Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[Neo-Scholastic]

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First things first.
You are under the impression that “first” cause means the starting point of a temporal axis. In Latin term Aquinas used was ‘primus’.  Just as in English, first can mean a temporal beginning but it can also refer to what is primary and fundamental. The first Three Ways are based on a rejection of an infinite essentially ordered series. Events in time can be accidentally ordered and that is why the argument has nothing to do with time. Aquinas only mentions ‘time’ in the Third Way and even there it doesn’t refer to a specific starting point for creation. In the Third Way he is talking about any given point in time not a temporal beginning.

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Oh, I'm sorry! Fool that I am, I thought you were finally discussing something real! You certainly were enamored with the importance of observations back when you thought that observations confirmed the five ways.  

And I still am interested in real, common, everyday experiences. I don’t know about you, but I see and experience on a daily basis the same observations Thomas Aquinas uses in the Five Ways, and I quote:

From the 1st Way - “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.”
From the 2nd Way - “In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes.”
From the 3rd Way - “We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be.”
From the 4th Way – “Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like.” (translation for the perplexed – some examples of triangles in the physical world are more represented of what it means to be a triangle than others, etc.)
From the 5th Way – “We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way,…” (translation for the perplexed – the laws of nature are consistent)

But it turns out instead that you just wanted to waffle on about abstract philosophical bullshit instead!

How come some people happily engage in a philosophical discussion only until the arguments turn against them and suddenly they say that it’s all bullshit? Loser.

I should have known, it's kind of your thing. You just wanted it both ways: before you were asserting that empirical observations bear out your claims, but the moment it's demonstrated that no, that's not true, you shuck observations completely in favor of vague "primary and fundamental" abstractions that have not only never been observed, but are contraindicated by the available evidence.

Still waiting for your examples of evidence that contradicts the observations on which the Five Ways are based, perhaps one showing that the laws of nature are not consistent. From what I gather the laws of QM are highly robust and consistent.

Essentially, you were shown why a first cause isn't needed in an objective sense, and your response was to walk back the entirety of your last argument to say "yeah, but there's a first cause anyway because it has nothing to do with objectively real things like linear causality, the only framework we can observe through which causes occur, it's all about a... first cause." Do you know what we call philosophical ideas that have no basis in objective reality and are contraindicated by all the available data, Chad? "Making shit up."

My position has been consistent and I keep pointing you back to it when you start working off a complete misunderstanding of what a “first cause” is and voicing objections to an argument Aquinas never made.

I also noticed that you used the word ‘objectively’ twice. I take that word to mean things that exist independent of our knowledge of them. If there is a first cause, then it would be something objective. We would know about it, the same way we know about other things that cannot be directly observed, from its real effects. Those real effects are the first premise of each of the Five Ways (listed above).

Below, more belaboring the same points you’ve already presented, but kept to avoid the accusation of malicious editing.

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Aquinas lived before the time when his ideas could be properly refuted by the evidence, before there was a scientific method and a recognition of how important evidence was in an epistemological sense, before the fallacies that inundate his work were formulated. What the hell is your excuse?

If you don’t believe my interpretation of Aquinas is correct then you should at least know it is not unique to me. I refer you to the following paper: “There Must be a First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects, Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series” by Gavin Kerr. I can give you other references as well.

The trouble is that "infinite" or "finite, with a first cause," are not the only two options. They certainly are within a linear causal framework, but as we've established, such a thing isn't uniform across the entirety of reality.

It’s not whining if you really don’t understand Aquinas which is clearly the case. As shown above, you continue in your ignorance of what ‘first’ means, even when it is central to the argument, and even when the correct denotation was given to you more than once. Why would I would undertake to address all your other stubborn misconceptions?

Yes, I was mistaken. I was also giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming that you were talking about something objective and empirically proven, when you were talking about how empirical observations demonstrate the claim. How was I supposed to know that all that talk of observation was a smokescreen and that, in reality, you were talking about something that has never been observed? And for that matter, why should I be chastised for my charity in assuming you were talking about something real, rather than just asserting your claim in some vague, ill defined conceptual terms that must exist objectively only because you say so?

Sorry, I'll try not to give you any credit in advance in future.  

For a person that always cries about others making assumptions about him, you presume to know the extent of my education in the natural sciences. I do not need to prove to you that I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of modern cosmology. In your post you made no statements about cosmology with which I disagreed. They simply do not matter.

They matter if you're talking about something real. Since you're not, I guess the entire conversation is moot, since you were trying to prove that the five ways were objectively truthful, and your final resort is just to fall back on nothing.

Gee, that sure sounds like you did. The only wiggle room you have is the last part when you talk about something that is “not this universe” but that’s trading on an ambiguity that doesn’t distinguish between the physical universe and all of reality.

What I'm saying is that our observations are perfectly valid as uniform on Earth, within the timeframe that they were made in. There's nothing wrong with uniformitarianism within the scope that we are capable of observing. The problem is that you're taking those observations and seeking to extrapolate them out into areas that we've never observed, and thus can't necessarily make those assumptions about,…

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…and then going further and attempting to push them out beyond the boundaries of the physical universe as a whole, into a region of spacetime that we already know operates completely differently to anything we've ever observed.

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That's the problem: you're not aware of the limitations of uniformitarianism as an axiom in your rush to make simplistic blanket statements to confirm your presuppositions. Again, if we were to find physical evidence in new observations that contradicted uniformitarianism, then uniformitarianism would either need to expand to fit, or be rejected.

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The big bang and the state of the universe prior to it represent exactly such evidence. You can't have uniform physical principles within a space that we've established does not behave like the universe that informs those principles in any way. This isn't... it's not exactly a controversial statement.

Like I hinted at earlier, you’re trading on an ambiguity between the physical universe and reality as a whole. The known physical laws do appear to break-down near time zero. I don’t know I wasn’t there, but from what I hear extensions in time and space don’t exist in any meaningful way there. That doesn’t mean that all the laws of reality, metaphysical laws like the PNC or the Indiscernibility of Identicals, no longer apply. I suppose you can argue that every law governing reality is up for grabs, like possible worlds where numerability works differently, but that would undermine the very possibility of a rationally ordered and intelligible reality, i.e. nihilistic absurdity. And I know how you feel about that.

[Angrboda]

From the 5th Way – “We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way,…” (translation for the perplexed – the laws of nature are consistent)

What practical observation allows you to tell the difference between a universe that is ordered due to purposive design of an intelligent agent and one that is ordered through the workings of brute, undesigned necessity and chance? What allows you to make that metaphysical distinction?

[Esquilax]

And I still am interested in real, common, everyday experiences. I don’t know about you, but I see and experience on a daily basis the same observations Thomas Aquinas uses in the Five Ways, and I quote:

From the 1st Way - “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.”
From the 2nd Way - “In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes.”
From the 3rd Way - “We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be.”
From the 4th Way – “Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like.” (translation for the perplexed – some examples of triangles in the physical world are more represented of what it means to be a triangle than others, etc.)
From the 5th Way – “We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way,…” (translation for the perplexed – the laws of nature are consistent)

Serious question: do you honestly think that just repeating this point, after you've been shown multiple times that it's both a fallacious argument (do you know what the fallacy of composition is yet?) and that your observations demonstrably do not apply at all times and in all cases, is at all convincing? At this point you're just ignoring what I'm saying and reaching for arguments I've already debunked: are you just being intellectually dishonest in the hopes that people won't realize I've already addressed this nonsense, or are you truly so bereft of ideas that all you have left is the repetition of debunked talking points?

How come some people happily engage in a philosophical discussion only until the arguments turn against them and suddenly they say that it’s all bullshit? Loser.

The five ways make claims about objective reality, genius, they aren't solely philosophical arguments, and in the sense that they can be tested and verified by observation, they have failed those tests. If you want to push it back and focus solely on the philosophy then that's fine, but don't ever forget that when held up against the reality they attempt to reflect, the five ways failed. As I said before, philosophy that clearly and evidently does not match up with the real world is just making things up, and frankly, I'd rather talk about something applicable and substantial, not the untrue ideas that you believe anyway under the mistaken beliefs that philosophy doesn't have to be objectively true in order to prove its points.

Still waiting for your examples of evidence that contradicts the observations on which the Five Ways are based, perhaps one showing that the laws of nature are not consistent. From what I gather the laws of QM are highly robust and consistent.

Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem: beyond the region of spacetime known as the big bang, whole new physics are needed to accurately describe what goes on there. The laws of nature are not consistent and identical to their current state beyond that point, which is the "chief conclusion," of that paper, and I mentioned it before, so this is just another thing you've ignored.

Besides which, "highly robust and consistent," is not the same thing as "consistent with the five ways." Physics can be internally consistent while still not matching up with Aquinas' claims: in fact, it very much is in many circumstances.

My position has been consistent and I keep pointing you back to it when you start working off a complete misunderstanding of what a “first cause” is and voicing objections to an argument Aquinas never made.

And again I say: if you're using "first cause" in any other sense than the way it applies to the actual history of the universe then I don't give a shit, because it doesn't align with things that actually happened. If you are using it that way, then the first cause of Aquinas is demonstrably not necessary.

I also noticed that you used the word ‘objectively’ twice. I take that word to mean things that exist independent of our knowledge of them. If there is a first cause, then it would be something objective. We would know about it, the same way we know about other things that cannot be directly observed, from its real effects. Those real effects are the first premise of each of the Five Ways (listed above).

Yes, congratulations Chad: if a thing is real, then it's real. Stunning discovery, that.

However, the point is that the premises of the five ways attempt to demonstrate the necessity of that first cause, and within what can objectively be known about reality, they are factually wrong and a first cause, whether it exists or not, is not necessary on the basis of Aquinas' argument. What that means is that you'd need evidence, and you can't just point back to Aquinas, since his arguments don't accomplish the thing they set out to.

Like I hinted at earlier, you’re trading on an ambiguity between the physical universe and reality as a whole. The known physical laws do appear to break-down near time zero. I don’t know I wasn’t there, but from what I hear extensions in time and space don’t exist in any meaningful way there. That doesn’t mean that all the laws of reality, metaphysical laws like the PNC or the Indiscernibility of Identicals, no longer apply. I suppose you can argue that every law governing reality is up for grabs, like possible worlds where numerability works differently, but that would undermine the very possibility of a rationally ordered and intelligible reality, i.e. nihilistic absurdity. And I know how you feel about that.

Which is sort of my point from the beginning: scientifically, we're at present unable to observe what things are like beyond the Planck time. The only honest answer that we can give, at this point, is "I don't know," with the option to change that once our capabilities develop to the point that we can obtain a clearer picture. But you're asserting that Aquinas' five ways are true, which is the same as asserting that you know what things were like beyond the Planck time, based on observations you're making in the here and now, which we've already established don't necessarily apply there. It's like flipping a coin and without seeing what side it lands on, you assert that it has to be heads because you've observed a coin landing on heads before. Nobody is doubting your observations, I'm just saying that, as with the five ways, they don't necessarily apply to the case under discussion, because there is another option: the coin can land on tails too, and the observations that inform the five ways don't have to exist beyond the Planck time.

If you had evidence that things operate the same way pre-big bang as they do within the quotes you made at the top of your post then that would be another thing entirely, but you don't, which means that true or false are both on the table for the claims made in the five ways. You are drastically overstating your case when you say they're proven, and nobody needs to prove you wrong before you should let go of unevidenced claims. The time to believe a claim is when it has evidence behind it, and as yet, the five ways simply don't. There is no rational justification for accepting the five ways based on what you've presented.

[Neo-Scholastic]

From the 5th Way – “We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way,…” (translation for the perplexed – the laws of nature are consistent)

What practical observation allows you to tell the difference between a universe that is ordered due to purposive design of an intelligent agent and one that is ordered through the workings of brute, undesigned necessity and chance?  What allows you to make that metaphysical distinction?

It simply will not do for someone to ask “Why is it necessary for effects to regularly follow causes?” and answer by saying, “Because they do so by necessity” unless of course that someone has a don’t know/don’t care attitude. I do not mean to disparage anyone for stopping their inquiry at this point. I only wish to point out the following. Deciding not to pursue the fundamentals of the human condition that run deeper than naturalist assumptions comes at great cost. One must forego the hope of reaching satisfactory answers those questions that matter most. People are left with doubting the veracity of rational though, accurate interpretation of sense data, personal identity, and the defensibility of value judgments. In short, one becomes a slave to blind impersonal forces in an absurd world, doubting of one’s own perceptions, and left bereft of purpose.

Jor, you are smart enough to know that each of these positions have a home in modern analytic philosophy. And as I recall, you have defended each: determinism, lack of privileged access, consciousness as an illusion, and most recently shucking the fundamental the fundamental laws of thought like the PNC.

I find your stances bleak.

That does not mean your stances are wrong, only that I think no inquiry into the role of intentionality will ever satisfy an eliminative materialist, which is the position you seem to hold. To me, that stance is self-refuting. When someone sees all subjective experiences, including rational reflection, personal identity, and as untrustworthy, he can only conclude that no answers can be derived. Personally, I think you know deep down that your stances are fatalistic and nihilistic.

But you have made a personal existential choice in that direction by taking naturalistic assumptions about causality and concept formation as the extreme limits of human knowledge.
At a minimum, I have tried to show that the Schoolmen tackled these same problems hundreds of years prior to Descartes’s radical skepticism discounting the carefully crafted distinctions and conceptual nuances of Scholastic thought. I find great value in that tradition and see clearly how many intractable paradoxes of modern philosophy become irrelevant. That does not mean I am right, only that I believe the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies.

So in a partial answer to your original question, I say the answer hinges on how best to think about necessity and chance.

Two notions cover chance: 1) the notion that any given event can happen completely without rhyme or reason or 2) the infeasibility of fully knowing the conditions on which outcomes depend making the outcome uncertain, i.e. indeterminate.

Some people, like Esquilax, hold the notion that the rules applying to all known physical objects need not apply to one particular object, the entire physical universe which is the biggest of them all. Perhaps. However, many assure me that at the most fundamental level of reality subatomic particles pop in and out of existence randomly without cause. If this is truly the case, then the logic of the Third Way applies. If it is possible that any given particle could cease to exist, then any object made of such particles would cease to exist if all the particles of which it is made ceased to exist all at once. If the object under consideration is the entire physical universe and if the physical universe is the sum total of all being, then...it would be possible at any given point in the history of the universe (whether extending eternally into the past or having a temporal start) to cease existing for no rhyme or reason. Since the physical universe continues to exist, a rational person can reasonably suppose that something sustains the physical universe, something whose existence is not subject to chance.

That leaves option 2, the existence of the physical universe depends on something necessary, but that whatever it is cannot be fully know. Except that's not true. We do know something about it: it must exist and it is absolutely requires to sustain existence every second of every day, regardless of how the whole ball of wax started in the first place.

Now as it relates to the Fifth Way either intentionality exists in nature or it does not. As stated earlier, I am not aware of any argument that an eliminative materialist would even consider. They have already ruled intentionality, including their own, as an illusion.

[Angrboda]

What practical observation allows you to tell the difference between a universe that is ordered due to purposive design of an intelligent agent and one that is ordered through the workings of brute, undesigned necessity and chance?  What allows you to make that metaphysical distinction?

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It simply will not do for someone to ask “Why is it necessary for effects to regularly follow causes?” and answer by saying, “Because they do so by necessity” unless of course that someone has a don’t know/don’t care attitude. I do not mean to disparage anyone for stopping their inquiry at this point. I only wish to point out the following. Deciding not to pursue the fundamentals of the human condition that run deeper than naturalist assumptions comes at great cost. One must forego the hope of reaching satisfactory answers those questions that matter most. People are left with doubting the veracity of rational though, accurate interpretation of sense data, personal identity, and the defensibility of value judgments. In short, one becomes a slave to blind impersonal forces in an absurd world, doubting of one’s own perceptions, and left bereft of purpose.

Jor, you are smart enough to know that each of these positions have a home in modern analytic philosophy. And as I recall, you have defended each: determinism, lack of privileged access, consciousness as an illusion, and most recently shucking the fundamental the fundamental laws of thought like the PNC.

I find your stances bleak.

That does not mean your stances are wrong, only that I think no inquiry into the role of intentionality will ever satisfy an eliminative materialist, which is the position you seem to hold. To me, that stance is self-refuting. When someone sees all subjective experiences, including rational reflection, personal identity, and as untrustworthy, he can only conclude that no answers can be derived. Personally, I think you know deep down that your stances are fatalistic and nihilistic.

But you have made a personal existential choice in that direction by taking naturalistic assumptions about causality and concept formation as the extreme limits of human knowledge.
At a minimum, I have tried to show that the Schoolmen tackled these same problems hundreds of years prior to Descartes’s radical skepticism discounting the carefully crafted distinctions and conceptual nuances of Scholastic thought. I find great value in that tradition and see clearly how many intractable paradoxes of modern philosophy become irrelevant. That does not mean I am right, only that I believe the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies.

So in a partial answer to your original question, I say the answer hinges on how best to think about necessity and chance.

Two notions cover chance: 1) the notion that any given event can happen completely without rhyme or reason or 2) the infeasibility of fully knowing the conditions on which outcomes depend making the outcome uncertain, i.e. indeterminate.

Some people, like Esquilax, hold the notion that the rules applying to all known physical objects need not apply to one particular object, the entire physical universe which is the biggest of them all. Perhaps. However, many assure me that at the most fundamental level of reality subatomic particles pop in and out of existence randomly without cause. If this is truly the case, then the logic of the Third Way applies. If it is possible that any given particle could cease to exist, then any object made of such particles would cease to exist if all the particles of which it is made ceased to exist all at once. If the object under consideration is the entire physical universe and if the physical universe is the sum total of all being, then...it would be possible at any given point in the history of the universe (whether extending eternally into the past or having a temporal start) to cease existing for no rhyme or reason. Since the physical universe continues to exist, a rational person can reasonably suppose that something sustains the physical universe, something whose existence is not subject to chance.

That leaves option 2, the existence of the physical universe depends on something necessary, but that whatever it is cannot be fully know. Except that's not true. We do know something about it: it must exist and it is absolutely requires to sustain existence every second of every day, regardless of how the whole ball of wax started in the first place.

Now as it relates to the Fifth Way either intentionality exists in nature or it does not. As stated earlier, I am not aware of any argument that an eliminative materialist would even consider. They have already ruled intentionality, including their own, as an illusion.

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Thank you for your response, Chad. If I have a reply, it will come later.

[Angrboda]

What practical observation allows you to tell the difference between a universe that is ordered due to purposive design of an intelligent agent and one that is ordered through the workings of brute, undesigned necessity and chance?  What allows you to make that metaphysical distinction?

It simply will not do for someone to ask “Why is it necessary for effects to regularly follow causes?” and answer by saying, “Because they do so by necessity” unless of course that someone has a don’t know/don’t care attitude. I do not mean to disparage anyone for stopping their inquiry at this point.

I don't think naturalists do stop at this point, but they do stop at substituting metaphysics for physics and cosmology.

I only wish to point out the following. Deciding not to pursue the fundamentals of the human condition that run deeper than naturalist assumptions comes at great cost. One must forego the hope of reaching satisfactory answers those questions that matter most.

How would finding an answer that is fundamentally wrong ever prove satisfactory?

People are left with doubting the veracity of rational though, accurate interpretation of sense data, personal identity, and the defensibility of value judgments. In short, one becomes a slave to blind impersonal forces in an absurd world, doubting of one’s own perceptions, and left bereft of purpose.

I think you're being overly emotional. People find meaning in the same way they've always found meaning, by experiencing it.

Jor, you are smart enough to know that each of these positions have a home in modern analytic philosophy. And as I recall, you have defended each: determinism, lack of privileged access, consciousness as an illusion, and most recently shucking the fundamental the fundamental laws of thought like the PNC.

I find your stances bleak.

That does not mean your stances are wrong, only that I think no inquiry into the role of intentionality will ever satisfy an eliminative materialist, which is the position you seem to hold. To me, that stance is self-refuting. When someone sees all subjective experiences, including rational reflection, personal identity, and as untrustworthy, he can only conclude that no answers can be derived. Personally, I think you know deep down that your stances are fatalistic and nihilistic.

No, I know no such thing. I think you are projecting. But the proof lies in the pudding. If a materialist account of intentionality satisfies the data, why would you go with any other stance? As long as we're being candid, I see you as having stopped the inquiry into intentionality at a point which makes you nervous and inserted your own "don't care" answer as to what it really means. I feel that simply bluntly asserting that there is intentionality without a mechanism by which it exists is simply throwing up one's hands and saying "it's magic." That answer has the virtue of being easy to assert, but at the cost of most likely being wrong.

But you have made a personal existential choice in that direction by taking naturalistic assumptions about causality and concept formation as the extreme limits of human knowledge.
At a minimum, I have tried to show that the Schoolmen tackled these same problems hundreds of years prior to Descartes’s radical skepticism discounting the carefully crafted distinctions and conceptual nuances of Scholastic thought. I find great value in that tradition and see clearly how many intractable paradoxes of modern philosophy become irrelevant. That does not mean I am right, only that I believe the Principle of Sufficient Reason applies.

I don't know what you mean when you say the PSR applies here.

So in a partial answer to your original question, I say the answer hinges on how best to think about necessity and chance.

Two notions cover chance: 1) the notion that any given event can happen completely without rhyme or reason or 2) the infeasibility of fully knowing the conditions on which outcomes depend making the outcome uncertain, i.e. indeterminate.

Some people, like Esquilax, hold the notion that the rules applying to all known physical objects need not apply to one particular object, the entire physical universe which is the biggest of them all. Perhaps. However, many assure me that at the most fundamental level of reality subatomic particles pop in and out of existence randomly without cause. If this is truly the case, then the logic of the Third Way applies. If it is possible that any given particle could cease to exist, then any object made of such particles would cease to exist if all the particles of which it is made ceased to exist all at once. If the object under consideration is the entire physical universe and if the physical universe is the sum total of all being, then...it would be possible at any given point in the history of the universe (whether extending eternally into the past or having a temporal start) to cease existing for no rhyme or reason. Since the physical universe continues to exist, a rational person can reasonably suppose that something sustains the physical universe, something whose existence is not subject to chance.

I don't think this follows. That the universe has not ceased to exist is no indication that it cannot do so. I also think you're making a straw man of position #1.

That leaves option 2, the existence of the physical universe depends on something necessary, but that whatever it is cannot be fully know. Except that's not true. We do know something about it: it must exist and it is absolutely requires to sustain existence every second of every day, regardless of how the whole ball of wax started in the first place.

No, this is an argument from ignorance. "We don't know" is still an option.

Now as it relates to the Fifth Way either intentionality exists in nature or it does not. As stated earlier, I am not aware of any argument that an eliminative materialist would even consider. They have already ruled intentionality, including their own, as an illusion.

I would appreciate it if you'd make the attempt. I'm genuinely curious as to the form such an argument would take. As I see it, the fifth way depends on such an argument, and without it, the argument is unsound. (Intentionality can exist in the universe without the universe being governed by it.)

[Angrboda]

The Vinegar Tasters, is a traditional subject in Chinese religious painting. The allegorical composition depicts the three founders of China's major religious and philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The theme in the painting has been interpreted as favoring Taoism and critical of the others.

The three men are dipping their fingers in a vat of vinegar and tasting it; one man reacts with a sour expression, one reacts with a bitter expression, and one reacts with a sweet expression. The three men are Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi, respectively. Each man's expression represents the predominant attitude of his religion: Confucianism saw life as sour, in need of rules to correct the degeneration of people; Buddhism saw life as bitter, dominated by pain and suffering; and Taoism saw life as fundamentally good in its natural state.

Wikipedia | The Vinegar Tasters

[Esquilax]

Some people, like Esquilax, hold the notion that the rules applying to all known physical objects need not apply to one particular object, the entire physical universe which is the biggest of them all.

While this is true- rules that apply within the interior of something do not necessarily apply to the thing itself from outside- the other thing is that I also assert that the physical laws need not apply during those periods in which the universe operated differently than it does now, that those physical laws are properties of the universe in its current expansionary state, and not globally applying principles operant at every state of the universe's being. This is well supported by the current data.

However, many assure me that at the most fundamental level of reality subatomic particles pop in and out of existence randomly without cause. If this is truly the case, then the logic of the Third Way applies.

Not based on what you've presented here, but what it does mean is that the first way no longer applies. At best, all you've done is remove one argument from the discussion definitively in order to confirm another.

If it is possible that any given particle could cease to exist, then any object made of such particles would cease to exist if all the particles of which it is made ceased to exist all at once. If the object under consideration is the entire physical universe and if the physical universe is the sum total of all being, then...it would be possible at any given point in the history of the universe (whether extending eternally into the past or having a temporal start) to cease existing for no rhyme or reason. Since the physical universe continues to exist, a rational person can reasonably suppose that something sustains the physical universe, something whose existence is not subject to chance.

This doesn't follow at all. I mean, it starts out not following since the third way assumes a whole lot of things it doesn't bother to demonstrate, but even if you were one hundred percent right here, it doesn't follow that since the universe continues to exist, this means it must exist. In a universe that could pop out of existence spontaneously, every single moment prior to that happening you would be able to say that the physical universe continues to exist, therefore it always will. Everything has never happened before, prior to the first time that it happens, that doesn't at all mean that all things that have never happened thus far are impossible. I would have thought this was obvious.

That leaves option 2, the existence of the physical universe depends on something necessary, but that whatever it is cannot be fully know. Except that's not true. We do know something about it: it must exist and it is absolutely requires to sustain existence every second of every day, regardless of how the whole ball of wax started in the first place.

I'm sorry, how did you determine that the universe, regardless of its status within the arbitrary philosophical metric that you insist on, requires outside sustenance? Don't reply with more philosophy, don't attempt to define this into existence: you've made a claim about an objectively real object, and thus this claim is testable. Provide real evidence that it's true, if you can. I don't intend to accept a priori "I know it because I know it," claims are justification for further claims.

[Redbeard The Pink]

I'm not 100% certain I'm getting everything I'm supposed to out of that "5 ways" thing (this is the first time I've seen it laid out), but the assertion appears to ultimately be this:


The laws of nature are consistent, therefore they must have been invented to a purpose and are actively maintained by an agent, lest they change, and that agent is Gaud.


I've actually been dealing with a similar argument in a different thread, and my response is pretty much the same: ummm...what? Why?


By what logical imperative does the consistency of the Universe require constant attention? I was recently told that I "couldn't account for" Universal norms without accepting the presence of something to maintain them, but was then given no satisfactory answer as to why the laws of physics should need persistent minding or why we would expect them to change in the absence of someone to change them. The conclusion here doesn't seem to follow the assertion at all.

[Pizza]

Arguments for the "this we call God" used to support anthropomorphite views of "God," lolz.
Broken records for broken records: Anthropomorphism is stupid and the fact religious anthropomorphites keep arguing for it with arguments that don't support, but in fact support the opposite of it is hilarious. Lol at "degree of intelligence = anthropomorphite deity." Please Christians stop doing this. Just stop arguing for Christianity with deistic and non-theistic "this we call God" arguments.


In all seriousness, please stop using these philosophical arguments if you are too chicken and intellectual bankruptcy take them to their rational and intellectually honest conclusion: inhuman/impersonal/alien god because the disanalogies between humanity and thing called God are too powerful.