On a thread now closed, Botnst posted the following in one of his mystical moments where he confers with medieval intellectuals.

"Alright let's take it from the top.

When we say that something is logical it means that most people would agree that some construction of an argument that begins with known facts and procede to reasonably derived conclusions. This removes hallucinatory experiences and psychotic irrationality ("Look, I have a tomato in my left hand, therefore: whirled peas.")


Here is a proof of God's existence. It is logical. One may disagree with the conclusion buthe logic itself is clear and not irrational.

"The first and plainest is the method that proceeds from the point of view of motion. It is certain and in accord with experience, that things on earth undergo change. Now, everything that is moved is moved by something; nothing, indeed, is changed, except it is changed to something which it is in potentiality. Moreover, anything moves in accordance with something actually existing; change itself, is nothing else than to bring forth something from potentiality into actuality. Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing: thus heat in action, as fire, makes fire-wood, which is hot in potentiality, to be hot actually, and through this process, changes itself. The same thing cannot at the same time be actually and potentially the same thing, but only in regard to different things. What is actually hot cannot be at the same time potentially hot, but it is possible for it at the same time to be potentially cold. It is impossible, then, that anything should be both mover and the thing moved, in regard to the same thing and in the same way, or that it should move itself. Everything, therefore, is moved by something else. If, then, that by which it is moved, is also moved, this must be moved by something still different, and this, again, by something else. But this process cannot go on to infinity because there would not be any first mover, nor, because of this fact, anything else in motion, as the succeeding things would not move except because of what is moved by the first mover, just as a stick is not moved except through what is moved from the hand. Therefore it is necessary to go back to some first mover, which is itself moved by nothing---and this all men know as God."



The argument itself may be formally valid, but the premises upon which it is based are themselves questionable.

The argument claims that since all objects known to use are caused by other things, then 'Everything' must be caused by something (ie, the First Cause, Prime Mover or God). But this does not follow. To claim that each individuall thing we experience is caused by something else, says nothing about whether it makes to sense to think of the universe itself as having a cause. It takes a belief necessary to make sense of the universe we experience and applies it to a set of conditions that we have never known and cannot ever know, the creation of something out of nothing. Such a creative event is totally unknowable to us because were we to know it thru experience, we would have to exist, thereby violating the idea that something is being created out of nothing since things (us) would already exist.

So the argument should go something like this: "Were we to apply the reasoning processes we use to understand objects we experience, to the relationship between something and nothing, we would conclude that 'something' has a cause. In order to avoid the problem of thinking this additional thing must also have a cause, we will (arbitrarily or logically--you make the choice) say that the cause is itself not caused.
Of course, we realize we can't ever know such a creative event, so we will treat this elegant piece of reasoning as an interesting piece of philosophical speculation totally incapable of ever being tested.

Edwards channeling Hume.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Please,Puleeaze! no more synthetic deistic twaddle! My F-cking head is still aching from last night's whiskey sours and 420,I do not need any "sperituel" bulls-it.

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Yep.

Since the thread in question was closed for some mysterious reason, I just sent Botnst a PM with a similar, although I must admit less eloquent, analysis.



Mike

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350,000 miles
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not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
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Kerry, I was merely demonstrating that faith is not necessarily illogical, though I believe it is necessarily unscientific.

Plenty of people spend vast amounts of effort disproving Aquinas' 5 proofs, to varying degrees of success. Success being a subjective conclusion.

At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution


By NEELA BANERJEE and ANNE BERRYMAN
Published: February 13, 2006

On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.

At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.

"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."

The event, called Evolution Sunday, is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, started by academics and clergy members in Wisconsin in early 2005 as a response to efforts around the country, most notably in Dover, Pa., to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.

"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud, shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians had to choose between modern science and religion were presenting a false dichotomy," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the major organizer of the letter project.

Mr. Zimmerman said more than 10,000 ministers from around the country had signed the letter, which states, in part, that the theory of evolution is "a foundational scientific truth." To reject it, the letter continues, "is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

"We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator," the letter says.

Most of the signatories to the project and those preaching on Sunday were from the mainline Protestant denominations. Their congregations have shrunk sharply over the last 30 years. At the same time, the number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians has risen considerably, and many of them, because of their literalist view of the Bible, doubt evolutionary theory.

The Clergy Letter Project said that 441 congregations in 48 states and the District of Columbia were taking part in Evolution Sunday, but that was impossible to verify independently. Around Chicago, two churches that were listed on the project's Web site as participants in the event said they were in fact not planning to deliver sermons on the subject.

Still, those who did attend sermons welcomed what they heard. After the service at St. Dunstan's, Brett Lowe, a 41-year-old computer engineer, sat in a pew as his son Ian, 2, and daughter, Paige, 6, played at his side. "Sermons like this are exactly the reason we came to this church," Mr. Lowe said.

"Observation, hypothesis and testing — that's what science is," he said. "It's not religion. Evolution is a fact. It's not a theory. An example is antibiotics. If we don't use antibiotics appropriately, bacteria become resistant. That's evolution, and evolution is a fact. To not acknowledge that is to not acknowledge the world around you."

Jeanne Taylor, 65, a recently retired registered nurse attending services at St. Dunstan's, said the Bible was based on oral tradition and today "science is a part of our lives."

At the Evanston Mennonite Church, Susan Fisher Miller, 48, an editor and English professor, said, "I completely accept and affirm the view of God as creator, but I accommodate evolution within that."

To Ms. Fisher Miller, alternatives to evolutionary theory proposed by its critics, such as intelligent design, seem an artificial way to use science to explain the holy. "It's arrogant to say that either religion or science can answer all our questions," she said. "I don't see the need either to banish one or the other or to artificially unite them."

Gretchen Ruethling contributedreporting for this article.

All cats have 3 legs.
Felix is a cat.
Felix has 3 legs.

Logical? Yes, in a formal sense.

True? ???????

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Bot, Did you by chance attend the "Erasmus School of Writing"? Without the use of mind-altering drugs, you successfully took me back to another time; the night I so painfully read "Praise of Folly" in the wee hours of the morning, after a full night of partying, and just a few hours before an eight-o'clock AM exam on that fine piece of literature (literature in this case, being a euphemism). I have no recollection, really, of what I read so very early that morning, but I do recall that it evoked the same feelings as I had while reading your post. In spite of everything, I did fine on the test. Thanks for the memories.

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock."

Oh Christ,can we now have a go at the Albigensians mayhaps?or the Waldensian heresy?I mean,let's have some consistensy here for rice cake.

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I don't know why that other thread was locked, and I have not received any reply to my PM inquiry. The new OD rules indicate that these locked threads will be deleted in a couple of days too. The thread had 251 replies, and almost 3,000 views, second most amongst recent active threads to only the three word story thread. It was clearly interesting to a plurality of forum participants.

Now, in a new thread, we can start all over again. Or not. There were no personal attacks, nothing getting remotely out of hand, and nothing particularly dorogotory to any of the viewpoints expressed. This place looses value when the integrity of our discussion flow is abruptly ended without explanation.

Now, I'll probably be banned, so good night and good luck.

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I don't see logic as being a part of religious purpose. It doesn't make sense to give praise to a creator or a greater. Unless it buys you something. It's a state that gets arrived at, that has more to do with a type of being than reason or rationality. More wish than reality.

"Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness." -GI Gurdjieff

Wishing can be an act of strength or a state of weakness. We all know and see examples of the effects. Weak people, strong people, what is the difference between them? It's not in their weight or height or blood. Can brain science tell what thoughts they think that create their crainial chemical states (if they are observable)? I don't know. Is their perspective vis a vis the world different? I'm fairly sure. Is it logical that belief manifests reality? No. But it can be seen.

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1986 300E 220,000 miles+ transmission impossible
(Now waiting under a bridge in order to become one)

Reading your M103 duty cycle:
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showpost.php?p=831799&postcount=13
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showpost.php?p=831807&postcount=14

The point being that otehrs asserted that religion is illogical.

I provided proof of a logical foundation of one religious perspective.

Here is another. http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu.htm

It is a conversation between a supplicant and deity. It proceeds from first principles to complex social order and is the basis of the Hindu religion far more rigidly than anything the Abrahamic religions have, until Aquinas sucked the brain from Aristotle and inserted into his 5 proofs.

Bot

I certainly believe in the placebo effect. And, as long as the religious believer is thinking about alternative forms of experience in his or her head, then I see no problem with faith. However, when a religion claims there is one additional object or being(God) in addition to the existence of minds and objects in the universe which almost everyone agrees exist, then not only the skeptic, but the believer herself raises the question, how do we know such a thing exists? God is not an obvious component of everyday experience, so what reasons do we have for believing God exists? Faith is not required to believe in our own existence or the existence of external material objects. How can faith by itself provide any credibility to the claim that an object exists?
Especially in a world in which 'God' authorizes numerous moral and political behaviors, it seems religious believer and skeptic both have a social duty to explore the grounds of religious belief

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

we all know we came from nothing, which then exploded

~Nate

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Excellent synopsis.
Requires no faith.
Perfectly believable.
Unassailably reasonable.

I have lots of firecrackers like that. Ignite nothing with nothing and Boom!

B

A more respectable faithless alternative would be "I don't know."

The view that Aquinas' 5 ways fail is subjective in the sense that no truth carries coercive force and must be accepted by a subject.
Almost all mainline post-Enlightenment intellectual culture is based on the position that Aquinas extended causality beyond its applicable range.

The question remains; how can a position which carries information beyond the range of all possible human experience serve as a justification for belief in God.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13