Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[Neo-Scholastic]

Show us just one piece of evidence, not opinion, evidence.

That's because you're ignoring everything I wrote above.

[IATIA]

You provided nothing but opinion, hearsay and anecdotes. You displayed no evidence at all. If I missed it, point the way.

[Esquilax]

All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.

To begin with, your first sentence is, again, a fallacy of composition: all observations of reality, by necessity, are made within a (very small, I must remind you) band of time and space, which is itself within our singular expansionary model of the universe. To take them as some overall relief map to the workings of everything is to argue that, because we have observations of an infinitesimally small quantity of the overall universe, within an equally small period of time, therefore everything works that way all the time, including something that is not that universe.

You do realize that, don't you? Pre-Planck time, all of our notions of how things operate break down, something that all of the current physics and cosmology bears out. Even apologist favorite, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, when read completely and not misused, states that any attempt to describe the pre-big bang universe (the point at which all of Aquinas' arguments attempt to insert a god) will necessarily require an entirely new suite of physics, that does not rely upon our common understanding of cause, effect, or anything else. That is the current scholarly consensus: time and space are linked, one informs the other, and what we're talking about is a point at which space and time did not behave as they do now. Pointing to the universe as it is today as a means of determining how it behaved during a time when literally everything about it was different from anything we've ever known is ridiculous, for reasons that should be obvious. Aside from just being a fallacy of composition- and I implore you to actually read up on what that is, rather than just ignoring it because it's inconvenient- it's rather like asserting that because we know how liquid water behaves, solid water must behave in exactly the same way. Intuitively it might make a little sense, assuming you know absolutely nothing about ice, but the moment you actually examine that claim, rather than loftily asserting that it's some perfect divine mandate, you see that it's not actually true.

Leaving that aside, you're rather pathetically shifting the burden of proof: it's not up to me to prove you wrong, it's up to you to demonstrate Aquinas' accuracy, and to do that all you've done is reach for a set of observations that don't even apply to the situation under discussion and appeal to some other way of knowing. Nobody needs to "definitively rule out," the five ways if that's the best you've got; you haven't provided a shred of justification that would give the claims sufficient weight to merit rebuttal. Just demanding that nobody has proven you wrong yet, when it's rather trivial to make the case that all your support for your position is either insubstantial or irrelevant, is just petulant childishness, little more than "I'm right! I'm right! I know I'm right! You can't show me I'm wrong!"

Well, actually I can, and I have. I challenged you before to actually do some research into the science and, rather than doing that, you seem to have just decided that it sides with you sight unseen. Which is a bit surprising because the absolute best you can say about your position is that determining how reality behaved before the big bang is currently beyond the reach of science, but that the hypothetical models all favor something very different from how it currently behaves. You, for some reason, are simply demanding by fiat that, though all the actually trained minds in the field don't know, you do know, because you said so, and that what you know is that the universe behaved exactly the same way it does now, and you know this in direct contradiction to all of modern science, and you also don't have to demonstrate how you know it, because nobody has proven you wrong yet.

It's sad, really, and until you're able to provide some non-fallacious reasoning, I'm going to stick with the science from the 21st century still, rather than the uneducated man who really really likes unsupported intuitions from the 13th. I simply can't see why anyone would do anything else.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...the pre-big bang universe (the point at which all of Aquinas' arguments attempt to insert a god) will necessarily require an entirely new suite of physics...

And therein lies your problem. You absolutely refuse to see that the veracity of the Five Ways in no way depends on any particular origin theory for the physical universe. The starting point for all the Five Ways is the here and now and the end point where God operates is also in the here and now, across space-time. No one cares about what happened "before" the big-bang except you, HELLO.

BTW Your dismissal of uniformitarianism in the first sentence of your post shows that you are willing to throw away basic epistemological assumptions of natural science when they are inconvenient to your arguments.

[IATIA]

All the conclusions of the Five Ways follow from observations of reality and none of them have been contradicted by an observed phenomena. If you think otherwise I challenge you to name a single phenomenon that definitively rules out the possibility of any of the following: Unmoved Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, or Guiding Intelligence.

(my bold)

Made up phrases with no basis in fact, only opinion. Santa Claus cannot be "contradicted by an observed phenomena".

[Angrboda]

[Esquilax]

And therein lies your problem. You absolutely refuse to see that the veracity of the Five Ways in no way depends on any particular origin theory for the physical universe. The starting point for all the Five Ways is the here and now and the end point where God operates is also in the here and now, across space-time. No one cares about what happened "before" the big-bang except you, HELLO.

Oh.

You're really going to be this obtuse? How boring.

No, the five ways do not work within what we currently know, all that we can currently surmise, about the universe and how it began. The argument from motion requires the existence of a first mover, stating that a sequence of movers cannot go back infinitely, but the concept of "first" as it stands in linear time doesn't necessarily apply beyond the big bang. The chain of movers both does not go back infinitely, and does not require a first mover necessarily, because this trades on an idea of causality that is not present: you don't need a first anything when time does not progress linearly forward and effects do not require causes. There are other problems there that I've mentioned before, but you've ignored them earlier today and I have no hope that you'll suddenly muster up the intellectual fortitude to address them now.

The argument from efficient causes has the same problem, positing the need for a first efficient cause in a framework that does not recognize the necessity of either first anythings, nor causes. For the third way, there's no reason why the universe could not be the end result rather than god, but again, the idea of contingent and noncontingent entities does not work the same way before the big bang. The fourth way is one that this argument doesn't apply to, but since it's an arbitrary and unsupported series of wild assertions, it's invalid also. The fifth way is much the same.

It's really rather sad: you'll bitch about anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with you, whining that they clearly don't understand Aquinas' arguments, but you won't even bother understanding the cosmology you think you see fit to dismiss out of hand. You're a full fledged hypocrite, Wooters.

BTW Your dismissal of uniformitarianism in the first sentence of your post shows that you are willing to throw away basic epistemological assumptions of natural science when they are inconvenient to your arguments.

I didn't dismiss uniformitarianism. I rejected the assertion you made that the things you listed are, in fact, uniform in all corners of reality, at all times, because that is what the science bears out. I didn't throw away anything basic to epistemology, I threw away your unqualified blanket assertion because the evidence contradicts it. Do try to get it right before you scoff.

[robvalue]

Creating such simplistic arguments, and applying them close to and even before the barrier science has reached, is to announce that you know more than all of science combined.

"I don't care what everyone ever has found out using rigorous scientific techniques and evidence. Everything is just a domino rally with my pal knocking the first one over."

[Neo-Scholastic]

No, the five ways do not work within what we currently know, all that we can currently surmise, about the universe and how it began. The argument from motion requires the existence of a first mover, stating that a sequence of movers cannot go back infinitely, but the concept of "first" as it stands in linear time doesn't necessarily apply beyond the big bang. The chain of movers both does not go back infinitely, and does not require a first mover necessarily, because this trades on an idea of causality that is not present: you don't need a first anything when time does not progress linearly forward and effects do not require causes...The argument from efficient causes has the same problem, positing the need for a first efficient cause in a framework that does not recognize the necessity of either first anythings, nor causes. For the third way, there's no reason why the universe could not be the end result rather than god, but again, the idea of contingent and noncontingent entities does not work the same way before the big bang.  

Emphasis Added.

First things first.

You are under the impression that “first” cause means the starting point of a temporal axis. In Latin term Aquinas used was ‘primus’.  Just as in English, first can mean a temporal beginning but it can also refer to what is primary and fundamental. The first Three Ways are based on a rejection of an infinite essentially ordered series. Events in time can be accidentally ordered and that is why the argument has nothing to do with time. Aquinas only mentions ‘time’ in the Third Way and even there it doesn’t refer to a specific starting point for creation. In the Third Way he is talking about any given point in time not a temporal beginning.

If you don’t believe my interpretation of Aquinas is correct then you should at least know it is not unique to me. I refer you to the following paper: “There Must be a First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects, Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series” by Gavin Kerr. I can give you other references as well.

There are other problems there that I've mentioned before, but you've ignored them earlier today and I have no hope that you'll suddenly muster up the intellectual fortitude to address them now....It's really rather sad: you'll bitch about anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with you, whining that they clearly don't understand Aquinas' arguments, but you won't even bother understanding the cosmology you think you see fit to dismiss out of hand. You're a full fledged hypocrite, Wooters.

It’s not whining if you really don’t understand Aquinas which is clearly the case. As shown above, you continue in your ignorance of what ‘first’ means, even when it is central to the argument, and even when the correct denotation was given to you more than once. Why would I would undertake to address all your other stubborn misconceptions?

For a person that always cries about others making assumptions about him, you presume to know the extent of my education in the natural sciences. I do not need to prove to you that I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of modern cosmology. In your post you made no statements about cosmology with which I disagreed. They simply do not matter.

I didn't dismiss uniformitarianism....I rejected the assertion you made that the things you listed are, in fact, uniform in all corners of reality, at all times, because that is what the science bears out. I didn't throw away anything basic to epistemology, I threw away your unqualified blanket assertion because the evidence contradicts it. Do try to get it right before you scoff.

... all observations of reality, by necessity, are made within a (very small, I must remind you) band of time and space, which is itself within our singular expansionary model of the universe. To take them as some overall relief map to the workings of everything is to argue that, because we have observations of an infinitesimally small quantity of the overall universe, within an equally small period of time, therefore everything works that way all the time, including something that is not that universe.

Gee, that sure sounds like you did. The only wiggle room you have is the last part when you talk about something that is “not this universe” but that’s trading on an ambiguity that doesn’t distinguish between the physical universe and all of reality.

[IATIA]

Infinite regression is impossible because we are here, therefore god had a beginning. What created god? As you seem to know so much of what happened before the big bang, this should be easy.

(btw: this cabbage is still waiting for evidence.)