Holy cow, that was the stupidest thing.

How on earth is that going to solve anything is beyond me.

If that article impressed you, you need to read Edward Feser's The Last Superstition.

BTW, the linked article goes wrong from the very beginning: "The argument is an à posteriori argument, and the conclusion is not claimed to follow with certainty." This is nonsense. St. Thomas is presenting an a priori deductive argument and believes that if his premises are true, his conclusion follows with certainty. Since the author of the page doesn't understand that, what are the odds that he understands anything else he's talking about? (Hint: Not good.)

The author gets a Dumb-Dumb award for writing this:

The fact that many things exist when, if the argument were correct, the probability of objects existing is self-refuting since being must exist at the same time as these arguments in order to evaluate such arguments.

It saddens me that professors of philosophy don't know better than this . . .

An analogy. Yes.
Ok, the ice cubes in my freezer can exist or not exist. All of them at one time did not exist. At some point in the future the ones that now are will not exist (at least, as ice cubes). The ice cubes are countable, i.e. finite in number. They could not exist unless there was some Necessary existence which exists prior to and after them. Yes, the ice Maker.

No analogy really works, of course.

Whoever wrote this should be fired, have his degrees revoked, and be publicly ridiculed by academia

All I need to call BS was you topic heading (something about a beginning) and then to see the name Aquinas. The world could be eternal for all any of the 5 ways are concerned. They have zilch to do with any temporal beginning

As far as the link itself


All that Aquinas actually says is that there are SOME things which are contingent. Which is undeniably true, as long as you accept any empirical observation as valid.

WTFFFFFF!??

Where on earth did this guy get off just making up premises that are irrelevant. 1.) St. Thomas nowhere, in this argument, talks about the universe being finite or not. It is completely irrelevant to his argument. This moron who should have his degrees revoked, might as well put in something about peanut butter 2) That would not be the argument for a finite universe anyways. He obviously has never once ever read a single word Aquinas has written


Further, Aquinas actually concludes to "therefore there must be some necessary being(s)" And indeed this includes not just God, but angels, are human souls, and in an analogical way prime matter. In othr words, the immediate conclusion is that some things must not be contingent. Even the materialist atheist concedes that...old style atheists would simply say matter itself is necessary and eternal. That is why Aquinas continues to argue, first, that among necessary beings one must have its necessity in itself, and then through the next 9 questions eliminates God being matter, being diversified, etc.

The third way is take from the possible and the necessary, which is such. For we find in reality certain things that have the possibility to exist or not to exist, since certain things are found to be generated or corrupted and consequently have the possibility to exist or not to exist.

(Note: Certain things, some things. He is not making any more claim than that)

But it is impossible that are things which are, exist in such fashion. Since that which has the possibility to not exist, at times does not exist. If therefore all things had the possibility not to exist, at some time there would be nothing existing in reality.

(Note: We are talking about things which have an interior principle of being subject to coming to be and passing away. If all things were such, then the whole would also be such...as soon as you try and claim some principle that is not subject to such principles, the admit the conclusion of his immediate argument)

But if this is true, then even now there would be nothing existing, since that which is not, does not begin to be except through something which is. If therefore nothing were a being, it would be impossible that something should begin to exist, and in such manner there would be nothing, which is clearly false.

(Note: Nothing comes from nothing. Anyone denying that either does not know what the word nothing means or is a liar and doesn't really deny it)

Therefore not all beings have the possibility to exist or not to exist, but there must be something that is necessary in reality.

(Note: "something" Could be matter, could be angels, ad nauseam)

But everything that is necessary either has the cause of its own necessity from somewhere else or not. But it is not possible to proceed into infinity in necessary things which have the cause of the their own necessity from elsewhere, just as neither in efficient causes as has been proved. There it is necessary to posit something which is necessary through itself, not have the cause of its necessity from elsewhere, but which is the cause of necessity to other, which all call God.

(Note: He simple invokes previous arguments against an infinite regress. The argument is not that there cannot be an infinity, therefore there must be a first, but rather it is there must be a first and therefore there cannot be an infinity.)

Made me think of this:



If it's too small to read, the first box says "Intentional logical fallacies." The boxes in the middle panels say "Stupid uneducated opinion" and then "You are f******* retarded" - original pic here

I bleeped out the dirty words . . .

I don't think anybody was criticizing you, although I could be wrong. I think we were all lamenting the idiocy of the professor who made that argument (to use the word charitably).

God invented a universe too big for us to explore.
I wish he'd invent us a space ship...how I long to see the other planets.

I don't get it.

Not sure what Hawking is talking about here, but if the total energy of the universe is zero, then there is no universe. I think it was demonstrated as far back as 1900 that infinitisimals (things that are infinitely small) cannot exist in nature.

I also note that he goes from "in a sense" to empirical fact without anybody blinking an eye.

pax, welcome to the somewhat "new" topic in the theist-atheist debate.... the "nothing."


Actually it's not an entirely "new" topic. It's a twist of the old argument in light of Hawking recent "discovery" that universe started from a "nothing," which is actually an expansion of a Quantum theorem where electron was produced out of "nothing."

Now, when those gnu-atheists heard that something could exist out of nothing, they cheer and congratulate themselves because they think they could put the rest St. Thomas' Third Way.

But the thing is, what the physicists meant by "nothing" is not a nothing. It's actually something. They called it "nothing" but it's not a "nothing" as we understand it.

For further insight: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/11 ... t-you.html

The problem is that they don't know how to think. Okay so all the postive energy equals all the negative. Great, there is balance that might be represented as a sum of zero. But that is not to say that it is the same as nothing. Anymore than we say, when two weights on opposite ends of a scale balance each other that there is zero weight there. No, there is say 200lbs and each pushing a bar in the opposite direction with equal force. The force exists, it is being pushed, just inefficaciously

You were the one who was to bring balance to the Force!

You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.