I love Easter too. Fertility festivals are the best.

Meh, I just ignore most of the religious people on facebook. Let them re post as much as they want. I refuse to grant anything or anybody enough control so as to make me angry.

To the op, I certainly I understand how you feel, but remember it is their Facebook and they have the right express they're beliefs as they see fit as long as they are not hurting others. Pain from the pure fuckwittery some post unfortunately does not apply.

(December 9, 2014 at 12:14 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: I'm not stating that the Universe is devoid of a formal cause. But your assertion that it has an immaterial final cause is unsupported,...

Efficient causes necessarily entail final causes. In order to define the start and end point of cause-effect relationship you necessarily invoke the function or purpose achieved by the sequence of events.

(December 7, 2014 at 12:28 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(December 7, 2014 at 12:15 pm)Natachan Wrote: I am obligated to believe that by the evidence.

If that were true, then you'd recognize the validity of the Aquinas's 5 ways, which have never been fully refuted.

I'm quite sure it has been fully refuted. The ideas expressed are simplistic, question-begging thinking from the Middle Ages.

(December 16, 2014 at 6:54 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(December 9, 2014 at 12:14 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: I'm not stating that the Universe is devoid of a formal cause. But your assertion that it has an immaterial final cause is unsupported,...

Efficient causes necessarily entail final causes. In order to define the start and end point of cause-effect relationship you necessarily invoke the function or purpose achieved by the sequence of events.

No. A landslide may have an efficient cause (rainfall softening the substrate), but there is no purpose behind it, unless you assume that some deity wishes to kill a few hundred people while rearranging the garden. Invoking purpose into the equation is assuming what you wish to demonstrate -- that there is a purposeful actor, which you call "God". This is circular reasoning, as you well know.

Besides, you still haven't answered my question as to how an immaterial being might affect material reality. I'd like an answer for that, please.

(December 17, 2014 at 11:31 am)Parkers Tan Wrote:

(December 16, 2014 at 6:54 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Efficient causes necessarily entail final causes. In order to define the start and end point of cause-effect relationship you necessarily invoke the function or purpose achieved by the sequence of events.

No. A landslide may have an efficient cause (rainfall softening the substrate), but there is no purpose behind it, unless you assume that some deity wishes to kill a few hundred people while rearranging the garden. Invoking purpose into the equation is assuming what you wish to demonstrate -- that there is a purposeful actor, which you call "God". This is circular reasoning, as you well know.

Besides, you still haven't answered my question as to how an immaterial being might affect material reality. I'd like an answer for that, please.

well one would have to guess is what is god first. he wouldn't look human.. though if he was real he would manifest in a human like being.

(December 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: …I am contemptuous, especially, of someone like you, who shares the base bigotries … but tries to dress them up in fancy words… you're ashamed of the way you feel...

Sticks and stones…see how easily you conform to the stereotype of the angry atheist, making false and hypocritical accusations, railing against rational arguments you clearly do not understand, and falsely assuming that everyone shares your unrepentant libertine proclivities and obsessions.

(December 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: …nor are most atheists nihilistic.

So I’ve been told. Most atheists are; however, ontological naturalists and/or physical reductionists. The logical consequences of these particular philosophies undermine both meaning and rationality.

(December 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: …… assuming that only your religion provides your morals is both a gross misunderstanding of normal human psychology

I make no such assumption. I only say that the formulations of secular morality tacitly accept the role of conscience, which is providentially supplied, even if by means of natural selection.

(December 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: …your clear implication is that without your fraudulent belief in a god, you would be either amoral or immoral.

No such implication has been made. Even without a belief in god, people still have a providentially supplied conscience. What is expressly stated by the Christian religion is that people must recognize there evils as sins and repent before they can be regenerated into the life everlasting. None of this is possible without being born again in the Lord.

(December 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Sticks and stones…see how easily you conform to the stereotype of the angry atheist, making false and hypocritical accusations, railing against rational arguments you clearly do not understand, and falsely assuming that everyone shares your unrepentant libertine proclivities and obsessions.

Wrong. If you don't understand the difference between "angry" and "contemptuous", I'd suggest you purchase a dictionary, posthaste.

As for hypocrisy, feel free to point it out in me.

I understand your arguments, and reject them based on flaws that have been rationally pointed out.

And -- if you're going to call me immoral, you'll need to present examples, or withdraw the personal attack.

(December 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: So I’ve been told. Most atheists are; however, ontological naturalists and/or physical reductionists. The logical consequences of these particular philosophies undermine both meaning and rationality.

No, they don't. Your unnquestioned premise leading you to your false conclusion is that meaning must be supplied from an outside agency.

(December 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(December 16, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: …… assuming that only your religion provides your morals is both a gross misunderstanding of normal human psychology

I make no such assumption. I only say that the formulations of secular morality tacitly accept the role of conscience, which is providentially supplied, even if by means of natural selection.

You're supporting my point, that you are making an assumption, by repeating the assumption.

(December 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: No such implication has been made. Even without a belief in god, people still have a providentially supplied conscience. What is expressly stated by the Christian religion is that people must recognize there evils as sins and repent before they can be regenerated into the life everlasting. None of this is possible without being born again in the Lord.

"Providentially", again. You're full of circumlocutions which beggar your premises. I'd suggest you abandon logic as the "support" for your faith, and go with a simple raw exclamation of faith, because in no way are you supporting any claim you're making here. You're simply piling on assumption bereft of support, and demonstrating that though you have a command of the vocabulary of philosophy, you have little practice in exercising cogency of thought.

Long story short: I'm unimpressed. Revise and resubmit.

(December 17, 2014 at 11:31 am)Parkers Tan Wrote:

(December 16, 2014 at 6:54 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Efficient causes necessarily entail final causes.

No. A landslide may have an efficient cause (rainfall softening the substrate), but there is no purpose behind it.

Again, your reasoning follows from misunderstandings about final cause. Final causes are not always inherently conscious. Left unimpeded by other factors efficient causes, like rain softening a substrate, are always directed toward actualizing a specific range of potentials, like a landslide, and not others, like forming diamonds. The alternatives are occationalism, which violates the principle of sufficient reason, and conceptualism, which is incoherent.

(December 17, 2014 at 11:31 am)Parkers Tan Wrote: …you still haven't answered my question as to how an immaterial being might affect material reality. I'd like an answer for that, please.

Your question is nonsensical, because you do not recognize sensible bodies as hypostatic unions of forms, which are immaterial, and matter. Neither occurs apart from the other. Nevertheless as distinct principles they each have a causal role.