The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.

[Angrboda]

[The Architect Of Fate]

Look, it's very simple. If Christians are right, then we're giving you a gift of Priceless Value in telling you about Christ and the Gospel, since the Reward is Eternal Happiness for those who get it right. Those who get it right earlier on even moreso. If, however, we're wrong, then we're just wrong, and it's all meaningless anyway. And if morality is subjective, since we subjectively intend to do good, then that should be good under Atheism also, lol.

If I'm right then you lived and devoted yourself to a lie and in some cases pushed horrific social policies based on that lie and even worst you spread and defended that lie. If that doesn't bother you then that's very telling.If you are right then the universe is truly a nonsensical place where people get rewards for blindly accepting rubbish thus reducing this supposed eternal happiness to rubbish. Frankly in such a universe hell is preferable. Oh and were not even going to get into the fact of what will happen to you if the Muslims are right 

[The Grand Nudger]

GN, you seem to be missing the point of what a cumulative case is. All the factors mentioned add to the cumulative case for Christ. It doesn't have to be any one of them in isolation. Btw, Scripture and Catholic Teaching forbid lying and bearing false witness, as false witnesses lyingly did against Christ at His Trial. We are not bearing false witness or lying. We are bearing witness to the Truth, like the Apostles and Martyrs for Christ did. It's true we've not directly seen Christ Risen as they did. But other than that, as they experienced Him, we've experienced Him too, and thus bear true witness to Him Who is Truth. I'm content to leave it at that for now. Pray and seek, and you will find the Truth. Those who want the Truth will find it. The evidence has already been given.

The plural form of shit is not evidence. You've done nothing but peddle shit.

[Bucky Ball]

NX was totally lying for Jebus, (lying for Jebus is still lying) when he falsely claimed I took the paragraph about Baptism of Desire "out of context.

1. It's always been a part of his cult. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-...-of-desire
2. Real Catholic theologians (which he is not) don't buy his crap. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-...-of-desire
3. "It further states that "[f]or catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_of...crament%22

[no one]

So, it is painfully obvious pissant has never had an original thought.
Have you ever decided against bering false witness?

You fabricate information on trumpian levels.

[Angrboda]

Successively adding what an infinite number of times? That sounds like begging the question. You need to prove this premise: "By successive addition, I can get to an Actual Infinite". Your response is: "If I successively add an infinite number of times, I can".

It does not prove the point. When you successively add numbers 1,2,3 on the paper, why don't you get to an Actual Infinite? According to you, "If I successively add an infinite number of times, I can". So do that, and then I'll concede the argument.

If by "do that" you mean perform the task then I think you are confused, as if I am adding an infinite number of times or for an infinite amount of time then the task never finishes and so it isn't in any sense performed [to completion].  That's because infinite series, my additions in this case, never end, and so I never stop.

Here is the point from two eminent philosophers who I suspect know a sight more than you do about the subject:

@16:40 - 18:40

Adrian Moore, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford and author of The Infinite
Alex Malpass, Philosophy, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol

Nishant Xavier: Do you acknowledge now that you were incorrect about the possibility of an infinite series as I have illustrated here?

[polymath257]

Nishant said: "For every Being Bn, if it is temporal, it depends on a prior being in the timeline, Bn-1."

Polymath said: "Prove  this."

Every being Bn that is temporal begins to exist at some point in the timeline. Therefore, it depends on a prior being Bn-1 that already existed at a prior point in the timeline.

You are assuming your conclusion. Why must something that begins be dependent on something previous?

And this being Bn-1, if itself temporal, depends on a prior being, Bn-2. And so on and so forth, until the beginning of time. Since there is no B0, the Final Being, the First Being, B1, is non-Temporal, i.e. Eternal.

Sorry, but you didn't prove your claim. You merely restated it.

Btw, while I respect St. Thomas, and Dr. Craig, the Argument from Contingency, to the best of my knowledge, has never been formulated mathematically before. It's an absolutely solid argument, and many have become Theists because of it. I think even more will as the mathematical formulation of the argument gets out. That some Atheists may not believe is true, yet the conclusion is certain: An Eternal First Being exists, non-Temporal, responsible for subsequent Beings B2 to Bn beginning to exist in the Universe.

Nope. it is mathematically full of holes. You assume that things are indexed by the  positive natural numbers, which is well ordered and thereby is equivalent to your conclusion. In other words, you are again assuming your conclusion. There is NOTHING mathematically problematic about an infinite regress. In fact, such are a standard aspect of the mathematics of  the infinite.

As for other issues, yes, Dr. Craig, a Professional Philosopher, has written extensively on some of the absurdities the idea that a successive addition forming an actual infinite would lead to, and I agree with him. It appears even you do on that particular point.

Craig is a mathematical dolt. He likes to talk a bout Hilbert Hotel but clearly does NOT understand it, even at the level of an upper level undergraduate.

If so, consider this syllogism:

1. An actual infinite cannot be formed by successive addition (which you said you agree with above)
2. The temporal series of past events is a series formed by successive addition.
3. Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

Your assumption 1 is incomplete. An infinite cannot be formed from successive addition *from a finite start*. But that is NOT what happens in an infinite temporal regress. So, that means that 2 is wrongly stated: the temporal sequence is formed from successive addition *to an already infinite temporal sequence*.

You are trying to deny the conclusion, while saying you admit the premise.

Nope. I deny your formulation of both 1 and 2.

Your words: "NOBODY assumes that an infinite can be obtained by 'successive addition' from a finite amount." 

Now, as to your claim "time was always infinite in the past": what you are really saying is 3 above. Yet, you agree with 1.

[size=undefined]

No, I do not. 1 assumes a finite starting point, which is precisely what I deny for the temporal sequence.[/size]

Do you then disagree with 2? If so, you need to establish it. The premise is at least more evident than its denial.

[size=undefined]

Successive addition *from what*? The temporal sequence is 'formed' by successive addition to the  previous temporal sequence. At ALL times, that sequence is infinite. There is no start, which is what 1 assumes.
[/size]

If the universe is roughly 15 Billion years old, give or take, that is an independent confirmation it is not actually infinite.

[size=undefined]

And, when quantum gravity is taken into account, that event 13.7 billion years ago is more of a phase transition that a creation event.[/size]

Again, all you have to do to realize the Universe cannot be actually infinite in the past, given that we got here, is count backward into the past. 

[size=undefined]

And it has not been shown that the universe is finite into the past. The current expansion phase is finite into the  past, but that is not the same thing.[/size]

You claim it is a false analogy to say that if we started from 1,2,3, we will never get to infinity, but allegedly, starting from infinity, we can get to 0.

[size=undefined]
Yes, absolutely. Once you jump to a specific point, the rest is finite.[/size]

All you have to do is count backward in time. If we started from -infinity, we would never get to 0. We got to 0, therefore we didn't start from -infinity.

[size=undefined]

Once again, you are assuming there was a *start*. That is precisely what an infinite regress denies. You need to make an argument that there was a start while NOT assuming an infinite regress is impossible.[/size]

[Nishant Xavier]

Grandizer, ok, thanks for that; any comments on what I said to Polymath earlier on, that if you start writing 1,2,3, etc on pieces of paper, will you, or others after you, ever get to infinity? If not, and he seemed to agree this series formed by successive addition would always be finite, so if you do too, then why doesn't that apply in reverse? If we imagine points on the timeline to be -15 BN (give or take), when time began, then it is clear that, with the elapse of seconds, we can finally get to the present, t=0, at some point, which is today. But if it was actually infinite, how did it ever become a finite number in the first place? I asked the same in reverse when I said, if you did get to an Actual Infinite on one page, what number were you on 10 pages earlier? You see, the difference between the finite and the infinite cannot be transcended by successive addition; that's what we're saying. So would you agree with that, or would you dispute it? It seems to me that, if we agree that by writing numbers on pieces of paper, we, or others after us, could never reach an Actual Infinite, then the same applies in reverse. Granted that we got to 0, we did not start infinitely many years ago. We started, according to some, around 13.7 BN years ago, and according to others, around 15-20 BN years ago.

I get what you're saying, and I sympathize with the intuition that leads you to think this way. The problem, however, is what does it even mean to start from infinity? Just as we can't make sense of "ending in infinity", we can't make sense of "starting from infinity". Or at least, I can't. So you will have to make clear what you mean by this exactly, to make your conclusion as persuasive as possible.

Ok. Here's a formulation I can think of:

1. If we started from -infinity, we would never get to -15 BN years (or any other finite number).
2. If we never got to -15 BN years, we would never get to t=0, today.
3. We got to today, ergo 1 is false.

The issue here is we can never transcend the difference between the finite and the infinite by successive addition, any more than we can reach an actual number called infinite by adding digits on a piece of paper. Infinity conceived in thus way is a theoretical abstraction. When we say something goes on until infinity, we mean it will never end. Therefore if something did end, it did not go on till infinity. For the same reason, if we did get to the present time, we did not start an infinite amount of time ago (otherwise we would never get to a finite point in the past), but a finite time ago. Why can I count backward and allegedly reach -infinity from 0 but clearly not reach +infinity starting from 0?

Keep in mind the argument that brought us to this point (1) for every contingent being Bn, by definition of being contingent, it depends on a prior being Bn-1. You, me, our parents, the Earth and Universe etc being examples. (2) but if Bn-1 itself is contingent, then it depends on Bn-2 etc. And since this series cannot go on forever, otherwise it would not have terminated with us, we have (3) the First Being in existence, B1, is not contingent, since there is no B0, but exists non-contingently.

One doesn't even have to bring Infinity into it were it not that Atheists feel obligated to do so to avoid the unpleasant conclusion (3). For all finite n, whether n is 10 BN or 10 TN, the above conclusion holds. One can only evade it by arbitrarily postulating that the number of beings in existence is infinite.

Angrboda, your own video did not say what you think it said. Am on my phone now and will post relevant excerpts from it shortly.

[Silver]

If you have to argue for your god's existence, then your god doesn't exist.

[Nishant Xavier]

Non Sequitur. If we have to argue for the Big Bang, or say for the Beginning of the Universe, then it never happened? Doesn't follow.

Angrboda, your video presenter first of all begs the question when says, "what if you have an infinite amount of time". That an infinite amount of seconds is possible what needs to be demonstrated. Therefore, her reasoning is circular and assumes what she needs to prove. It's like this:

Proof that an infinite number formed by successive addition is (allegedly) possible:

1. Assume that you have an infinite number of seconds formed by successive addition.
2. Therefore you allegedly can get to an infinite number with an infinite number of seconds.

It's hopelessly, irremediably fallacious, and cannot get off the ground. You need to prove that an actually infinite number of things can be formed by successive addition without assuming an actually infinite number of seconds formed by successive addition of one second to another already exists.

And in 17:20 onward, the next person in the video says, indeed, you will never reach the point, where you can say, finished, I've done it, I've reached infinite. That concedes the point. That Atheism needs such fallacious claims as actual infinites formed by successive addition is enough to reject it.