Tentatively Christian; looking for a reasonable discussion

[downbeatplumb]

An argument from tradition says "X is traditional, therefore x is true."

I'm saying "The definition of God as non-contingent existed long before the arguments. Therefore the definition of God was not invented to support these arguments."

What is a "god"
I have heard a lot of contradictory explanations so what is your take.

How in the world does the argument from tradition fallacy come into play here? I'm not saying the definition of God is true.

Again which one?

Is yours the not liking gays god? or the I am too lazy to learn science therefore the answer to all the hard questions is god god?

I don't think it even matters. You could replace God is any other word you prefer.

I replace the word god with the word non-existent.

[SteelCurtain]

These days I feel like anything you say or do comes with a double-serving of hubris. It's hard to accept one and reject another.

"These Days?" Didn't you register, like, yesterday? Did I miss something? Are you the reincarnation of someone else?

[Esquilax]

An argument from tradition says "X is traditional, therefore x is true."

I'm saying "The definition of God as non-contingent existed long before the arguments. Therefore the definition of God was not invented to support these arguments."

Well, given that I never once suggested that the definition of god was created specifically to defend that argument, I guess maybe the facepalm wasn't in order. The issue is that simply giving a definition doesn't prove what you're saying; the question under discussion is one of the nature of "uncaused" things, whether god could be one, whether that category even exists in reality, and so on. Your answer, simply defining god as uncaused, is not only criminally lazy, it also doesn't help; you can't demonstrate the efficacy of Kalam through fiat assertion of its premises.

Furthermore, you're creating a bit of a false dichotomy there, since the god definition you're using isn't the only god definition available to us when we're discussing creation issues, and so we don't need to take it as a given that the god you're defining is the one we need to be talking about; you are effectively picking and choosing from a range of different god definitions, and you've just so happened to come up with the one that nullifies a prominent objection to the argument we're having. The "uncreated god" definition might not have originated with you, but that doesn't mean you aren't using it to define your way around problems, either.

How in the world does the argument from tradition fallacy come into play here?

My point is that the age and popularity of a definition still doesn't make it true... which is the thing I'm pointing out you still haven't done.

I'm not saying the definition of God is true. I don't think it even matters. You could replace God is any other word you prefer.

You don't think the definition of one of the key words in this discussion matter? Then why bother making the argument you did at all, if you aren't attached to that definition?

[Mudhammam]

Tens of thousands of years ago I'm pretty sure god was synonymous with "random weather event" or "chance." It took a lot of ingenious hand waving to give their superstitions a credible intellectual cloak.

[Delicate]

An argument from tradition says "X is traditional, therefore x is true."

I'm saying "The definition of God as non-contingent existed long before the arguments. Therefore the definition of God was not invented to support these arguments."

Well, given that I never once suggested that the definition of god was created specifically to defend that argument, I guess maybe the facepalm wasn't in order. The issue is that simply giving a definition doesn't prove what you're saying; the question under discussion is one of the nature of "uncaused" things, whether god could be one, whether that category even exists in reality, and so on. Your answer, simply defining god as uncaused, is not only criminally lazy, it also doesn't help; you can't demonstrate the efficacy of Kalam through fiat assertion of its premises.

Furthermore, you're creating a bit of a false dichotomy there, since the god definition you're using isn't the only god definition available to us when we're discussing creation issues, and so we don't need to take it as a given that the god you're defining is the one we need to be talking about; you are effectively picking and choosing from a range of different god definitions, and you've just so happened to come up with the one that nullifies a prominent objection to the argument we're having. The "uncreated god" definition might not have originated with you, but that doesn't mean you aren't using it to define your way around problems, either.

How in the world does the argument from tradition fallacy come into play here?

My point is that the age and popularity of a definition still doesn't make it true... which is the thing I'm pointing out you still haven't done.

I'm not saying the definition of God is true. I don't think it even matters. You could replace God is any other word you prefer.

You don't think the definition of one of the key words in this discussion matter? Then why bother making the argument you did at all, if you aren't attached to that definition?

These words come from your own post. They constitute among the most compelling arguments you've presented so far.

I didn't say it as dishonest, I said it was lazy. And it is, in that it's guilty of the same sort of poor argumentation that Kalam itself is guilty of, and you too, in fact, when you define god as uncreated because that's how you want to define him. The point is that you can't define your way to a good argument; the "begins to exist" language has no better justification than the original cosmological premise did.

You're clearly saying that I define God as uncreated because that's how I want to define him.

And as I have shown, that's clearly false.

[Minimalist]

Tens of thousands of years ago I'm pretty sure god was synonymous with "random weather event" or "chance." It took a lot of ingenious hand waving to give their superstitions a credible intellectual cloak.

With most of these dorks it doesn't take much to be "credible."

[Esquilax]

These words come from your own post. They constitute among the most compelling arguments you've presented so far.

Considering the way you've avoided the majority of my other arguments as though you have no answer to them, I won't take this as a signifier of the actual quality of my argument.

You're clearly saying that I define God as uncreated because that's how I want to define him.

And as I have shown, that's clearly false.

And, as with all the other arguments I've made that you can't rebut, you've ignored the more present point in favor of harping on the irrelevant one. As I've said before, regardless of where the definition comes from, you still can't define your way around an argument. You've selected your definition of god from a range of them, and I don't care what reasons you had for doing so; the point is that "...by definition!" is not an argument.

Now, are you going to address the ninety percent of my arguments that you've thus far simply avoided, or not?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but what does "a cause"/"cause"/etc. mean? Why should every change in reality have a cause from the past? The cause and effect model may be something that works well for our hunter/gatherer brains, but it doesn't work for cosmology?

A cause basically reduces down to the idea of what makes something the thing that it is, i.e. its nature. In the case of efficient cause, which one of the four types of Aristotelian causes, the question it answers about a sensible body is "How did it come to be?"

As noted in other posts people easily misunderstand the origin of the phrase 'begins to exist'. The original dilemma from which it sprang initially had nothing at all to do with the gods. The problem concerned the tension between how things remain the same throughout change: Paracelsus versus Heraclitus. Anyone can see that things come into existence, persist for a time, them cease to be. How does this apply to the whole of reality. If All of Being could change then what keeps it from ceasing to be? But if All of Being were unchanging then nothing would happen. Thus began the search for the universals that persist within all things subject to change.

[watchamadoodle]

I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but what does "a cause"/"cause"/etc. mean? Why should every change in reality have a cause from the past? The cause and effect model may be something that works well for our hunter/gatherer brains, but it doesn't work for cosmology?

A cause basically reduces down to the idea of what makes something the thing that it is, i.e. its nature. In the case of efficient cause, which one of the four types of Aristotelian causes, the question it answers about a sensible body is "How did it come to be?"

As noted in other posts people easily misunderstand the origin of the phrase 'begins to exist'. The original dilemma from which it sprang initially had nothing at all to do with the gods. The problem concerned the tension between how things remain the same throughout change: Paracelsus versus Heraclitus. Anyone can see that things come into existence, persist for a time, them cease to be. How does this apply to the whole of reality. If All of Being could change then what keeps it from ceasing to be? But if All of Being were unchanging then nothing would happen. Thus began the search for the universals that persist within all things subject to change.

Most things that we observe existing for a time are only abstractions for organizations of other things (the Earth, a human body, a nation, etc.). The time of birth and death we assign to these abstractions depends on when certain properties of the abstraction begin to exist and cease to exist.

How about things like truth? Does truth begin to exist and cease to exist?

Just as a layman who doesn't know philosophy, I'm not impressed with what I've heard of the First Cause argument for God. It seems very shallow.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Most things that we observe existing for a time are only abstractions for organizations of other things (the Earth, a human body, a nation, etc.). The time of birth and death we assign to these abstractions depends on when certain properties of the abstraction begin to exist and cease to exist.

Sensible bodies are not themselves abstractions; but rather, the real things having an independent existence from which we abstract the qualities that allow them to be conceived in the the intellect. It is my position that even in the absence of human perception the universe is filled with real objects that have distinct qualities and essential natures.