RE: Life as a Deist
March 3, 2013 at 12:26 am
(This post was last modified: March 3, 2013 at 12:36 am by genkaus.)
(March 2, 2013 at 10:53 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: And then on the other side of the coin we have the assumption that there is no god. It is what it is!
No one starts from that assumption - it is usually the conclusion one gets at.
(March 2, 2013 at 10:53 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: It looks thought out because of how everything works in unison based on fundamental laws set in place from the very beginning.
That's the point you are missing. Given that everything is based on the same fundamental laws, it would all necessarily work in unison. If it was some alternate universe based on another set of fundamental laws, then everything in it would be different, but it'll all still work in unison. The only place "thinking-out" is required to make things work in unison is when things which do not occur naturally are brought together to work in a way they wouldn't naturally.
(March 2, 2013 at 10:53 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: Hmm? No idea where you got this from:
[quote="FtR"]I'm not saying that life is in anyway proof of a Creator/God.
From your assumptions such as an all-knowing being would make this universe and no other. Or the one about products of natural laws working in harmony appear to have thought behind it.
(March 2, 2013 at 10:53 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: I'm not too sure about one of your fundamental propositions here:
"[The universe] is not governed by specific principles or ideas or concepts. Simply put, it is what it is."
Science is like a flashlight that lights up a room and shows us e.g. the furniture that was already there. I think it's obvious that the universe is governed by laws, whether we give it a label or not. Science has simply shown us those "principles, ideas & concepts" much like the flashlight shows us what was already in that room. So in essence, I agree that the "mode of enquiry" obviously started with us -- the conscious beings -- but what's contained within the findings of this enquiry has always existed i.e. the laws of the universe, which is the point I was first making. They are the things independent of us that are elegant and intricate.
The point you are missing is that these "laws" are the labels we attach to natural processes and events. We are the ones who make these labels and change them if and when better descriptors become available.
(March 2, 2013 at 11:12 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: To you it is meaningless because you reject all types of cause except efficient cause. Formal cause, material cause, and final cause all have no reference to space-time relationships. That does not prevent these other types of cause from affecting the flow of one event into the next. In fact they are essential to it.
The other three causes do have spatio-temporal reference. The material cause refers to what an object is made out of, i.e. referring to something that exists spatially. The formal cause refers to the form of the object, i.e. the spatio-temporal configuration the existent must have. The final cause refers to purpose, something that would occur after the thing comes into existence.
And you are ignoring the basic feature of causality. Any type of cause must temporally exist prior to the consequence.
(March 2, 2013 at 11:12 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: No one is suggesting that there was a time before time or space beyond space. All I am saying is that the activity of 'quantum vacuum' of the prenatal universe needs an initial and on-going propensity to create and a set of limiting conditions to govern its manifestation.
And how do you go from that to "god is outside time and space"?
