How to debunk the first cause argument without trying too hard

[Neo-Scholastic]

Eight pages and still no serious objections to the first cause argument. Just groupthink adherence to a straw man argument.

[Longhorn]

Eight pages and still no serious objections to the first cause argument. Just groupthink adherence to a straw man argument.

Uh. Have you read the OP? ._.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Eight pages and still no serious objections to the first cause argument. Just groupthink adherence to a straw man argument.

Uh. Have you read the OP? ._.

The OP directs all its effort toward kalam-type 1st cause arguments. These deal with accidentally ordered sequences arranged in time. Objections to kalam-type have some merit, but I'm not feeling generous. On the other hand 1st cause arguments that focus on essentially ordered series, such as Aquinas's Second Way, remain unaffected by critiques like the one in the OP. No one ever argues against Aquinas because they know they can't.

[Longhorn]

Uh. Have you read the OP? ._.

The OP directs all its effort toward kalam-type 1st cause arguments. These deal with accidentally ordered sequences arranged in time. Objections to kalam-type have some merit, but I'm not feeling generous. On the other hand 1st cause arguments that focus on essentially ordered series, such as Aquinas's Second Way, remain unaffected by critiques like the one in the OP. No one ever argues against Aquinas because they know they can't.

....and from that to your particular version of Yhwh you arrived by....? ._.

[Neo-Scholastic]

(See also Hume's analysis of cause and effect for another example of why our understanding of the nature of 'cause' is incomplete.)

Hume's analysis of cause and effect has been a major setback in philosophical progress and is itself one 'cause' of today's confusion. Hume mistakenly presents both cause and effect as discrete events. For example, Hume would say that the event of the brick being tossed is the cause of the event of the window breaking. This of course is nonsense. The cause is not an event. If you ask anyone what caused the window to break, they would tell you the brick caused it; not, the event of the brick being tossed. Hume wants us to ask, 'what connects the two events?'. That is the wrong question. The explanation of efficient cause rests on the relationship between a substantial form, like a brick, and the actualization of a dispositional property , like the shattering of glass.

[Alex K]

Ok Chad, you're going on my block list for that avatar, you hypocritical twit.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Is the truth that offensive to you? Why do you need to shut your eyes and hide behind euphemism?

[Aristocatt]

I don't see the connection between the argument that everything which begins to exist must have a cause, and god.

Couldn't we just say that a set of laws has always existed. And that all that has always existed interacted to bring about all that exists in our perceptions of reality today?

I mean unless you want to argue for a rhetorical god( a god that could both be conscious or unconscious) the argument is not only not provably sound, but it is provably invalid.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The OP directs all its effort toward kalam-type 1st cause arguments. These deal with accidentally ordered sequences arranged in time. Objections to kalam-type have some merit, but I'm not feeling generous. On the other hand 1st cause arguments that focus on essentially ordered series, such as Aquinas's Second Way, remain unaffected by critiques like the one in the OP. No one ever argues against Aquinas because they know they can't.

....and from that to your particular version of Yhwh you arrived by....? ._.

Reason, plain and simple. Too bad rationality eludes you.

[Longhorn]

....and from that to your particular version of Yhwh you arrived by....? ._.

Reason, plain and simple. Too bad rationality eludes you.

Orly. What is that line of reasoning that led you from 'a first cause' to 'a god' to 'a theistic god' to 'yahweh' to 'your yahweh'?