Thomistic proofs for the existence of God in the light of modern science

[MindOverMatter]

I hope those who need to see this get to see it. I have come to understand something, and now i must share it.

From The Hierarchy Of Quality, To The Existence of A “Personal” God.

This arguement follows from the pressuposition that the first mover arguement is correct.

Now for my major premise.

1. All the Qualities of our universe, can only be sufficiently explained by the ultimate cause. In other words, it is a fallacy to look to immediate causes for a “full” explanation of the universes qualities, although they may give us some understanding of what is being produced and how it is produced. In otherwords, an intermediate cause is not the ultimate origin of any quality, even though it may play an important part in the actualisation of such qualities. For example, the fact that a chemical chain reaction will bring about a specific quality such as sight, is not fully explained by the reaction in question. The fact that such an envent occurs at all, is owed ultimately to that which is responsible for the chain of events that lead to the chemical reaction in the first place. It is that which defines that something should react in relation to something else, and by doing so, give birth to something new.
2. An intermediate cause needn’t be more, qualitatively, then the end that is produced; but it cannot sufficiently or fully explain the end for it is not the first cause.
3. An “efficient” “first” cause of “all things” must be qualitatively more then what it produces; even in its most simplistic form. It must explain the origin of all qualities to a sufficient degree.

Please be sure of the premise. I do not mean “quantitatively”, but “qualitatively”. Try not to confuse the two.

***Conclusion. ***

If there are people in existence with freewill, then the first cause cannot be anything less then a person or lack freedom. (By calling God personal and free, we mean something vastly more then what we would understand in respect of human beings.)

Therefore God is something like a person.

One might say, in rebuttal, that therefore God must be something like a physical being. And I would agree that God is qualitatively something like a Universe, but only in the sense that God exists.

First of all…

1. Logically, by its nature of being a First cause, it cannot itself be in motion.

Secondly…

1. By its very nature of being “more” then physics, and the cause of physics, it must transcend physics. Thus, is non-physical (without parts or physical complexity), and it is in this sense that God is the most simple and perfect being.

Thirdly…

1. Persons with freewill, in terms of the whole, are qualitatively more then mere physics, although they are made up of parts.
   So, in terms of the major premise that the first cause is qualitatively greater (or rather is the greatest), the first cause therefore cannot both be at the same time qualitatively more then physics, but be qualitatively less then a person. God can be greater then a person, but cannot be a non-person qualitatively speaking.

Conclusion

The first cause is therefore something like a person.

Side note.

If this Universe cannot fulfill us as persons, then maybe we were made for another world. Maybe this world is here to prepare us something Greater.

God bless.

 

[Logos385]

please hold still this is going to hurt

Only because you truly do not understand what I am saying, maybe I am not putting it into writing correctly.

Essentially, the way you are speaking, all Atheists would be amoral, sadistic rapists who don’t care for anyone. And that, as I hope you know, is a baseless fallacy. There are a couple ways to look at this:

1.) Objective morality is society, a group of people getting together and agreeing on a set of morals that would, in the end, help everyone more than it would hurt.

2.) Instead of taking Thomas Hobbes, and thinking human nature to be bad, take John Locke and tabula rasa, the belief that all humans begin (at birth) as a blank slate. Generally, the environment and society will instill a good set of morals within a human being.

3.) The reason for morality is simply the want to avoid psychological trauma of immorality.

There are some more reasons, but I will only address them if asked to. I assure you, Atheists can be as moral as anyone else.

actually, they would just be one more regression, physical things cannot cause themselves. though that is how they are being marketed among atheists. its more a lack of understanding thomistic proofs than anything else

Have you observed every natural and/or physical thing that has ever existed? If not, you can’t make such claims that natural/physical things can’t both be eternal and can’t both be uncaused.

it took millions of people cooperating, to produce those atrocities, were they all crazy? no, of course not, they were all operating on commonly held beliefs, which were moral relativism and atheism, the only factors that all those governments held in common.

No… these governments had MUCH more in common, but not all of these even had these in common:
"“The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.”

–Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934"

Even though some terrible people have been Atheists, none of these atrocities are committed in the name of Atheism, they are committed completely separated from this lack of belief. The commonalities rely in that these regimes were dogmatic, oppressive, and led by some seriously troubled people. The reason people subscribed to these is peer pressure, the willingness to subscribe to beliefs that humanity has, and the amazing oratory skills and military/political power of many of these dictators.

they were regular people like you and i, who accepted that some people were less valuable then others, all for different reasons, but all allowed because there was no concept of an overarching objective morality, an intrinsic value of people derived from a special creation.

If you seriously think people like Hitler and Stalin were regular people, you have an extremely skewed view of humanity. They were psychotic, crazy, and terribly disturbed in every sense of the word: with or without religion. Their Atheism (even though Hitler was religious) had NOTHING to do with their actions. At all. At all.

further those regimes have no common factors accept atheism and relativism. pretty scary.

This is a simple and base fallacy, and I hope you know that.

hitler was not a practicing Catholic, and he was only one man, maybe i should have said nazis.

He was, in fact, a practicing Catholic, Christian at the very least. And the Nazis were most definitely a pro-Christian group. See the quote above.

I am not saying their Christianity caused their actions, please don’t say Atheism caused the others. We both know this to be an incorrect statement.

 

[Logos385]

Dear Logos385,
while the gift of free will gives one the ability to make choices, it is not always in use.

Mhmm. Sure.

What is neat about Aquinas’ evidence for the existence of God is that it takes in the whole picture.

I don’t believe it does… it fails to allow for the realm of science to make comments on the cause of the Universe. But either way, this free will science is not comprehensive in nature, of course, but it may be later in time. This is just the beginning of a very interesting line of research.
Thanks! : ).

 

[MindOverMatter]

I am not saying their Christianity caused their actions, please don’t say Atheism caused the others. We both know this to be an incorrect statement.

Moral values, historically speaking are built mostly on the bedrock of religious belief. The idea that we have a divine purpose, and intrinsic value, or the idea that we “ought” to love are fellow human beings, are metaphysical statements that infer platonic or supernatural realities.

While it is true that many atheists are capable of moral behavior, they do not get their values from thin air, and they certainly do not get it from their atheism. Neither is enviroment an explanation. A good Atheist is good largely because of the values they have been given, and because they practice metaphysics. An honest intelectual Atheist is a Nihilist. Such a person does not believe in right and wrong or divine punishment, not because he or she is a bad person, but because they cannot logically infer those realities according to their naturalistic veiw point of reality. Therefore the door is open for much evil far greater then that of any religious creation.

 

[MindOverMatter]

The above is what I mean when I say that many theists in this forum are materialists at heart.
Best,
Leela

Thinking Catholics have never been in denial of the natural order. A true understanding of the “Catholic faith”, denies us this mentality. In this sense, I am a true Scientific “Naturalist” and proud of it.
What I mean by that is, scientifically speaking, I am not a “pagan” whom believes that supernatural beings move the planets around or that the stars are Gods. We do not worship the natural world as God. In fact, the Genesis account was written as a polemic against the pagan beliefs of their day. That is why, in Genesis, we have God spoken of as creating the moon and the sun, as mere lamps to govern the night and day.
To a pagan, in a largely pagan society, this would have been a shocking thing to say—it was heresy. Such an idea completely undermines “supernaturalism”. Catholics are not supernaturalists, at least not in the pagan sense of the term. It is us Christians who laid the fertile soil and the seeds of intellectual thinking in order for science to grow, and this was achieved by placing God Completely outside of nature. Good Catholics have always approved of science. What they have disapproved of, is the fact that science is being hijacked to promote a purely materialistic account of reality. That is not the purpose of science. The original purpose of science was to understand Gods creation; how it worked, etc. From a methodological point of veiw, one is trying to understand physics. Any other view of the relationship between science and religion is merely propaganda.

So, it is true that we thinking Catholics are naturalists at heart. But metaphysically speaking; we are “Theists” in so far as we believe that ultimately all physics rests in a “Super Nature” (meaning nothing less then the ground of all being) that eternally “wills” all possible things into being and sustains them in existence, so long as such things reflect the glory of Gods nature–Gods attributes.

This is where we part ways with naturalists for they posit the hypothesis that ultimate reality is physical in nature. However, this is merely a hypothesis, which is based more on a prejudice against religious standards, then any triumph in reason. In my view, Modern atheism grew out of Protestantism and a growing dislike of the Catholic Church as a state religion. It has always been politically driven in my view, as with Marxism. Not all enlightenment philosophers where atheists in fact, but where rather pantheists and deists (read Alistair Magraths "Twilight Of Atheism"). It is out of this conflict that atheism gained confidence and a powerful influence on those unsuspecting rebellious minds who thought that a heavenly utopia on earth was more profitable then the supposed fantasies of Church dogma. The most powerful argument against God is not scientific, but emotional; and that is “the problem of evil”. Atheism was attractive to those who were tired of the religious promise heaven, and the strict rules that accompanied a life of faith, and they thought that the principles of “methodological naturalism” could be used as a promotional defense of disbelief, and they have been using it ever since. However, ultimately and fundamentally, Atheism was largely spread through the heated passions of desire, not logic. That is not to say that there isn’t an intellectual attractiveness about naturalism, since is does seem, at first glance, that all physical events have physical causes and it doesn’t help when young earth creationists promote the view that everything in the bible is a historical account. However, Catholics have never denied Natural Events; and some of the greatest scientists where Catholics and Christians! Anybody who can’t be bothered to study the historical relationship between science and religion form unprejudiced sources, will be strengthened in there opposition toward God when exposed to the intellectual wrath of a Yec.

I was an Atheist to. I hated God; and I sometimes get angry with him now even as a Catholic. And selfishly, sometimes I would rather be carefree and do something else rather then spend a mere hour with our Father in communion. But the alternative is ridiculous. Not only is the idea of a pointless universe to unbearable for words to describe, but the idea that people who can feel love, pain, remorse and can understand the Universe and has the freewill to create breathtaking technological devices, are nothing more then the end result of impersonal forces, just doesn’t add up. The end does not make sense of the means.
The world popping into existence, going through billions of years of evolution, giving rise to intelligent self aware creatures that turn around and say, there is no God, is a joke on the scale of galactic proportions.

 

[Logos385]

To MindOverMatter,
I don’t think religion gives people base morals or that Atheism gives them it either. It’s society, environment, nature and their own intuition. One main reason I distrust religious morality is that it is absolute, and that is completely inaccurate. Each situation is unique, and requires a unique, situational analysis, that our natural brains do without help.

And thanks for returning with some interesting (name removed by moderator)ut : ). I appreciate it.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Mhmm. Sure.
I don’t believe it does… it fails to allow for the realm of science to make comments on the cause of the Universe. But either way, this free will science is not comprehensive in nature, of course, but it may be later in time. This is just the beginning of a very interesting line of research.
Thanks! : ).

The proper place of science is to understand physics. To ask what caused the universe is a metaphysical question. Science cannot anwser that question because such a question is not subject to scientific measurement. One can know what the first physical event might be; but it can never hope to explain what the cause of all physical events are. Such an explanation takes us beyond physical events and thus is beyond physical measurement. To suppose that science should or can give an explanation is to take science beyond its proper application. Science is the study of physics. Metaphysics is the study of Ultimate Being.

 

[Logos385]

I would once again, disagree. I do that a lot around here, I apologize if I simply sound contradictory, I don’t mean to : ).

Anyway, whatever was the first cause would be at least indirectly observable through scientific methods. The first cause would not occur and then never be able to be perceived through the things it caused. If this first cause created matter, we should see some evidence of it within that matter, if it created energy, same thing. Science should most definitely be able to perceive things.

Every natural explanation has not yet been ruled out, and to end the search by postulating an unscientific explanation is to stop investigation, which I am not in favor of.

I understand where you guys come from, I am just more content with saying, “I don’t know” what the first cause was than you guys seem to be. I don’t think we need to have an answer right now, I don’t think any answer we currently attempt to come up with will be adequate, for I don’t think anyone out there as of yet has any way to accurately explain, measure, discuss or even theorize an explanation. This does not mean postulating another realm for me, as it does for you, it means waiting until more evidence comes in : ).

 

[MindOverMatter]

To MindOverMatter,
I don’t think religion gives people base morals or that Atheism gives them it either. To MindOverMatter,…

A proper study of history and ethics will show otherwise. Even D, Bennet, one of the you’re leading Naturalist Philosphers, will tell you that. I don’t deny that everybody has the capacity to know right and wrong, since we all have the capacity for guilt; but it is how we fundementally veiw the world that gives rise to ethical systems. Ethical systems are derivitive of how we ultimately percieve are selves, other people, and the universe, and this is precisely where naturalism becomes very dangerous; because if the universe is just a meaningless series of flukes and human beings are nothing but objects who think that they are persons with rights but are really just deterministicated puppets of natural events, then ethical systems are undermined. Serverely.

There is no avoiding that fact.

It seems a bit odd though, that a 3 dimensional grouping of atoms in space/time, should feel guilty about its behavior, and that such guilt is almost always an inference of selfish behavior, don’t you think?.

It’s society, environment, nature and their own intuition…

And what is society made of? It is made of people with beliefs about the reality they live in. To ignore the powerful influence of beliefs on the moral choices we make is to underestimate the history of morality.

One main reason I distrust religious morality is that it is absolute, and that is completely inaccurate. .

Well, you have given me no arguements that proves your case or even challenges mine, so i cannot respond properly.

But what i will say is that, inorder for any ethical system to work, it has to make absolute moral statements. Outside of moral absolutes, there are no moral truths. Morality becomes relative and so non-existent. Its becomes about what people feel like rather then how people ought to behave toward one another. Christians do not deny that guilt is decreased or abscent given different situations. For example, thou shalt not kill, doesn’t mean that one cannot defend ones self or fight a just war. What it means is that one cannot kill for selfish reasons. This does not change or challenge the absolute truth that murder is wrong. But you might not have known that if i hadn’t told you. And, in order to be in the know, one has to study Catholic theology unprejudicely, instead of relying merely on second hand sources. (this is off topic; it will be best if we start another thread)

I suspect you have a weak understanding of Catholic morality.

Each situation is unique, and requires a unique, situational analysis, that our natural brains do without help…

How does this relate to what people believe? Only People think. Atoms, on the otherhand, are inert.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Except a personal experience permeating every human I’ve ever known.

would you accept that argument if it was about personal experience with G-d, instead of free will?

I see where you are coming from, but I would disagree. As I can’t say it nearly as well as others, here is a quote from an article at naturalism.org/demoralization.htm:

"People and their wills aren’t disempowered when we explain them in terms of antecedent causes. Just as my antecedents, genetic and environmental, had the causal power to create me in all my glory, I too have causal power to influence the world. So don’t forget about me.

just a claim with no supporting evidence. everybody is sure they have free will, but no one has proof of it.

You can’t logically attribute power to the world and not to the agent, which is what the previous paragraph does: it concedes the causal efficacy of what created the person, but denies that the person plays a role in how things unfold in her immediate neighborhood, and sometimes well beyond.

why cant you logically attribute a causal chain of determinism to the universe, but not to the person? thats like saying a section of links in a chain, can branch off all on their own.

Although we don’t have ultimate control over ourselves – there’s no evidence we are self-created in a way that can’t be traced back to non-self factors

sure we do, Aquinas was right, in that no physical thing can cause itself. those would be the ‘non self factors’

– we have plenty of local, proximate control and power: our actions, controlled by our wills, often have the intended effects. This control and power doesn’t go away when we admit that the will itself has causal antecedents, that it didn’t create itself."

in an accidental universe, dependent on the mathematical relationships of particles, such a claim doesnt stand up. there is no mechanism by which the chain of causality may be broken in order for free will to operate.

nice words, but a weak argument.

You seem to be contradicting yourself, and I’m confused. You are saying, “We only have evidence of determinism, thus we don’t have free will. But I know we have free will, thus there is a supernatural cause of it.” If we have no evidence of free will, why assert it exists at all?

actually "we only have evidence of determinism,* if that is all there is*, then we dont have free will,
“i know i have free will. i know we only have evidence for determinism. therefore that must not be all there is.”

i know its confusing, but the point is an accidental universe can have no free will, yet we all believe we have it. atheism wants both a free will and an accidental, purely determinnistic world, htat or they say that free will is an illusion, and that is just silly to me. ( i often use my opponents arguments against them, that doesnt make it my position, however.)

Once again, if it exists, it would just be a natural manifestation of physical things.

that implies that the chain of causality is broken, by those physical processes, something science would disagree with vehemently.

Concepts exist, even if they are not “things” as you would define them. Free will is a conceptual idea… why can’t the brain simply account for this? I feel like you are jumping to an unwarranted conclusion here?

concepts only existence are as chemical interactions in a brain, they dont really exist as anything physical other than those chemicals, the instant you stop thinking about them, they disappear. they are not physically existent in any meaningful way.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Only because you truly do not understand what I am saying, maybe I am not putting it into writing correctly.

no, i get it, we have these conversations at least once a weak here.

Essentially, the way you are speaking, all Atheists would be amoral, sadistic rapists who don’t care for anyone. And that, as I hope you know, is a baseless fallacy.

im saying there is no objective reason not to be Machiavellian in nature.

There are a couple ways to look at this:

1.) Objective morality is society, a group of people getting together and agreeing on a set of morals that would, in the end, help everyone more than it would hurt.

yeah thats called communism, sounds great, winds up bad, real bad. look at soviet collectivization, political reeducation, tianeman square, falun gong, etc.

2.) Instead of taking Thomas Hobbes, and thinking human nature to be bad, take John Locke and tabula rasa, the belief that all humans begin (at birth) as a blank slate. Generally, the environment and society will instill a good set of morals within a human being.

in john lockes time almost everyone was religious, that good set of morals was a product of an extrememly religious society

yet even though we are born with a blank slate, it is written on by our own desires in the absence of a greater society, food, water, sex, power, fulfillment, domination, etc.

human nature is no different than an animals if exposed to the same stimuli. we seek to fulfill our desires to any extant we can get away with.

3.) The reason for morality is simply the want to avoid psychological trauma of immorality.

what trauma? am i supposed to feel bad because i got what i wanted?

There are some more reasons, but I will only address them if asked to. I assure you, Atheists can be as moral as anyone else

.

having an ability is far from acting on it, if you doubt me please look up the nearest atheist hospital, battered womens shelter, or homeless shelter, where are all the atheistic saints? like mother theresa, or saint francis?

atheism provides no motive for self sacrifice, the kind that cost you more than you give, something that requires real sacrifice.

Have you observed every natural and/or physical thing that has ever existed?

yes, its called the periodic table, its up in every chem lab you can find, it even lays out the necessary principles by which anything not on it must exist.

If not, you can’t make such claims that natural/physical things can’t both be eternal and can’t both be uncaused.

sure can, nothing with a beginning, can be eternal. and since branes in m-theory are the building blocks of matter, they must necessarily be physical and therefore unable to cause themselves.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

No… these governments had MUCH more in common, but not all of these even had these in common:

please, tell me what they had in common?, not religion, political, or market system, language culture, or ethnicity.

"“The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.”

–Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934"

that means that the state wont interfere with the church, i think maybe you just saw the word ‘Christain’

Even though some terrible people have been Atheists, none of these atrocities are committed in the name of Atheism, they are committed completely separated from this lack of belief.

im not saying that these were done as an atheistic end, rather they are the result of ideas excluding G-d from their worldview, people had no intrinsic value as a creation of G-d, they became disposable, and dispose of them they did, for reasons political, ethnic, financial, intellectual, eugenic, you name it.

The commonalities rely in that these regimes were dogmatic, oppressive, and led by some seriously troubled people. The reason people subscribed to these is peer pressure, the willingness to subscribe to beliefs that humanity has, and the amazing oratory skills and military/political power of many of these dictators.

dogmatic? no, they were all moral relativists, maybe their approach was dogmatic, but relativism was the name of the game. that argument also implies that people willingly do what they see as evil, under others influences, which people dont, they do it because they think it is right, or moral.

If you seriously think people like Hitler and Stalin were regular people, you have an extremely skewed view of humanity. They were psychotic, crazy, and terribly disturbed in every sense of the word: with or without religion. Their Atheism (even though Hitler was religious) had NOTHING to do with their actions. At all. At all.

except if any had been practicing any major religion, the things they did would never have happened. there atheism simply allowed their actions to be arguably moral.

in the absece of G-d peoples value is only what they assign to themselves, it usually not long before some reason comes up where people are of different values, you can then kill them morally, they are worth much. think, jews, retards, mentally ill, soviet peasants, soviet intellectuals, businessman, etc

hundreds of millions of deaths, not caused by atheism, but allowed by it

if any of those men had practiced a major religion, none of that would have happened

This is a simple and base fallacy, and I hope you know that.

i know what actually happened historically. several examples all with the same out come.

He was, in fact, a practicing Catholic, Christian at the very least. And the Nazis were most definitely a pro-Christian group. See the quote above.

like i said the quote is just an assurance that the state wont interfere with the church. nothing more, and if he were a practicing catholic, there never would have been a war at all.calling yourself catholic and being catholic are two very different things

I am not saying their Christianity caused their actions, please don’t say Atheism caused the others. We both know this to be an incorrect statement.

i never said atheism caused those atrocities, i said atheism allowed them and made them easier to occur.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Anyway, whatever was the first cause would be at least indirectly observable through scientific methods.

we already excluded anything physical as the first cause.

The first cause would not occur and then never be able to be perceived through the things it caused.

we think it can be just not the way you seem to

If this first cause created matter, we should see some evidence of it within that matter, if it created energy, same thing. Science should most definitely be able to perceive things.

why? is this just opinion, or an argument?

Every natural explanation has not yet been ruled out, and to end the search by postulating an unscientific explanation is to stop investigation, which I am not in favor of.

nothing physical can cause itself, that rules out all natural explanations.

I understand where you guys come from, I am just more content with saying, “I don’t know” what the first cause was than you guys seem to be.

we can logically show that it cannot possibly be anything physical, its not an i dont know kind of thing, its pure unadulterated, unavoidable logic.

I don’t think we need to have an answer right now, I don’t think any answer we currently attempt to come up with will be adequate, for I don’t think anyone out there as of yet has any way to accurately explain, measure, discuss or even theorize an explanation. This does not mean postulating another realm for me, as it does for you, it means waiting until more evidence comes in : ).

we arent postulating another realm, we simply know that it cannot be anything in this realm.

 

[MindOverMatter]

we arent postulating another realm, we simply know that it cannot be anything in this realm.

What Logos is really saying is that he would rather wait for his ultimate fantasy to come true. That there is a physical object in the distant past that was in motion for no reason and is the cause of all things.

Any explanation that takes us beyond the physical is wrong because it can’t be measured by the amazing powers of science.

The poor guy doesn’t realise that reality does not work like that.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Is it me, or does Logos keep commiting the same logical fallacies over and over again? It gets to a point where one can’t help but suspect willful denial.

We have explained why an inert physical being cannot cause itself into being.

His answer is the same as Dawkins. Science will have the answer one day.

He either has no trust in logic or has simply commited himself to Naturalism.

Does he not know that logic is the foundation of science?

 

[grannymh]

Dear Logos385

Regarding my previous comment: What is neat about Aquinas’ evidence for the existence of God is that it takes in the whole picture and your comments below, I offer some miscellaneous thoughts.

I don’t believe it does… it fails to allow for the realm of science to make comments on the cause of the Universe. But either way, this free will science is not comprehensive in nature, of course, but it may be later in time. This is just the beginning of a very interesting line of research.Thanks!

Since I’m relearning (though to be honest it is more like learning from scratch) about my friend Thomas Aquinas, I am interested in the research…

I’ve read a tiny bit about scholastic thought trying to get a handle on the period of Aquinas. Apparently, he is the chosen one among many because he was the most reasonable. Somehow, I have the impression that he had more to write about the whole picture. In other words in my humble opinion, Aquinas never excluded the realm of science.

To me, Thomas Aquinas actually used some of the basics of scientific exploration in that he evaluated the natural world by examining what he observed. Of course he didn’t do this in a laboratory; he did it by a mental, logical process. Of course, he believed that God existed. To me, he found the link between the natural world and a Transcendent Being. He presented reasons to believe in the God that he had come to know through the gift of faith. If anything, he continues to open people’s minds to the possibility of the spiritual, the possibility that we are more than physical matter.

It is obvious that you know that you, yourself, are more than physical matter. I mean this in a kind manner. In a way, you and Aquinas are seeking understanding about what you experience.
For example, you are exploring the question of free will from different angles. I will join in that exploration much later. Hopefully, you will wait for me.

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[Logos385]

I have quite a few posts to reply to, and will do hopefully all of that in one post (yet not in the conventional quote/reply method).

Warpspeed: The replies I have been seeing from you make me more and more disappointed. I will most definitely concede to everyone here that I don’t know enough about the origin of the Universe question to comment on it again for now. I suspect I will come back here much later and start another thread about it, I’m sorry if I seem to be… stubborn, it’s just a very confusing, yet important, subject.

That said, about morality, we can agree that without an institution dealing with morality, it would be difficult for a child, all on his/her own, to arrive at the same moral system we hold today. However, one reason for society is agreed upon morals, and the protection of such a code… that’s what laws are for. I fail to see, Warpspeed, why society automatically leads to communism? That comment showed a wish to discount my arguments without actually evaluating them. In the same way a religion makes moral judgements, so can a society. Through these laws (those against murder, thievery, discrimination, abusive behaviors, etc) a moral system can be established without religion. Religion is completely unnecessary in the moral department if a society is in place to make comments on morality.

I will concede that if no government/formal society was in place, a form of religion would act as the moral guidance, for the desire for necessities would rule all without society. But within society, there is a mutual agreement to work together with the community and achieve as much as possible with respect to pursuing things such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of property/happiness, base desires. Members of the society can achieve much more together with respect to these desires than apart.

That being said, there is most definitely a moral/immoral judgement going on constantly within the minds of every human being. When confronted with such a decision as to kill or die, one must make a judgement, without the help of religious text right then and there.

On Atheist morality, atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/03/rob-olson-on-atheist-morality.html.
Atheists in foxholes: atheistfoxholes.org/

I guess what I will say is that those regimes you speak of, as I have shown but you refuse to accept (In the quote it was said not just that Christianity would be protected, but that they pledged their allegiance to it, and that it was in harmony with the state), do not all have Atheism in common, but also that their Atheism does not “allow” for the atrocities as you said. Think of the Crusades? The Inquisition? How did religion “allow” for these?

With all of this said, this is ridiculously off-topic. If you wish to continue this discussion, please, start another thread and I will continue. But I don’t see too much value in this particular train of thought, no matter how eye-opening our former conversation was.

Thanks for the lengthy discussion on origins, it was very helpful, and I will comment again on it much later, after much research.

Have a good day everyone.

 

[grannymh]

IThanks for the lengthy discussion on origins, it was very helpful, and I will comment again on it much later, after much research.Have a good day everyone.

Dear Logos385,

Since you and I are birds of a feather–we both have a lot of reading to do-- is there a way we could keep each other up to speed by exchanging insights as in a “work in progress”?
For example, when I first got on the forums, I was interested in the humanist movement because it seemed to me that in America it had changed substantially from its origins. I see similarities with what is being expressed here. I also want to think about relativism from the perspective of its impact on the younger generation. I guess that America is still “the melting pot” as we learned in grade school.

One thing I should say upfront is that I have a firm belief in God and practice my Catholic religion; but that does not isolate me from the rest of the world. As a result of both my faith and experience in the real world, I honor the positions of non-religious and non-theists.

Bottom line–please keep in touch through the pm system.

Blessings,
grannymh