RE: The Principle of Contingent Causation: The Impossibility of Infinite Regress.
July 3, 2023 at 9:43 am
(July 3, 2023 at 9:07 am)Belacqua Wrote: No, that's not what the argument says.
It sounds as if you are anthropomorphizing the First Cause by calling it a being, with the indefinite article.
Thumpalumpacus is not trying to anthropomorphize the first cause but the OP is because he is trying to prove that god exists.
But the so-called first cause, if it exists, could be natural. The discovery of the quantum nature of subatomic reality shows us that no particular prior condition is either necessary or sufficient for some physical events such as radioactive decay, the behavior of electrons and photons, and potentially for the appearance of the physical universe itself out of a background of quantum fluctuations.
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"
