God Exists

Non-Cognivism Pro gives 2 apparent problems with my argument. 1. This is irrelevant, wrong, and doesn't do anything to the argument. If I say I'm nice, that's a secondary attribute. I have the primary attribute of a human to have that secondary attribute. If something causes me to stop being nice, this doesn't take away my primary attribute of being a human. This also isn't damaging the argument if true. It would just mean you need to provide secondary and primary attributes. A man can have the secondary attribute of being rational because of the primary attributes associated with man. If a man isn't rational (being dead) he still has a primary attribute to have other attributes. 2. I'm fully aware “God” isn't suppose to composed of anything metaphysical or otherwise. This is why the argument works. Since “God” doesn't refer to anything that exists, it isn't any meaningful than a “Fodgl”. Saying something exists and is actual doesn't give it meaning. I can say a “Fodgl” exists and therefore is big and red. This isn't doesn't make it meaningful at all. We can apply this to an infinite amount of meaningless things to make them meaningful. What does it mean when you say God is pure actual? Does it mean God just has all power or what? First Way Pro says the argument isn't a cosmological first cause argument. Pro messed me up when he titled the argument “Thomistic cosmological argument” and quoted st. Thomas saying the “first cause is god”. This made me think “change” was referring to cause and the hierarchy of motion was a hierarchy of causes up to the first one. I apologize, but I suggest Pro be more clear in future debates. Since I know what is meant by the argument I will now further refute it. The argument assumes Aristotle's idea, that the natural state of matter is rest. Newton's first law of motion is “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” [1] So it's just as natural for something to move in a constant velocity, as it is for something to be at rest. No prime mover needed. “Galileo has studied motion using a ball rolling onto level surface from an incline plane. The smoother he made the surface, the further the ball would roll to. He reasoned that if he could make a very long surface perfectly smooth, there would be no resistance to stop the ball; and it would continue in motion indefinitely or until something stop it. Thus, contrary to Aristotle, Galileo concluded that objects could naturally remain in motion rather than come to rest at a point.” [2] The Michelson–Morley experiment proved there doesn't exist an absolute standard or reference in the universe. Einstein used this conclusion for his Theory of Relativity. His theory showed there was no such thing as absolute motion and all velocities are only relative to something else. This makes the Prime Mover argument nonsensical. Pro straw mans me on the immaterial and atemporal parts. I wasn't saying such a mover can't be atemporal, I said there's no reason to assume that it was a being just with that info. “as I’ve stated before, materials necessarily have potentials; for instance, the potential to grow warmer, or move, or be split into its constituents, etc. “ The material things we observe have potentials. As I've stated before “Why can't there exist some type of matter without potential?” Pro said the mover is immutable in the sense of unchanging himself. It's still agreeing with what I said, that the mover must be mutable in some way. In this case his mind. Omnipotence, Omniscience vs Potentiality What do you mean by “Potential”, it seems like you've changed it. In the omnipotence section Pro said “...and passive potentiality, the ability to be acted upon” I based my objection off potential meaning the possibility to be acted upon. Now it seems Pro is meaning just possibility. If God has all power, this entails contradictions. For insistence, let's look at the old omnipotence paradox (modified a bit by me) “Is God so omnipotent that he can create a rock so big he can never lift?” and the omnipotence vs omniscience paradox “If God is omniscient, he knows the future with 100% certainty, so how is he omnipotent?” The traditional answer would be just to say “Omnipotence is not the ability to do anything conceivable, but the ability to do anything consistent with His nature and consistent with his desire, within the realm of his unlimited and universal power, which we do not possess.” [3] This however wouldn't work, because it would mean God does have potential to be more powerful. Pro gives a false analogy with the good cup. A cup is good because of the human idea of convenience and comfort. It's not comforting to have water spilled on us. The standard of good doesn't come from the cup itself. A more realistic analogy is this, there exists a cup that's the ultimate standard of what is good for cups, and this ultimate standard came from the cup, which proves a good standard exists. That would be circular, because you assume the standard comes from the cup, and use this standard to prove a cup is good. Since Pro said his argument wasn't really a first cause argument as labeled, there's no reason to respond to the natural movers section. Sources ______________________________________________________________________- [1] http://www.physicsclassroom.com... [2] http://library.thinkquest.org... [3] http://carm.org...