(July 3, 2023 at 9:07 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(July 2, 2023 at 9:21 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Implicit in your argument is that a "being" of some sort or other caused anything.

No, that's not what the argument says.

It sounds as if you are anthropomorphizing the First Cause by calling it a being, with the indefinite article. The First Cause is not a being, it is being.

Go back and reread what he wrote. He quite literally wrote "In other words, at least One Being in Existence exists non-contingently" (bold added). If he's not stating the argument right by your view, take that up with him, 'cause it ain't my problem. I'm answering his argument directly, and pointing out that he's trying to smuggle a being in arbitrarily.

He needs to demonstrate that this could not possibly be a process and must be a being (complete with capital B!), and then he need to justify jumping from a creative being to his particular godling.

Let me go get some popcorn. He's gonna need a bigger boat.

In the meantime, you should pay attention to what you're reading and responding to.

There's a who in his what, lol.

Belacqua

(July 2, 2023 at 9:21 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Implicit in your argument is that a "being" of some sort or other caused anything.

No, that's not what the argument says. 

It sounds as if you are anthropomorphizing the First Cause by calling it a being, with the indefinite article. The First Cause is not a being, it is being. 

Too many people think of the First Cause like a big guy who decides to pull the levers to start things going. It's nothing like that. It is the thing which must be the case in order for anything else to be the case. There must be being in order for any contingent thing to be. There can be nothing essentially prior to being, because that thing would require being to be, and that's a paradox. 

The word "cause," in these arguments, is not the same as the modern English word. It is the translation of the Greek αἰτία. The αἰτία of X includes all the things which must be the case in order for X to be the case. 

Quote:Demonstrate that 

1) this creator exists, 

2) that he wasn't created by another something, and 

3) and that this creator must have been a conscious being.

The argument in the OP is intended to show that a non-contingent First Cause must exist in order for there to be contingent things. A First Cause, by definition, cannot be created by something else. The argument does not attempt to show that it was a conscious being; that requires a number of separate arguments. So you're running together separate issues and fuzzing up the topic. 

The First Cause is about essential priority, not temporal. It does not address conscious decisions in time to make things go.

Then explain this well-known quote from Aquinas:

Quote:To take away the cause is to take away the effect. If there be no first cause then there will be no others. Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).

Aquinas says, flat out, that the first cause is God. Are you contending that Aquinas didn’t believe that God is a conscious being?

For future reference, anyone with a chubby for Aquinas would do well to look into what Kant had to say about the Argument from Causation.

Boru

(July 2, 2023 at 9:07 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Therefore B1, the First Being, is a Non-Contingent Being, a Necessary Being, One Whose Existence is not contingent/dependent on a Prior Being.

So there's another person explicitly fucking it up, according to Bel. St Tommy and Nishant. Both Stupid Atheists.

Also note he said "being", not "existence". Being also tries to smuggle in an entity.
So the first cause is "being". Lets imagine there be only one thing, and one thing only: Being. No other things, just being.....  and being is sitting around, being so lonely in its essentialness.

Without the silent premises and attempted god-trafficking, we're dealing with a tautological deepity. Existence must existence for anything to exist. If existence didn't exist then nothing..would exist. Something does exist, therefore existence exists.

Okay. And?

(July 2, 2023 at 9:07 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: The Augustino-Thomistic Argument from Contingency and Necessity provides Basic Foundational Evidence for the Existence of Almighty God.

Let's define Contingency and Necessity. You, me, our parents, then theirs, the Planet Earth, etc all exist contingently, i.e. are contingent beings.

By Contingent Beings is meant a being whose existence or the existence of which is contingent, i.e. dependent on the existence of another.

Thus, you and me are dependent for our existence on the existence of our parents, all life on Planet Earth is contingent upon Earth etc.

Now, the argument may be formulated both logically and mathematically:

1. Now, every Contingent Being, by definition, is Contingent, i.e. Dependent on a Prior Being's Existence.

if we wrote it mathematically, for every Contingent Being, CB, CB(n) is dependent on CB(n-1); CB(n-1) on CB(n-2) etc.

2. But it is impossible for this series of contingent causation to go on until infinity.

Again, mathematically, this is obvious. If CB(n) is dependent on CB(n-1), and so on (and negative beings are impossible; we are speaking of real beings here. The nth Being in existence, the 2nd being etc; so also, there is no "zeroth" being; n must be a natural number here), then that can proceed back until at most Being 2, B2=CB2, contingent upon B1. [B1 cannot be contingent upon anything, since no B0, as we come to down]. 

3. Therefore, not every Being in existence is a contingent being.

4. Specifically, the First Being in Existence exists Non-Contingently. 

We already showed this above when we saw B2 is contingent upon B1, but B1 is not contingent upon any prior being, being the First Being in existence. [The only alternative to the existence of an actual first being is an infinite series of contingent beings, but that is impossible because an infinite series never ends; and if there were an actual infinite of real beings, we would never have gotten to the present moment; again, an infinite series cannot be formed by successive addition, because no matter how beings you add to each other, whether it is 1 or 1 trillion, n will always be finite. Therefore, granted that we got here, granted that we are 1 in a series of contingent beings, the number of beings in existence is finite.]

Therefore B1, the First Being, is a Non-Contingent Being, a Necessary Being, One Whose Existence is not contingent/dependent on a Prior Being.

Let's Debate.
God Bless.

Cut the god bless bullshit if you want to seriously debate.

(July 3, 2023 at 12:22 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(July 2, 2023 at 9:07 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Let's Debate.
God Bless.

Cut the god bless bullshit if you want to seriously debate.

Plausible deniability, my friend. Plausible deniability.

Why do they call them apologists anyway? Is it because they are just so damn sorry?

Listen here, fool.

If, (and that's a big if), if, there is a creator of the universe, it does not need your help with a fucking thing. Ever! There will never be a time when it turns to you for advice.

Get off your high horse. The arrogance of some of these upright apes, is absolutely astounding. You do not speak for it, you only speak for yourself, and your petty narcissistic desires.

You, are just 1 of 8 billion hoomans living on the planet, hoomans are just 1 of several billion species to ever inhabit the planet. The planet, is 1 of 8, that revolve around a star. That star, is one of several hundred billion in a galaxy. That galaxy is one of a few billion galaxies.

GET. OVER. YOURSELF. You, are microscopic.

(July 3, 2023 at 1:24 pm)no one Wrote: Why do they call them apologists anyway? Is it because they are just so damn sorry?

Listen here, fool.

If, (and that's a big if), if, there is a creator of the universe, it does not need your help with a fucking thing. Ever! There will never be a time when it turns to you for advice.

Get off your high horse. The arrogance of some of these upright apes, is absolutely astounding. You do not speak for it, you only speak for yourself, and your petty narcissistic desires.

You, are just 1 of 8 billion hoomans living on the planet, hoomans are just 1 of several billion species to ever inhabit the planet. The planet, is 1 of 8, that revolve around a star. That star, is one of several hundred billion in a galaxy. That galaxy is one of a few billion galaxies.

GET. OVER. YOURSELF. You, are microscopic.

It’s not a ‘sorry’. Apology also carries the meaning of a defense against a critique, as in ‘The Apology of Socrates’.

Boru