(September 23, 2015 at 2:26 pm)robvalue Wrote: It's no different to the Kalam, it just tries to set up apparent paradoxes and then special pleads something into existence to fix the paradox.... It seems to show a discomfort with an infinite past and an infinite chain of events also, which amounts to an argument from incredulity.
You are making a very common mistake. Ways 1 thru 3 are really quite different. Kalam-style arguments do not distinguish between accidentally ordered and essentially ordered sequences. Also, Ways 1 thru 3 do not make the artificial distinction between what ‘begins to exist’ and that which may exist eternally.
It is also a common misunderstanding that an eternally existing universe works against the Ways 1 thru 3. It does not. The Thomist argument take no stand as to whether the universe had a beginning or not.
(September 23, 2015 at 2:49 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Philosophers generally have regarded such arguments as bullshit without using very modern science at all. They are fallacious drivel, not worth thinking about.The first sentence is an argument from authority. The second sentence is hand-waving. I invite you to submit, in your own words, the refutations you find compelling.
