Proving God

Paleocon said:

Again, you clearly don't understand philosophy. If you did, you could demonstrate why it's invalid, yet you can't.

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First of all, the premises can not be shown to be true. Right then and there, that blows it ot of the water. Next, it uses vague subjective terminology.
Third, the technique used can be used to show the exact opposite conclusion too.

It also depends on special pleading also... making a special case for the properties givein to "GOD" ..

WTF

What an idiotic thread.
Not at all fair to the other gods in the pantheon for it is presumed that only Paleocon's god exists.

RAMOSS said:

First of all, the premises can not be shown to be true.

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I'm curious.

His premise is that all things are either in a state of motion or potential motion.

What, about that statement, is provably false.

RAMOSS said:

First of all, the premises can not be shown to be true. Right then and there, that blows it ot of the water. Next, it uses vague subjective terminology.
Third, the technique used can be used to show the exact opposite conclusion too.

It also depends on special pleading also... making a special case for the properties givein to "GOD" ..

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Not one of those things is true. If any of them were, you could demonstrate it, yet you can't.

I am not a philosopher so I defer to others:

Iron Chariots said:

"Nothing moves without a prior mover. This leads us to a regress, from which the only escape is God. Something had to make the first move, and that something we call God."

• If nothing moves without a prior mover, then God must need a prior mover, as well. Otherwise God is nothing, which contradicts the conclusion. Thus, either the premise is untrue, in which case the argument is unsound, or the conclusion doesn't follow, in which case the argument is invalid. In fact, as stated, the argument is clearly self-contradictory.
• Who created God?
• Which god? The word "God" carries a lot of undesirable cultural baggage, denoting an intelligent being. If the ultimate cause of our universe turns out to be, say, a random quantum fluctuation, then that would be "God" by Aquinas's definition, but to call this phenomenon "God" would be very misleading.
• Two bodies at rest will start to move towards each other due to gravity. They can be each other's first mover. Therefore, the prior mover requirement is unnecessary.
• Pairs of virtual particles are created (and annihilated) all of the time, out of literally nothing. These particles affect each other's motion, thus disproving Aquinas's premise. Not all events necessarily have causes.
• More exotically, if time were circular (i.e., if time repeated every so often, so that the year 1 were also the year ten trillion and one), then every motion could have a prior cause without infinite regress. This does not seem to be the case, though.
• Even if there is an infinite regress of causes, so what? The human mind is uncomfortable with the concept of infinity, but reality has no obligation to make us comfortable.

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Aquinas is making an argument from ignorance here "I don't know how or why therefore it something we call god"

as well as special pleading. "This is the universal rule but it doesn't apply universally because it is inconvenient to my faith."

Aquinas' understanding of cosmology and physics was limited by the knowledge of the time. I would hope. given the fresh information of the last 750 years, he would be smart enough to realize his errors.
Shall we deconstruct the other 4? IIRC also arguments from ignorance and more special pleading.

csense said:

I'm curious.

His premise is that all things are either in a state of motion or potential motion.

What, about that statement, is provably false.

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That is one of his premises. The other was 'everything that is in motion is moved by another'. That is the second half of the premise. That can not be shown to be true. As such, any conclusion is therefore meaningless.

The first piece is based on empirical data, and is extrapolated, therefore is using inductive logic. It is then assuming there is a 'FIRST MOVER'. THere is no reason to assume there is a 'First Mover.' This proclamation is a 'leap of faith', and can not be shown to be true.

The proclamation that there is a 'unmoved mover' makes the case for God to be special pleading.

RAMOSS said:

That is one of his premises. The other was 'everything that is in motion is moved by another'. That is the second half of the premise. That can not be shown to be true. As such, any conclusion is therefore meaningless.

The first piece is based on empirical data, and is extrapolated, therefore is using inductive logic. It is then assuming there is a 'FIRST MOVER'. THere is no reason to assume there is a 'First Mover.' This proclamation is a 'leap of faith', and can not be shown to be true.

The proclamation that there is a 'unmoved mover' makes the case for God to be special pleading.

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We have been through this before with Logicman.

zyzygy said:

We have been through this before with Logicman.

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This is one of the reasons I am fairly contemptuous of a lot of philosophy. It is misused. There are some pieces of philosophy that have good use, but when it gets turned to try to prove things that there is no real world data, it is just a circle jerk.

RAMOSS said:

This is one of the reasons I am fairly contemptuous of a lot of philosophy.

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You can be contemptuous about the idiots that claim what they say is of any importance.

Philosophy is a quest for reality... check out Ίππαρχος and Επίκουρος and Σωκράτης and Πλάτων and Αριστοτέλης if you want to know about Philosophy. No religious claimers have ever been able to support their arguments against philosophy... they are all wrong all the time.

Paralogic said:

You can be contemptuous about the idiots that claim what they say is of any importance.

Philosophy is a quest for reality... check out Ίππαρχος and Επίκουρος and Σωκράτης and Πλάτων and Αριστοτέλης if you want to know about Philosophy. No religious claimers have ever been able to support their arguments against philosophy... they are all wrong all the time.

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The one thing those have in common is they they were not trying to prove the unprovable. Socrates we mainly know through the writings of Plato, so I am not sure how much is his thinking, and how much is Plato's. The concept of debate by asking questions to cause someone to think about and defend their proposition is a useful study too.

I do not always agree with the Greek philosophers, but they certainly had tons more intellectual integrity that the modern theologian that uses the philosophical form for religious purposes. I will clarify and say it is the modern philosophy that is crap. The modern questions that are reasonable are the ones 'how do we know what we know', and on the subject of ethics. Those have real world applications and implications. That is why I said "A lot" rather than 'All'

RAMOSS said:

That is why I said "A lot" rather than 'All'

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Επίκουρος has all of your answers.

Paralogic said:

Επίκουρος has all of your answers.

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No, I find his attitude to politics to be out dated, and not practical, even it if is consistent with 'avoiding pain'. One problem is that although people might withdraw from politics, politics does not withdraw from them.

RAMOSS said:

No, I find his attitude to politics to be out dated, and not practical, even it if is consistent with 'avoiding pain'. One problem is that although people might withdraw from politics, politics does not withdraw from them.

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"Politics" is an abstraction. It does not exist. It depends on the behavior of human beings only. If humans were not around, politics would not exist either. Επίκουρος is right saying that all human endeavors are subjective.