Tags
After-Life, Atoms, Death, Exoplanets, Soviet Union, Terrorism, Third Reich
The famous exception is atoms, including those of which I am made. I will soon cease to exist. They won’t. They were originally stardust. God knows what they’ll be next.
Books and movies used to put “The End” on the last page and just before or after the final credits. The Third Reich came to an end. The Soviet Union came to an end. Will terrorism ever come to an end ? Will poverty (Jesus said it wouldn’t), will crime, injustice, disease ? One thing is certain : we will.
Life, our personal existence, comes to an end. We do all we can to delay death. Some dream even of eliminating it. I feel not only for the nonce but as far down the road as our wildest dreams can take us, that it’s a lot more intelligent to expect it, to accept it, than to fear it or to hope that somehow it won’t happen. Given the fact that there will be no sequel to the story that will have been our life, we have nothing to fear in an imaginary “after-life”. We no doubt will have a lot to regret, when we slough off this mortal coil : things we’ve done and shouldn’t have, things we should have and didn’t. But whether or not your life has been as satisfying as mine has been, we are all better off making the most of the time we have left and getting used to the idea that when it’s over it’s finished. If it’s any consolation, our atoms will live on in somebody or something else. I’d like to think that mine will one day be part of the first rocket-ship to land on an exoplanet.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
When its over, its over, is much easier to cope with than the idea of being punished forever because we can’t measure up to some lofty demands about our lifetime behaviours.
Just hope the getting to the over part isn’t too over the top.
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I would be curious to know if the author believes the universe existed forever?
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I have to consider it a possibility. Something must have pre-existed for the Big Bang to happen. We know only that Time did not. Here we join the speculation which had a beginning but will have no end, and which has fascinated thinkers for millenia. Non-atheists should not find it too difficult to accept that the Universe existed for ever. After all, they believe that God did and does. Of course, they have invented the bit about the necessity of a First Cause, and are content to ignore the infinite regress that involves.
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frankomeara, you suggest that you are well informed with all of the proofs for the existence of God and yet make the claim a First Cause ignores an infinite regress.
Surely, you would therefore know that according to the Aristotelian and Thomistic Cosmological arguments, whether an infinite regress exists or not, the argument still stands (in fact, the only argument it would impact is the kalam model).
The thomistic cosmological argument stands, despite an infinite regress because even if there are an infinite amount of direct causes to infinity, there still needs to be a cause of the chain that is itself uncaused.
For example, if you had an infinite amount of train carriages in motion, the efficient cause of carriage D, is carriage C whose efficient cause is B etc
No matter where you are in the chain of infinite carriages that are in motion, the fact that the carriage itself is in motion means there needs to be a locomotive at the front pulling the infinite amount of carriages along.
So you may have a person standing on the side of train tracks looking at these carriages. As there is an infinite amount, this person will see the carriages for eternity, but the fact there is a carriage in motion means there is a locomotive which itself is ultimately the cause of all the movement of the infinite carriages.
Thus, even if the universe is has an infinite regress it still requires an ultimate uncaused cause for that event (e.g. an infinite amount of big bangs) to take place.
Moreover, if the second law of thermodynamics is true (which I assume you accept) then you cannot have an infinite regress since all the matter and energy would have ceased to exist and with no matter or energy nothing would exist and thus nothing caused. And yet we do have things which exist, which means there cannot have been an infinite regress. I would love to hear why you would disagree with the logic of this claim.
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I trust you have read my final comment on yours concerning the other, latest post. Here I will add only that all this reminds me sadly of the jousting with “Jim”, a former friend whom I have known for seventy years. We spent hours talking about First Causes and the arcana of “Aristotelian and Thomistic cosmological arguments”. You can read it all in the early posts on this Blog. This led me to realize that we were wasting our time. I know it is as impossible for me to get you to see the fallacy of your “arguments”, as you – or Jim – mine. This Blog exists for Believers on the Brink, people who have already seen through much of the nonsense but hesitate, hanging on to the hope that maybe after all there is a God, and a Heaven, and unable to shake that fear they have had since childhood : the Hell a loving God has prepared for His beloved, naughty children. Jim justified everything from Miraculous Medals to Bleeding Hosts, and claimed to be able to prove the existence of God and justify all the claims of the Catholic Church in six easy steps. Rehash the “dialogue” ? Been there, done that. So you’ll just have to let me get on with the Autumn of my life, which I have dedicated to liberating the BOTB by showing them how silly are religious beliefs, rules and rituals. RIDENDA RELIGIO. Say hello to Jim for me.
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It does indeed sound like Jim has been resurrected – complete with the long train of faux logic.
Train analogies are hardly helpful in any meaningful discussion of infinite series. We will probably never understand the Big Bang and the implications of the maths which underlie it including the non-existence of time before it.
But the invention of an inexplicable God as explanation for the inexplicability of the Universe is plainly absurd. The train carrying that load of illogicality doesn’t even get to leave the station whatever Aristotle or Thomas or those seeking to revive either or both might say.
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Thom, here is my response:
~ “It does indeed sound like Jim has been resurrected – complete with the long train of faux logic. Train analogies are hardly helpful in any meaningful discussion of infinite series.”
*** RESPONSE ***
Thom are you able to please advise, how what you have said specifically refutes the rational and scientific understanding of necessary causality.
The only people who deny this, are those why deny causality altogether and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. They also deny science as they believe there is no way to discern truth.
Thom, are you able to please show how what I have said about causality is false?
~ “Train analogies are hardly helpful in any meaningful discussion of infinite series. We will probably never understand the Big Bang and the implications of the maths which underlie it including the non-existence of time before it.
But the invention of an inexplicable God as explanation for the inexplicability of the Universe is plainly absurd. The train carrying that load of illogicality doesn’t even get to leave the station whatever Aristotle or Thomas or those seeking to revive either or both might say.”
*** RESPONSE ***
Thom do you believe in the Principle of Sufficient Reason?
If so, it doesn’t sound very scientific to merely assume we will never understand something. That doesn’t sound very rational or scientific to me. Perhaps we do not understand it now. Does that mean we will never understand its material basis?
Thom, do you deny that for something to be caused, it needs to be acted upon either by itself or something else?
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frankomeara, nothing you have stated here provides any response to my point.
I read (very carefully) your previous comments and thought you were going to provide me with some philosophical arguments. Maybe I have missed that (or maybe you included it in another post – in which case please feel free to direct me to that).
However, if that is not the case, I am still unclear on why a First Cause is not necessary with respect to an infinite regress model or even a constant oscillation model.
You stated: “Of course, they have invented the bit about the necessity of a First Cause, and are content to ignore the infinite regress that involves.”
May I please inquire, do you still stand by the assertion you made that a First Cause is not possible if there are an infinite amount of efficient causes in a chain of events?
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QEV asked in an earlier response to my earlier comment whether I believed in the “Principle of Sufficient Reason”. Readers will no doubt be aware that this principle has been debated for centuries if not millennia and will no doubt be debated for millennia to come. In its simplest form it states that “everything must have a reason or cause”. It can be seen and I do so see it, in the context of debate about the existence or not of “God”, as merely another restatement of the First Cause argument which is no argument at all as it necessarily results in an infinite series of causes. Let’s face it, the existence of “God” cannot be proved by mere words – and I readily acknowledge that likewise the non-existence of “God” cannot be proved.
So I do not believe that the Principle of Sufficient Reason rescues the fundamental flaw in the “logic” propounded by QEV.
QEV closes his comment on mine by asking whether I believe that for
“..something to be caused it needs to be acted upon either by itself or something else”.
If this is meant to be a statement of a “principle”, again I would suggest that in the context of debate about the existence of “God” this reformulation of the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” does not rescue the infinite series of causes from its infinite trajectory which being never-ending cannot end with the First Cause desired by QEV.
All this is perhaps very interesting to the wordsmiths and their acolytes who claim to be able to deliver the goods, their “God”, by words alone.
I am content to leave them to their word games.
It should be obvious however to any percipient reader that the objective of this blog, which I wholly support, is not to engage in pointless debate with those who are totally committed to their belief in a Supreme Being but rather to encourage those who have begun to question the “certainties” presented to them as children to think for themselves, to question further the package of “beliefs” that are served up by others and to exercise that rare faculty “common sense” in deciding what is believable and what is not.
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That’s a very interesting way to end the discussion frankomeara, but I think exposes a grave weakness in this blog.
I wonder what an atheist reader will think when looking at these comments?
It is interesting to imagine.
Out of the three participants – frankomeara, Thom and QEV – which one was trying to grapple with logic, reason and deduction?
From the onlookers point of view, who was trying to assess things rationally and who was resorting to ad hominem attacks or was sadly not competent to respond to any submitted refutations without becoming infantile?
I only mention this because it is interesting food for thought. Atheists generally pride themselves on coming to the table with an epistemology of reason, logic and science (usually siding with an empiricist view of things including causality). Consequently, one would imagine an atheist wants to see a civilized discussion surrounded by reason – is this argument valid? If not, why? Which premise is flawed? Is there a logical fallacy? Why is the refutation of the argument fallacious etc. This is what you see for example in the famous Russell-Copleston debate. Even though Bertrand Russell lost, he kept the discussion focused on deductive reasoning. Is this what we see in this blog?
Indeed, it is very interesting on this blog how the atheists respond compared with the theist.
Like the blog article above, I think the discussion on this post cannot be carried forward anymore for reasons obvious to any observer. I will wait for another blog article before I post anymore.
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