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The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
Mindless parrot:
an increasing number of Atheists (more than 55% according to a recent poll) believe in Aliens, and some even hold to the hypothesis that Aliens created life on Earth.

Fake Messiah:
Total brainwashed nonsense that can only come from someone living in a religious bubble.


It didn't take a lot of suds to complete that mission.
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
"Atheists believe in X" is nothing but a Red Herring and it does not contribute to the discussion.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 6, 2023 at 4:54 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Brewer, ok, you can do that. But no matter how much dirt you pile up, the amount will always be finite. An actual infinite cannot be formed by successive addition.

I don't think I mentioned dirt and the 'digging the hole' was an analogy which apparently you lack the ability to grasp. Basically you are a childish idiot incapable of rational thought which you continue to demonstrate post after post.

Or a POE.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental. 
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 6, 2023 at 4:54 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Deese, no, I'm not. I understand what Atheism is better than you, and that's why I know it's not incompatible with (although it doesn't require) a belief in Aliens.
Compatibility is irrelevant. You just as well could have stated that 32% of atheists like the color blue. So what?

No, you dont understand atheism, otherwise you would not have brought up Stalin. Remember?
You also dont understand how ancestral trees work. Remember your silly statement about other trees than m-eves having died out?

You also understand that your pet philosophy, which is based on medieval human intuition, completely fails at the moment of the big bang, where time and space cease to exist, and where probably causality (as we know it) ceases to exist. The universe itself qualifies as a potential first cause. But you dont understand any of this, because you cant grasp the concept of "there is no time nor a place". Thats why you keep on rambling about causes (were probably no causation can be), and eternities where there is no time. Thats why you talk about infinities (mathematial and real ones arent identical by the way) like a 6 year old, because you have the understanding of a 6 year old. This sounds plausible and convincing to any other person who has the understanding of a 6 year old, but not to people with higher educations (and some of them pointed all of this out to you, yet, as per usual, you choose to disingenuously ignore them).

Its basically the same trick W. L. Craig uses: Apply everday intutions to a situation that is all but intuitive (relativity: limited speed of light, quantum mechanics: random, uncaused eventss, effects befor caues, probabilities instead of events, collapsing wave functions, etc.). (ab)use science, preferable out of context, or just make shit up, misquote/quote mine. In case you get soundly refuted, just pretend it didnt happen, and keep on presenting of what by htn you must know are lies, or/and continue throwing more shit that the wall.

After all, you dont WANT to uderstand any of his, because, just like Aquin you are engaged in motivated reasoning.
Cetero censeo religionem delendam esse
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 6, 2023 at 4:54 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: You can never show that a B1, a First Being does not exist,
And you just admitted to making unfalsifiable claims

(July 6, 2023 at 4:54 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: And because an Infinite Number of Beings cannot exist, therefore, a First Being exists,
It could be two first beings in parallel. It could be an infinite number of beings, in parallel. It does not even have to be "beings", no matter how hard you stomp your feet.

How many fallacies was that? I stopped counting? Was there a fallacy sale nearby where you live and you went shopping?
Cetero censeo religionem delendam esse
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: No one, for future reference, if you want a response from me, try not to use silly insults and expletives in the same post. And also formulate some kind of argument like Angrboda did. To the implication of what you claimed, it is false; God has always revealed Himself to humanity in various ways since man began to exist; not least through Conscience, which we're going to discuss below, through the design in the Universe, through the very principle of contingency we're discussing etc. Unless you want to claim there was a time when man didn't have a Conscience, your argument fails.

@Angrboda

Quote:"An argument not given need not be refuted. If you're depending upon another result, you need to introduce it.

Ok, then. Since you asked. Let's deduce Property III of the First Cause:

Property III of the First Cause: The First Cause is a Supremely Good Personal Being, the origin of the objective Moral Law we discern on our Conscience.

Proof of Property III: There are 3 lines of evidence (1) from moral intuition (2) from the absurdity of subjective morality (3) from the inability of Moral Philosophers who are Moral Subjectivists to consistently maintain the requirements of subjective morality (as I mentioned in the case of Michael Ruse on the other thread, who in 1 place claims they are subjective, yet in another says, they are as certain as objective and necessarily true mathematical facts, something like: "the person who says murder and rape are fine is as wrong as one who says 2+2=5")

First, from basic and nearly universal human moral intuition. Virtually, every one holds to some properly basic moral Truths (even those who don't see that a Necessary First Cause of Goodness is entailed by those Truths) that are objectively binding on all, for e.g. that murder, rape, theft are wrong, or that we are (objectively) bound to care for the Poor, for the hungry, etc, which is correct; that comes from the Image of God in Man, and Woman, and is part of what the Bible, and St. Paul, and St. Augustine and St. Thomas call the Moral Law of Nature implanted within us.

As to the content of our moral intuitions, intuition generally is not a reliable indicator of truth, or even realism.  We have intuitions undergirding our belief in free will, but so far the evidence against free will is stacked against it being real.  And people have intuitions that they sense the divine, the so-called "sensus divinitatis," which is conspicuous in the fact that it isn't uniformly experienced.  Arguments can be made, but it is not hard to imagine that a mere sense of the numinous or of unusual proprioception such as those exposed in the magnetic helmet experiments could be easily conflated with a more specific sensation of the divine, but erroneously so.  And experiments have shown that a large percentage of people use Aristotlean intuitions about motion in predicting the movement of objects despite the fact that Aristotlean principles of motion are wrong.  And there's the whole question of folk psychology -- the lay theory that we have things like beliefs and emotions and that these mental quantities interact with each other.  Psychological studies refute such intuitions as often as they confirm them.  So the content of moral intuitions themselves is not evidence beyond being evidence that we have such intuitions.  It is not reliable evidence toward the validity of the content of such intuitions.  And more, even if we were to grant the intuitions some validity, the presence of such intuitions doesn't tell us why we have them and so they aren't probative of the question of where morals come from and whether they are objective facts or not.


(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Now, I agree that if you deny this moral fact, that moral Truths are objective, and hold to subjective morality, you can avoid the conclusion. The problem is nearly no one wants to hold rape or murder are subjective in the way that a choice of tea or coffee are. SM leads to gross absurdities.

If you want to be a Subjective Moralist, go for it. But have the intellectual (and moral) courage to follow through from your false premises to their grotesque conclusions. The true conclusion that would follow from subjective morality is that all law is impossible and nothing universally binding.

I need not do anything of the sort.  You seem to be under the impression that if you can defeat subjective morality, then that would demonstrate or at least abet the position of objective morality.  First of all, that's not a valid argument as it's an appeal to ignorance.  But more problematic is that we know of additional alternatives to the types or moral realism and moral relativism that populate your argument, so you are guilty of misapplication of the law of the excluded middle (aka a false dichotomy).  This is enough to dismiss your latter two issues pertaining to subjectivism.


(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: I will leave it at that for now as the question of whether Morality is Objective or Subjective (which does in fact have to be determined either from moral intuition; or from accepted moral Truths admitted by both sides) is not the immediate issue at hand here. 

Let's come to your question/objection, could the Moral Law have originated from some subordinate law-giver, and not the First Cause? In other words, is the First Cause of all being, the First Cause of all Goodness also, and was it He, or allegedly someone else, who implanted within us the moral obligation/objective moral Law we discern on our Conscience?

It's an interesting question and I'm just considering it for the first time. I would formulate my response like this: 
(1) moral Truths are necessary truths, not contingent truths. 

in modal logic, a necessary truth is one that is true in every possible world, for e.g. the laws of mathematics and logic.
a contingent truth or a possible truth is one that is true only in some p. worlds, for e.g. the laws of physics and science.

Moral Truths would come under the former category, unless one wants to argue one could be obliged to rape, murder, etc in some possible world, or that we are not bound to help the Poor, to feed the hungry etc could be possibly true.

Your latter comment is an appeal to consequences and is not of any merit as an argument. I don't know if you meant (1) as an argument; it's a bare assertion and can therefore be rejected.


(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: (2) necessary Truths like moral laws binding in every possible world could not have originated from a contingent being.

There is no evidence that moral laws do exist in every possible world. More importantly, you're simply asserting that moral laws are binding in every possible world, and then using that to argue that they must come from a necessary being or cause. Since existing in every possible world is the definition of a necessary entity, you have simply begged the question. Moreover we have reason to believe that your assertion is false, or at least highly doubtable.  Regardless of what one thinks of theories of morals based in evolution or subjectivism, they are at least plausible explanations for why we have such intuitions and are absolutely examples of morals coming from contingency.  Beyond that, this is a bare assertion and lacking any evidence or argument for it can be dismissed.   Additional problems remain beyond even these.

(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: (3) Therefore, they originated from the same necessarily existent First Cause, not some contingently existent intermediate being.

Upon examination of your arguments for the necessity of morals originating in a necessary being, all of them amount to either defective argument or bare assertion and so your conclusion itself can be dismissed without prejudice.

(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Will get back to the rest subsequently.

Please do.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
Hey mimic boy, why don't you quit chanting your hollow echoes, stop reciting your go to "gotchas" from your worn out, poorly written script and actually attempt to use that 1/16 watt bulb you call a brain?

Is that possible?
Can you formulate your own thoughts, like at all?


Why is it known everywhere on the planet, that hydrogen is the lightest, most abundant element in the universe?

Why is it known everywhere on the planet that the compound water, is made up hydrogen and oxygen elements?

Why is it known everywhere on the planet that certain atmospheric conditions lead to specific meteorological events?

Yet nowhere on the planet is this so called creator known?

Even amongst the religions themselves? 

Why are they so many different denominations, so many different sects, so many different interpretations?

It's almost like the whole fucking thing is just made up.
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 4, 2023 at 11:10 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: No one, for future reference, if you want a response from me, try not to use silly insults and expletives in the same post.

Thanks for telling us what we can and can't do. Your false entitlement is showing.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental. 
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
Thread starter:
No one, for future reference, if you want a response from me, try not to use silly insults and expletives in the same post.

First off asshat, I asked you several times, which you completely ignored. Then proceeded to parrot your way through a few threads.

You are like every other shitbag apologist to ever exist. You come through spouting your complete and utter nonsense, you forget your not in a room full of other mindless parrots. You double down on this nonsense, when the heathens you come to "enlighten" know your stupid book better than you do.

You completely ignore any questions that your little bag of drained, stock mageek buuk clichés cannot "justify".

When you get called out, you play the innocent wittwe victim.

Go back to the flock, and claim victory.

I may be a baby eating, kitten beating, heartless heathen, but I am not a rat.
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RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
(July 5, 2023 at 6:00 pm)Belacqua Wrote:
(July 5, 2023 at 1:27 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I'm pretty sure Aquinas was indeed a Christian.

I'm afraid that I'm not making the argument clear to you.

I apologize for taking your time and annoying you. I'll admit defeat and leave it here. 

Thank you for the conversation and good luck in the future.

Your argumentation isn't clear because the thinking behind it is muddled. I already know you will and cannot admit error on this. You're too emotionally invested.

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