Right. It’s important to note that I created this thread to ask questions. That’s how web forums work: You go into a thread with the goal of answering the OP’s question. If you don’t want to answer my questions, why are you here? If you want someone to answer your questions, go make your own thread. That’s how web forums work.
No. That is not how web forums work and it is definitely not what you did. Let’s look at an example of what you really wrote in the beginning of this thread:
Please stop giving Catholic Answers money to enable Karlo Broussard to continue confusing people with false philosophy.
Am I supposed to believe that this is a question?
No, you did not ask questions (there was just one question mark in your words, and it does not end a question you ask). You stated your position, as if it was truth known with perfect certainty.
Now, of course, it looks like you have nothing to offer in support of your position, with exception of posturing, distractions and excuses (like the “web forums” one), for you have yet to offer anything more substantial in favour of it.
To answer your questions about my philosophy, of course I look for physical causes just as with the tree. I don’t say “it happened without a reason”, just as I didn’t say that about Karlo’s tree.
You talk as if the word “physical” was important here. It is not.
The premise that the argument in question needs is just that there are no brute facts, that we have to look for explanation of existence of everything, that everything that does not exist necessarily has at least one cause (and per se causal series behind it) that keeps it in existence.
You might note that nothing in here is claimed to be “physical” or “non-physical”, “chemical” or “non-chemical”, “biological” or “non-biological”. Thus none of your attacks find a target.
And, as you can see, it is a pretty basic premise. Reject it - and you reject all possible science (and thus you’re out of a job). You can’t research cancer in any way worth mentioning if you have to take possibility that its existence is just a brute fact seriously.
And if you accept it, the argument runs to the conclusion that something does exist necessarily, having explanation of its own existence in itself. At that point we do not know much about that “something”, but we can start exploring its properties. That is, is it material or non-material, is it unique, or are there many of them etc.
It’s your choice.
