Denis Giron

I've been following the Cooke-Aijaz debate, and while I am rooting for Cooke (and the cause of beloved Atheism), I'm starting to get the feeling that Aijaz is about to gain the upperhand. I have debated Aijaz before, and I see Cooke in a similar position I was once in (as I told Imran recently, I feel like a boxer watching one of his gym-mates go through a situation he himself had been in, with a fighter he had fought before).

In the second round of exchanges, Cooke has wondered aloud about why he should believe in Super Duper rather than Hyper-Mega or Wow-wee; why he should accept Imran's god rather than any other. While these names were humorous and entertaining in the opening statement, they now take on a sophomoric quality.

Anyway, can anyone see Imran's right cross coming over Bill's jab? Its a shot Imran hit me (and Michael Martin with). This is not a debate on the existence of the god of Islam, it is with regards to a personal first cause for the universe. Imran is not trying to prove Islam is true, rather he is trying to prove Atheism false. So to use Cooke's analogy, even if it is Wow-wee rather than Hyper-mega, the sandies still lose the debate.

Imran didn't really sneak anything through the proverbial back door. His point was to define God as a personal (rather than mechanical to employ his bifurcation, which I'm not sure about) causal agent for EVERYTHING. His syllogisms attempt to demonstrate the existence (or at least argue for the plausible existence) of a personal first cause. If he establishes this, he will say that this is what he refers to as "God," and it does not matter if it is the single causal agent of Islam or the 30 million causal agents of Hindusim, Atheism is still false.

These are just my thoughts after a preliminary skimming through the second round. I have to read it more thoroughly and think some more... currently I wonder about Imran's notion of God (or the cause of the universe) being outside of time. First I wonder if a timeless being can perform any action (wouldn't it be frozen since any action has a beginning and an end and an amout of "time" elapses between those points?). Second I wonder if the possibility of a cause outside of time not being frozen gives us back our infinite regress, as an infinite chain of causes outside of time would elapse in zero seconds. This is all preliminary, and needs to be worked on...

Finally, is it true that Bill Cooke is *DR*. Bill Cooke? If so, what is his PhD in? I believe Imran is a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Auckland. Pardon my ignorance...

-Denis Giron

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: Denis Giron ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

I have to say I'm not too impressed with Cooke's side either. While I think he's got a good grasp of the current situation as far as whether the arguments Aijaz has presented are sound, he might assume too much in his audience. I know that the cosmological arguments (so far) are unsound, and I know that the teleological arguments (so far) are unsound, but he doesn't really provide a response that will defend the atheist position.

At the same time, he's staying away from philosophically technical language and appealing almost to social concerns for much of the statement.

I guess in summary, I think Cooke is right to point out how the arguments as Aijaz has presented them, up to this point, won't get very far (and have been (I think) successfully refuted for quite a long time now). But he should do more to show this for the current audience. I also have to agree that he should do more to turn "We don't know which 'God' it was" into "We can't say it was a God."