Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 04:39:17 e832f3 No. 4329
How do you respond to this argument?
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 05:12:57 021c11 No. 4331
This is the man who plagiarized advanced Greek philosophy to make arguments to better defend the religion of desert shepherds. Did he ever gift us with an original thought?
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 06:03:54 1ad197 No. 4333
>>4329 >By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist We know the speed of light and the visible universe is a finite sphere with a radius of ~14 billion years
Give me a definition for these. I'm not going to work from implicit definitions.
What stops it from having an engine at the front? What if each box car toward the back being half the mass of the one in front of it? Such a train has an infinite number of cars, but finite mass.
Unless the train is on a sloped track and gravity is pulling it. Or there used to be an engine pulling the train, but it stopped, and the inertia of the cars keeps it moving until friction stops it. Etc.
Not a physicist, but to the best of my knowledge, everything in the universe is energy. From what I understand, matter is just a form of condensed or slowly-vibrating energy. There are explanations (that I don't understand) in modern physics for how The Big Bang (pretty much only energy) could result in a universe with both matter and energy. Energy by definition is just something that can change matter. All you need is a universe with both for things to be happening.
Why. Why can it not be both "actual" and other things? Why does there need to be a first in the chain? Why can't the chain be a loop?
"Purely actual" sounds a lot like energy to me, by the way.
Logical contradiction. Can God create an object too heavy for God to move? No? Then he's not omnipotent. Yes? Then he's not omnipotent.
This sounds literally like the ravings of a madman. There is no presented logical connection between these claims and anything stated above.
And I still don't know what is meant by "actual" and "potential" in the sense that it's used.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 06:24:00 16c253 No. 4334
>>4329 Everything sounds good up until he tries to assign properties to this unmoved mover that match a single, all-powerful, all-knowing deity.
I think quite the contrary. To be omnipotent is to be able to do anything and ability means potential. If something had the potential to do anything
and had all its potentials actualized it would have actual contradictions, which is clearly impossible.
What? Again I think some problem has arisen with our definition of potential. A thing's potential properties are determined and limited by its actual properties. Going back to the example of water and ice, water has the potential to turn into ice but it doesn't have the potential to gain knowledge because water isn't sentient. Since not all things have the potential to have knowledge, there's no reason a thing without unrealized potential would have to possess any knowledge, much less knowledge of everything.
Or at least not a substance located in space.
"Flawed" and "perfect" are terms that imply purpose and are not applicable to the natural world. Humans might look at a gemstone and decide that it is flawed or perfect, but outside of human appraisal this is not an inherent property of the gemstone. It merely is what it is.
Again, that would mean it contains actual contradictions, which can't be true. The truth is that two or more fully actualized things could exist if they didn't have the same potentialities.
So if this argument fails as an argument for God then what are Aquinas's unmoved movers? How about natural laws? I hesitate to use the word "law" since that could imply something created by Man, or a mere description of something rather than the reality of it, but I think you know what I mean. For example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation Newton's law of universal gravitation is universal and unchanging. It has no unactualized potentials. "Ah," you might be saying "but gravity acts at different places and times with different intensities. So it has unrealized potentials." That's true of gravitational energy, but
the law of universal gravitation as such is active at all places and all times and on every object to an equal extent (I'm aware that there may be cases where this law isn't accurate but let's say for the sake of argument that it is a completely universal law, since I'm sure we'll all agree that some physical laws are universal. I'm just using this as an example of a physical law because it's one most people are familiar with). The law that "any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them" is no less fully actualized when the bodies are small and far apart than when they are big and close. I'm not a physicist or a professional philosopher so maybe I'm wrong about this, but what really matters is that Aquinas's argument fails to prove the existence of God.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 08:41:44 eff21e No. 4338
Ultimately, we can do all the thought experiments we like, and all the "reasoning" we like, but it all fails in the face of evidence. The only real proof of God would be actual evidence, and we just don't have any. This goes for any scientific theory as well. It doesn't matter how beautiful an equation is or how much sense an explanation makes, if we don't have reproducible observations/experiments to back it up then we have no business considering it true.>water is just potential ice and can't do anything actual version of X. This potential vs actual dichotomy is complete fiction, so everything built upon it is unfounded. I mean, we don't even have a definition of these terms.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 09:33:43 7f9987 No. 4339
The usual responds really. It's an argument from ignorance, because we have no access to anything outside of causality (that's simply not how reality and our perception of it works), it's special pleading, because it doesn't explain why the God of the Bible is an exception from causality, it just claims it, and it's begging the question, as it can be rephrased as 'how can there be no creator if we know that everything was created?'. This assumes that all organization of structure requires a conscious intelligence willing it into being, which is at best an assumption and at worst completely wrong (pic related).
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 09:55:11 a33f97 No. 4340
A lot of this is just arguing semantics. Water is potential ice? What's to say that ice isn't just potential water? >God is a universe making entity >Things that create are only potential as they have the potential to either create or not to >Just as an artist is a potentiality because he can easily not make art, God is potentiality because he could have not made the universe >Thus something greater than God must have come before >That greater thing is an octopus because octopi are actual >They don't have the potential to exist, they do exist and because they are actual, thus they came before God and created God who then created the universe >however, the way octopi create and God create are fundamentally different. >God created a universe which is flawed, therefor he can only be a potential >Octop created God which is perfect therefor what we consider "creating" when it comes to octopi must be different than was we consider creating when it comes to God >Because octopi are able to create perfect things and perfection is a part of actuality, it therefor there isn't a contradiction between octopi creating things and octopi bring absolute.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 16:03:11 8979df No. 4343
>>4329 Point out the logical problem of infinite regression.. God must have a beginning so he must have been created by Super God who in turn was created by Super Duper God…
Also point out the material cannot be created or destroyed it merely changed form.
I propose the universe always was and always will be. The atoms of the universe swirl around form planets, then those planet get engulfed by stars which then explode and the process begins anew.
and before you guys give me the nobel prize for this theory, I must admit it is over 2,000 years old.
It's from Lucretius work,, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura So many theist arguments were refuted by the ancients,,
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 17:04:29 16c253 No. 4344
Niggers who didn't read the arguemnt.
>>4339 >>4343
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 17:16:36 f016af No. 4345
>>4344 Nigger who is unable to read the counter arguments
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 17:16:38 95f839 No. 4346
Nigger who's too stupid to understand the argument.
>>4344
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 17:31:01 0eed66 No. 4347
>>4344 Not one of the guys you're responding to, but you're the only nigger here.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 17:47:51 16c253 No. 4348
>>4345 >>4346 But you clearly didn't read it. I don't even agree with Aquinas's argument but your objections are nonsensical.
>>4339 >my personal criticisms of the first cause/five way/Aquinas stuff would be that at no point is God ever defined consistently (or at all) It is defined in the picture. You'll have to read all the way to the very end but please try anyway and don't just skip.
>>4343 Your points are irrelevant the argument being presented and seem to be directed at the popular strawman version of Aquinas's argument that goes along the lines of "God had to exist so the universe could be created". But it has nothing to do with what created the universe or whether matter can be created or destroyed, the argument is trying to prove that some force has to be behind everything that's happening right now.
Seriously, don't embarrass yourselves.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 19:02:53 7f9987 No. 4355
>>4348 Yes, with definitions that are even more vague than the terms they're supposed to describe. Also, they must be defined at the beginning of an argument, not at the end
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 19:39:54 16c253 No. 4356
>>4355 >Also, they must be defined at the beginning of an argument, not at the end No, because the point of the argument is to show that something exists and then say "This is what people call God", not to analyze the concept of God and thereby deduce that he must exist.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 20:19:29 7f9987 No. 4358
>>4356 But that 'something' is next to impossible to conceptualize. How is anyone supposed to conceptualize infinite properties like omnipotence? What you're basically saying is that this argument simply abuses our inability to create a concrete idea of the concepts you're using.
Our brains weren't developed to handle anything beyond the mundane. Even complex concepts aren't accessible to the most of us, so how can anyone even debate ideas that are based on definitions that for all intents and purposes could very well be replaced with 'Unknown 1', 'Unknown 2' and 'Unknown 3'? In Aquinas' argument, his god is basically shoehorned into the blanks that the brain produces when it's asked to conceptualize infinite properties. It is essentially a conceptual version of the argument from ignorance
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 20:20:29 16c253 No. 4359
>>4357 I already said it's not my argument you fucking retard but there's nothing wrong with the structure of it. The definition of the term "God" isn't important until the term is introduced, at which point it is defined. It's not part of the argument at the beginning so it doesn't need to be defined there. Besides, there is no rule of logic that says terms have to be defined "at the beginning of an argument" it's just usually more convenient that way. You could publish your argument with a glossary at the end defining all your terms and it would be just as logically valid as stating them in the argument itself.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 22:29:02 021c11 No. 4368
>>4359 Computers are more logical than humans. Let's make a program and put your statement to the test. I will put the definition later.
// Oh wise computer, I don't doubt your wisdom for an instant.
// If I define something first and then ask you to evaluate it, will you answer us?
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{cout << ruleoflogic;
string ruleoflogic;
return 0;
// I'll just gave you the definition of a string at the end, since you're even more logical than us and can figure out what I want.
}
error C2065: 'ruleoflogic' undeclared indentifier.
Oh, you made the computer mad. The computer even called out your bullshit. Now watch what happens in the animated gif when I reverse two lines of code to declare the identifier before I try to do something with a variable. The program will successfully compile, which is the ultimate proof of logic.
Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 23:23:33 16c253 No. 4369
>>4364 >>4367 >>4368 Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad. Just use your mind and
think for a moment. Imagine this conversation
>Person 2: Hold on, what is an even number? >Person 1: It's an integer divisble by 2. Now,
is it possible for person 2 to understand what person 1 is saying even though he didn't explain what an even number was until after he gave his (admittedly crude) argument for 6 being one. Both of these people are human beings, not computers btw.
Anonymous 03/16/15 (Mon) 01:02:51 021c11 No. 4372
>>4369 Things still must be defined first for any argument to have any meaning. In your example you are essentially making Person 2 rethink the argument a 2nd time after hearing the definition, and the argument only becomes logical to him the second time. You even admit this. In effect it's the first time he has heard the argument, because he could not possibly run through the argument without having the definition first. Premises and definitions must come before an argument can go anywhere.
Your rebuttal just played with the timing of conversation, and this has nothing to do with logic. It's also one of the lamest defenses ever. You had to add a loop to your argument, which you wouldn't have needed if you'd presented things correctly the first time. My computer is still smarter than you, because it saw through your illogical bullshit, and it stopped working as soon as it had no useful definition. It also didn't try to defend itself online with the same argument that was debunked the first time. Can you get on the level of my computer? Pic related.
Anonymous 03/16/15 (Mon) 01:21:48 16c253 No. 4377
>>4372 >In your example you are essentially making Person 2 rethink the argument a 2nd time after hearing the definition Yes. That's why I said it's usually more convenient to have definitions given at the beginning. However, thinking about the argument a second time is something that people are capable of doing and doesn't effect the logical validity of the person 1's position. If your computer wouldn't understand person 1 then it sounds like it
isn't smarter than anyone, despite your odd fetishization of it, since even an idiot would be able to understand him.
Anonymous 03/16/15 (Mon) 02:35:57 d759b1 No. 4386
The earth is 4.54 billion years old and the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Aquinas was wrong. Creationism is idealistic conjecture.
Anonymous 03/16/15 (Mon) 07:48:47 30d386 No. 4394
A lot of fiddling around with poorly defined terms in the beginning. This is usually a sign that a logical fallacy has been deliberately hidden within a manipulative web of semantics. The good thing about this kind of argument is that it eventually has to emerge from the brush into plain sight the moment it tried to make a truth claim, and that's where it can be refuted in the light like any other argument.
Anonymous 03/17/15 (Tue) 00:52:09 db6115 No. 4436
It is, without going through the individual clauses like other anons have, a cherry-picking->Broad Geenralization/Slippery slope ->Moving the goalposts chain of fallacies.
Anonymous 03/17/15 (Tue) 06:13:45 8991a4 No. 4467
>>4394 > that the universe itself could have simply existed without being created what is the big bang
Anonymous 03/17/15 (Tue) 08:23:03 e21802 No. 4470
>>4467 We don't know shit about what happened "before" the big bang (if that even makes any sense to discuss).
How do you know what we see as a beginning for our universe wasn't preceded by some other natural state which could well be eternal? Also how is something existing for no reason causally better than something beginning for no reason?
Anonymous 03/18/15 (Wed) 02:12:24 1ad197 No. 4538
>>4470 >(if that even makes any sense to discuss) It doesn't. Space and time have finite pasts that began with the Big Bang.
Anonymous 03/18/15 (Wed) 02:27:10 e21802 No. 4542
>>4538 Yeah ok. The whole first cause argument is based on speculation about things we don't know anyway. Its kind of pointless to get involved with it.
Anonymous 04/07/15 (Tue) 13:02:11 463843 No. 6323
>>4394 A deity is not the same thing as a universe. Surely you can see that?
>>4386 Well we already know for a fact that the universe had a beginning and it therefore not eternal. Also we can do a great deal of observation in and around the universe, so we're fairly sure that it's not sentient or possessed of knowledge, or even infinite. A self-creating universe doesn't really make any sense.
>>4343 >I propose the universe always was Physics tells us it wasn't though.
I don't think you actually read OP at all…
>>4340 >What's to say that ice isn't just potential water? It is. But it requires agency of some kind to realise that potential.
Anonymous 04/07/15 (Tue) 15:25:54 7f9987 No. 6324
>>6323 Yes, a natural agency, which has no conscious will of its own. Aquinas at no point explains why the agency that apparently created the universe needs a conscious will
Anonymous 04/09/15 (Thu) 18:00:20 78d3a7 No. 6374
>>4329 >everything needs a cause >an infinite regression is absurd >I call the first cause God The conclusion contradicts the first premise, that everything needs a cause, yet God hasn't been given a cause.
As far as epistemology goes, infinite regression isn't any less absurd than dogmatic axioms. Claiming to solve the problem of infinite regression with a logically contradictory postulate called God is no argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma
Anonymous 04/10/15 (Fri) 05:49:22 aa630b No. 6414
You see I agree with this 100%.
Anonymous 04/10/15 (Fri) 10:16:38 8979df No. 6429
File: 1428660998296.jpg (401.68 KB, 768x1041, 256:347, azathoth_by_sailhatan999-d….jpg )
>>6324 You and Aquinas have convinced me to believe in a god..
But it's H.P. lovecraft's Azathoth, the blind idiot god who sits at the center of the universe completely unaware of his surroundings, and when he twitches again the universe will be destroyed.
The horror.. the horror..
I was better off an atheist.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 18:13:04 29cb83 No. 6860
ITT: People who don't begin to understand Aristotelian concepts and Thomistic philosophy judge a condensee version of a complex argument
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 18:26:34 5c751f No. 6862
>>6880
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 18:52:37 29cb83 No. 6863
>>6862 Yes fedora, philosophy is just like alchemy, good thing we have science which is totally perfect and has no epistemological troubles at all :^)
This is precisely why I am studying at a Catholic university, they actually care about philosophy and learning the great 2500-year lasting debate that spawned western science, culture and virtually anything precious we are proud of.
What arrogance to think oneself above studying a genius such as Aristotle! Appalling.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 20:24:32 5c751f No. 6872
>>6863 You can keep studying your liberal arts at a Catholic university, and see where it takes you. Sticking with Aristotle will advance you as far as we went in the Middle Ages, which is where God wanted us to be, and a round Earth is so overrated. Forget about science, that is what the liberals want. Studying how to glorify God is what he would want, if he existed, and everyone at that Catholic university knows he does. I graduated from my University long ago, so of course you undergraduate kids must know more than me. I shall kowtow to your erudite minds.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:02:54 3266e3 No. 6890
There are a shitload of bad arguments in this thread. I think that they are caused by people reading the argument presented by OP solely to disprove it.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:14:08 021c11 No. 6891
>>6890 You missed the points from above. It's circular reasoning:
God must have created the universe,
because only God could create the universe, therefore God exists.
Or you can change the order:
Only God could have created the universe,
Therefore God created the universe,
Therefore God exists.
We can make the conclusion the premise and it is still as nonsensical:
God exists.
Therefore God created the universe.
Therefore only God could have created the universe.
God exists.
Therefore only God could have created the universe.
Therefore God created the universe.
Aquinas would have trouble fighting the Big Bang theory were he born today.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:28:36 152962 No. 6894
>>6890 If it can be disproved then it is a bad argument. Why should we be reading it to agree with it? That's a very plebian attitude regarding ontological arguments. Typical christfag.
>Just listen and believe!
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:31:21 5c751f No. 6895
God cannot transfer energy because there is no energy outside the universe.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:40:28 3266e3 No. 6896
>>6894 The idea is to come to a mutual understanding, you can still disagree, but to disagree because of an arguments phrasing rather than the reasons behind it is to do yourself a disservice.
Anonymous 04/17/15 (Fri) 22:47:12 152962 No. 6897
>>6896 Can you come to a mutual understanding with a schizophrenic?
Anonymous 04/18/15 (Sat) 00:55:43 021c11 No. 6907
>>6897 If you accepted they will always be a schkitty, you might convince them you are Jesus and they would give you all their money.
Anonymous 04/18/15 (Sat) 05:20:00 152962 No. 6912
>>6907 That would be taking advantage of someone. Why would you do that to a person with delusional schizophrenia, it would exacerbate the symptoms.
Anonymous 04/18/15 (Sat) 07:34:15 7f9987 No. 6917
>>6860 Which part specifically?
Anonymous 04/18/15 (Sat) 16:36:33 27b8ad No. 6934
One thing that bothers me about this argument: take an apple which falls on the ground.by itself ?
Anonymous 04/18/15 (Sat) 18:17:32 021c11 No. 6938
>>6934 I guess gravity and Newton's three laws were not so understood then. An asteroid approaching a star changes orbit because the star is an actual that exerts influence? But wit matter all things tug on each other and there is no inert mass. All you need is things tugging on each other to create the potential for change, and if this volatile matter existed form the beginning, then a degree of change was bound to happen. Such as the big bang.
Aquinas might call an end of the universe when particles break apart and freeze into inertness something that had to begin with a cause. Which makes one wonder: if you were to observe such an annihilated u iverse that was frozen at absolute zero, how could you know that it was not that way and with those inert characteristics from the beginning? Of course if the particles speed up or congregate, the degree of inertness will slip away.
Anonymous 04/19/15 (Sun) 07:12:39 085092 No. 6964
>>4331 >>4329 Nope. Thomas Aquinas is the shittiest "philosopher" to have ever lived. I don't even know why anyone even considers him a philosopher. His arguments suck, his definitions are wrong, his assertions are often baseless and his conclusions are faulty to say the very least. How anyone considers him a valid source of argument is completely beyond me.