Thank God, i'm an atheist!

Originally posted by EinsteinMind
God is not a thing, He is a being.

Well since God caused the universe, and we can assume that time is a constraint of the known universe (as said by Augustine of Hippo),

We can assume that God is outside of time.

Therefore, God had no cause since he created time. What can create God if God created time?

oh and "as we know things to be" mea ...[text shortened]... fathom God with the human mind. If you can, then it is not God. God is beyond the human mind.

A being is a thing.

You can't assume that, since to do so requires the presupposition that god exists.

Why is there a necessary connection between time and creation?

Originally posted by Starrman
Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]A 'thing' that creates? Do you go around calling people 'things'? God created us, so why is he a 'thing' and we are not? At the very least we can consider him a 'person', due to the intelligence and attention to detail he displayed in creating such an amazing universe.

People are indeed things, as are cl ogether, if god has some conceptualisation, whatever it might be, he is a thing.[/b]

That's a different argument altogether, if god has some conceptualisation, whatever it might be, he is a thing.

...An object of thought, yes. That, of course, does not make him a thing (as in, a created thing). I doubt your imagination is so limited that you can only conceive of God as a created thing. Every atheist I've talked to sticks to that concept. Could it be, the atheist's absurd god of infinite regress is really only a strawman? 😉

Originally posted by epiphinehas
The key word here is 'thing'. Every 'thing' is caused by something other than itself. But God is not a 'thing' as we know 'things' to be. God has an eternal, uncreated being out of which 'things' arise. This is how Aquinas' first-cause argument is not self-refuting, because it highlights the essential no-'thing'ness of God. Premise (1) applies to 't ...[text shortened]... 'first cause' is not a 'thing', so premise (5) does not refute the argument.

Yes, the key word is 'thing'. If God is not a 'thing' then he is not 'something' and hence could not be the cause in part 1.:
Every thing is caused by something other than itself.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
...An object of thought, yes. That, of course, does not make him a thing (as in, a created thing). I doubt your imagination is so limited that you can only conceive of God as a created thing. Every atheist I've talked to sticks to that concept. Could it be, the atheist's absurd god of infinite regress is really only a strawman? 😉

Maybe it is your absurd God of partial regress that is the strawman? No atheist believes in a God of infinite regress but only use it to point out that if any regress is necessary then infinite regress is a logical requirement too.

Every theist I have talked to sticks to the claim that every thing must be created by another thing. Sadly that is easily proved wrong and thus the whole argument falls apart.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Maybe it is your absurd God of partial regress that is the strawman? No atheist believes in a God of infinite regress but only use it to point out that if any regress is necessary then infinite regress is a logical requirement too.

Every theist I have talked to sticks to the claim that every thing must be created by another thing. Sadly that is easily proved wrong and thus the whole argument falls apart.

If God is not a 'thing' then he is not 'something' and hence could not be the cause in part 1.: Every thing is caused by something other than itself.

Simply change premise (1) to read, "every thing has a cause," and the language problem which you've created disappears, and without changing the argument.

Maybe it is your absurd God of partial regress that is the strawman? No atheist believes in a God of infinite regress but only use it to point out that if any regress is necessary then infinite regress is a logical requirement too.

Do you not believe in the law of cause and effect? If we trace phenomena backwards, we delineate a history of cause and effect. How far back do you go? If you have no first cause, then you are stuck with an infinite regress.

You see, it is Nature itself and its natural law which poses this problem, not theists.

Atheists are fond of saying there is no reason to think that a creator might exist, and simply ignore the problem posed by the natural law of cause and effect. Tell me, how is that not disingenuous?

Are you disputing premise (1), or just (5) the conclusion? How would you solve the problem of infinite regress?

Every theist I have talked to sticks to the claim that every thing must be created by another thing. Sadly that is easily proved wrong and thus the whole argument falls apart.

Again, God is not a thing (as in, a created thing). Such is the implication of Aquinas' argument, that God is self-existent and eternal. I make no such claim that God is a created thing.

Starrman's question, "who created god?", shows either an inability or a refusal to conceptualize an eternal, self-existent God. Since I don't believe he is unable to recognize that the absurd god of infinite regress is not the only possibility, then I have to assume that absurd god of infinite regress is merely a convenient strawman.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]If God is not a 'thing' then he is not 'something' and hence could not be the cause in part 1.: Every thing is caused by something other than itself.

Simply change premise (1) to read, "every thing has a cause," and the language problem which you've created disappears, and without changing the argument.

Maybe it is your absurd God of part ...[text shortened]... have to assume that absurd god of infinite regress is merely a convenient strawman.

If God manages to be self-existent, why can't the universe?

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
If God manages to be self-existent, why can't the universe?

the universe is not intelligant!!!!

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]If God is not a 'thing' then he is not 'something' and hence could not be the cause in part 1.: Every thing is caused by something other than itself.

Simply change premise (1) to read, "every thing has a cause," and the language problem which you've created disappears, and without changing the argument.

Maybe it is your absurd God of part have to assume that absurd god of infinite regress is merely a convenient strawman.

[/b]I made the same discussion with twhitehead in another thread, and I said almost the same stuff, but it seems atheists have some sort of blind faith the doesn't allow them to accept others thought if it contradicts what they believe.

Originally posted by ahosyney
the universe is not intelligant!!!!

But it can spell!

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
If God manages to be self-existent, why can't the universe?

The universe cannot be self-existent since it evolves. A being which is self-existent is eternal and therefore cannot change. The universe, because it evolves, therefore must be contingent upon another reality for its existence.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
The universe cannot be self-existent since it evolves. A being which is self-existent is eternal and therefore cannot change. The universe, because it evolves, therefore must be contingent upon another reality for its existence.

I don't get your first premise.

To assert that the universe evolves is only to assert that the underlying stuff of the universe, whatever it is, changes its arrangements over time, or that whatever that stuff manifests itself to us, changes its arrangements over time.

Why does that stop the underlying stuff of the universe from being self-existent?

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
I don't get your first premise.

To assert that the universe evolves is only to assert that the underlying stuff of the universe, whatever it is, changes its arrangements over time, or that whatever that stuff manifests itself to us, changes its arrangements over time.

Why does that stop the underlying stuff of the universe from being self-existent?

Because from what we know and see about them they are not.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
I don't get your first premise.

To assert that the universe evolves is only to assert that the underlying stuff of the universe, whatever it is, changes its arrangements over time, or that whatever that stuff manifests itself to us, changes its arrangements over time.

Why does that stop the underlying stuff of the universe from being self-existent?

If the universe can differ from itself in any way, then it cannot be self-existent. Only an immutable being can be self-existent. Why? Because change implies incompleteness. A self-existent reality is by definition complete in and of itself. Therefore, since the universe evolves, it cannot be self-existent.

If you are positing 'underlying stuff' to the universe, you will be taking us back in time almost one hundred years, before Einstein entered the scene. Einstein proved that matter, energy and gravity are seamlessly interwoven as one whole (the time-space continuum), while the prevailing theory had formerly been that all phenomena existed within a universal medium called, 'ether'. The ether gave the universe its self-existence.

Thanks to Einstein, today we know that the 'underlying stuff' of the universe are just molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks, and (possibly) multiple dimensional strings, etc.; all of which are mutable and contingent. That is, their existence has a starting point (i.e. the Big Bang).

A self-existent reality has no starting point.