Originally Posted by
schmuck
I am an atheist because I am agnostic.
The two aren't the same, and atheism is NOT the logical response to a lack of evidence. That is effectively a positive claim: that you KNOW God does not exist. You must prove that this knowledge is true. If you can't it is irrational.
It is precisely your claim that you have no burden of proof that I am questioning. Disbelief is not the default when the issue is uncertain. If you don't know, then you don't know. Then you need no proof. Yet you claim the certainty of atheism. So if you know God does not exist, then you need proof. By relying on the claim that you have no burden of proof, you are simply assuming that which I have called into question. That is not proof.
Gets mo?
Here were my replies to your(borrowed) contingency argument
Link1
Non sequitur. You have to show the premises that were not proven. And you have to make sure those premises are essential to the strongest version of the argument (and not just an author's rendering of it). You have done neither in that post.
You did not address the argument. An infinite regress is irrelevant. It does not remove the necessity of the Necessary Being.
It seems you are having trouble understanding the Argument from Contingency. That is not necessarily a failing on your part, as there have been bad and insufficient ways of stating it. I will suggest a simplified one below.
Let me refer you to a previous post:
https://www.istorya.net/forums/spirit...ml#post4851079
- Either all things are necessary beings or not.
- All things cannot be necessary beings because some can go out of existence or some rely on another being in some way for their existence.
- So either all things are contingent or not.
- But if absolutely all things are contingent, how do they get their necessity?
- If all things are contingent, therefore, they are insufficient to account for the existence of contingent beings:
- There must exist at least a necessary being whose non-existence is an impossibility, and from which the existence of all contingent beings is derived.
Analysis of the above:
- 1 is a logical truth. Simple logical construct of two mutually exclusive categories that can hold anything (A = all things are necessary; B = !A' or B is all that is not A).
- 2 is true. Try denying it. Nothing ever ceases to exist? Dang, I'm Elvis!
- 3 is a logical truth. Same as 1.
- 4 and 5 involve the basic act of inquiry. We ask "why?" To claim that things are not intelligible or need no explanation is quite contrary to the spirit of inquiry of the sciences and all other rational endeavors to gain knowledge. This act of seeking explanation is sometimes referred to as the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
- 6 is the proven conclusion. To deny it is to deny 4 and 5, which is to claim absurdity, and to go against the Principle of Sufficient Reason thereby abandoning any reason for rational inquiry. You wipe out all of science with that one!
QED.
To understand the argument better, I have another version written by Kreeft, although he labels it as the "First Cause Argument". The First Cause and the contingency arguments are really the same (actually the first four of St. Thomas Aquinas's Five Ways are basically the same). Let me quote a few parts:
The First Cause Argument
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm
The argument is basically very simple, natural, intuitive, and commonsensical. We have to become complex and clever in order to doubt or dispute it. It is based on an instinct of mind that we all share: the instinct that says everything needs an explanation. Nothing just is without a reason why it is. Everything that is has some adequate or sufficient reason why it is.
Philosophers call this the Principle of Sufficient Reason. We use it every day, in common sense and in science as well as in philosophy and theology. If we saw a rabbit suddenly appear on an empty table, we would not blandly say, "Hi, rabbit. You came from nowhere, didn't you?" No, we would look for a cause, assuming there has to be one. Did the rabbit fall from the ceiling? Did a magician put it there when we weren't looking? If there seems to be no physical cause, we look for a psychological cause: perhaps someone hypnotized us. As a last resort, we look for a supernatural cause, a miracle. But there must be some cause. We never deny the Principle of Sufficient Reason itself. No one believes the Pop Theory: that things just pop into existence for no reason at all. Perhaps we will never find the cause, but there must be a cause for everything that comes into existence.
(skip a few paragraphs)
In more abstract philosophical language, the proof goes this way. Every being that exists either exists by itself, by its own essence or nature, or it does not exist by itself. If it exists by its own essence, then it exists necessarily and eternally, and explains itself. It cannot not exist, as a triangle cannot not have three sides. If, on the other hand, a being exists but not by its own essence, then it needs a cause, a reason outside itself for its existence. Because it does not explain itself, something else must explain it. Beings whose essence does not contain the reason for their existence, beings that need causes, are called contingent, or dependent, beings. A being whose essence is to exist is called a necessary being. The universe contains only contingent beings. God would be the only necessary being—if God existed. Does he? Does a necessary being exist? Here is the proof that it does. Dependent beings cannot cause themselves. They are dependent on their causes. If there is no independent being, then the whole chain of dependent beings is dependent on nothing and could not exist. But they do exist. Therefore there is an independent being.
You'll notice it does not depend on there being a time when there was nothing. It does not do away with an infinite regress either. And the conclusion -- a Necessary Being -- is very much like what we theists call God: a Source or Creator of being. Thus the traditional objections to this argument are disposed of. Your earlier objections fail to even address the above argument.
Please read the whole thing. I have only quoted some sections.
Simple, there is an alternative. The universe itself could have always been. No external agent necessary.
Haay, don't you even read the previous posts? Your claim is irrelevant. I have said several times that it does NOT matter if the universe always has been. After all, there is no logical reason why a set of contingent beings have to cease existing all at the same time. But they are all still contingent. But not everything can be contingent, as shown above. Ergo, there is at least a Necessary Being.
So the Argument from Contingency still stands. I now have proof for my theist claim. You have NOTHING for your atheist claim, except, perhaps, your EXCUSE for not proving it.
am i right?
