Posted on 01/16/2011 4:09:10 PM PST by balch3
JCB: When you say "lawgiver" and "primal source", it's all fine and dandy until an elaborate tale is woven to associate that with the god of the Old Testament.
You are spot on, JCB! This is so banal I can't believe it's still being used by Intelligent Design pseudo science.
Richard Dawkins gives a very good explanation how things become more complex on the evolutionary stage, using an analogy of a hill with a steep, vertical wall on one side and gentle slope on the other. Clearly, it is impossible form a one-cell organism to "jump" up the vertical side and reach the top, but it can easily be demonstrated how it can occur on the gentle sloping side over time and in favorable conditions.
And the ID pseudo scientists always look for that "instant" transformation because they deal with "miracles" and magic events and because, as you said, they always find that area of science where knowledge is deficient or lacking and pull out their god-of-the gaps trick.
But it never occurs to them why would anyone accept their deity of choice as the absolute answer to the something unknown. Without fail, has steadily eroded superstitious beliefs and not once confirmed one. Take any topics, physics, biology, physiology, earth science, agriculture, zoology, geography, geodesy, astronomy, numerology, etc. biblical explanations are just dead wrong on every one of them. Just how many times have they predicted the end of the world on a given date? That's some track record.
And now they latched themselves to the Big Bang, as their last white hope, knowing that, because it is the impossible frontier of scientific knowledge, there will be plenty of room for their god-of-the-gaps in the years to come.
Thank you. That's your opinion. And you are lost to superstition in my opinion.
St. Thomas Aquinas used first cause argument to prove the existence of what he called God, specifically the God of the Old Testament. This is what started the discussion. Perhaps I missed something, but when did it cease being an argument for the deity of choice?
I understand that, philosophically speaking, it is safe to retreat into the anonymity of that concept, so that first cause doesn't need to be called anything, but his method is still a classic example of "resolving" the paradox by pulling out a convenient god-of-the-gaps hat trick.
The first cause argument actually seems rather absurd, in my opinion, because it's basically saying: first cause was not moved to create; first cause created just because! In other words, for no reason whatsoever. Likewise, first cause was not caused not existence; he is just because, for no reason whatsoever. So the question why did God create the world must be answered with: just because! Any other reason will make first cause subject to infinite regress.
The answer, in this case, is not theological, but logical. It has to do with the limits of logic, which is conditional reliant on non-conditional (axiomatic, self-evident, etc) in order to begin at all.
If the first cause was conditional, it would be dependent, and the argument's point is to explain the existence of the dependent set we observe - not add another one to it.
To expand:
The first cause argument argues for just that - a first cause (uncaused, independent).
These describe in part what Christians (and Acquinas) identify as God; however, the argument does not rely or require it. Again, that is one of the reasons used against it as it is used in making the “case for God.”
Why God created - beyond this logical argument - is in the area of theology, which would be a category error in our discussion. I’m sticking to the non-transcendent here.
In other words, out of the thin air. Anyone can build up a logical argument if the first argument is by necessity axiomatic and unconditional.
You said first cause argument is logical. If it is logical then it follows that first cause created and exists just because, for no reason whatsoever. Any other reason suggested destroys the argument.
But it's silly. The necessary logical conclusion is that first cause is without cause, or "just because," for no reason whatsoever.
Any reason given destroys the first cause. Why did first cause create the world? Just because. You can't say "because he so loved the world." That means the uncaused was caused to move by love. You can't say first cause "is" in order to be the first cause. In both instances you appealing to higher necessity that cause the "uncaused" to be or to create, and that destroyed the first cause argument.
This is where so many theologians run aground. Eventually they begin to subject even God to a higher necessity ("God had to..."), and we are right back to infinite regress.
If it is at the limit of logic, maybe we should just say it's an unreoslved paradox and we don't knwo the answer.
True, however the axiom is subject to truth also. In this case, the axioms and premises we're dealing with are: all we observe exists, all we observe is cause/dependent... etc.
In the argument, the first cause is the conclusion, not the axiom.
I'm sorry if I was confusing. My first statement in reply was a sidebar observation relating the first cause argument to reason/logic as a whole; I'm short for time and focus. Apologies for heading off track.
. If it is logical then it follows that first cause created and exists just because, for no reason whatsoever. Any other reason suggested destroys the argument.
That's an accurate statement, but backwards, and it matters in judging the logic. While it is true backwards and forwards, the argument follows the rules and direction of logic.
Briefly, in the right order:
What we observe exists. All that we observe is dependent (cause/efect, etc.). Dependent causes cannot exist (infinite regress) without an uncaused, independent first cause.
Stick really close to the logic and you'll understand the argument and my defense of it; and, also understand where it can and cannot be objected to.
Thanks for your reply and sorry for my lack of time for the next few days.
First cause cannot logically exist because it has no reason or cause to exist. If there is a reason for its existence then it's not uncaused. First cause argument is intrinsically self-refuting.
If it is true that nothing can cause itself then first cause is no exception. The paradox remains.
As far as the first cause not being the axiom but a conclusion, I disagree. The only way the first cause argument can be logically valid is to include first cause as the axiom, namely that "everything, except first cause, has a cause other than itself" (paraphrasing Theodore Schick).
Lost to superstitition?
As if it matters to someone who believes in nothing and has no hope for anything except a dirt nap. What? will it make my dirt nap a bit less comfy? Pain when my residual chemicals get sucked into a giant oak?
Your being lost, on the other hand, is a sentient eternal lostness that matters.
Your baptism, you say, is an effective sacrament should you believe.
Therefore, as a minister of the gospel it is my duty to warn you, “give them warning from ME”, of a judgement to come. Be warned, kosta, that “those who believe have life, but those who do not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on them.”
Oh, I don't know. Do you think that the Cappadocians or +Symeon the New Theologian weren't dealing in "facts" so far as "facts" about Ο ΩΝ have much meaning. You and I have often over the years commented that Orthodoxy isn't something you learn; it's something you live and become. It is experiential in a way that Western Christianity simply isn't. Is the way that the Cappadocians, or +Symeon or +Gregory Palamas or any of a number of monastics to this day or even maybe some of our fellow parishioners "experienced" and "experience" God a "fact"? They would certainly say so. Outside of our experience of God individually and as members of a liturgical community (on the Eighth Day), what "facts" can we have about the Creator of Existence? I don't mean to minimize the importance of that "experience" since at most levels, maybe the talking donkey and snake levels, it is exactly where it should be for the individual Christian. To have so "died to the self" as to experience the uncreated light of God, which really does happen as you know, Kosta, is the ultimate "experience" for the Christian. Is this not a fact? Does this experience inform the Christian about God? We are told it does. It informs the Christian about God's love not intellectually but emotionally, as a child senses the love of a parent to give a thoroughly mundane and insufficient comparison, and obviously in a way far beyond what one can glean by suspending disbelief and reading about talking donkeys and snakes, though maybe that reading is part of the journey to theosis for reasons sufficient to God (by the way, I submit that we do not need to know, or for that matter care, why the authors of scripture put talking snakes and donkeys in it).
I have never met anyone who has seen and heard talking donkeys and snakes. I have known, and know, people who have experienced the Uncreated Light of God.
Hopes? Were you planning on doing something? Jump ship, maybe?
Standing applause. The choice of Scripture has been made and it has served the Church for lo these millennia. The choice of Scripture is way above my pay grade; the Creeds are way above my pay grade and so is the Tradition of the Church. If you wish to reason, why then you can reason yourself into damn near any position that you choose.
Kosta, on another thread, you have expressed anger at the corruption and falsification of documents which became Scripture, in the manner which the Church chose to use. I accept that the documentation has been changed, but I accept the authority of those who changed them and those who approved the changes. I am an engineer and I am familiar with the engineering change process.
Some fairy from Marketing gets an idea and waving his manicured digits, builds a fairy castle in the sky with festoons and flags and all kinds of battlements in some sort of artsy sketches. Now Design takes over and actually puts something onto the screen in Pro/Engineer or similar. No actual parts, but an overall design.
Design Engineering comes into the fray and actually starts designing the parts which go into this fairy idea as set up by Design. Then Manufacturing tries to put the damn parts together. When they don't fit (normal), then all kinds of iterative stuff happens and eventually we wind up with a kind of sort of final product.
It's an analogy, but that's how I view the development of Scripture as we know it and why I'm compliant with it and with the Church's interpretation of it since I view them as Design. The step closest to the initial that we have immediate access to.
I have never met anyone who has seen and heard talking donkeys and snakes. I have known, and know, people who have experienced the Uncreated Light of God.
I have experienced a significant event, and many unexplained events in my life.
In my heart, I believe the orthodox were the seedbed for the unaffiliated, non-latin churches, and consequently, the source of willingness to disagree. And that led to the reformation.
Now there's a theory I have never heard before. I find it hard to believe, Padre, that the Reformers of the 16th century were taking their inspiration from the Patriarchates of the East. Certainly some of the generation after Luther tired to connect with Orthodoxy, but it came to nothing and I can't see where an unaffiliated ecclesiology can be found anywhere in the history of The Church in the East. The one place that one might be able to find Orthodoxy in the Reformation in the West is England where arguably there was at least some consciousness of a pre-Roman Catholic, "national" particular church which had strong ties not only to Constantinople but also to the monasteries of the Egyptian desert and which was all but destroyed after 664. Are you aware of any histories or writings which indicate among the Reformers an awareness and understanding of the communion and primacy issues which lead to the firming up of the Great Schism between, say, 900 and 1453?
Regarding ‘young earth creationism’, google ‘polonium bubbles in granite’
If you are going to pretend you know what I believe then state it right. For the record: I never said I believe in nothing. And I never said I hope "for a dirt nap."
I do not believe in nothing. I believe nothing. Either I know or I don't know.
Your being lost, on the other hand, is a sentient eternal lostness that matters
Maybe to superstitious minds.
A speck of polonium in molten rock is like an Alka-Seltzer dropped into a glass of water. It has a very short life.The beginning of effervescence may be equated to the instant the polonium atoms began to decay and emit radioactive particles.
If the rock remained molten very long (as evolutionary geology theory says) the traces of those radioactive particles of polonium would disappear as quickly as the Alka-Seltzer bubbles in water.
But suppose that after you dropped your Alka-Seltzer into the water, then the water was instantly frozen.
What would happen to the bubbles? The bubbles would be preserved.
Likewise, polonium halos could be formed only if the "effervescing" specks of polonium had been instantly trapped in solid rock.
That is, we could find polonium halos in rock, ONLY IF the molten rock had become suddenly solid.
Now, as we are told by the evolution theory, the earth’s foundation granite rocks formed as hot magma slowly cooled from liquid to solid over millions of years.
Same old binary choices they impose, when the real world cannot always accommodate them.
On another thread about a certain Alabama governor mentioning in his inaugural speech that only those who share his particular faith are his "brothers and sisters," or something to that effect, many commentators agreed with the person and echoed the same sentiment. So I asked them, what is a dead child, the children who haven't heard of the gospels or anything like that that could have forced them to decide, what are they to do? Where do they go after death?
One of them replies back saying that the "whoever shall believe..." part also mentions the word, 'family' and hence they are covered. So I asked again, what are orphans to do, if they die before they hear of the bipolar choice that's available to them. Guess what the reply was? That he or she is doomed.
I wonder if these people who believe in such choices have ever heard of such a case as a parasitic twin. It is, basically, the remains of an incomplete foetus attached to a fully developed one. It is rather disturbing to witness.
Sometimes, the parasitic twin develops with most appendages and organs, and is alive. Other times, only the limbs form, or only the torso, or sometimes only the head, with functional brains and eyes. But most times, it's only a set of arms, a hip and a set of legs, if even those. So the question to these paragons of moral self-righteousness is as follows: What means do they have to achieve "salvation"? Surely they must be covered, shouldn't they?
While they are at it, I also wanted to ask this question about why a deity would need to use prophets and other special people. What good does it do, if a man's faith in a deity can only come after he has faith in the words of his fellow men? There is no way anyone can believe in a deity unless he or she has heard of it from another human (with the exception of direct divine intervention, perhaps). So, why is this flaw in the design of "salvation" present, that faith in God can only come after faith in mere men? It would have been so much simpler for a deity to merely telepathically communicate with all humanity the way it supposedly did with certain "prophets" and such a mode wouldn't have lead humanity to rely on other humans and scraps of ancient writings, for its "salvation".
They can take as much time as they want, but I do not expect an answer for any of the above, because they don't really have any.
Because you are in the process of perishing, there isn’t an answer which could be written to which you would not disagree and choose to argue, whether you comprehend or not, just to be the contrarian. You see, the answer is tied to the sovereignty of The Creator, do as The Creator sees fit, not as it would fit with any of a various human value systems. A turtle lays perhaps a hundred eggs in the sand on a beach, yet there may pass several generations before even a single descendant from that mother trutel comes to the beach to lay eggs. The rest live and die without seeming to have a purpose, other than to live. Most of the hatchlings never reach sexual maturity because they are consumed by larger animals. Is that economy an offense to you? ... it is related to one of the great questions I have for when I see my Savior face to face. But I do not have any influence upon how The Creator arranged His Creation. Somehow, I think you want to argue with someone you profess to not believe exists. I don’t want to arguye with you. I’m offering my thoughts on the way outside chance that your soul is not entirely dead.
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