I'm sick of hearing about the "Five Ways"!

[Minimalist]

They demonstrate that some people will believe any fucking dumbass thing they are told.

[comet]

Oddly enough, these two responses fit together very nicely.  Divine intervention, maybe?

Actually, in many cases V and I tend to think alike..... which I find worrisome.

800 years ago.  really?

He'd be an atheist today.

[Cyberman]

the hand of God

or maybe sphincter . . . . .

Interestingly, the third verse of this song is pertinent to this fundamental theme:

[Minimalist]

Actually, in many cases V and I tend to think alike..... which I find worrisome.

800 years ago.  really?

He'd be an atheist today.

What?

[Asmodee]

Waiting for Chad.

Of course he will say that Asmodee does not understand the 5 Ways, so he is arguing against a strawman.

Waiting for Chad.

The OP is so awful, it's not even wrong! If he can’t even get the concept of “First Mover” correct, I don’t see any point of debating. He doesn’t even have enough background knowledge to critically evaluate the results of his internet search. Google is not a substitute for knowledge gained through actual study. I have already debated someone arrogant enough to think they could cut-and-paste their way through a debate.

Debate on Five Ways

Actually, I'm rather sick of talking about the 5 Ways too. They speak for themselves. All I can do is show that the most serious objections are faulty. Otherwise, I don’t have time to correct willful ignorance.

Of course he [Neo-Scholastic] will say that Asmodee does not understand the 5 Ways, so he is arguing against a strawman.

I wouldn't have to if some of the more educated AF members would do so.

Simon is apparently a prophet.  He called the shit out of that one.

Neo, my apologies.  I forgot all about the "It doesn't say what it says, it says what I say it says" argument.  It never crossed my mind that argument would come up, though it should have given that your avatar is St Aquinas.  The concept seems pretty straight-forward, though there is a little nuance to "movement" meaning instead "any kind of change", but I had gotten that.

Google is not a substitute for knowledge gained through actual study, huh?  Tell me, have you studied homosexual sex acts?  Have you studied the mating habits of crickets?  Have you studied the ways to get matter to temperatures lower than absolute zero?  It is impossible and very expensive for a person to give thorough study to every possible subject, so we tend to stick to only the ones which interest us.  Not giving it thorough study means I am not an expert.  It does not mean I am necessarily completely ignorant.  And I can certainly read what it says.

Do you think you're saying anything new to me here?  Do you think I haven't been in these talks before where the response was, "You don't know about THIS event" followed by, "Well, you've never read THIS book about that event!"  Fool me once and all that.  I AM NOT going to devote a lifetime of study into this stupid shit just so that I can explain what's wrong with it to YOUR satisfaction, which is never going to happen.  There will always be a quote, a book, a class, an event, SOMETHING which I "need to know" in order to understand it.  How many people do you know who "understand it"?  Do all of them buy it?  Because I would be that's your bar for "understanding" in this case.

All philosophical arguments are shit.  This particular "logical argument" was vomited onto parchment a full 600 years before formal logic was even developed.  EVEN IF I were to concede every single point this argument STILL does not lead to your particular God.  The bit at the end is a leap of faith and a serious tell of the bias of the writer.  There is a reason philosophy doesn't develop computers, jet planes or medicines.  It's because philosophy is only the starting point, not the end point, for gaining understanding.  800 years ago it's what they had.  Today we have the scientific method.  Believe it or not there have been PLENTY of studies on the paranormal.  People have just never heard of them because they didn't turn up shit.  Never.  Not once in all of history has magic every been proved real.

So study up on those homosexual sex acts, philosophy you up a time machine and go back in time to express your undying love to St. Dickhead.  The two of you can spend the long nights together, sure and smug in your primitive understanding of reality.  I'll stay right here in reality, where I'm not going to count on magic to help me out and I'm not going to pretend that when I die it's going to be so great that I'm living forever.

[Asmodee]

Okay, The Chad, I have checked out the thread you linked and fail to see the relevance or any way which this shows a lack of understanding on my part.  What I see is a significant rewording of the various "Ways".  Since it is the First Way of which you have stated I have no understanding, I will concentrate on that one.

For any given thing, either the propensity to remain the same rules or the propensity to change rules, but not both at the same time.  An oak cannot simultaneously sprout and remain an acorn. Either necessary and sufficient conditions make the oak grow or the acorn remains unchanged. In other words, in order for anything to change something other than itself must actually be present and have the power to make the change happen. Adam cannot borrowed a dollar from Bill, if Bill borrowed it from Calvin, and so on. Every actual pocket has the potential to hold a dollar, but that potential cannot ever be actualized unless there is at some point a potentially empty pocket holding an actual dollar. Likewise, the physical universe, in which all things are subject to change, depends on at least one fully actual thing that was never itself only a potential i.e. that which causes change without being subject to change. Traditionally, this fully actualized thing is called the Unmoved Mover.

You are stating the rules which apply to our universe as absolutes and then excluding your deity because it is outside of our universe, where the rules of our universe do not apply.  There are various scientific theories (I did mention membrane theory) which deal with this exact thing.  The argument does not necessitate your concept of a deity, specifically.  And that last sentence is the psychological trickery I was talking about.  Would you mind terribly if I called this "fully actualized thing" the Ejaculating Cock?  Why do you feel the need to name it?  It is so that you have control.  It is a means of asserting you beliefs, of injecting you particular belief system into the end of what you otherwise want to be a fully "logical" argument.  It is a way of staking a claim to this "thing" and making it your own to weaken any stance I take against you.

And that entire last sentence is nothing but a power play.  It starts with the word "traditionally".  What tradition?  Whose tradition?  It's not my tradition.  It's not scientific tradition.  I don't know ANYONE but you who holds that tradition.  So who calls it that?  All you say is that's what it "IS called".  By who?  "Everyone" is assumed in this sentence, but that's just not true.  I would bet it is a very small MINORITY who call it that.  But that's not what this sentence implies, or outright states.  It states that it is "tradition".  It implies that it is "common", so common, in fact, the you don't even need to name those who say this, insinuating that you can simply point to any random person and that person likely "calls this fully actualized thing the Unmoved Mover".  You don't even use the word "we" so that it could at least be imagined to include only you and those who think like you.  It is a statement of an absolute and it is entirely false.  There is no such tradition.  There is no majority who can be assumed to use the name you gave.  A handful of people, perhaps a few tens of thousands, MAYBE a few hundreds of thousands in seven billion people worldwide is probably an egregiously GENEROUS guess at the number of people who use the name you gave.  But nothing in that sentence even remotely suggests that this concept is so uncommon.  On the contrary, it all but outright says it's an absolute.

But I don't even need an alternative idea to compete with yours.  I don't need to prove what is right because I am not making any claim that one particular thing is right.  My claim is only that you have not proved your particular thing right, which, in fact, you have not.  You are simply jumping to the conclusion that your particular deity is the necessity involved, not showing that it was.  "Traditionally" I call this fully actualized thing "I don't know".  Therefore God, then.  That is your argument.  I don't know, therefore God.

There is a very simple way to tell if your argument presents any sort of "proof" for you deity.  If you were to present your "evidence", minus the conclusion, to another person who had never heard of the God in your conclusion, is there any possible way that person could come to the same conclusion as you?  The answer, of course, is "no".  And if the answer is no, you have no "proof".  If you have to know the conclusion before you can reach the conclusion your argument is fallacious.  That is the most blatant flaw with all logical arguments for the existence of any given deity.  If you look at the evidence without a preconceived conclusion it is impossible for you to reach that conclusion.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I read you posts...both of them. Whatever.

[Asmodee]

I read you posts...both of them. Whatever.

I disagree.

[ApeNotKillApe]

I read you posts...both of them. Whatever.

Good one.

[chimp3]

I guess I have not been paying attention. This is the first time I have heard of the 5 Ways.