

Your apologetic s remains lame road . Stick to failing at defending the history of the bible. Or engaging in losing debates about testimony .

An ontological infinite regress can only happen in an infinite universe. A Reductio ad Absurdum via an infinite regress argument shows that something begs the question for infinity, and that is an argument that can be made in a finite universe just as much an infinite one, and an argument merely to show that a special pleading is being made. To say that everything needs a cause is to say that God also needs a cause, and that whatever caused God needs a cause, and that needs a cause, and so on, for all infinity.

If it is truly true that everything needs a cause, then the universe must be infinite.

I think what theists are really trying but failing to say is "Everything needs a cause . . . except God" which is indeed special pleading and a completely unqualified statement. "Everything needs a cause . . . except the first cause." actually makes sense in a finite universe, but the assumption that that first cause must be God or must have a mind is just special pleading that isn't backed up by anything. There's no reason at all to think that the first cause is any different from any of the other causes at all, let alone to think that it's "God".