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Kalam
#11
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 6:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: In Aristotelian/Thomist language, the causes of X are all the things that must be the case for X to exist, and to continue to exist.

What is the cause of the warmth on my face? It is, among other things, the heat from the sun. What is the cause of the heat from the sun? It is, among other things, the nuclear reactions within the sun. What is the cause of the nuclear reactions within the sun? It is, among other things, hydrogen. What is the cause of hydrogen? It is, among other things, subatomic particles. What is the cause of subatomic particles? It is, among other things, space/time. What is the cause of space/time?...... That is, what must be in existence for space/time to continue in existence? This is Aquinas' First Cause.

Notice that in this essential chain if any step disappeared, all of the consequent steps would also immediately cease.

This is a red herring, as temporality remains in spite of it. The existence of a cause must precede an effect or it is not a cause.
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#12
RE: Kalam
Just so that we are clear, it is the number of protons that determine the unique identity of a chemical element, of which there are 92 that occur naturally. Protons are composed of three quarks, which may be fundamental particles.
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#13
RE: Kalam
(November 28, 2022 at 11:07 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: If God is the uncaused cause, as neo-Thomists and others assert, then his existence has no reason.  His existence is simply a brute fact. 

And if God's existence has no basis in reason, then there is also no reason to assert he is the solitary uncaused cause.  He may very well be one of many uncaused causes.

If FSM is the uncaused cause, as Pastafarians assert, then Xis existence has no reason.  Xis existence is simply a brute fact. 

And if FSM existence has no basis in reason, then there is also no reason to assert Xhe is the solitary uncaused cause.  Xhe may very well be one of many uncaused causes.


I trust you'll be abandoning Taoism now.

RAmen
"For the only way to eternal glory is a life lived in service of our Lord, FSM; Verily it is FSM who is the perfect being the name higher than all names, king of all kings and will bestow upon us all, one day, The great reclaiming"  -The Prophet Boiardi-

      Conservative trigger warning.
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#14
RE: Kalam
Eternal models of cosmology exist.  The Nobel laureate, Professor Sir Roger Penrose, has developed one:

Wikipedia -- Conformal cyclic cosmology

By the principle of parsimony, the Kalam argument is superfluous.
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#15
RE: Kalam
(November 28, 2022 at 11:07 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: If God is the uncaused cause, as neo-Thomists and others assert, then his existence has no reason.  His existence is simply a brute fact. 

And if God's existence has no basis in reason, then there is also no reason to assert he is the solitary uncaused cause.  He may very well be one of many uncaused causes.

Exactly.  People find the Kalam convincing because they hold a flawed view of causality.  They hold an events based view of causation.  Everything is a result of an antecedant cause or event.  But in my view this is wrong.  Once you concede that something can exist without a cause there is simply no need for "God" as an explanation.  

I think that every action has a cause - some entity takes an action - but not every entity has a cause.  The nature of any action an entity performs is determined by the nature of the entity.  A is A.  If A exists, it must be A.  If A acts, it must act as A and not non-A.  

Hume got it wrong.  The necessary relationship is not between events but between an entity and its actions.  

The Kalam has many other flaws but What LinuxGal pointed out is sufficient to refute the Kalam.  

Whenever someone asks where anything came from the proper answer is that it came from existence.  There is nowhere else for things to come from.  

Folks, it really is that easy to refute theism.  Why does it persist?  Because people want to believe it.
"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture,  an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads."

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see."
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#16
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 10:54 am)Jehanne Wrote: Eternal models of cosmology exist.  The Nobel laureate, Professor Sir Roger Penrose, has developed one:

Wikipedia -- Conformal cyclic cosmology

By the principle of parsimony, the Kalam argument is superfluous.

Penrose's problem is that he requires the far-future universe to consist solely of photons to make the conformal scaling work, but any particles with mass, such as protons, have an innate Compton wavelength based on their rest mass that doesn't scale.  And as far as we know protons do not decay.
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#17
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 7:56 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:
(November 29, 2022 at 10:54 am)Jehanne Wrote: Eternal models of cosmology exist.  The Nobel laureate, Professor Sir Roger Penrose, has developed one:

Wikipedia -- Conformal cyclic cosmology

By the principle of parsimony, the Kalam argument is superfluous.

Penrose's problem is that he requires the far-future universe to consist solely of photons to make the conformal scaling work, but any particles with mass, such as protons, have an innate Compton wavelength based on their rest mass that doesn't scale.  And as far as we know protons do not decay.

Well, please don't tell the Nobel committee this.
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#18
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 10:10 pm)Jehanne Wrote:
(November 29, 2022 at 7:56 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: Penrose's problem is that he requires the far-future universe to consist solely of photons to make the conformal scaling work, but any particles with mass, such as protons, have an innate Compton wavelength based on their rest mass that doesn't scale.  And as far as we know protons do not decay.

Well, please don't tell the Nobel committee this.

Uh, Penrose got his Nobel Prize for his theorem that singularities are a prediction of General Relativity.  Cyclic cosmology is a side hobby.
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#19
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 10:27 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:
(November 29, 2022 at 10:10 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Well, please don't tell the Nobel committee this.

Uh, Penrose got his Nobel Prize for his theorem that singularities are a prediction of General Relativity.  Cyclic cosmology is a side hobby.

No, it's serious work on the part of Dr. Penrose:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...013-9763-z
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#20
RE: Kalam
(November 29, 2022 at 10:37 pm)Jehanne Wrote:
(November 29, 2022 at 10:27 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: Uh, Penrose got his Nobel Prize for his theorem that singularities are a prediction of General Relativity.  Cyclic cosmology is a side hobby.

No, it's serious work on the part of Dr. Penrose:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...013-9763-z

Oh, I'm a fan of Penrose.  "The Road to Reality" is him definitely not talking down to you.  But sometimes he's given to woo.   Conformal Cyclic Cosmology is one example, for the reason I stated above.  He also thinks consciousness has to do with quantum pure states that are somehow maintained within warm sloppy cellular cytoplasm when the likes of Google can barely make their supercooled quantum computers factor the number 21.   And he holds to an objective wavefunction collapse theory that should have yielded confirmation by now (we've put pieces of dust with millions of atoms into superposition).
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