[Serious] Criticism of Aquinas' First Way or of the Proof of God from Motion.

[spirit-salamander]

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[vulcanlogician]

My god man! What an introductory post!

A bit long, but nice work. Welcome to the forums.

[Belacqua]

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I think that this forum isn't likely to work well for such a careful and detailed discussion. It's not the sort of thing that goes on here. 

If you were to break down one or two of the criticisms as an introduction, there is a chance that conversation might develop from there. For example your idea that there's no reason to think a Prime Mover doesn't itself have to be unmovable is something that I haven't worked on before, and could be a starting place. 

I respect what you're doing and admire the understanding you show of the issues.

Here is a reply I started typing, before you were so rudely interrupted:

spirit-salamander
Ben Shapiro calmly EDUCATED by Stephen Woodford

It's sad that Aristotle or Aquinas have to be in any way associated with Shapiro, who is terrible.

"What at first seemed to be a simple proof is in fact a world view in miniature, an image of the world projected onto half a page. Is it a proof of God's existence which, taken by itself, compels assent, quite independent of what we may think of Thomas' metaphysics or the remainder of his System? Definitely not." (Walter Kaufmann - Critique of Religion and Philosophy)

From Shapiro to Kaufmann is from the ridiculous to the sublime.

I'd be interested to see where Kaufmann goes from there. As I understand it, the Five Ways were never intended to be stand-alone proofs, so what Kaufmann says here is true without necessarily being criticism. Each of the ways is a sort of summary of a much larger way of thinking, for which we need many additional arguments. Modern people tend to imagine they're supposed to be persuasive as they stand, which they aren't and weren't intended to be.

But your explication here shows that you know this already, I think, because you are working at the assumptions and conclusions that are required to draw a conclusion, and I respect that.

[vulcanlogician]

Modern people tend to imagine they're supposed to be persuasive as they stand, which they aren't and weren't intended to be.

I mean, persuasive in what way? If his conclusions follow-- the argument is sound (which is what I assume Aquinas was going for), then that ought to persuade people.

What do you mean they weren't intended to be persuasive?

[Foxaèr]

Aww, I missed the genius post.

[vulcanlogician]

Aww, I missed the genius post.

It wasn't bad. It seemed like a really good and thorough analysis.

But it was way to long for an initial post. And if OP had no plans of entering into a discussion about it here, then yeah... it was spam.

[Foxaèr]

A simple hide tag could have fixed that instead of deleting the entire thing.

I love it when I'm more reasonable than mods.

[Gwaithmir]

I was able to refute most of Aquinas' "proofs" of God when I was still in Catholic high school. The few times I attempted to refute them in class, I was basically told to shut up because I was too "...uneducated in theology..." to know what I was talking about. 

[Brian37]

A long time ago, in a major pizza chain, far far away, a co worker wanted to kick my ass because I critizied Aquinas.

True story. A couple of decades ago, after graduating college, I got a job at a major pizza chain and ran into a co worker who claimed Aquinus predicted Quantum physics. His only argument was, "Aquinus was a smart man.". He kept on getting pissed when I asked him to show the formulas.  I was litterally afraid of him beating me up. 

Specifically, he got pissed that I pointed out that the ancient Greeks were the first to coin the word "atom", but back then, it merely meant "the smallest thing one could emagine". Back in in ancient Greece they thought of "all this" as being a combo of "earth stuff, air stuff, water stuff, and fire stuff". They had no concept of quarks, or protons or neutrons or electrons. They had no concept of the double slit experement. 

Aquinus didn't know shit. But Christians love trying to quote him to try to retrofit science to their club. I constantly try to point out to these types that all religions do this. I cannot name one religion in human history that does not try to retrofit science to justify pointing to their club.

[arewethereyet]

A simple hide tag could have fixed that instead of deleting the entire thing.

I love it when I'm more reasonable than mods.

You really are a catty little thing aren't you?