jlowder

I meant to say, "time itself must be uncaused."

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Plump-DJ

WOW! You mean no one defines God as an invisible pink unicorn.. golly gee. Spread the news.

I was clearly trying to make a point here.

Ultimately you have to show that the concept of God either 1) does not make any sense 'now' or at a given point in "our picture of things" or 2) is contradictory in some way. I don't think i've ever seen anyone come close but my mind remains open.

As for the time part, i must say I think such talk makes no sense. Every time i think of or hear people speak about things which come to be (ie they once were not and now they are) "uncaused" I can only think of Atheists desperatly trying to avoid the obvious.

What does it mean to say time is uncaused, if it emerged with everything else from the BB? Would you like to tell us what it means for "uncaused" things to come into being since all the matter, energy and the space time dimensions associated with that did emerge from "somfin else". This is BB cosmology 101 I believe. If i have erred in my understanding of BB-C 101 then please point it out to me.


PDJ

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

kctan

Plump-DJ,

What the fish causes your god then ?

With your own arguement against you, don't tell me that your god is "uncaused".

"Hello Pot, this is Kettle, I'm black !"

Plump-DJ

*Sigh*. i didn't overlook the obvious. I asked you (hint hint) to suggest some places *where* an ontologicaly binding morality (or objective morality I suppose) might exist in a naturalistic universe? If there are no fesable places then Ruse's point is on target since you cannot remove morality from it's origins unless you've got somewhere to put it.

So i should ask you now, where can this ontologicaly binding morality exist in a naturalistic scenario? Where can it exist beyond us in an objective fashion (much like the sun exists) which is what you seem to be suggesting, although i may be ahead of myself here.

BTW are you still continuing the discussion on the other thread regarding the bankruptcy of a thiestic morality which says God has sufficent reason to allow humans to 'beat the crap' out of each other?

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

Plump-DJ

'My' God? If God came into existence he would need a cause, the potentiality for his existence must have lay in something else.

jlowder

I've already addressed this in the article I referred you to. One can show that a thing does not exist by demonstrating it has logically incompatible properties, or by showing that some fact about the world is improbable given the thing's existence.

Every time I think about or hear people speak about time having a cause I can only think of theists desparately trying to avoid the obvious.

Causation is temporal. Whenever we say that A causes B, we mean A preceded B in time. What would it mean to say that time itself had a cause? It would mean, incoherently, that there was a time when time did not exist, and then a later time when time did exist. But that's self-contradictory, and hence time must be uncaused. The alternative would be to posit some TEMPORAL relation between the alleged 'cause' of time and time itself. But, again, temporal relations are, by definition, rooted in time and therefore time cannot have a cause.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Plump-DJ

To the point we go. I'm asking you to tell me what it actually means to say time is uncaused? Can you construct it for me? Does it mean that the universe didn't really begin or come to be afterall? Does it mean the universe's potentialty did not lie in something else?

You cannot on the one hand accept the universe had a beginning (MEST) and then at the same time claim it came from nothing or didn't come from anywhere or didn't begin. This is where the logic or your position and the terms employed seems to lead me. And another point. It does not follow that there was no 'cosmic' time before the BB. If i were atheisticly inclined I would much rather go that route then speak about stuff which comes to be without causes.

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

jlowder

Sigh. I have already answered this repeatedly. I have already stated that natural properties are the ontological basis for moral properties (and hence for moral realism).

Morality itself does not have an "origin" since it is uncaused. That is why moral principles are discovered, not invented. (In this sense, morality is similar to the laws of logic, which are also uncaused and discovered, not caused and invented.)

Natural properties.

Yes, I am just behind on my posts.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

jlowder

To say that time itself is uncaused means simply that time is not dependent on any other thing for its existence.

The fact that time is uncaused does not mean that the universe is eternal. The universe is not eternal--it has a finite age--but the universe has existed for all of time. Since (according to BB cosmology) the universe began with time, the universe is also uncaused.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

P.S. These off-topic discussions, although diverting, are too diverting. This discussion board is for discussions of moral foundations of principles, not for discussions of whether time has a cause, whether one can prove something does not exist, etc. The latter topics should be discussed over on the "Existence of God" board. This will be my last post on these off-topic issues.

Plump-DJ

Riiight.. i did see you make that statment in your previous posts. I'd really like you (since i am intersted) to tell me where or which properties you're talking about specificaly? Expand the point. And granting that can we then join the dots between this natural property which houses the objective morality and a binding morality, based on this/these propertie(s)?

Well that just begs the question in my view. If you cannot place it somewhere meaningful or ontologicaly binding then it seems to me the only other option is to conceede that it did have an origin simply because there is no where else for it to come from *or* 'be' objectively. This is why I assume so many atheists seem to deny the existence of objective morality. Perhaps they (like me) cannot see where it can go, so maybe you can show us where we might put it?

--=PDJ=--