Apologetics open challenge

[TheRocketSurgeon]

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I just don't take you very seriously. You don't give me any indication that you'll do what we do, and fairly discuss the topic while admitting to what is and isn't good evidence.

I am often haughty, smug, and in general behave like a pompous ass. I think if you look at the actual debate I had with Metis, you will see that I took a completely different tone, more differential and academic. Even if you do not take me seriously because of my personality, not taking the 5W seriously seems to me like an excuse to not actually engage with the ontological claims of Thomism.

Considering that Thomism was embraced by and remains the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, I don’t see how any self-respecting atheist can dismiss the 5W out of hand without properly weighing them against the objections of Descartes, Hume, and their successors.  To uncritically accept those objections represents an appeal to authority.

Why would I want to go through the trouble of engaging with you on a complex subject that will require a lot of effort…

The above notwithstanding, there is no shame deferring to the expertise of others. Not everyone is philosophically inclined and those who are have a wide range of topics on which to speculate.

The only reason I can see for doing the research would be if you wanted to know for yourself whether the 5W are valid rather than rely on the opinions of others. At the same time, I see that many atheists are content to say that all the ontological claims are invalid without doing the heavy lifting of actually demonstrating such.

… have I ever shown an unwillingness to engage on subjects of Biblical claims or claims related to religion, like science and philosophy? The fact that no one wants to engage with you is, to me, quite telling...

In my opinion you do not shy away from opining on various subjects. I have always considered you sincere even when I thought your ideas were flawed. I can only speculate on what you feel the lack of engagement with me reveals.

…for me to say that I'm not willing to engage you on a subject that I think you have too much emotional connection to have an honest conversation about, especially in light of the aggressiveness with which you are trying to manipulate us into that debate, is something you I hope you take a few minutes of your life to ponder.

I tend to adopt the tone of the thread. From the title alone, anyone can see that the OP was a boastful challenge.

Many atheists are willing to say flat-out that all logical demonstrations for the existence of God are flawed and then back away from actually revealing those flaws. When pressed they often say that they are no longer interested, feel doing so is beneath them, or that the 5W are so absurd that they hardly deserve attention. I feel justified in calling them out when they do so.

The premises I use are based on moderate realism and a specific theory of causation. I have indeed taken those criticisms to heart and have recently taken the extra step of supporting the philosophical foundations for the contested premises. That alone has taken a lot of work on my part. As a result, I am now unwilling to let those diversionary objections slide.  I escalated the challenge as a fight for the title, so to speak. I think I deserve a little bit of latitude for the bluster of my pre-smackdown trash talk.

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I can't remember with whom I had the discussion, but very soon after arriving on this forum I had a long and intense "discussion" (quotation marks indicate irony, here, since they just kept repeating themselves instead of addressing my counter-arguments) with someone about why presuming life exists because the conditions were set up before hand to make life exists, rather than life as we know it being a natural consequence of random (or perhaps not random if, as some cosmologists speculate, this is simply the way particles must interact) settings that comprise the universe. It leaked heavily over from cosmology into abiogenesis, which was fine by me since that's more my turf, but at no point was the person willing to acknowledge that life could even possibly have formed naturally, by "random" (not really random, since it's how the particles always interact, which they didn't realize is a fundamental conclusion of their original argument that the universe must have been designed for life to exist, even as they thought it was magically Created).

I originally discussed Aquinas with friends in Catholic seminary, back when I was in college, since I come from a heavily Catholic part of the country, but they were honest enough to admit that the Five Ways were not proof but supposition with which they simply felt comfortable assuming. When it's presented as "you can't refute this!", right off the bat, it tells me that you're not really willing to have the same sort of respectful conversation about it, acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, but have already made up your mind in a way that is impervious to reasoning... so why reason with you?

The haughty, insulting tone I do find annoying, yes, but as you point out that's often par for the course with an internet forum, and I don't truly hold that as a reason not to have discussions, simply that I identify it as an emotional reaction that tells me it's not worth talking about with someone who has such an irrational outlook on something. My advice is that you do the same, with atheists who behave that way. I would.