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Tomdstone
Guest
Argument #20, Pascal’s wager, is an appeal to the emotions, and as such does not prove anything.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
No, it is an appeal to reason and the emotions. That is the holistic proof.
It is always better and reasonable to act in interest of our immortal soul. And since we cannot prove there is no God and no soul, it is better and reasonable to assume that both exist.
To assume that there is no God and no soul is to assume that we have no interest in either; and that may well determine whether our immortal soul, if it truly exist, will exist in favorable or unfavorable fashion.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Argument #9: The argument from miracles. It is not clear that these miracles are actual suspensions of laws of nature, and are not due to natural causes. The doctor told a non-believing friend of mine that he had skin cancer and needed a surgical procedure done immediately. He was not interested in cutting up his face, so he said no, even as the nurse called him several times warning of the consequences. However, six months later, the doctor now says his cancer is gone. Was it a miracle or just a natural remission? Seems unlikely that it would be a miracle, since he was not a believer.
If a person comes back from Afghanistan with a leg missing and an arm missing, and then he prays for a miracle and the leg and the arm regrow, well, yes, this would definitely be a miracle. But the types of cases, where the suspected cancer goes away, or the allergy to apples goes away after prayer, may be due to natural or even psychosomatic causes. So the atheist will not be convinced by the argument from miracles, especially since these types of events occur in many other non-Catholic religions.
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Tomdstone
Guest
The moral argument (#14):
Real moral obligation is a fact. We are really, truly, objectively obligated to do good and avoid evil.
Either the atheistic view of reality is correct or the “religious” one.
But the atheistic one is incompatible with there being moral obligation.
Therefore the “religious” view of reality is correct.
The problem with this is the assumption that the atheistic view of reality is incompatible with there being moral obligation.
Atheists and others contend that human social behaviors such as moral behaviors are the product of evolution.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
For the reasons you cite there cannot be an absolute moral law for atheists. Either every atheist is free to find his own moral law, or mankind in general will sooner or later evolve beyond the moral laws it presently abides by. Even the law of “do good and avoid evil” might evolve into the law of “do evil and avoid good.”
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Aloysium
Guest
:twocents:
I am spending time thinking about time.
I am spending a part of my life.
My life and time are one.
My life is an ongoing transformation in the moment.
My existence is this moment, where eternity underlies the flux of time.
As I type, change occurs in what is now.
Now has no beginning or end, but contains events that occur but briefly
in the context of those that span eons, stretching far beyond my life.
I remember situations and actions happening in the moment,
which defines the relationship between the soul, governed by free will, and the world.
What I have done, has changed what was happening, into this, that is happening.
I have changed myself into who I am.
My existence includes, besides my intellect, the capacity to engage in relationships - the capacity to love.
Through Christ, by His sacrifice and His being the Way, it is possible to become like a god - to become love.
Exerting a change within the world, a change is mirrored within me.
Although I transform the being which is who I am and is eternal in nature,
I remain a participant in creation;
I do not bring all that is the simple complexity of who I am, into being.
I have not caused who I am; it has been given.
The moment is, and is grounded in Something far, far greater.
Who that is, is God.
God is eternal and through His love, the Word, we are.
We exist within His infinite sea of compassion that stretches to all corners, every place and time in the universe.
That God experiences time was revealed by Jesus Christ.
He is transcendent above all creation.
Within the Beatific Vision, for all eternity we will be entering deeper into the infinite mystery that is God.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Actually, there are two possible versions of the argument.
One version, the Kalam, works if the universe did have a beginning. Big Bang cosmology supports this version.
Basically, the operating principle is that anything that comes into being or existence requires a cause because ex nihilo nihil fit - from nothing nothing comes. In other words, things don’t just “pop” into existence for no reason, without explanation and without proportionate cause. If we assume they do, then be prepared to allow that anything is possible any time.
If an atheist wants to allow that, then he is also prepared to allow anything is possible and science is merely a waste of time.
If the atheist is more reasonable, then he has to allow that if the universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago according to Big Bang cosmology, then he has to accept a reasonable explanation for its coming into existence. Things like universes do not merely “pop” into existence without explanation and for no reason no matter how much Lawrence Krauss claims they do. Since matter, time, energy and space all came into existence and none of them preceded the existence of the universe, then none of these could be invoked to explain their own existence.
Things don’t bootstrap themselves from nothingness into existence. That “possibility” contravenes the Principle of Proportionate Causality where things that cause other things as effects must contain within themselves the “power” to cause those things as effects. Something that does not exist (matter, space, time and energy) cannot bring something else into existence because “nothing” has no causal power whatsoever. Something has to exist in order to causally bring about the existence of something else.
An atheist who wants to argue otherwise has basically admitted they believe in metaphysical nonsense which means there is no reason to take them seriously when they refuse to believe in proportionate causality - something immaterial with power to bring universes into existence must exist in order for an adequate explanation for the universe to be possible.
Sure, the atheist could be willing to admit nonsense (things can bootstrap themselves into existence,) but then we have no reason to take the atheist seriously.
Okay, so what if Big Bang Cosmology is wrong and the universe had no beginning?
This leads to cosmological argument #2, the Aquinas version. Recall, that Aquinas famously allowed that the universe could have existed through infinite time, so even if the atheist wants to insist the universe had no beginning then Aquinas’ version of the argument covers this eventuality.
In Aquinas’ version, the key premise is based on the principle of sufficient reason. Whatever exists must either have its reason for its existence in the nature of what it is (self-explanatory) or it requires its existence to be explained by some other cause which is sufficient to explain, in a logically adequate way, how it came to be. In other words, it is not sufficient to claim that the universe just has existed through infinite time as a brute fact, because if we accept that as sufficient to explain the entire universe, we ought also be prepared to accept that anything within the universe likewise requires no explanation but we can simply allow that everything and anything can just be for no reason, but just as brute fact. No explanation necessary.
Additionally, the logical problem of traversing actual infinites argues against the universe existing through infinite time, i.e., has “always” existed.
So basically, Aquinas “heads off” the atheist contention by arguing that even things that “simply exist” must have some explanation which sufficiently explains why they do. It infringes the logical principle of sufficient reason to resort to “no reason necessary” merely to avoid having to provide one. This applies to things which exist because they have been caused to exist by other things or things which might be self-explanatory. If things, “just exist” they must contain within them the reason why they do.
The atheist would be compelled to give a plausible explanation for how the universe can sufficiently explain its own existence before he is to be taken seriously. Given that the theist has a plausible explanation for how the universe could come into existence, the atheist would be compelled to give as plausible an explanation (or better) before he or his argument need be taken seriously.
To be clear, if the atheist wants to allow “it just has always existed” with regard to a reasonable explanation for the universe, he needs to be prepared to allow that same retort as an explanation for everything. If the universe needs no explanation, then neither does anything within the universe. The atheist has allowed a logical precedent and must take on the burden of having done so.
Science becomes a meaningless and unnecessary activity since the atheist will allow that the explanations that we currently do have for things are no more necessary, adequate or, indeed, explanatory than merely calling things “brute facts” without need of explanation.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
If moral behaviours are the product of evolution, precisely what is it that obligates anyone to behave morally? Evolution?
Are we obligated to survive? By whom or what?
Are we obligated by evolution to not steal, kill or rape? By what about evolution exactly, if the evolved beings have evolved precisely to steal, rape and kill? How is it determined what it is exactly that evolution obligates us to? Where are the rules of engagement written, so to speak?
Lions have evolved to kill and eat zebras. How do we know humans have not evolved to rape, kill and steal from the weak in order to survive?
I don’t think you are really getting the point of the moral argument.
Obligation is a requirement to behave in a certain way, necessarily, as an absolute condition of morality. Absent God, what ground is there for obligating anyone unconditionally or absolutely? There is none.
If you think otherwise, provide the ground for obligation, not merely vague references to atheists believing in evolution. That doesn’t explain the source of obligation. We are all ears.
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PRmerger
Guest
You reject the Big Bang? Really?
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PRmerger
Guest
True. It’s not meant to be a proof, exactly. It is another argument for faith in God’s existence.
As Kreeft says: There is another, different kind of argument left. It has come to be known as Pascal’s Wager. We mention it here and adapt it for our purposes, not because it is a proof for the existence of God, but because it can help us in our search for God in the absence of such proof.
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PRmerger
Guest
Firstly, it’s not a proof for the existence, necessarily of a Catholic God, but of a God. The God of the Philosophers.
Secondly,* one* argument is not meant to be convincing.
But 20 certainly tip the scales, grandly, in favor of God’s existence.
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tonyrey
Guest
You still need to explain how our power to choose originated…
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Tomdstone
Guest
Assuming that first there was nothing (physical or material), then later on there was something physical or material and that the universe cannot come into being from nothing, is basically assuming a Creation and a Creator. So you are assuming what you want to prove. I haven’t looked at #2 yet. But will try to do so pronto,
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Tomdstone
Guest
It is not what I am rejecting. I am taking the POV of an atheist who is looking at the proofs and seeing if these proofs would satisfy him. The BB is not rejected by the atheist , but he will say that the BB was not the beginning. He will give you two possibilities:
- There was a Big Crunch and then a BB which repeats cyclically.
- The BB was a spinoff from the multiverse which did not have a cause, but always existed.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I have not had time to go through all 20 yet.
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Tomdstone
Guest
See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics
where it is reports on biological approaches to ethics and morality based on the role of evolution in shaping human psychology and behavior.
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Tomdstone
Guest
You are assuming something that the atheist does not accept. Can you prove that the soul is immortal to an atheist? Can you get the atheist to agree on your definition of a soul?
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Tomdstone
Guest
The atheist is going to tell you that sure, on earth everything we see here does have a cause (except perhaps for some events in the subatomic quantum world and for spooky action at a distance, which I will have to expand on later). But he will say that although everything on earth has a cause it is not clear that the universe as a whole had to have a cause or a sufficient reason to exist. By assuming that it does, you are assuming the existence of a Creator and a Creation, so in effect you are assuming what you want to prove.
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Aloysium
Guest
Do any of these explanations make any difference in a person’s life.
Where does one place love in these systems? Without it, one will never be happy.
Being a loving person is very difficult, impossible actually, without some way of connecting with what is love.
One may perhaps do so imagining the subatomic or the macrocosm of interstellar space,
by entering into the mystery that is creation,
thereby leading one to contemplate He from whence it comes.
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PRmerger
Guest
Take your time.
Although I will say that I am simply astonished that this would be the first time that you would have done so.
Simply astonished.
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