Wyz_sub10

There is nothing hypocritical (and certainly nothing "anti-intellectual", whatever you mean by that) about my response.

Badfish stated that gnostics and atheists were "diametrically opposed", when compared to each other and to agnostics.

They are not.

My statement:

...is quite appropriate. An atheist doesn't debate whether is it possible to know god in the context of gnosticism.

A gnostic says - "god talks to us". An agnostic says - "no, god does not talk to us."

An atheist does not believe in god, so the question is moot.

Do you understand?

I'm well aware of the fact that atheists challenge the gnostic and agnostic positions. But they are not "diametrically opposed" to gnosticism. (that would imply that atheists believe that god exists "to be known")

diana

I dunno, Christopher. (Nice to see you're still around, btw.)

"I think, therefore I am" seems much more reasonable to me than "Everything that moves is moved by another and infinite regression is impossible" (which, as I've painstakingly explained, are mutually exclusive premises).

I fail to understand how my reading Aquinas will make this basic problem go away. You certainly haven't.

d

HRG

50 years ? Absolute space and absolute time were dead the moment Einstein published "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" and Minkowski introduced space-time with the Lorentz metric. IMHO - although you'll disagree - strict causality was dead with the experimental confirmation of Bell's inequality.
True. We can always invent leprechauns which make indistiguishable pions decay in different modes.

QM does, however, put the burden of proof on those who insist that all things are caused, and want to derive other propositions from this basic claim.
Please tell us how you arrived at this universal - and at least for me, rather surprising - claim. I'm afraid that calling it "metaphysical insight" is not convincing for those who do not share your metaphysics.

Regards,
HRG.

diana

This has been here a day or two and no one has called me on it. (Shame on y'all. )

I was thinking of Rene Descartes, immortalized in Monty Python's, "Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: I drink, therefore, I am."

My point still stands, though. Discussion of Sartre (or Descartes) is a red herring. We're lambasting Aquinas here. Let's keep our eyes on the ball.

d

Albert Cipriani

Wyz says:
Not according to Darwin and his good friend, the geologist, Charles Lyell, whose sedimentary rocks analysis give Darwin the millions of years he need for his theory to be imaginatively viable. In 1830, Lyell wrote to Georges Scrope:
Darwin wrote: Hardly the paradigm of disinterested, scientific objectivity, eh, Wiz? Care to recant? -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Wyz_sub10

Albert Cipriani:

What do any of your quotes have to do with my comment on Darwin?

To repeat, I stated:

You supply some comments relating to Lyell. I fail to see the relevance to Darwin's intentions in formulating his theory.

Silent Acorns

In order for the first cause to be "consistent with what people generally understand to be God" the first cause has to be some kind of being. You have said yourself that "Events, to get a little technical, are not beings ... are not things with their own intrinsic forms, but artificial arrangements of parts which have their own forms". My interpretation of Aquinas' third way is that beings can cause events but events can't cause beings. In rder to support this claim one has to be clear about what makes something a "being" and another thing an "event".

What does "individual existant" mean? Is it any single "thing" that exists? I assume I would qualify as a being. Would my goldfish? A rock? If a rock qualifies, why not an unstable quantum singularity?

Suppose for a moment that the Big Bang was uncaused (and just to be clear, the Big Bang includes the beginning of time - i.e. there is no such thing as "before the Big Bang"). This scenario is completely consistent with Aquinas' third way but there is no God (except the pantheist's - the Universe is God).

Wyz_sub10

I don't usually bump threads for an answer, but I answered two challenges - one from Albert and one from Christopher.

Considering how one accused me of anti-intellectualism and the other wonder, in light of his evidence, if I would recant, I thought I'd at least get acknowledgement.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Wyz,
Sorry. I didn't think this was too important since we’re half in agreement over your Straw Man that Darwin's atheistic beliefs did not affect "the validity" of his work. Of course; what is true or untrue is not related to one's beliefs.

But you say that Darwin wasn't trying to make any comment on God. Neither you nor I can know the motives anyone. We're lucky enough to accurately divine our own. But I posted a quote of Darwin's buddy that explicitly revealed that this buddy was motivated to advance as scientific theory a timeline that could be used to debunk the bible. This qualifies as circumstantial evidence that Darwin’s motives could have been the same in that finches of a feather flock together. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

diana

Just as fair as it is to assume that the "first cause" was also "moved by another." Why is this so difficult for people to grasp?

This is the fallacy known as Excluded Middle (or Either/Or, methinks). I'll get back to that shortly.

So...motion is all that was required? Why does this posited "first cause" (that for reasons that are commonly brushed over is not a slave of science and the laws of thermodynamics) have to be intelligent? Maybe some deaf, dumb, blind and drunk being in another dimension bent over to get another omnibeer out of the 'fridge and knocked something over with his butt, thus creating the motion that was required, and he's snoozing on his omnisofa and occasionally scratching his privates and expelling gas for eternity (which would explain Uranus), oblivious to the furor his drunken, mindless act created.

How would you know?

The religious scribblings of primitives is historical? It's evidence of a "first cause"? How so?

I find it easier to assume the matter and energy in the universe has simply always been here than I do to believe an all-powerful (etc) being has always been and created it from nothing.

BTW...why do you accept the contradictory pennings of the Hebrews as "historical" and "evidence" but reject all the other creation myths?

I've written a few posts to Christopher on the myriad problems with this argument. Perhaps you'd like to take a stab at a proper rebuttal, instead of simply asserting "there had to be a first cause" in so many words.

C'mon. Let's see what you've got. I'm your huckleberry. That's just my game.

d