• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Thomas Aquinisa Second way Argument from Efficence causes

No, you certainly don't understand that fallacy of ad hominem either. An ad hominem would be 'you are a stupid twit, and therefore you are wrong'. This statement was 'You are misstating the situation, and therefore you do not understand the logical fallacy'. That is true in both this case , and the 'argument from ignorance'.

Calling the singularity a singularity and saying 'this is where our mathematics break down, and therefore we do not have the information to make any kind of conclusions' it not a logical fallacy. The argument from ignorance would be 'We don't know how the universe started therefore God'. The first one is 'we don't have the information so we can't make a conclusion' is the exact opposite of the argument from ignorance.

Because you are misusing fallacies, you are using the Argumentum ad Logicam , or the fallacy fallacy. Your description and application of the fallacies are invalid.

Pretentiousness and verbosity. Fails.

Please try again.
 
Pretentiousness and verbosity. Fails.

Please try again.

Why should I. It was not verbose, It was not pretentious. Nor, did it fail. It was straight, to the point,and precise.
 
Well you were heading down a perfectly straight trail leading to a perfectly obvious syllogistic conclusion, which is perfect, as Johnny Depp would say in Pirates Of The Caribbean, and they you did a huge right turn and went off in a totally innocent unique different direction !!!

That's fine.

Everyone on this planet of 7 billion is unique.

What you simply did was give a totally unique 7th proof of God which is in addition to the 5 by Aquinas and the 1 from Descartes.

Congrats !!!

That's worth at least a gold star !!!

Not sure is Ramoss is going to like it however.

He may accuse you of evading the question or red herring or straw man.

Who knows ?!

Thanks for the kind words but i was pointing out a flaw. I don't see how pointing out a flaw is a real proof of the existence of God.

Just to be clear, when i am talking about proof of God, for me it will be nothing short of Indiana Jones or Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That's how define my proof.

IT has to be concise,specific, clear, and not able to be explained as something science.

Then id' want a very long talk with God to see why he would deserve my devotion, and to see whether or not the Bible is true or not, in part or in its entirety.

Because if God is truly real, and everything in the Bible about is absolutely true, then I would much rather go to jail as i personally consider that God of the Bible a very monstrous being.
 
Thanks for the kind words but i was pointing out a flaw. I don't see how pointing out a flaw is a real proof of the existence of God.

Just to be clear, when i am talking about proof of God, for me it will be nothing short of Indiana Jones or Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That's how define my proof.

IT has to be concise,specific, clear, and not able to be explained as something science.

Then id' want a very long talk with God to see why he would deserve my devotion, and to see whether or not the Bible is true or not, in part or in its entirety.

Because if God is truly real, and everything in the Bible about is absolutely true, then I would much rather go to jail as i personally consider that God of the Bible a very monstrous being.

Well now you are talking about religion.

The topic here is at the current moment philosophy.

The philosophical God is different from the various Religious God(s).

Remember, in Modern Philosophy, you need to start with only yourself together with skepticism, like Descartes did.

Then you build on your thoughts from there.

Cogito Ergo Sum is the starting point for everything else as well.

Once philosophy has created or discovered it's own God then you can compare this God with the various God(s) of the Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, etc.

After cogito ergo sum, modern philosophy tries to answer --

1 - is a god possible?

2 - is a god necessary?

3 - is a god comprehendible?

4 - can we deduct logically towards a god?

5 - can we infer Empirically towards a god?

6 - can we prove indirectly towards a god?
 
Well now you are talking about religion.

The topic here is at the current moment philosophy.

The philosophical God is different from the various Religious God(s).

Remember, in Modern Philosophy, you need to start with only yourself together with skepticism, like Descartes did.

Then you build on your thoughts from there.

Cogito Ergo Sum is the starting point for everything else as well.

Once philosophy has created or discovered it's own God then you can compare this God with the various God(s) of the Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, etc.

Except the OP is about Thomas Aquinas, and his argument about the existence of God.

which is religion.

Hmmm...

you know what?

If we apply Schrodinger's cat to God....

That means God disappears when we don't think about him.
 
Except the OP is about Thomas Aquinas, and his argument about the existence of God.

which is religion.

Hmmm...

you know what?

If we apply Schrodinger's cat to God....

That means God disappears when we don't think about him.

I'll let Ramoss explain that better for you -- not religion but philosophy.
 
Religion is always a philosophy but not all philosophy is always a religion.

Actually, Bertrand Russell the late British philosopher and mathematician divided knowledge into 3 separate divisions:

Science / philosophy / religion.

He stated that they do not and should not overlap.

If you read his book "History Of Western Philosophy" he explains why.
 
Well, I am waiting for you to reply with something polite and logical. NO B/S.

Pardon, but I was quite polite, and nothing I said was 'BS'. Would you please actually address what I did say , instead of a one or two word hand wave.
 
Pardon, but I was quite polite, and nothing I said was 'BS'. Would you please actually address what I did say , instead of a one or two word hand wave.

I dismissed all 3 of your previous responses for reasons of ad hominem, verbosity, and self aggrandizement.

If you would therefore like to try again, without the ad homs, without the verbosity, and without the self aggrandizement, I would then be happy to considered your points in rebuttal. Begin ... .
 
I'll let Ramoss explain that better for you -- not religion but philosophy.

In the meantime Ramoss why don't you answer AH's questions about religion vs philosophy to him.

He sounds like he is new to this philosophy thing and therefore he still does not know the different between the "philosophy God" versus the religious God(s) of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestants, Hindus, Islam, Shinto, etc.
 
I am not new to this philosophy thang.


I have read some things about Thomas Aquinas and the logic counter arguments to his assertions.

I'm just not very verbose or eloquent and prefer to keep things simple.

It is the simplest of things in life that are actually the best. Sometimes philosophy is just to trap and trick people for the laughs or for their own self gratification to feel superior to other people.

Also, the thing about Aquinas is, his assertions are not Biblical.

Compare his claims to the Bible, and I believe you'll see what i mean.

He is actually treating the bible as a secondary source rather than a primary source.
 
I am not new to this philosophy thang.


I have read some things about Thomas Aquinas and the logic counter arguments to his assertions.

I'm just not very verbose or eloquent and prefer to keep things simple.

It is the simplest of things in life that are actually the best. Sometimes philosophy is just to trap and trick people for the laughs or for their own self gratification to feel superior to other people.

Also, the thing about Aquinas is, his assertions are not Biblical.

Compare his claims to the Bible, and I believe you'll see what i mean.

He is actually treating the bible as a secondary source rather than a primary source.

You're still confusing philosophy with religion.

And you are still confusing the Christian religious God with the philosophy God.
 
RAMOSS said:
IN that case, where did the first efficient cause come from? According to the axioms, nothing os an efficient cause of itself. The so called 'first cause' did not have an efficient cause. But to exist at all.. it would need a cause. So, either it is an uncausd cause, or it is eternal.

Yes, that is correct. Most cosmological arguments are actually reductio arguments; the basic structure of cosmological arguments is this:

1. Start with two premises which are apparently true of everything in the universe.

2. Show that if both are true they create a contradiction.

3. Appeal to an intuition that it would be better to suppose God exists than to abandon either premise.

In this case (i.e. with Aquinas' second way), the two premises are:

Nothing exists prior to itself.

Things have efficient causes (efficient causes are defined such that if a thing doesn't have one, it doesn't exist).

From these two premises (which are 1, 2, and 4 in the argument), Aquinas reasons to 7, which is stated in a specific way: it is necessary to admit a first cause.

So, unless there is a flaw in the reasoning, we have four options:

1. Abandon the law of non-contradiction.

2. Abandon the proposition that nothing exists prior to itself.

3. Abandon the proposition that things have efficient causes as defined.

4. Admit there must be at least one thing that is an exception--that is, one thing for which at least one of the two premises is untrue, and which has the power to cause everything else.

Of course, there could be a flaw in the reasoning. I don't think there is. I think the flaw comes after the argument is done, when Aquinas and others try to evaluate the import of the conclusion, which just doesn't seem to be quite what is usually supposed.

RAMOSS said:
If there is one uncaused cause, why can't there be many uncaused causes?

Of course there could be. This is one reason among many I say the import isn't what is commonly supposed. That is to say that while I think cosmological arguments succeed, they don't succeed in what their authors suppose they do.

Interesting bit of trivia: this may have been one of the reasons William of Ockham proposed his razor: once you know there needs to be an exception, don't multiply them unecessarily.

RAMOSS said:
If there is one thing that is eternal, why can't there be multiple thing that are eternal?

Again, of course there could be. Even things that seem to be temporary might be eternal.
 
Well you were heading down a perfectly straight trail leading to a perfectly obvious syllogistic conclusion, which is perfect, as Johnny Depp would say in Pirates Of The Caribbean, and they you did a huge right turn and went off in a totally innocent unique different direction !!!

That's fine.

Everyone on this planet of 7 billion is unique.

What you simply did was give a totally unique 7th proof of God which is in addition to the 5 by Aquinas and the 1 from Descartes.

Congrats !!!

That's worth at least a gold star !!!

Not sure is Ramoss is going to like it however.

He may accuse you of evading the question or red herring or straw man.

Who knows ?!

Except i was point out a flaw, not a proof.

flaws are not proof.

Sorry.
 
You're still confusing philosophy with religion.

And you are still confusing the Christian religious God with the philosophy God.

Except for one thing.

The philosophical God is not Biblical.

Although there is some philosophy in the Bible.

Only the Bible is God's word and law, so the Christians claim.

And everything else, is just a means of argumentation to dazzle the common people who are not knowledgeable of tricks and traps of philosophy.
 
Except for one thing.

The philosophical God is not Biblical.

Although there is some philosophy in the Bible.

Only the Bible is God's word and law, so the Christians claim.

And everything else, is just a means of argumentation to dazzle the common people who are not knowledgeable of tricks and traps of philosophy.

You are correct.
 
You are correct.

Hey now.

This is the internet.

you're not supposed to agree with me.

you're supposed to be offended, and start reall getting argumentative with me.

harumph.
 
Back
Top Bottom