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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:07 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 8:53 pm)jstrodel Wrote: How is it circular logic? God explains the problem of everything requiring a cause but avoiding a regression of causes. Where is it circular? Here: (April 1, 2013 at 8:43 pm)jstrodel Wrote: 2. God is self sufficient, and requires no more cause to exist than God's own existence In order for god to have a cause for his existence, he has to...already exist. What if he doesn't exist? Then there is no cause for his existence, by your above logic. You must presuppose him and use his own existence to prove that he exits.
(April 1, 2013 at 8:53 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The argument is not intended to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God, it is meant to show people with less prejudices and less of an attitude that in fact the concept of God fits in with a metaphysical order and solves metaphysical problems. But...he doesn't. He contradicted the outline you gave, and so you presented special pleading to say that the only requirement for his existence would be his existence. Okay...he would have to exist before that argument could claim he existed, but you bypass that step by presupposing him.
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:09 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The parts require a cause though, because it is obvious that physical objects require causes, while the whole may not.
That makes absolutely no sense.
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:09 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Quote:That cause includes god.
The parts require a cause though, because it is obvious that physical objects require causes, while the whole may not.
Why would an object in and of itself necessarily require a cause to exist? To exist in its current form, maybe (depending on how you define "cause") but why for the atoms themselves to be there?
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:40 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 9:09 pm)Mr Infidel Wrote: (April 1, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The parts require a cause though, because it is obvious that physical objects require causes, while the whole may not.
That makes absolutely no sense.
I'm having Post deja vu....
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:42 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 8:31 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Mir Infidel, God does not require a cause for his existence in the same way that observable, caused, finite entities require causes.
How do you know that God requires no cause for his existence? Is this one of the things God told you when you were having your hallucinations?
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 1, 2013 at 9:43 pm
(April 1, 2013 at 8:43 pm)jstrodel Wrote: 1. If something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist.
2. God is self sufficient, and requires no more cause to exist than God's own existence
Why it is unreasonable to believe that God's existence is subject to a different understanding of causality than peoples?
2 directly contradicts 1. If 2 is true, 1 cannot be true. If 1 is not true, then the whole exercise is futile, because we must accept that something can exist without a cause. Therefore, universe. And tooth fairies.
Why even bother trying to build a logical chain if your second link is an exclusion that breaks the chain? To paraphrase the little bald kid in The Matrix, there is no chain. And therefore, no logic. And therefore, the only conditions under which god can exist.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 2, 2013 at 11:43 pm
Well obviously God made himself.
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 2, 2013 at 11:55 pm
If we go by the premise
"everything requires a cause for existence"
It would imply at least one thing is the cause of it's own existence. Cause is not necessarily linear.
Atoms and material things obviously are not causing themselves to exist.
Supernatural powerful force however would be able to be causing it's own existence to exist, specially if it's a magical type being that causes other existents to exist.
Therefore "everything requires a cause" would prove a Creator upon reflection. However, it's highly disputable if "everything requires a cause".
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 3, 2013 at 2:08 am
Everything cannot require a cause. That would be illogical. But everything material that we know of needs a cause. Materialist dilemma.
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RE: [split] Critical Thinking Skills
April 3, 2013 at 2:11 am
(April 3, 2013 at 2:08 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Everything cannot require a cause. That would be illogical. But everything material that we know of needs a cause. Materialist dilemma.
Actually, it can be quite logical. Logic itself requires cause... itself. It's circular. Same way God causes God isn't illogical. Why wouldn't he? Rules of metaphysics could be anything, why do some assume logic even enters into the equation: beyond me. 
Nobody had to say it had to be true, of course 
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