What makes people irrational thinkers?

[Belacqua]

he considers himself curious in a way that atheists/physicalists are not... to go beyond the brute facts of nature. And/or a different type of existential curiosity/angst, about purpose etc. Basically by 'want/need' I meant of a certain type of answers... that scientific enquiry cannot give

Yes, certainly. Curiosity is good. And I think we all agree that there are lots of answers science can't give, about lots of fields. 

... by definition almost, if it's considering the 'immaterial'/'transcendental'. Where in contrast, many athieists, myself included are less comfortable with speculation into the unknown and unknowable. And where you may think it is knowable, through logic, (eg the Five Ways etc), that remains an open question for me.

"Comfortable" seems like a good word here. It's about what we feel good doing. 

I agree that most of what we talk about remains an open question. Whether we can even, in theory, close the question is itself a question. If that makes some people want to leave it alone, I understand. 

Though I should probably not have brought Neo into this... but since you two often seem to agree I assumed you might think alike on this question... so apologies to either of you if you think that was an unfair conclusion to draw.

Neo knows a lot, and I respect his approach here. He never pretends to know more than he does, he never writes out-of-the-blue objections just to have a fight with people, he never claims unwarranted certainty. Most importantly, he can talk about these things without being insulting or vulgar. To me, how we behave on these forums is more immediately important than the topics we discuss -- metaphysics isn't likely to change our daily lives, but ethical behavior is something we develop only through practicing it. 

Just out of interest though, are you leaning Christianity, Abrahamic religions in general, or is the Five Ways as far you've got in your thinking?

Is "leaning" a typo for "learning"? Or is it a question about which way I'm inclined?

I find beauty and wisdom in the Abrahamic religions. The Five Ways are about the least interesting part of theology, as far as I'm concerned. I talk about them because other people keep bringing them up. 

William Blake or Martin Buber or Simone Weil are vastly more inspiring. 

But I'm learning different things. I just finished reading a book on Aristotle. Before that I read a book on the role of holy eccentrics in Confucianism. 

then that suggests to me a 'thing' with at least those five properties... as opposed to several things with one property... and thus a much more complex entity from that point of view

I see what you mean. Yes, the various ways of looking make it appear complex. As far as I know, all classical theology takes Divine Simplicity as a given. Because human beings can't see the entirety, we approach the issue in different ways, which give the impression that there are different parts of God. 

not-an-entity, as just somehow purely logic or whatever?, I just can't relate to that, and would argue that when most people think of a God they think of an entity of some sort, and as such something-not-nothing.

In classical theology, God is intelligible but not sensible. That is, known through the mind not the senses. This is why I say God is more like a number than like bigfoot. (Although the analogy with numbers, like all analogies, has its limits.) God is more like a principle than a physical object. More like the Good itself than a good person.

As for what most people think of God, this is not really interesting to me, unless it's in a sociological way. Most people think that Dan Brown and Stephen King are good literature, but that doesn't mean I have to pay attention to that. 

and calling it an 'uncaused cause' for instance, even if that's what the logic of essential series demands, doesn't really help answer that question of why, or at least how, there is something not nothing. In other words, it appears to be, from that POV, just another brute fact to be accepted without question.

Well, theology wants to show that since there is, obviously, something, that we can explain the existence of all that something through positing an intelligible eternal non-physical necessary something that has to be in order for the sensible stuff to be. They would claim that it isn't kicking the can down the road because it is the final explanation for things that science can't explain.

I understand that nobody here will accept that. 

how you define God; if you consider it something that existed prior to the creation of the universe. 

Augustine argued that it doesn't make sense to talk about a time prior to the beginning of time. If time begins, then there is no "before" time. God is the cause of time, but it doesn't make sense to talk about him existing "before" time. 

I've always wondered if the Rev. Lemaître knew Augustine's argument about time when he first came up with the idea of the Big Bang. 

Also there is some question about whether intelligible objects (e.g. numbers) require time for their existence. But I'm not going to start that argument up again.

Aristotle believed that the universe was eternal. Thomas agreed that evidence and logic can't demonstrate a beginning, but if Christians believe in one it's due to revelation. 

And as has been pointed out, the Five Ways are not arguments about temporal beginning points. Whether the universe had a temporal beginning or not is completely irrelevant to the Five Ways. 

The word "cause" in Aristotle and Thomas has a wider meaning than the modern term, which they would call "efficient cause." No matter how many times this fact gets typed out on this forum, people immediately go back to talking as if the Five Ways only address efficient cause. Then people bring up certain quantum events which seem not to have an efficient cause, as if that's a relevant argument, and that's when I leave the discussion, because I can see everybody's talking about irrelevant stuff. 

But the whole thing is very difficult. The Five Ways are far harder to get a handle on than some people think. To do them justice would require far more work than most of us are willing to put in.

---

the similarities between Freud and Plato

One thing to keep in mind is that after Lessing and Goethe, education in German-language countries gave enormous weight to Greek thought. It's no coincidence that the Three Big Guys -- Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, all rooted their thought in ancient Greece.