Atheistic Double Standard?

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for then it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.

There is no known case of creation ex nihilo. It is impossible for that which exists to have an effect on that which does not, including magically poofing it into existence.

But you don't really care about that, do you? This is the kind of argument that you are willing to offer others, but not willing to accept yourself.

Why does 100% of the scientific arguments against God exist in the .01% of science that is least understood?

None of my arguments demonstrating the nonexistence of the Christian god are based in science at all. They are all based on pure reason and the list of attributes ascribed to that god, many of which are mutually exclusive pairs of attributes, and therefore logically impossible.

 

[1robin]

No. With God, it is the social aspect of God that determines it. That doesn't make it objective. It makes it rely on the subjective view of God.

Ok, your still not quite getting it. In my argument God = Yahweh and has all of Yahweh's attributes. I then build two different "if" - "then" arguments.

1. If God (Yahweh) exists then objective morality exists. If you do not understand why God's moral values and duties would be objective let me know.
2. If God (Yahweh) does not exist then moral preference is all that is left and it usually comes in the form of might makes right.

Again, wrong. One group is contributing to human well-being and the other is not. That is an objective standard.

No it isn't. It wouldn't be if God exist, and it wouldn't be even on evolution. Human well being is not the goal of Social Darwinism, tribal dominance is. If I was stupid enough to look to evolution for ethics if I could accomplish killing every other human on Earth that does not contribute to my tribes survival but competes for resources, with a minimum of cost, I should do so. But that isn't morality, it is self centered specie-ism. Human flourishing comes at the cost of ever other life form know to exist. Why isn't Giraffe flourishing, minnow flourishing, or rock flourishing for that matter the goal of morality? If you say human flourishing is the goal of morality then your only justification is preference. Natural laws can only tell you what is, never what should be.

BTW the assumption of human sovereignty IS justified by the bible.

And the point is that it is NOT evil in and of itself. It is evil because God wants something different. That is NOT an objective standard. The *objective* standard is to look for the promotion of human well-being.

That is not where moral values and duties reside on Christianity. What is morally good and morally evil flow from God's eternal nature. His commands simply reflect that nature. A nature independent of anyone's or anything's opinion.

Regardless, please state these other objective grounds and how you know them? So far you have simply stated arbitrary and self centered subjective grounds for ethics, and even these would lead to just as much evil as good. Humanity as a whole would be better off if we sterilized habitual criminals, euthanized the old and infirm, and destroy the mentally impaired. As I said it is hard to argue that Hitler did a bad job trying to turn social Darwinism into actual policy.

And again, this is wrong for the reasons above. First, a decision of God doen't make anything objective. And it ignores that there are objective standards for human well-being.

I think your out of your depth concerning philosophy. What you responded to is the hypothetical "if" - "then" which does not contain God, so objecting to it by appealing to God is simply irrelevant.

And what I have stated shows that this is exactly backwards. With a deity, the morality is subjective: it depends on the whims of the deity. Without a deity, morality is objective: it depends on the promotion of human well-being.

When you start off with the incorrect assumption that moral truth is derived from God's choice, all your arguments will dutifully follow it off the tracks.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ok, your still not quite getting it. In my argument God = Yahweh and has all of Yahweh's attributes. I then build two different "if" - "then" arguments.

1. If God (Yahweh) exists then objective morality exists. If you do not understand why God's moral values and duties would be objective let me know.
2. If God (Yahweh) does not exist then moral preference is all that is left and it usually comes in the rom of might makes right.

Under your model, with God's decree as our only source of morality, everything is "malum prohibitum" and nothing is "malum in se."

 

[1robin]

So what? Nobody has. Your values are no more objective than anybody else's. Did you have a larger point?

Do you make a distinction between absolute moral values and objective moral values?

Because I always try to treat others a little better than they deserve I am going to assume you responded before you saw that I had decided to end our debate. No hard feeling but I have limited time and want to spend it on more meaningful and challenging discussions. So I will respond to your posts currently pending but will cease our discussion at that point for the time being.

1. You claimed to know that no one has knowledge of an objective moral fact. That is a claim to knowledge and therefore has the burden of proof. I would say you need to get to work, but since I know the task is impossible, what's the point?
2. My worldview DOES contain a source of objective moral values and duties. If my worldview is true then by necessity actual objective moral values and duties would be better than any other standard.
3. I personally do not separate absolute and objective moral duties and values, but I believe there is a distinction between them.

 

[1robin]

Is "justify" the right word here? Atheism is merely a "No" answer to the question of whether one believes in a god or gods. That justifies nothing.

It certainly works, but maybe founds or grounds might be better.

The only time I see a might-makes-right argument any more is when it comes from a theist telling me that God made us and can do whatever he wants with us including drop us conscious into a lake of fire.

God's actions and moral requirements flow from his nature. It is his nature that makes one thing good and another evil, not his commands, or even his will.

If you look up divine command theory you will find that it is not God's might that determines morality.

However without God, all you have left are squabbling humans, and no transcendent moral truth to determine who is right. You have universal anarchy or nihilism until factions start forming, those factions then impose their subjective moral preferences upon those outside their circle when they can. Eventually you wind up with exactly what we have, factions (nations) which impose their ethical requirements (legality) on who they can at the point of a gun.

I've read the Old Testament. Much of it is instruction on who to hate and who to kill.

Thank God two Christian nations hated tyranny enough to kill the tyrants in Germany, Japan, Italy, etc.....

First, you need a god.

If you have objective morality, why is it that no two Christians can agree on what that is?

And if that's the case, what point is there whether an objective morality exists or not if nobody can find it and is free to guess what it is for himself?

It was an "if" - "then" argument for pity's sake.

You would wish for the Christian god to exist? Name a character in fiction or history that has inflicted as much harm on mankind as the Christian god. Apart from keeping most human beings ever born conscious to suffer gratuitous and eternal pain, we are told that this god has unleashed his fallen master demon on earth and humanity and left the kids there in the garden alone with it knowing the consequences for them and all of their descendants, gave us free will that will lead to self-destruction, orchestrated a global flood that drowned nearly all life, and is planning another apocalypse coming soon, all while sitting idly by watching much of humanity suffering.

I know how offended you get at things like that, but see if you can actually address any of that and reconcile it with the claim that this is a good god and we should hope that it exists.

Here's Hitchen's take on wanting that god to exist:

"It is a horrible idea that there is somebody who owns us, who makes us, who supervises us waking and sleeping, who knows our thoughts, who can convict us of thought crime, thought crime - just for what we think, who can judge us while we sleep for things that might occur to us in our dreams, who can create us sick (as apparently we are) and then order us on pain of eternal torture to be well again. To demand this, to wish this to be true, is to wish to live as an abject slave. It is a wonderful thing, in my submission, that we now have enough information, enough intelligence, and - I hope - enough intellectual and moral courage to say that this ghastly proposition is founded on a lie, and to celebrate that fact, and I invite you to join me in doing so." - Christopher Hitchens

I believe Hell is ultimately annihilation, so your eternal torments do not apply to me. I know Hitchens' take on God quite well. He literally hated God, and that colored how he saw everything in theology. I would not want the Christianity that Hitchens invented to exist either. Thank goodness the Christianity that does exist has nothing to do with what he described. I actually liked watching him debate but whenever he took on a serious Christian scholar he lost big time. However he was the best "virtue signaler" I have ever seen.

We can come up with a better moral code than the Christian one. We already have.

Where is it? The most powerful and benevolent nation in human history was founded by 95% theists and a handful of deists. The US isn't perfect but has been the greatest force for good in the history of nations.

More from Hitchens, this time on morality secular humanist style, and comparing it to what you praise as an objective moral code, but which the rest of see as just another human artifact voiced through a god so that it can be claimed to be superior and mandatory:

"In other words, that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble, what is pure, and what is true could always go on. Why is that important? Why would I like to do that? Because that's the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know. But, I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that to me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet; that I haven't understood enough; that I can't know enough; that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way." - Hitchens

Does that sound like "might makes right, moral nihilism, or moral anarchy" to you?

Since we are apparently in copy and post mode I will quote someone from your own side. Hitchens was a journalist (so it isn't surprising he lacked training in theology and philosophy), but Nietzsche was trained in philosophy. The following is a brilliant poem.

THE MADMAN----Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
Internet History Sourcebooks

BTW I probably know more about Hitchens than you. I have ever seen him debate his twin brother who does not agree with him.

 

[1robin]

On the contrary, there is no *logically necessary* causality. Causality happens because things have properties and interact. Ultimately, it is because there are laws of physics that causality makes sense at all. And, whether you like it or not, there are laws of physics that are no causal.

Again you have quoted a post given to another person in another context. I provided my quote to demonstrate the source that was claimed for the cosmological argument was incorrect, and that it goes much farther back. I was not interested in whether the earliest version of the argument were technically precise. That was irrelevant for the purpose of my claim. I just needed to show it goes back about as far as written history does in some form or another.

As far as I can tell, what you quoted did not contain the words logically necessary, so I am not sure what I am supposed to evaluate. Also, laws are descriptive not prescriptive. Laws do not cause things to happen. 2 + 2 never created 4 of anything.

Too bad Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas did their work long before the rise of science. The whole notion of causality they expounded has been discarded by most rational people because it fails miserably to deal with the realities around us. For example, the concept of a 'final cause' only makes sense when there is a consciousness with a plan. So the vast majority of things do not have a final cause. Also, causality has been recognized to depend on time: there can be no causes without time. So, if time has a beginning, there *cannot* be a cause for it.

I am obsessed by formal debates and reading modern books about philosophy and the cosmological argument is thriving today perhaps more than if ever has.

You didn't disprove anything Aquinas said.

I gave Aristotle as a historical source for the cosmological argument. I did not say I believed his version or description was accurate. This is the same context issue we keep having.

I have no position concerning final causation. It is not usually part of any cosmological argument.

Your last point is not applicable. The cosmological argument does not have a cause which acts in time. God is causally prior to creation not temporally prior. God is independent of time. God is not bound by the laws that govern nature.

BTW those scientists who share the Mariana's trench of science along with your self have posited not only simultaneous causation but I saw someone who quoted someone saying an effect can precede time. I even saw an atheist show up in a debate with a t-shirt that said 2 + 2 does not equal 4. I guess anything goes as long as God isn't made more likely by it.

Please try to keep my posts to others in the contexts given in. It takes a lot of time to bridge all the contextual gaps.

 

[1robin]

@1robin - Aquinas's "five causes" all make a mistake in their conclusion.

The valid conclusion isn't "therefore God exists;" it's "therefore at least one thing exists that is consistent with God (as far as we can tell)."

That is probably why in at least one post I put his last sentence in parenthesis and said that I do not believe it to be justifiable. And why in another I gave the formal version which concludes with 5. So there must be a first uncaused efficient cause. What Aquinas argument from efficient causation (not all 5 ways) should conclude with is a God shaped hole. IOW it demonstrates that a timeless, space less, immaterial, personal agent, of unimaginable intelligence and power must exist. However that does not make him Yahweh, just the best candidate.

 

[Polymath257]

Ok, your still not quite getting it. In my argument God = Yahweh and has all of Yahweh's attributes. I then build two different "if" - "then" arguments.

1. If God (Yahweh) exists then objective morality exists. If you do not understand why God's moral values and duties would be objective let me know.
2. If God (Yahweh) does not exist then moral preference is all that is left and it usually comes in the form of might makes right.

I understand both of your claims and I reject both of them.

No it isn't. It wouldn't be if God exist, and it wouldn't be even on evolution. Human well being is not the goal of Social Darwinism, tribal dominance is. If I was stupid enough to look to evolution for ethics if I could accomplish killing every other human on Earth that does not contribute to my tribes survival but competes for resources, with a minimum of cost, I should do so. But that isn't morality, it is self centered specie-ism. Human flourishing comes at the cost of ever other life form know to exist. Why isn't Giraffe flourishing, minnow flourishing, or rock flourishing for that matter the goal of morality? If you say human flourishing is the goal of morality then your only justification is preference. Natural laws can only tell you what is, never what should be.

I *don't* look to evolution for ethics. I look to evolution to *explain* how ethics come about.

Since we are human, human well-being is what we are concerned about and hence, is the basis of our ethics. Giraffes may well have a different ethics.

BTW the assumption of human sovereignty IS justified by the bible.

But I don't justify it that way. I justify it via the fact that we are a species that engages in moral contemplation.

That is not where moral values and duties reside on Christianity. What is morally good and morally evil flow from God's eternal nature. His commands simply reflect that nature. A nature independent of anyone's or anything's opinion.

No, it depends on the opinions of God. That may well be God's 'nature', but that only means that ethics are independent of God's viewpoint. Is that your claim? That God's viewpoint merely aligns rather than defines what is good?

Regardless, please state these other objective grounds and how you know them? So far you have simply stated arbitrary and self centered subjective grounds for ethics, and even these would lead to just as much evil as good. Humanity as a whole would be better off if we sterilized habitual criminals, euthanized the old and infirm, and destroy the mentally impaired. As I said it is hard to argue that Hitler did a bad job trying to turn social Darwinism into actual policy.

On the contrary, none of these actually promote human well-being. That is clear from the millions killed by Hitler. That you see it as potentially serving the well-being of humans shows your complete lack of a true moral sense.

I think your out of your depth concerning philosophy. What you responded to is the hypothetical "if" - "then" which does not contain God, so objecting to it by appealing to God is simply irrelevant.

When you start off with the incorrect assumption that moral truth is derived from God's choice, all your arguments will dutifully follow it off the tracks.

If it doesn't depend on God's choice, then God is irrelevant to it. While God's opinion may well coincide with morality, it doesn't determine morality. So it is better to look for what does determine morality (i.e, human well-being) than to look to a deity for our counsel.

 

[Polymath257]

Your last point is not applicable. The cosmological argument does not have a cause which acts in time. God is causally prior to creation not temporally prior. God is independent of time. God is not bound by the laws that govern nature.

And that misunderstands the nature of causality. Causality *always* depends on time. Whatever causes is prior *in time* to whatever the effect is.

 

[1robin]

This *assumes* that everything does, in fact, have a cause.

No, it is a premise in a formal argument. Formal arguments usually state their premise' in the form of simplistic declarations. The philosopher usually has a mountain of arguments which demonstrate each premise, there is even a formal language for doing so. However if you throw all that into a formal argument you get something more like a book than an argument. Regardless, the site that I quoted from gave an example to illustrate the logical incoherence of a thing being the cause of its self and the existence of causation has no known exception and so has become a brute fact. Without instantly submerging to the crush depth of theoretical science show me a thing that did not require a cause.

And this is where the flaws in Aristotelian physics come to the front. Change is not equivalent to motion. It *is* quite possible for something to be the cause of its own change. For example, a large mass of gas (say, several times the mass of the sun) will *spontaneously* cause its own contraction because of gravity. Aquinas was wrong here. For him, that was simply because he didn't have the advantages of modern physics. You have no such excuse.

Your killing me. This is like the 3rd post where you took an argument in the context of the source and age of the cosmological argument. Which you take out of that context and put it in a new context of each version's perfect adequacy. I do not use Aquinas version of the cosmological argument, but now I have to comb through it anyway. Actually someone's summary of one of his statements. Regardless, what you responded to did not equate change with motion. Aquinas never says that subsequent motion does not have immediate causes. He says the all motion requires an ultimate cause.

1. There is a context problem here.
2. I do not use Aquinas' version of the cosmological argument.
3. You impose what looks like a misinterpretation on a paraphrasing of one of Aquinas' premise'
4. And you counter an argument Aquinas never made.
5. Aquinas posits a prime mover. He does not deny subsequent movers.

And this, of course, is where Aquinas gets causality badly wrong. There is no contradiction in having an infinite regress of causes. Each cause is caused by a previous and causes, in turn, something later. In fact, it is clear that Aquinas assumes his own conclusion here when he asserts there must be a first cause to have a causal sequence.

A first cause that lacked a causal sequence would not be a first cause. If natural causation occurs in time, and previously existed in a state of affairs an infinite number of seconds (or events) in the past it must traverse an infinite number of each to arrive at the current second (or state of affairs). This cannot be accomplished. To claim that what can be done has been done is a contradiction.

He also fails to show that there is only *one* uncaused cause. In fact, according to this argument, there easily could be billions of such.

Actually, that conclusion comes from another of other arguments but I am loath to take an off ramp of an off ramp.

Now, for the science. MOST quantum events are uncaused in the sense of not having a previous efficient cause. In fact, most events are only probabilistically determined. Some are completely random. So the actual existence of uncaused causes is not in dispute. But, contrary to expectations from the religious side, there are many such uncaused causes and they are not 'all powerful'. In fact, they are small and numerous.

You will always return to your dark master in the end. I have heard the saying that all roads lead to Rome, but have not heard that all questions lead to the answer - quantum science. I have already said everything I need to counter all claims to knowledge concerning the quantum. At this point I would just be repeating myself over and over. Show me a planet, a car, a shoe, a cup, a pencil, a safety pin, or anything visible that came into being from nothing and without a cause. Even the quantum assumes fluctuations in energy fields. I don't know what that is, but it isn't nothing.

Why do you want so bad to live in a universe that came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing?

 

[Polymath257]

No, it is a premise in a formal argument. Formal arguments usually state their premise' in the form of simplistic declarations. The philosopher usually has a mountain of arguments which demonstrate each premise, there is even a formal language for doing so. However if you throw all that into a formal argument you get something more like a book than an argument. Regardless, the site that I quoted from gave an example to illustrate the logical incoherence of a thing being the cause of its self and the existence of causation has no known exception and so has become a brute fact. Without instantly submerging to the crush depth of theoretical science show me a thing that did not require a cause.

Saying that something is its own cause is different than saying it has no cause. Most quantum events have no cause. Nothing precedes them that determines that they will happen.

Your killing me. This is like the 3rd post where you took an argument in the context of the source and age of the cosmological argument. Which you take out of that context and put it in a new context of each version's perfect adequacy. I do not use Aquinas version of the cosmological argument, but now I have to comb through it anyway. Actually someone's summary of one of his statements. Regardless, what you responded to did not equate change with motion. Aquinas never says that subsequent motion does not have immediate causes. He says the all motion requires an ultimate cause.

And he is wrong in that.

The point is that the 'context' is completely irrelevant to reality. Aquinas assumed certain things about motion which were based on Aristotelian physics. But we know that Aristotle was wrong. So Aquinas' conclusions are based on faulty premises.

A first cause that lacked a causal sequence would not be a first cause. If natural causation occurs in time, and previously existed in a state of affairs an infinite number of seconds (or events) in the past it must traverse an infinite number of each to arrive at the current second (or state of affairs). This cannot be accomplished. To claim that what can be done has been done is a contradiction.

Again, you have given no reason why it is impossible to accomplish in an infinite amount of time. It is NOT a contradiction!

You have merely claimed, without proof, that it is impossible to 'traverse' an infinite number of instants.

Actually, that conclusion comes from another of other arguments but I am loath to take an off ramp of an off ramp.

But the uniqueness of an uncaused cause is central to your claim.

You will always return to your dark master in the end. I have heard the saying that all roads lead to Rome, but have not heard that all questions lead to the answer - quantum science. I have already said everything I need to counter all claims to knowledge concerning the quantum. At this point I would just be repeating myself over and over. Show me a planet, a car, a shoe, a cup, a pencil, a safety pin, or anything visible that came into being from nothing and without a cause. Even the quantum assumes fluctuations in energy fields. I don't know what that is, but it isn't nothing.

And, again, quantum fluctuation. Specifically, electron-positron pairs come into existence without anything preceding and without a cause.

Please learn a bit about the real world before you make claims about how it 'must' be. Causality is dependent on natural laws, and hence is part of the universe. Because of this, the universe *cannot* have a cause.

Why do you want so bad to live in a universe that came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing?

Why do you wish so much to live in a universe with a deity?

My opinion has nothing at all to do with the evidence or the arguments. The arguments you made for the existence of a God are flawed. The evidence is, at best, ambiguous. At worst, it shows that the Christian viewpoint is pure mythology.

 

[ChristineM]

No, it is a premise in a formal argument. Formal arguments usually state their premise' in the form of simplistic declarations. The philosopher usually has a mountain of arguments which demonstrate each premise, there is even a formal language for doing so. However if you throw all that into a formal argument you get something more like a book than an argument. Regardless, the site that I quoted from gave an example to illustrate the logical incoherence of a thing being the cause of its self and the existence of causation has no known exception and so has become a brute fact. Without instantly submerging to the crush depth of theoretical science show me a thing that did not require a cause.

You are making the basic mistake of assuming causality to be older than the universe. Not so, the laws that are fundamental to the current state of this universe did not coalesce until 10e-36 to 10e-32 of a second after the bb event.

Whether the laws of casualty existed in what (if anything) was before this universe is a moot point, it is unknown.

 

[1robin]

If I need to take a break, I simply do not log into these forums.

Ok

 

[1robin]

Yes, if you *initiate* and need an infinite regress to get your dollar, you will never get it. But if there has always been a succession of dallars changing hands, there is nothing contradictory (or incoherent) about you getting one.

Again, this seems to require tens less time. Tensed time does not have an infinite number of seconds occurring at all times. My analogy only assumes that I have a dollar.

But once again, there are things with no efficient cause at all. Most quantum events qualify.

Ok, I am having to cut back on the time I invest in responding so I am going to give you a representative answer to this quantum issue and then consider all future quantum issues addressed.

1. Even if I grant that you have two PhDs, that does not necessarily mean you are competent in QM.
2. Even if I granted that you are that as well IMO QM is too young to reliably know much of anything about it.
3. Even if I granted the above two, I do not have the education level to evaluate your claims.
4. Even if I the above 3 were true and we knew which model describes QM your still only talking about a
possibility (more accurately labeled, not a known impossibility).
5. Even if all 4 above were true that would only counter the cosmological argument and leave the rest of the
evidence for God unaffected.
6. If science does have anything that makes God's existence unlikely why can't it be found in Newtonian
physics, calculus, discrete mathematics, LA, Geometry, Algebra, arithmetic? In applied science instead of
the most theoretical science.

But this assumes the conclusion when it claims that there has to be a first for there to be a later. That is precisely the point at issue.

And your precisely positing tens less time.

But this does two things:
1. It shows that the claim that everything has an efficient cause is incorrect.
2. It only shows there is at least one 'first cause' in each chain. It dhow there is only one initial cause overall.

The argument only applies to things that begin to exist. Occam's razor says that no one should multiply causes beyond necessity. Everything devolves into a singularity, not a plurality.

And while this is possible, I have yet to see evidence that is the case.

I have yet to see any evidence that it isn't. I think it was you that said that positive claims carry the burden, even if you didn't, it is true. You are making the positive claim.

The whole thing here is a theoretical discussion. And infinity comes up in essential ways in many theories, for example quantum electrodynamics. It can be and is used.

It comes up in calculus as well. Usually in the form of what can't be reached.

Who said anything about God so far? I merely said that it is *possible* logically and coherently to have an infinite regression of causes. So the standard 'proof' of God that uses that impossibility fails. Furthermore, not only is it a logical possibility it is even a realistic possibility.

I did. I rarely have secular debates. In fact my opening post in this thread concerned God. I disagree with your conclusions and the burden is yours. My claim is a universal negative, yours is a positive.

Like I said, I'm closest to the A theory, but I have found philosophers to be very simple-minded in these subjects. It would do them a world of good to learn a bit of theoretical physics. They might learn that the way they think things 'must' be is not the way things actually are.

Many of those that I trust know a lot about math. I also follow some very good mathematic professors as well as experts in testimony, history, textual criticism, etc....... Heck, I use atheist scholars like Nietzsche and Vilenkin quite often as well.

Sorry, but that may not be possible. Some of the discoveries of the last 100 years are relevant.

What?

Sorry, but classical physics is wrong.

Got us to the moon.

And yet a good part of our current technology base is dependent on our understanding of quantum mechanics. Pretty much everything dealing with semi-conductors. Everything with lasers. Everything using spectra to analyze a chemical. These are ALL non-Newtonian aspects of reality that are central to modern life.

Which semi-conductor or laser is relevant to theism? I did not say non-Newtonian science does not exist.

Typically, when an intelligent person looks like he is saying BS in his field, you might want to reconsider your own viewpoint. You might want to find out why Hawking thinks that a quantum thoery of gravity would lead to a spontaneous formation of a universe.

I came to learn of that saying watching a total of 4 scholars from 4 different fields (including pure mathematics) excoriate all the mistakes in that quote.

Penrose was an incredibly smart man, but like many such men he has fallen off the deep end lately.

So far I see a pattern without exception from you. You denounce anyone who states something inconvenient for you. Newton is out, Vilenkin has been outdated, Aquinas and Aristotle got it all wrong, Occam should be ignored, Penrose has lost it, Leibniz is an idiot, Plantinga should retire, and by association Lennox and Craig should be doubted, etc..... This is starting to look like a tactic instead of a sincere position.

Looks like it.

Hope so, but I kind of doubt it.

Math doesn't have labs, per se. And infinite regressions are an essential part of the topics I study.

Physics does, actually I think math does as well.

My problem wasn't the terminology. My problem is that the idea is neither incoherent nor contradictory.

I may look up and post the formal argument sometime soon. That is the word used, you just do not agree that it should.

 

[ArtieE]

The world contains instances of efficient causation (given).

1. Nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
2. So, every efficient cause seems to have a prior cause.
3. But we cannot have an infinite regress of efficient causes.
4. So there must be a first uncaused efficient cause

Aquinas’ Philosophical Theology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Does Aquinas say anything about why this first cause would exist in the first place?

 

[ArtieE]

Regardless, please state these other objective grounds and how you know them? So far you have simply stated arbitrary and self centered subjective grounds for ethics, and even these would lead to just as much evil as good. Humanity as a whole would be better off if we sterilized habitual criminals, euthanized the old and infirm, and destroy the mentally impaired. As I said it is hard to argue that Hitler did a bad job trying to turn social Darwinism into actual policy.

So God was practicing social Darwinism then. Drowning everybody except eight of the best.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Ok, your still not quite getting it. In my argument God = Yahweh and has all of Yahweh's attributes. I then build two different "if" - "then" arguments.

1. If God (Yahweh) exists then objective morality exists. If you do not understand why God's moral values and duties would be objective let me know.
2. If God (Yahweh) does not exist then moral preference is all that is left and it usually comes in the form of might makes right.

I truly find those two arguments incredibly unintuitive -- to the point of being just plain wrong.

Okay, the first one perhaps not "wrong" so much, as leading nowhere. Because "if God (Yahweh) exists" and "then objective morality exists," that doesn't help you in the slightest unless you know, objectively and in a demonstrable fashion, what that "objective morality" entails. And as it is, I'm afraid, you only have a number quite non-objective views of what that might be from entirely human sources. And the fact that much of that "objective morality" contains contradictions, you have even more reason to suspect that the human input was an important (and perhaps the only) contributor.

But the second is simply specious, especially your comment about "it usually comes in the form of might makes right." This simply ignores the fact of human society here on the ground, where we live. In fact, surprisingly few humans have given themselves over to making themselves "the right" by resorting to might. Most humans, throughout history and right now, today, are primarily engaged in surviving and thriving as best they can through mutual cooperation. We've been raising each others barns forever. We come together to save a life in peril, and as the saying goes, "it takes a village to raise a child," and that's what we've being doing throughout our history.

You try too hard to simplify what cannot be simplified. We are a social species, and much of our behaviour reflects that. We are also an intelligent species, with a well-defined sense of individual self, and that interferes with our social nature in a way that it cannot in ants, bees and termites -- but can in wolves and apes, if you observe.

And then you ignore the limits to how large our "social group" can get, how our societies evolve cultures and belief systems that differ from one another, and how the interaction of those larger groupings can lead to the conflicts -- small scale and huge scale -- that are so quintessentially human.

And when seen from the perspective I just gave you, there simply is zero room for God at all -- Yahweh or any other.

 

[gnomon]

For one post you sounded like an adult, but now you are back to sounding like a little kid. It is amazing how defensive a handful of you are getting over this thread. You'd almost think your atheism was your religion. Honestly there is nothing to get upset about here, anyone who thinks they don't hold some double standards or is a hypocrite in someway is just flat out lying to themselves.

A statement of utter arrogance.

I should have never apologized.

This is a stupid thread that bears nothing more than many intellectuals in this thread attempting to assuage a foolish ego.

An utter waste of time.

Just another fool making unfounded claims and cannot back those claims up.

Good day to you. You have nothing to offer on an educational or intellectual level.

Your narcissistic assumptions are simply foolish. You hide behind the concept of double standards without anything to support your argument.

Good day.

Have a good life.

I give this thread up to someone who has done so much better than myself in my current condition....."It Aint Necessarily So"....

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have limited time and want to spend it on more meaningful and challenging discussions. So I will respond to your posts currently pending but will cease our discussion at that point for the time being.

You needn't even read my posts, much less respond to them. I will continue to respond to posts from you that I disagree with.

You claimed to know that no one has knowledge of an objective moral fact. That is a claim to knowledge and therefore has the burden of proof. I would say you need to get to work, but since I know the task is impossible, what's the point?

I have no burden of proof. I know what is knowable to you and what is not. It is common knowledge.

The skeptics already understand this, and those that don't are unreachable faith based thinkers. There is no burden of proof with faith based thinkers inasmuch as they don't use the elements of proof - reason and evidence - to make decisions.

My worldview DOES contain a source of objective moral values and duties. If my worldview is true then by necessity actual objective moral values and duties would be better than any other standard.

I have no idea why you think that you have objective moral values. You chose them. That makes them subjective right there.

Also, the Christian god changes its moral values throughout the Bible. Nothing objective there.

Finally, even if a god existed and had a moral faculty, its opinions are also subjective. Frankly, I think we've come up with a better moral theory than Jehovah. If His is in some sense more objective than ours, then what is It's wrong to dash babies against rocks. It's wrong to drown the world. It was wrong to unleash Satan on the earth.

I personally do not separate absolute and objective moral duties and values, but I believe there is a distinction between them.

Aren't you conceding that your understanding of these matters is not fully thought through? Shouldn't you have an opinion about the distinction between objective and absolute to be discussing objective moral values?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

A statement of utter arrogance.

I should have never apologized.

This is a stupid thread that bears nothing more than many intellectuals in this thread attempting to assuage a foolish ego.

An utter waste of time.

Just another fool making unfounded claims and cannot back those claims up.

Good day to you. You have nothing to offer on an educational or intellectual level.

Your narcissistic assumptions are simply foolish. You hide behind the concept of double standards without anything to support your argument.

Good day.

Have a good life.

I give this thread up to someone who has done so much better than myself in my current condition....."It Aint Necessarily So"....

The only thing you have managed to contribute is "Stupid, stupid, blah, blah, stupid stupid." You have not said anything of any real worth at all.