EssentialSacrifice wrote:ken wrote:
The first cause is not by definition an intelligent being
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The first cause argument (or “cosmological argument”) takes the existence of the universe to entail the existence of a being that created it. It does so based on the fact that the universe had a beginning. There must, the first cause argument says, be something that caused that beginning, a first cause of the universe.
The universe consists of a series of events stretched across time in a long causal chain. Each one of these events is the cause of the event that comes after it, and the effect of the event that comes before it. The world as it is came from the world as it was, which came from the world as it was before.
Whose definition, ken, says The First Cause is not intellignt ?
I’m saying the first cause doesn’t have to be intelligent. When we say “first cause” I am referring to something that has always existed and is responsible, or partly responsible for the existence of other things. When we say first cause, I also don’t assume it must be intelligent, and I don’t assume there could only be one first cause, but that there could be multiple.
When we say first cause, you seem to be referring to the Cosmological argument
The problem I have with the Cosmological argument, first cause, unmoved mover or all similar arguments is, it imposes a set of rules it does not apply to itself.
According to what little bit we know about the Universe, the unmoved mover does not exist; it is merely a concept. But this argument proclaims the unmoved mover MUST exist, and presupposes the vast majority of the Universe that we are ignorant of is consistent with the tiny percentage of the Universe we DO know of (a claim nobody is not qualified to make), thus this unmoved mover cannot exist within the Universe, so it must exist outside it. Then it proclaims God exists outside the Universe and is the unmoved mover, first cause, etc. etc.
Problem with this is the opposing argument will simply proclaim the Universe as the unmoved mover to which it will probably use science to prove it cannot be. The problem with using science this way is the same science that will dismiss the possibility of the Universe being the unmoved mover will also dismiss the possibility of his God even existing let alone being an unmoved mover! In other words, according to science God is a worse explanation than the Universe!
These arguments will only work on those who presuppose the existence of God because they are the only ones who will allow you to apply rules to the opposing argument without applying them to your own.
Ken
THE very definition of an atheist is one's unbelief in ANY God or gods!
