Creationism

[GrandizerII]

You might notice that there is no "if cat is god" premise in my argument, or saint toms.  God only appears at the conclusion of either, poof, like magic.

That's not how any of this works.

Argument logically leads to the conclusion that the First Cause exists. God is intuited by Aquinas as that First Cause (because of what this First Cause is). God (as intuited by Aquinas) therefore exists.

[The Grand Nudger]

A god may be intuited, but a god is not argued for. It's simply tacked on as a non seq, in the conclusion. For the argument to be valid, the god conclusion would need to follow from the premises of the argument, not the predisposition of his intuition.

Is this what I was asked to explain, or is it not?

Wouldn't get too carried away stating that it logically leads to the conclusion of a prime mover, either - we're only discussing the first of many issues with the argument. There's still a concern over composition, even after we remove the god conclusion to correct the argument for the most basic validity. Then there are concerns over the soundness of a number of the premises. I can stand back and let you or our other noted tommy scholar explain those for the peanut gallery.

Or can I? Are you both going to continue to run with the insistence that people reject the argument for atheism reasons™?

[GrandizerII]

A god may be intuited, but a god is not argued for.  It's simply tacked on as a non seq, in the conclusion.  For the argument to be valid, the god conclusion would need to follow from the premises of the argument, not the predisposition of his intuition.

It's more like a note that whatever it is that was concluded is God. This is how he (and many others) see/saw God.

That said, feel free to take that "God" part off, and critique the "Godless" argument, your choice.

Is this what I was asked to explain, or is it not?

A lot of things have been said in a relatively short time during the last several pages of this thread. I don't know/remember what was initially being asked pages ago and by whom to whom.

Wouldn't get too carried away stating that it logically leads to the conclusion of a prime mover, either - we're only discussing the first of many issues with the argument.  There's still a concern over composition, even after we remove the god conclusion to correct the argument for the most basic validity.  Then there are concerns over the soundness of a number of the premises.   I can stand back and let you or our other noted tommy scholar explain those for the peanut gallery.

Or can I?  Are you both going to continue to run with the insistence that people reject the argument for atheism reasons™?

Go ahead. Feel free to do so. But please keep in mind the metaphysics presumed by Aquinas in his arguments. You might want to address (and look into) that as well.

[The Grand Nudger]

There's no reason to take the god part off, there are superior versions of the argument from contingency and we could use those - but these are also flawed. Cosmological arguments can't get around the fallacies, they can only accept them and say that we're wrong about logic, somehow. Probably one of gods mysteries. 1 in 3 and 3 in 1 and that sort of thing.

It most definitely was what I was asked to explain, lol. At least toss me a few peanuts, I'm dancing for your amusement.

You can bring up theological objections to this, fine. But the arguments in and of themselves appear to be valid (at least I'm not seeing how the conclusion fails to follow from the premises in each of the arguments, when we're considering the arguments in fully fleshed out form of course). So can we concede that this particular counter you're using is a misunderstanding of Aquinas' view of God? Or do you want to keep arguing that I'm the one not getting you?

Now that we're agreed that aquinas intuited his conclusion, rather than arguing for it, and that non seqs are not valid arguments can we be done with this fawning horseshit over saint tom and your inability to see how the argument is invalid? You see it just fine. Grandizer-1, Tom-0.

[brewer]

This guy took a shit and,.................. everything began to moooove!



(it beats a cat)

[The Grand Nudger]

Honestly, why not. If we accept cosmological arguments as valid, ofc. Here's Clark's superior formulation of the argument from contingency.

Any being that exists is either contingent or necessary.
Not every being can be contingent.
Therefore, there exists a necessary being upon whom all other beings are contingent.
A necessary being, upon which all contingent things depend, is what we mean by god.

Therefore, god exists.

[brewer]

Come closer, I'm gonna contingent yer ass.

[The Grand Nudger]

See, this is what I'm talking about. That's not a valid or compelling argument to come closer. The anus is sacred and/or forbidden, just ask saint tom.

[GrandizerII]

There's no reason to take the god part off, there are superior versions of the argument from contingency and we could use those - but these are also flawed.  Cosmological arguments can't get around the fallacies, they can only accept them and say that we're wrong about logic, somehow.  Probably one of gods mysteries.  1 in 3 and 3 in 1 and that sort of thing.  

It most definitely was what I was asked to explain, lol. At least toss me a few peanuts, I'm dancing for your amusement.

You can bring up theological objections to this, fine. But the arguments in and of themselves appear to be valid (at least I'm not seeing how the conclusion fails to follow from the premises in each of the arguments, when we're considering the arguments in fully fleshed out form of course). So can we concede that this particular counter you're using is a misunderstanding of Aquinas' view of God? Or do you want to keep arguing that I'm the one not getting you?

Now that we're agreed that aquinas intuited his conclusion, rather than arguing for it, and that non seqs are not valid arguments can we be done with this fawning horseshit over saint tom and your inability to see how the argument is invalid?  You see it just fine.  Grandizer-1, Tom-0.

Didn't agree that it's a non-sequitur. Again, God is defined as the ground of being that is pure act, the first cause, the unmoved mover, etc. You don't see this definition explicitly in the summaries of the actual arguments, but this is what God means to Aquinas. By your reasoning, even Plantinga's MOA is not valid then (because maximally great being is not necessarily God). And I don't much care for Aquinas the man himself, but I do care that if we do want to critique these arguments we take the time to first understand the reasoning behind them and then critique according to that understanding, not by the use of wild rhetoric and clever tactics.

You can have the point back. I don't much care for this kind of win.

[The Grand Nudger]

.............? A non sequitur is when none of the premises speaks to the conclusion. Show me which of the premises of the argument I was asked to consider speak to a god, any god, of any kind.

This should be a trivial exercise. Not " can't see how it aint valid" - fuck man, that's not even a valid argument - just show me a single premise of the argument that I was asked to consider says one solitary thing about a god.

By my definition, which is the standard definition of a successful logical argument, plantingas argument is successful. I don't find it compelling, and he concedes that it isn't compelling, but he at least cared enough to make sure his form was valid. I really don't understand, nothing about my assessment of the argument presented or cosmological arguments in general is even remotely controversial. These are known knowns. My participation in this regard is as a parrot, not a discoverer or demolisher of arguments. All of this work has already been done.

The argument I offered above as a superior form of the argument from contingency contains actual beings and everything, you don't see me commenting on the invalidity of concluding god in that one, because it actually makes the effort. The concern there is composition.

If your concern is my wild rhetoric and clever attacks..then thank you, but I can't claim them as my own - at least you threw me a "clever" peanut. I like being clever. Regular modern day sophist on the farm.

I think I like it more than being intelligent - which I also am. Huge, huge fucking...intellect...and part of that is knowing alot about cosmological arguments. They're my favorite, because i completely understand why people have found them so compelling and how they're instrumental to every single god story we've ever come up with, and also why they're wrong. Wrong as-in, couldn't possibly be right.