Do Atheists have a reasonable doubt?

[o_mlly]

The error is obvious​

Aquinas attempts to generalize from the particular to the whole. which is a basic fallacy. The words: “we can see that at least some things are changing”. From that no general principle can be reached. Also in the times of Aquinas the concept of motion / change was not understood in the light of modern physics.

And at the end of his argument he says: “This everyone understands to be God.”

Leaving aside the unsupported claim that "attempts to generalize from the particular to the whole [are a] basic fallacy, Aquinas’ argument is not inductive but a metaphysical argument grounded in the observation of the phenomena that all things in the universe change. The metaphysical premise can be expressed as all things prepossess the potential to change but no thing in the universe can actuate that potential alone, that is, be the cause of its own effect. Therefore, an unmoved mover must exist outside the universe.

You can name that unmoved Mover “God” or you can call it that transcendent, eternal, ,immortal, self-existing, independent, all perfect being.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

It’s a common problem that Christians face. Without realising it. What you should have said is ‘The arguments are for the initial existence of a god (definition required) who was the creator of this universe’.

Spell god with a capital G and describe that god as the Creator with a capital C and you are already showing your hand. You are already talking about the God of Christianity. I hope you don’t play poker for money.

We must presume that this was posted well after cocktail hour began down under so we’ll let it pass as just another Baffling Bradskiism.

You were presupposing that which you claimed to be searching for. The arguments are not for God. There are arguments further down the line that associate what was presumed to have been proven to exist as the Christian God.

You need to take it one step at a time.

 

[Techno2000]

Bradskii:

It’s a common problem that Christians face. Without realising it. What you should have said is ‘The arguments are for the initial existence of a god (definition required) who was the creator of this universe’.

Spell god with a capital G and describe that god as the Creator with a capital C and you are already showing your hand. You are already talking about the God of Christianity. I hope you don’t play poker for money.

We must presume that this was posted well after cocktail hour began down under so we’ll let it pass as just another Baffling Bradskiism.

But, he’s no match for the lelinator.

 

[Bradskii]

… but no thing in the universe can actuate that potential alone, that is, be the cause of its own effect.

If the universe is cyclical then nothing within the universe is the cause. It’s the universe itself which is the cause. And it’s not an infinite regress because time ceases to exist at each cycle. It happens outside time. So not infinite. But eternal.

Has anyone taken the time to read what Penrose proposes?

 

[Bradskii]

Just throwing one thing into the hat (waiting for cocktail hour)…I read one argument yesterday as regards how we know God is infinitely good.

It’s that He created us and we are imperfect. But God must posess our properties perfectly. The argument went on to say that we are imperfectly good, therefore God must be perfectly good.

Say what? Why was only good selected and attributed to God perfectly? Why not evil? If I try to beat my neighbours dog for no reason and I do a bad job of it, does that mean that God could do it perfectly?

Ah, says the Catholic. I heard that evil is just the absence of good. Well, says Bradskii, I just sat quietly in my chair for ten minutes and did nothing. Did I do good? No, I did not. So there was an absence of good. In which case: where’d the evil go?

 

[Techno2000]

o_mlly:

… but no thing in the universe can actuate that potential alone, that is, be the cause of its own effect.

If the universe is cyclical then nothing within the universe is the cause. It’s the universe itself which is the cause. And it’s not an infinite regress because time ceases to exist at each cycle. It happens outside time. So not infinite. But eternal.

Woah! … I maybe wrong, you’re putting up a challenge to the lelinator.

 

[PickyPicky]

Has anyone taken the time to read what Penrose proposes?

Yes. I haven’t yet pointed out the flaws to Rodg. I expect he’s on tenterhooks waiting for my thumbs up or thumbs down.

 

[Economist]

Leaving aside the unsupported claim that "attempts to generalize from the particular to the whole [are a] basic fallacy

If you don’t understand it, there is nothing to speak of. There are some cases when one can generalize from the particular to the whole, and there are other cases when such generalization cannot be done.

Aquinas’ argument is not inductive but a metaphysical argument grounded in the observation of the phenomena that all things in the universe change.

Again, just because all observed things change, it does not follow that it is a universal, metaphysical “truth”. There is no such thing as metaphysical truth, only metaphysical assumptions. By the way, any change is physical. Also the Brownian motion of molecules is “inherent”, it does no require an external “mover”.

You can name that unmoved Mover “God” or you can call it that transcendent, eternal, ,immortal, self-existing, independent, all perfect being.

Such plethora of attributes does not follow. Even if Aquinas were correct, the only result would be that there is a “generic creator”, nothing more. And the only attribute that would follow logically would be that the creator was able to do it.

 

[IWantGod]

There is no such thing as metaphysical truth

What do you mean by that?

 

[PickyPicky]

Right, like how did the angler fish know it was going the need a light

I suspect IWG quietly wishes you would stop agreeing, Techno. But I’m with you. The argument does seem very similar.

 

[Economist]

What do you mean by that?

Metaphysics does not investigate with reality, it only speculates about it. And it also does not deal with axioms. One can speculate about reality, and if the speculation can be verified, it will become a tentative, scientific truth. The concept of “everything needs an external mover to actualize a potential” is a typical metaphysical speculation. Since it cannot be verified or falsified, it will stay a speculation.

 

[Bradskii]

o_mlly:

You can name that unmoved Mover “God” or you can call it that transcendent, eternal, ,immortal, self-existing, independent, all perfect being.

Such plethora of attributes does not follow. Even if Aquinas were correct, the only result would be that there is a “generic creator”, nothing more. And the only attribute that would follow logically would be that the creator was able to do it.

I think the only result would be that there WAS a creator/creators. The guy that built my house is long gone. He doesn’t need to still be here to make sure it’s still standing.

 

[IWantGod]

Also the Brownian motion of molecules is “inherent”, it does no require an external “mover”.

You have misunderstood what metaphyscians (of the thomistic sort) are referring to when they speak about things that are moved and that which is moving them. We are not talking about physical change if by that you mean what physical things are doing in respect of one-another and according to the principles of their nature. We are talking about what change involves on an ontological level, which is the movement from potentiality to actuality, and this is what Thomas is concerned with and is the reason why he infers a being that can give actuality to the motion of things and their potential reality. This is what he means by a “mover”. It is irrelevant if things can move according to their nature, because that is concerning the scientific or physical idea of motion.

Why do you presume that you have defeated an argument that you clearly have no understanding of and clearly haven’t spent any time in comprehending. All that you will achieve is frustration from your opponents (whom have spent years learning), and the possibility of a giggle from those with less humility; and i couldn’t blame them because it is provoked.

Please, at least try to grasp the basics before pretending as if your some kind of grand-master.

 

[o_mlly]

If you don’t understand it, there is nothing to speak of. There are some cases when one can generalize from the particular to the whole, and there are other cases when such generalization cannot be done.

Let me summarize. You assert Aquinas is in error. Asked to support the claim, you simply make another assertion that arguments from the particular to the general are fallacious, asked to support that assertion and you make another assertion that “If you don’t understand it, there is nothing to speak of.” I see three assertions and not one argument.

And then apparently unperturbed, you go on to make a fourth assertion that, “There are some cases when one can generalize from the particular to the whole, and there are other cases when such generalization cannot be done.” Sounds like the special pleading fallacy.

Please give us the principle(s) that controls which inductive arguments may be jettisoned and which may not.

 

[IWantGod]

Since it cannot be verified or falsified, it will stay a speculation.

So you are a proponent of scientism. You think scientific knowledge is the only kind of valid inferential knowledge. Only that method can be trusted.

So according to you i cannot know that a thing cannot come out of absolutely nothing by itself without a cause? I cannot know that a square-circle cannot exist, for example, without the scientific method?

 

[o_mlly]

I think the only result would be that there WAS a creator/creators. The guy that built my house is long gone. He doesn’t need to still be here to make sure it’s still standing.

Well, that’s one giant step forward for an atheist. Congrats! We’ll take what we can get. Next time we’ll argue that Creator is necessarily singular and eternal.

Got the F chord mastered, now I’ve got to master my 7-wood for those dogleg par 5’s or those long over the hazard par 3’s.

 

[Pattylt]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I would qualify this a bit by adding in a personal experience of the Divine. Perhaps that is included in as miraculous. I’ve often stated that at this point in my life it is the only thing that would change my mind about a supernatural reality. I’ve never had it. I don’t demand it. I’m just unconvinced that what others claim is believable to me.

 

[IWantGod]

On the assumtion that Sir Roger Penrose is wrong, then…’

It doesn’t matter whether Penrose is right or wrong, you haven’t identified the existential cause. All you are really doing is asserting that physics is the existential cause or just saying that you don’t know why physics cannot be the reason why there is something rather than nothing at all.

In reality all that would be identified by Penroses theory is that there is a physical reality that is behaving in a cyclical way. And that is all that can be understood from it because in the first place it is not a metaphysical argument, you are just conflating it with one while pretending to have the authority of science behind you.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

On the assumtion that Sir Roger Penrose is wrong, then…’

It doesn’t matter whether Penrose is right or wrong, you haven’t identified the existential cause. All you are really doing is asserting that physics is the existential cause or just saying that you don’t know why physics cannot be the reason why there is something rather than nothing at all.

In reality all that would be identified by Penroses theory is that there is a physical reality that is behaving in a cyclical way.

Physics is the cause. Assuming Penrose is correct. And the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ assumes that either could have been the case. It’s like asking ‘why do you have a father rather than not have a father’.

If there always has been something then it might be a reasonable question to ask what happens if it all dissapears. But it makes no sense to ask why it’s there. It’s one of those answers you don’t like. It just is. You can stare at the ceiling when wide awake and wonder about it. But there’s only one answer.

Would you ask why every circle’s circumference is a function of it’s diameter? Or why the internal angles of any triangle add up to 180? Is it meaningful to ask why or are they just basic axioms?

An good example of a meaningful question is: Is the bar open? It is? Well why am I wasting valuable time typing this…?

 

[Economist]

We are talking about what change involves on an ontological level, which is the movement from potentiality to actuality , and this is what Thomas is concerned with and is the reason why he infers a being that can give actuality to the motion of things and their potential reality.

Show me just one instance of “movement from potentiality to actuality” which does not involve a physical change. What is potential can only be known if the object is analyzed, and its physical characteristics are determined. The Thomistic “potentiality” is meaningless without analyzing the actual object. (Just like any other metaphysical concept.)

Metaphysics without a corresponding epistemology is meaningless. Yes, maybe someone will argue that this is just another “metaphysical” statement, but that would be wrong. It is an epistemological proposition.

So you are a proponent of scientism. You think scientific knowledge is the only kind of valid inferential knowledge. Only that method can be trusted.

Whatever “scientism” means.

There are two objective aspects of reality: “the physical aspect” and the “abstract aspect”. Using other words: “the inductive” and the “deductive” methods. The deductive method rests on axioms, and a proposition in a deductive reasoning is true, when it is a logical corollary of the axioms (using the allowable methods of transformation). In the inductive part we start with observation, set up a hypothesis, and conduct experiments which either verify or falsify the hypothesis. There are no other objective epistemological methods. You may disagree, but you need to argue for it.

The subjective part is just that: subjective. A proposition like “this woman is beautiful” is neither true, nor false in the objective sense. This is the question of aesthetics. Then there is ethics, which does not deal with “IS” statements, rather with “OUGHT” propositions. Ethical propositions rest on a chose ethical system (of which there are many) the details of that ethical system.

And then there is yet another possibility: propositions about something that does not exist. It could be about the past, about the future, or about a totally imaginary “object”. How can you determine if a proposition about an imaginary object is true or false? Do you have an epistemological method for that?

Finally, there can be propositions about something that does not exist, did not exist and will never exist. Molinists may call these “middle knowledge”.

So your accusation of “scientism” is without merit. I could continue, but I pass the baton to you.