Its astonishing that after finding out there is no Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, fairy good mother, leprechauns, ghosts, witches, and demons; after inventing cars, jets, space ships, rockets, artificial hearts, and vaccines against polio, measles, cholera, whooping cough, scarlet fever; that humans still believe in a mystical being that can change coke cans into giraffes that give birth to Mack trucks and can reason. God is a delusion that is psychologically destroying man as a creative being able to live gloriously, prosperously, wonderfully and lovingly as the most powerful force on not just, but within the universe.
That is silly. Religion has been around since civilization started and the history of art and science indicates that creativity has survived with no problem whatsoever. There are a lot of reasons for criticizing religion but stifling creativity isn't one of them.
Religion is a man made product intended to control people and their behavior. It's also an easy way for a lot of people to make a lot of money.
Religion for untold millions is a focus for their morality and sense of purpose and frankly most are uneducated or simple poor people who need religious hope. And I want to add with the aggressive spread of harmful religious beliefs as in Islam the only counter is other religion or force of the government suppressing religion in general as I Christianity during its aggressive period smashing heads with Muslims or governments like Singapore banning religion in the public sphere and autocratically limiting forms of practice or China who will bring down their full wrath on religion if its a threat tossing people into prisons. So false or not you're not going to get rid of it anytime soon.
"Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, fairy good mother, leprechauns, ghosts, witches, and demons" Whether the above exist or not, it doesn't detract from the necessity of a First Cause.
No it doesn't, what a ridiculous thing to say. But I am sure the Cult of the Talking Houseplants will be uplifted.
Well, for one, they all have conflicting, irreconcilable ideas. Second,not all of them claim the truth of an omnipotent god or gods. Third, you could never, not ever, logically connect the existence of a prime mover with, for instance, the laughably stupid idea of Noah's ark, or 72 virgins. It just does not follow. And lastly: it's a stupid argument anyway, as now you need a cause for your fist cause, and a cause for that, etc. It's an infinitely regressive, utterly useless bit of fallacy that only really serves as a tool for special types of theists to soothe themselves. We progressed past contrived fallacies like this long ago, when we came to understamd calculus.
So what? Why does the content matter? I don't see why not. If I needed a cause for my first cause, it wouldn't be a First Cause.
Yes, i know. That's why you have to stop, arbitrarily, at a cause that suits your personal superstitions amd fetishes. And you are welcome to show me how a fist cayse lends support to the Noah's ark myth. And then you can show me how it lends support to a conflicting idea. And then you can realize you just made a huge mistake,and grapple with it. And I already won this anyway. It is you who claims truth of some very specific propositions. I know that theologians don't burden themselves with "accuracy", "honesty", and "integrity", but, to a rational thinker, you are now also tasked with provide all of the other conflict nonsense to be incorrect. You can never do this, rendering your claims baseless. I could leave for 1000 years, come back, and you will still be here working on it.
And this is all a dog and pony show anyway. The "first cause" bit of logical nonsense has exactly nothing to dp with any of these theists' beliefs. Accepting that terrible argument is just an exercise in "backward think", by which they have decided upon the truth of something and then furiously Google for reasons why they already believe something. Consider the absurdity and intellectual dishonesty of that. It is striking and profound.
Man is the most powerful force in the universe? Hardly. Get out once in a while, see the world, you live in a bubble.
Huh? I'm not stopping at anything. Everything has a cause, but to claim that a First Cause has a cause is nonsensical, because anything that the mind could possibly think of; and everything that exists in the universe can be considered to the caused. Thus, you'll always be vainly attempting to find cause for the First Cause, when all you have is causes to work with. First Cause creates everything...First Cause gives inspiration to man...man ignores said inspiration but a select few...and you know the rest of the story. Well that was easy! You talk a lot.
Mysticism provides the answers to questions, that either don't have good or satisfying answers. Repeat that over the course of several thousand years in the absence of the scientific method and voila! A world chocked full of people believing in magic and superstition because "I don't know" was not an acceptable answer. I'm not sure, I've certainly seen positive acts come forth from religion and I wonder, if not for the framework created by faith, whether some folks would be able to find morality (not that one requires the other, but it can be a vehicle). On the other hand, I see where people who believe in revelation have cast aside any notion of protecting our future, after all, they're the folks cheering for the end of times.
Of course you are, and you are doing so withself granted totalitarian authority. You call something the "first cause" based on nothing but the fact that you have decided it is the "first cause". It's absurd and why that argument is a joke in philosophy circles and an exercise on a college freshman's philosophy quiz. I ask what caused the first cause you arbitrarily chose. You say "nothing,I just told you it's the first". And I say,'"thats not good enough, you must prove it". And you say...."uh...but i said it's the first!" And then we laugh at the argument and discard it as useless.
I am talking about the first mover argument, which is a well know piece of fallacy. If I ignore your attempt to change the subject, that is by design, as I dismiss such charlatan's tactics.
Can we just stop at, First Cause or anything from Aquinos probably doesn't make sense in a world where we are aware of the big bang or any advanced physics for that matter. The only way it makes any sense is in a purely Judeo-Christian context where you've accepted the existence of god before forming any other opinions. First Causal argument are a necessity if you take for granted the existence of magical sky people.
So am I. 1. Everything has a cause; and by everything, we mean all that makes up the totality of the universe. 2. The myopic atheist cames along and arrogantly asks "What caused the First Cause?!" The question itself is a fallacy, because it fails to assume the fine distinction between God and "everything." 3. If God's the First Cause of everything, then "everything" is ultimately a totality of lesser causes. And lesser causes cannot give cause to something that is in and of itself a Cause.
Created by the creative mind: And then there's the accident of nature: Hmmm. Think I'll side with Man's creative mind; seems much more hospitable and enjoyable for human life.
From an epistemological stand point, sure maybe everything has a cause, but in the world outside of metaphysics, there a great deal of things that happen without cause, randomness and entropy absolutely exist and assigning causality to, bacteria for instance seems erroneous. If anyone is suffering from myopia, it's those who have the answers in mind before the question has been asked. You presuppose the existence of magical sky dude, and therefore all other arguments must fall into that construct. I'm arguing that your precondition falls apart at even the slightest bit of scrutiny and that even those who have faith in the sky people, can't agree on what they've done and how. At least the physicists admit to their limitations.
Hmmm. And the dark ages were ruled by what? At its pinnacle, what was the cause of the fall of Islam? What created the Renaissance? Man stands at the height of glory not because of religion, but in spite of it.