(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Are you even on this earth? You just attached omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality to the words "I am" written in a book that is a text bundle from multiple tribal sources of goat herders that lived several thousands years ago, copied, altered, revised, re-interpreted many times since then. If that is coherence to you, than anything can follow.

No, I attached it to historical events which are recorded in scriptures.

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Another claim you haven't substantiated.

I have, but you have not listened.

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Argumentam ad arrogantiam. You have done nothing to show that the powers you claim for your god cannot be the powers of a Hindu god or Zoroastra or my vacuum cleaner.

None of them are coherent with what I would expect for God based on natural reason, such as God as pure actuality exhibiting the transcendent attributes, and the teleotic relationship between God and Man, in analogy.

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: If you cannot come up with hard evidence to distinguish my claim for my vacuum cleaner from your claim of your christian god, than you don't deserve my devoted attention to your postings.

I can easily distinguish them. The foundation I have without resorting to revelation excludes all notions of God which define him as anything else than pure actuality in his purely transcendent form, and specifically mandate a teleotic relationship to man, not to vacuumcleaners which are simply a creation of man that attest to mans intelligence that makes for his telos and godlikeness.

Back to your original statements. Maybe I've missed something in the rambling theological language you constantly use, but your argument seems to be: Atheism is logically flawed because it rejects the notion that there is an 'objective moral truth'. Therefore everything else must be subjective and necessarily false, including atheism.

If this is an attempt to produce a logical fallacy, its woefully inadequate. Firstly you're lumping together morality and truth, when the two things are entirely seperate. Some things are objectively true regardless of belief (or non-belief) system, or morality i.e. The Earth orbits the sun.

Morality is a human concept which changes between cultures, over time etc. The very fact that our morality has developed and improved over time (i.e. slavery is now generally considered a bit of a no-no, despite its embedded history in cultural practice) goes to show that morality is a pliable concept.

If there was a higher moral infallibility (god), and religious people have been 'speaking' to god for thousands of years, surely the morality of the time wouldn't have been so primitive.

Feel free to point out if I've misunderstood your claim, but please refrain from descending into theological, pseudo-intellectual language to make your point. If when making a point, you do not successfully communicate your thoughts and intentions, you've failed; and would be better off not saying anything.

(July 25, 2009 at 8:54 pm)amw79 Wrote: Back to your original statements. Maybe I've missed something in the rambling theological language you constantly use, but your argument seems to be: Atheism is logically flawed because it rejects the notion that there is an 'objective moral truth'. Therefore everything else must be subjective and necessarily false, including atheism.

No, that is not "my argument". This is a gross perversion of my epistemological comparison between the epistemic structure of a Christian, monotheistic worldview with atheist, nonmonotheistic worldviews.

I don't have time for repeating what I have already said, so I will quote myself first:

(July 19, 2009 at 8:29 am)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 19, 2009 at 8:01 am)LEDO Wrote: What the fuck is "moral truth?" Is there "immoral truth."

The expression 'moral truth' doesn't refer to morally judging a 'truth'. It refers to moral truths as such, that is, objective epistemic foundations for moral standards. Immorality is specifically a negation of 'morality' which follows from the judgement that something does not live up to given moral standard. It already presupposes moral truth.

(July 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: If anyone still hasn't understood this, I have presented two different foundations for my transcendental monotheology.

One is the a posteriori argument from empirical observation of the (meta)physics of reality.

The other is the epistemological impossibility of the contrary being true (e.g. the fact a non-monotheological/atheist/naturalist epistemic structure accounts only for the abstractions of subjective brain chemistry, not a transcendental objective truth, and therefore can't possible be true according to its own epistemology).

What you are addressing is not the a posteriori argument, it's the second, epistemological part (which you haven't understood very well).

(July 25, 2009 at 8:54 pm)amw79 Wrote: If this is an attempt to produce a logical fallacy, its woefully inadequate. Firstly you're lumping together morality and truth, when the two things are entirely seperate. Some things are objectively true regardless of belief (or non-belief) system, or morality i.e. The Earth orbits the sun.

Morality is a human concept which changes between cultures, over time etc. The very fact that our morality has developed and improved over time (i.e. slavery is now generally considered a bit of a no-no, despite its embedded history in cultural practice) goes to show that morality is a pliable concept.

You are begging the question and presupposing that there cannot be a such thing as moral truth. You are begging the question that moral affirmations can only be relative and subjective. Which is fine. Proves nothing, except that you can at least see what kind of perspective on morality your worldview mandates.

What I am doing is not 'lumping morality and truth together', but simply analysing different worldviews which either deny that there can be moral and logical truth or affirm it. Atheism is an example of the former, Christian monotheism of the latter.

And I mention two kinds of truths that the epistemic structure (e.g. that which can be possibly known according to a worldviews own presuppositions) of a non-monotheistic worldview cannot affirm as transcending subjective minds: logical and moral truth. Which is simply to say, objective epistemic foundations which warrant logical and moral judgements.

As I thought, you can 't elucidate your arguments, and have simply re-quoted yourself. You can add the phrase "epistemic foundation" (or any derivitave of..) as many times as you like, but it adds nothing to your point, and simply serves as word salad.


The phrase "at least see what kind of perspective on morality your worldview mandates" is ludicrous, the implication being that YOUR 'worldview' has a superior perpective on morality. Your worldview on morality is based on deferring to an infallible moral certainty, dictated by one who's mind we can never know; which negates any responsibility (or credit) for the evolution of morality.

Also, I note that on page 1, there was a question re transubstantiation. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on that question.

(July 25, 2009 at 9:02 am)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Are you even on this earth? You just attached omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality to the words "I am" written in a book that is a text bundle from multiple tribal sources of goat herders that lived several thousands years ago, copied, altered, revised, re-interpreted many times since then. If that is coherence to you, than anything can follow.

No, I attached it to historical events which are recorded in scriptures.

If you claim to investigate truth from reason and empirical observation, as you've said before, you should know that scripture alone is not enough to credit what scripture says. This is circular reasoning.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Another claim you haven't substantiated.

I have, but you have not listened.

I'll come to that in a minute.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Argumentam ad arrogantiam. You have done nothing to show that the powers you claim for your god cannot be the powers of a Hindu god or Zoroastra or my vacuum cleaner.

None of them are coherent with what I would expect for God based on natural reason, such as God as pure actuality exhibiting the transcendent attributes, and the teleotic relationship between God and Man, in analogy.

That you don't understand the vocabulary they use is not a valid reason to dismiss them beforehand. Ahura Mazda according to advanced Zoroastrian theology was the uncreated Creator. Sound a lot like your pure actuality to me.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 25, 2009 at 4:10 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: If you cannot come up with hard evidence to distinguish my claim for my vacuum cleaner from your claim of your christian god, than you don't deserve my devoted attention to your postings.

I can easily distinguish them. The foundation I have without resorting to revelation excludes all notions of God which define him as anything else than pure actuality in his purely transcendent form, and specifically mandate a teleotic relationship to man, not to vacuumcleaners which are simply a creation of man that attest to mans intelligence that makes for his telos and godlikeness.

Firstly you do not know if my vacuum cleaner was really man made or just appears so to us. Secondly, it would seem a rather non-intrusive way for pure actuality to emanate itself in impure actualities. What is worse, an absent god or a god that emanates itself in this humble form to give us all an example.

You reason from a formalized metaphysical system that a god, or rather pure actuality, exist. Your formal system is fallacious in itself, as I will show further on, but it really shows that you are not really basing this on empirical observation when you try to gap the bridge to reality. For instance you define time as the distance between causal events. This is a definition of time intervals that neglects the dependence of time on the spatial reference frame of the observer and it shows that your understanding of time is seriously flawed, i.e. not in accordance with observation. From this it is clear, that you do not start from empirical observation at all to devise your metaphysical system. It more looks like special pleading to me, you attach notions of reality to a metaphysical system devised to reach but one conclusion.

You claim that your view is demonstrable from pure reaso yet ultimately it is dependent not only on empirical observation:
"I also believe natural theology establishes the existence of God as the pure actuality which is necessary for the actualization of any potentiality, and since we empirically observe the progressing actualization of potentialities by means of a causal regress to the very actuality of causality, this provides the basic foundation for the contention that God exists, because of our radical contingence." (accentuation by me)

but also on your personal ability to perceive alternatives:
"I believe I am in right reason when I accept God's existence as truth. In the first run because I don’t believe anything else is a possibility, without logical self-contradiction." (accentuation by me)

Why is your formalized logical system fallacious in itself? Because you conclude that impure actuality necessarily prerequisites pure actuality. Although the connotation of the language you use (impure versus pure) heavily suggests this, the connotation of words cannot be an argument in itself. So the question is, is it possible to conceive of impure actuality without pure actuality? In your formal system pure actuality is the plug to the bath tub. But if we do away with suggestive connotation of the words you use, we are left with the essence of your stance: a causal chain must necessarily have a begin. Well, this is a clear non-sequitur, for we can easily perceive of endless causal chains. There is no logical contradiction in that. In your words we can perceive of a system of endless impure actualities.

And this is not the only logical flaw in your thinking. The pure actuality you devise as a plug to your bath tub, lies necessarily 'outside' all impure actualities. In other words pure actuality cannot be part of impure actualities and impure actualities cannot be part of pure actualities. On top of that you claim that pure actuality has no potentiality, in other words it is absolute and complete by itself. Then why should an absolute, complete actuality cause someting outside itself an impure actuality even. This is self-contradictive reasoning. It pure actuality is what you say it is, it cannot cause anything 'outside' itself.

Also when it is pure actuality it cannot contain our reality since that is made up of impure actualities as empirical findings readily suggest that causation is all around.

Also that impure reality cannot contain pure reality means that 'natural reason' which you credit as the main capability to evaluate these claims on a personal level, is impure by its very nature and cannot be trusted on its own merit.

It thus seems that the formalized system you are adhering to is both logically flawed (self-contradicting) and not conclusively supported by empirical observation, and that while I haven't really begun to address all its flaws here in full colour.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: If you claim to investigate truth from reason and empirical observation, as you've said before, you should know that scripture alone is not enough to credit what scripture says. This is circular reasoning.

I have never said that it is so.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: That you don't understand the vocabulary they use is not a valid reason to dismiss them beforehand. Ahura Mazda according to advanced Zoroastrian theology was the uncreated Creator. Sound a lot like your pure actuality to me.

As I've already said, there are bits and pieces in many religions which fits in with my conception of God.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You reason from a formalized metaphysical system that a god, or rather pure actuality, exist. Your formal system is fallacious in itself, as I will show further on, but it really shows that you are not really basing this on empirical observation when you try to gap the bridge to reality. For instance you define time as the distance between causal events. This is a definition of time intervals that neglects the dependence of time on the spatial reference frame of the observer and it shows that your understanding of time is seriously flawed, i.e. not in accordance with observation. From this it is clear, that you do not start from empirical observation at all to devise your metaphysical system. It more looks like special pleading to me, you attach notions of reality to a metaphysical system devised to reach but one conclusion.

I have defined time in several ways through this thread. But more than anything I have defined it as fundamentally a part of causality/impure actuality, just like space. In other words, time and space are both part of the same fact.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Although the connotation of the language you use (impure versus pure) heavily suggests this, the connotation of words cannot be an argument in itself. So the question is, is it possible to conceive of impure actuality without pure actuality? In your formal system pure actuality is the plug to the bath tub. But if we do away with suggestive connotation of the words you use, we are left with the essence of your stance: a causal chain must necessarily have a begin. Well, this is a clear non-sequitur, for we can easily perceive of endless causal chains. There is no logical contradiction in that. In your words we can perceive of a system of endless impure actualities.

We cannot perceive of impure actuality as being the source of it's own actuality. Then it's no longer impure actuality, but pure actuality, which our universe clearly is not, as we observe empirically in its attributes of temporality, spatiality, matter, etc.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: And this is not the only logical flaw in your thinking. The pure actuality you devise as a plug to your bath tub, lies necessarily 'outside' all impure actualities. In other words pure actuality cannot be part of impure actualities and impure actualities cannot be part of pure actualities. On top of that you claim that pure actuality has no potentiality, in other words it is absolute and complete by itself.

Pure actuality has no potentiality, because then it's not pure actuality. Impure actuality means actuality with/of potentiality. So I am certainly not saying that impure actuality does not have potentiality, to the contrary.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Then why should an absolute, complete actuality cause someting outside itself an impure actuality even. This is self-contradictive reasoning. It pure actuality is what you say it is, it cannot cause anything 'outside' itself.

Pure actuality doesn't really "cause something outside of itself", it actualises potentialities in and of it's actuality. We cannot speak of causality and space here (cause, outside), only the purely actual principle in and of causality necessary for it's own actuality.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Also when it is pure actuality it cannot contain our reality since that is made up of impure actualities as empirical findings readily suggest that causation is all around.

It simply actualises our potential reality, and as soon as that has happened, impure actuality exists. So you are turning it the wrong way around.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Also that impure reality cannot contain pure reality means that 'natural reason' which you credit as the main capability to evaluate these claims on a personal level, is impure by its very nature and cannot be trusted on its own merit.

Are you serious? Now you have gone completely overboard. The words "pure" and "impure" are not some kind of qualitative judgements of a product for consumption or of its reliabillity. They concern only whether or not something is made up purely of actuality or impurely of actuality with potentialities in it.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: It thus seems that the formalized system you are adhering to is both logically flawed (self-contradicting) and not conclusively supported by empirical observation, and that while I haven't really begun to address all its flaws here in full colour.

You haven't shown any flaws in my propositions. So if there are any, please, enlighten me.

---

(July 25, 2009 at 10:02 pm)amw79 Wrote: As I thought, you can 't elucidate your arguments, and have simply re-quoted yourself. You can add the phrase "epistemic foundation" (or any derivitave of..) as many times as you like, but it adds nothing to your point, and simply serves as word salad.

I pointed out the logical fallacy implicit in your very question. So if you really want an answer, you have to ask a question which is not a fallacy itself.

(July 25, 2009 at 10:02 pm)amw79 Wrote: The phrase "at least see what kind of perspective on morality your worldview mandates" is ludicrous, the implication being that YOUR 'worldview' has a superior perpective on morality. Your worldview on morality is based on deferring to an infallible moral certainty, dictated by one who's mind we can never know; which negates any responsibility (or credit) for the evolution of morality.

That's not at all what I'm talking about. What I meant was this: that outside of monotheistic such as Christian worldviews, morality will always simply be an illusory distraction which is not a truth and which has no binding authority sanctioned by anything but subjective minds, which thus never transcend subjectivity and never reach objectivity, as in the case of God.

Which worldview is superior is up to yourself.

If you want to make moral judgements with validity and without contradicting the epistemic/noetic structure of your own worldview, then the Christian monotheistic worldview is completely superior.

If you don't want to make moral judgements and you want everything to be permissible, then the non-Christian non-monotheistic worldview is completely superior.

The problem is of course, that there are moral judgements implicit in literally any human beings utterances, so that the latter worldview is humanly impossible because it necessitates self-contradictions.

And you've completely ignored that what I said applies to logical truths and jugements as well, not just moral truths and judgements.

(July 25, 2009 at 10:02 pm)amw79 Wrote: Also, I note that on page 1, there was a question re transubstantiation. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on that question.

I forgot posting my answer to that. Thanks for reminding me.

(July 17, 2009 at 4:47 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Do you really believe in transubstantiation? If you do, do you accept that it is a cop-out? In other words, do you accept that the "miracle of the wafer turning into the flesh of Christ whilst similarly miraculously remaining indistinguishable from any other wafer" is simply a flawed way of looking at things, and that there is no way of actually verifying if anything miraculous even occurred?

I don't believe transsubstantiation is a "cop-out", nor do I believe it is supposed to be a "proof" of anything. In other words, it's not an isolated doctrine which we claim apart from everything else. It is subordinate to everything else in the faith, it is not in itself something intended to prove something else, or be proved by something else. It is only an article of our affirmation of Christ as God, it falls on whether or not Christ is God.

(July 26, 2009 at 8:59 am)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: If you claim to investigate truth from reason and empirical observation, as you've said before, you should know that scripture alone is not enough to credit what scripture says. This is circular reasoning.

I have never said that it is so.

OK, scripture is out the window. Then what exactly is your non-scriptural evidence that connects the biblical god to omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality? Enlighten us.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: That you don't understand the vocabulary they use is not a valid reason to dismiss them beforehand. Ahura Mazda according to advanced Zoroastrian theology was the uncreated Creator. Sound a lot like your pure actuality to me.

As I've already said, there are bits and pieces in many religions which fits in with my conception of God.

Ever thought about how that can be?

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You reason from a formalized metaphysical system that a god, or rather pure actuality, exist. Your formal system is fallacious in itself, as I will show further on, but it really shows that you are not really basing this on empirical observation when you try to gap the bridge to reality. For instance you define time as the distance between causal events. This is a definition of time intervals that neglects the dependence of time on the spatial reference frame of the observer and it shows that your understanding of time is seriously flawed, i.e. not in accordance with observation. From this it is clear, that you do not start from empirical observation at all to devise your metaphysical system. It more looks like special pleading to me, you attach notions of reality to a metaphysical system devised to reach but one conclusion.

I have defined time in several ways through this thread.

OK, that's nice when you're short for an answer, but which ultimate definition of time do you arrive at from pure natural reason?

Jon Paul Wrote:But more than anything I have defined it as fundamentally a part of causality/impure actuality, just like space. In other words, time and space are both part of the same fact.

That's no definition of time really, is it? You can't define iron by saying it is fundamentally a part of the chair in which I am seated, just like the wood in the back of my chair. You name no characterizing property of it and you are not even narrowing down on a wider concept. And why should it fundamentally be part of causality? Is instantaneous causality out of the question? It seems to me your throwing in a lot of unsubstantiated assertions just by defining time this way. Again it does not even make an attempt to comment on its dependence on the spatial reference frame of the observer. You claim to know a lot about time (it's fundamental in some way, causality cannot do without it) but on closer inspection you could have been defining space instead. And you again miss essential features. Do you know anything about time in the physical framework? What happens to causality when time is
non-existent? Can there be timeless causality? If no, then why ask for causation of a universe in which time itself could have been created? Have you any evidence that time existed prior to our impure actuality called the universe?

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Although the connotation of the language you use (impure versus pure) heavily suggests this, the connotation of words cannot be an argument in itself. So the question is, is it possible to conceive of impure actuality without pure actuality? In your formal system pure actuality is the plug to the bath tub. But if we do away with suggestive connotation of the words you use, we are left with the essence of your stance: a causal chain must necessarily have a begin. Well, this is a clear non-sequitur, for we can easily perceive of endless causal chains. There is no logical contradiction in that. In your words we can perceive of a system of endless impure actualities.

We cannot perceive of impure actuality as being the source of it's own actuality.

I am not claiming that. I am claiming that some impure actuality (say a physical obkect) can cause events of other impure actualities (other physical objects).

Jon Paul Wrote:Then it's no longer impure actuality, but pure actuality, which our universe clearly is not, as we observe empirically in its attributes of temporality, spatiality, matter, etc.

That is clearly what we see in our universe. The physical (say impure actuality of an electron) over here causes something to happen to the physical (say the impure actuality of an atom) over there. While there is no indication that some divine force is moving the electron fram A to B. Or are you saying that your god is moving all electrons around in the universe and that without his support they wouldn't move?

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: And this is not the only logical flaw in your thinking. The pure actuality you devise as a plug to your bath tub, lies necessarily 'outside' all impure actualities. In other words pure actuality cannot be part of impure actualities and impure actualities cannot be part of pure actualities. On top of that you claim that pure actuality has no potentiality, in other words it is absolute and complete by itself.

Pure actuality has no potentiality, because then it's not pure actuality. Impure actuality means actuality with/of potentiality. So I am certainly not saying that impure actuality does not have potentiality, to the contrary.

Just read what I have written. I do not claim that impure actuality does not have potentiality. I merely rephrased your own claim that pure actuality has no potentiality.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Then why should an absolute, complete actuality cause someting outside itself an impure actuality even. This is self-contradictive reasoning. It pure actuality is what you say it is, it cannot cause anything 'outside' itself.

Pure actuality doesn't really "cause something outside of itself", it actualises potentialities in and of it's actuality. We cannot speak of causality and space here (cause, outside), only the purely actual principle in and of causality necessary for it's own actuality.

Why should your pure actuality, being without any potentiality itself, iow being complete and absolute by itself, ever 'actualise' something outside itself? Don't say "just because" now, for that's circular.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Also when it is pure actuality it cannot contain our reality since that is made up of impure actualities as empirical findings readily suggest that causation is all around.

It simply actualises our potential reality, and as soon as that has happened, impure actuality exists. So you are turning it the wrong way around.

I have merely restated your words. What am I turning around?
To be clear on this, I'll phrase a clear question for you: Can pure reality contain impure reality?

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Also that impure reality cannot contain pure reality means that 'natural reason' which you credit as the main capability to evaluate these claims on a personal level, is impure by its very nature and cannot be trusted on its own merit.

Are you serious? Now you have gone completely overboard. The words "pure" and "impure" are not some kind of qualitative judgements of a product for consumption or of its reliabillity. They concern only whether or not something is made up purely of actuality or impurely of actuality with potentialities in it.

I read agreement here.

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: It thus seems that the formalized system you are adhering to is both logically flawed (self-contradicting) and not conclusively supported by empirical observation, and that while I haven't really begun to address all its flaws here in full colour.

You haven't shown any flaws in my propositions. So if there are any, please, enlighten me.

You fail to define characteristics of nature in any coherent and precise way, yet you claim from it validity for your logical system. You fail to show a necessary relation between nature and your man-made concept of pure and impure actualities. You link their interaction to causality, yet you fail to show why causal chains necessarily have to have beginnings. Your system is incapable of explaining any subtlety in the workings of nature yet you claim that it is fundamental to it. This is arguably the worst case of overestimating the potentials of a logical construct to underlie reality I've seen so far. Also it is the best case against advanced theology so far. For that I thank you.

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: OK, scripture is out the window. Then what exactly is your non-scriptural evidence that connects the biblical god to omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality? Enlighten us.

That is a viewpoint that I established specifically without any references to scripture.

I don't reject scripture, but I don't use it for a circle argument.

Scripture isn't itself an evidence that God exists, it's only in itself a record of what I believe to be the God that exists WORD, whose existence I establish wholly apart from scripture, and scriptures validity in this regard depends on the attestation of historically reliable facts. So scripture in and of itself is simply a record or collection of letters, not an evidence. It is what occured in reality that is the evidence.

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: And why should it fundamentally be part of causality?

Because causality implies change/division/distance in the procession of the actualisation of potentials, that there is a division in the link between cause and effect. Cause A effects B implies the distance between a causes own actuality and the effect it culminates in - or in other words, the actualisation of a potential. That in turn, implies impure actuality.

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Is instantaneous causality out of the question?

If what you mean with instantaneous is without change -division/distance between cause and effect-, than that is no longer causation.

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: What happens to causality when time is non-existent? Can there be timeless causality? If no, then why ask for causation of a universe in which time itself could have been created? Have you any evidence that time existed prior to our impure actuality called the universe?

There cannot be timeless causality because causality implies both cause and effect, it implies both the actuality and the potential it actualises, which implies the division or the distance, the change from A to B that we measure in time. There can be a timeless actuality, because it does not rely on the distance or division between actuality and potentiality; it relies only on its own pure actuality which itself precedes/transcends the potential. It is the prime principle that transcends the potentiality it actualises.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: I am not claiming that. I am claiming that some impure actuality (say a physical obkect) can cause events of other impure actualities (other physical objects).

Impure actuality receives it's actuality, and diffuses it into other potentialities. Otherwise, we are not speaking of impure actuality but pure actuality which is void of all potentialities and thereby all change -temporality, spatiality, separation, individuation, composition, matter- since change is itself the actualisation of potentialities which presupposes actuality.

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: That is clearly what we see in our universe. The physical (say impure actuality of an electron) over here causes something to happen to the physical (say the impure actuality of an atom) over there. While there is no indication that some divine force is moving the electron fram A to B. Or are you saying that your god is moving all electrons around in the universe and that without his support they wouldn't move?

Since it is impure actuality, it already has received actuality.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Why should your pure actuality, being without any potentiality itself, iow being complete and absolute by itself, ever 'actualise' something outside itself? Don't say "just because" now, for that's circular.

You are asking an aprioritic question which is irrelevant to the fundamental truth of the aposteriori knowledge that we have received actuality, otherwise the universe wouldn't exist. We can still answer why in various ways, but no matter how we answer it, our answer still fundamentally presupposes that we exist and that potentiality has been actualised.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: To be clear on this, I'll phrase a clear question for you: Can pure reality contain impure reality?

What is pure reality and what is impure reality? These terms are not from me.

(July 26, 2009 at 7:15 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You fail to define characteristics of nature in any coherent and precise way, yet you claim from it validity for your logical system. You fail to show a necessary relation between nature and your man-made concept of pure and impure actualities.

You repeat this without demonstrating it. It makes no difference. Everything we say is in principle manmade; the word "manmade" is manmade. Does that mean that it's not a valid concept? That things come out of our mouthes makes it no less true and no less false.

(July 26, 2009 at 11:08 am)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: OK, scripture is out the window. Then what exactly is your non-scriptural evidence that connects the biblical god to omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality? Enlighten us.

That is a viewpoint that I established specifically without any references to scripture.

I don't reject scripture, but I don't use it for a circle argument.

Scripture isn't itself an evidence that God exists, it's only in itself a record of what I believe to be the God that exists WORD, whose existence I establish wholly apart from scripture, and scriptures validity in this regard depends on the attestation of historically reliable facts. So scripture in and of itself is simply a record or collection of letters, not an evidence. It is what occured in reality that is the evidence.

Enough words, what is your answer to my question? To be more precisely what occured in reality which you can substantiate with clear evidence that connects the biblical god to omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and to the whole of non-contingent actuality?

Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 26, 2009 at 10:14 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: And why should it fundamentally be part of causality?

Because causality implies change/division/distance in the procession of the actualisation of potentials, that there is a division in the link between cause and effect.

OK, let's do this step by step. Your claim is that the physical concepts you are presenting here as facts are verifiable from empirical observation in nature and from natural reason and that they fit your model of pure and impure actualities and potentialities. This implies you have deep knowledge of the concepts of space, time and causality. I therefore need to know exactly what you mean with your answer.

1. How would you define causality? Are you referring to accidental causality, essential causality or stochastic causality?
2. You say causality implies change. IOW, if there is causality there is change. Do you mean there can be no uncaused change? And is this verified by empirical observation in nature?
4. You say causality implies division. IOW, if there is causality there is spatial and temporal division. Can there be no division without causality? Does this mean that simultaneous events cannot have a causal relation?
5. When observing the motion of a binary star system, which is the causing event and which is the resulting event?

(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Enough words, what is your answer to my question? To be more precisely what occured in reality which you can substantiate with clear evidence that connects the biblical god to omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and to the whole of non-contingent actuality?

I believe I have already anwered this question sufficiently. Since you posite a need for "clear evidence" and since it is subjective what this means, there is no point in going more into it anyway.

Jon Paul Wrote:OK, let's do this step by step. Your claim is that the physical concepts you are presenting here as facts are verifiable from empirical observation in nature and from natural reason and that they fit your model of pure and impure actualities and potentialities. This implies you have deep knowledge of the concepts of space, time and causality. I therefore need to know exactly what you mean with your answer.

No, it does not imply I have deep knowledge of space time and causality. It implies we can observe what happens in reality without having deep knowledge before hand; otherwise it would not be aposterioritic.

(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: 1. How would you define causality? Are you referring to accidental causality, essential causality or stochastic causality?

These distinctions are not of any consequence to my claim as they all involve causality at the root of the universe we observe, even if our information of specific causal processions within the universe in its totality is incomplete. I have already defined causality several places, as well, but causation always means means dependence of one set of parameters, A, on another set, B.

(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: 2. You say causality implies change. IOW, if there is causality there is change. Do you mean there can be no uncaused change? And is this verified by empirical observation in nature?

I don't know what you mean exactly with uncaused change. What I have said is rather that causation is a process which inherently involves change. For me to answer more specifically, you'd have to define "uncaused change". A change with no cause? A change in what?

(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: 4. You say causality implies division. IOW, if there is causality there is spatial and temporal division. Can there be no division without causality? Does this mean that simultaneous events cannot have a causal relation?

No, it doesn't mean that simultaneous events can have no causal relations. What I meant was not just spatiotemporal division, but division at the very root of the thing: cause and effect, dependent-upon and depended-upon.

(July 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: 5. When observing the motion of a binary star system, which is the causing event and which is the resulting event?

This is a physical question of observing specific celestial objects and the nature of their gravitation which is irrelevant to my claim, as my claim does not deal with such specific physical phenomena of celestial objects in the spatiotemporal realm.

I am rather dealing with the general phenomenon of our realm in itself.

And as I've said, whether we have complete information about the instances of causal processions or not is irrelevant to whether we know that causation happens even if we don't have the data of the totality of the information that can exist about the universe.

In the case of stochastic causality, there is no denial that causation is absolutely happening without any ambiguities, only that our information of specific instances of such is limited. But we can observe and understand the general fact of it, and additionally understand specifities in great detail even though we are not omniscient and don't have all the information of the totality, which is what probabilistic causality is all about when it comes to understanding specific physical phenomena within the universe.