What is wrong with this argument?
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From: Dan Listermann on 31 Mar 2005 09:10 "Sweet Ol' Bob (SOB)" <sob(a)sob.com> wrote in message news:424b1ac2.3984078(a)news-server.houston.rr.com... > On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:12:07 -0500, "Dan Listermann" > <dan(a)listermann.com> wrote: > >>> Prove that the Supreme Being needs a cause. > >>According to some, everything has / needs a cause. > > Not true. > >>Are not supreme beings "things?" > > No. The Supreme Being is an Act. "Everybody wants to get into the Act" Here is a thought you may not have considered, the existance of deities is "just a theory" and a poorly supported theory at that especially when compared to such things as the Theory of Gravity. "God" is just a theory.
From: Dan Listermann on 31 Mar 2005 09:11 "Sweet Ol' Bob (SOB)" <sob(a)sob.com> wrote in message news:424b509f.17773306(a)news-server.houston.rr.com... > On 30 Mar 2005 14:42:29 -0800, "Hector Plasmic" > <hec(a)hectorplasmic.com> wrote: > > The human imagination is not capable of causing anything to exist in > objective reality. Here we use the word "cause" to mean "efficient > cause". Hence the nonexistance of real deities.
From: SOB) on 31 Mar 2005 09:12 On 31 Mar 2005 03:55:44 GMT, Enkidu <zwi6iv402(a)sneakemail.com> wrote: >> God does not "rouse Himself to action". The Act of existence has never >> changed. If you must cast it into human terms, then existence has >> always been. There was no time when existence was not. Therefore there >> was no time when God had to "rouse". >So God does nothing but exist? That's pretty much it. >He never takes action, In Existential Metaphysics, God (the Supreme Being) is not a thing. God is an Act. God is the Act of Being, the cause of Existence. >never causes a change in the universe? God made the Universe to exist. God does not have to do anything else. Now it is up to the Universe to change. Furthermore, it would be a contradiction if God created the Universe to be a certain kind of entity and then changed it all the time to some other entity. Furthermore, there are certain aspects about the Universe that are intrinsically unknowable - even God cannot know these things because otherwise there would be a contradiction. God created the Universe and now the Universe does its thing in ways that no one, not even God, can know in advance. "If you want to build a robust universe, one that will never go wrong, then you don't want to build it like a clock, for the smallest bit of grit will cause it to go awry. However, if things at the base are utterly random, nothing can make them more disordered. Complete randomness at the heart of things is the most stable situation imaginable - a divinely clever way to build a universe." -- Heinz Pagels, Physicist and Philospher >God does nothing but cause the universe to exist? God causes the Universe to exist. That's enough, because there is no more fundamental act than to cause Existence. > What good is He? If God did not exist, then nothing would exist. So the answer to your question depends on what you consider "good". If existence is good, then God has acted in a good manner by causing existence. If you consider existence as bad, maybe you should exercise your free will and check out. -- Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html "If you build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. If you set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life."
From: Hector Plasmic on 31 Mar 2005 09:21 >>> So God does nothing but exist? > That's pretty much it. .... > God made the Universe to exist. Then this god of yours does something besides exist -- it also causes other things to exist. Ergo, it acts, the very thing you were trying to avoid.
From: Hector Plasmic on 31 Mar 2005 09:25
>>>> what caused the supreme being, etc? >>> Prove that the Supreme Being needs a cause. >> In order to logically prove things about this "Supreme >> Being" of yours, we'll need to know something more >> about it, don't you think? > That would help. And you're the Final Arbiter of the Things to Know about the Supreme Being, are you? Snork. >> Why not start with showing us some reason to >> believe that it exists, and some way to determine >> its properties? > Be patient Be concise and do not drag your feet. > I am developing this in steps. AKA "I'm making it up as I go along." >> Until then, I'd say that if your "Supreme Being" needs >> a cause, the human imagination would seem to be >> adequate to the task, and there doesn't seem to be >> any need to discuss it further (sans some reason to >> think it actually exists). > The human imagination is not capable of causing anything > to exist in objective reality. Ah, grasshopper, stop and think it over and you may actually glimpse the pebble you need to grasp in order to leave this place. |