Arguments for God's Existence

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I already provided a definition 3 times

The efficient cause is what did that. If a ball broke a window, then the ball is the efficient cause of the window breaking. Every change is caused by an efficient cause. If your eye sees, then it sees because light from the object strikes your eyes and causes you to see what is there. Efficient causes answer the what did that question, but do not answer how it was done.

That is not a definition its a tautology. Since you failed to make things clear, I'm just going to provide an interpretation of your "definition" for you, based on the highlight in bold:
In the statement "A causes B" the efficient cause is "A".
Well... wasn't that helpful?
Why is it then that you don't say that the broken window caused the ball?
Why is it that you don't say that anything causes everything else?
What is it exactly that you mean by "the ball caused the broken window"?
And what exactly do you mean by efficient cause without a material cause? In case you haven't notice, an "A" must exist. Do you suppose that there could be such a thing as an imaterial A that exists and it can cause things? Or do you suppose that an non-existent A (that exists) causes B? How is this not absurd to you?

If we assume that the glass was broken in the exact moment where the hammer touched the glass, then the cause and the effect would be simultaneous.
...

It is utterly frustrating having a conversation with you. I just demonstrated mathematically the absurd implications of your statement, and you completely ignored it. You failed to address any of it, you just forgot about them, moved along, forgot that they existed, and continued to spew the same miss-informed nonsense.
If you take a snapshot of the universe at any given state, the glass is either broken or it isn't. If it isn't then the point is moot as the glass is not broken. If single snapshot of the Universe (a state) comes into existence and you see that the glass is broken and the hammer is pressing against the shards, you don't have an hammer breaking the window as much as you have a broken window and a hammer pressing against the shards. It wouldn't make any more sense to say that the hammer caused the broken window as to say that the broken window caused the hammer.
It is also impossible according to the laws of physics as no information can travel faster than the speed of light, so no effect can propagate outside the light cone and the glass is not the hammer. For the glass to break, the once coherent glass molecules must move relative to one another and cover a distance sufficient enough to break the bonds, and this process is not instantaneous, since you need:
1. A moment where the hammer is moving towards the glass with an X amount of kinetic energy
2. A moment where the kinetic energy of the hammer is transferred unevenly onto the glass. i.e. Where the glass has the kinetic energy and the hammer doesn't.
3. A moment where the previously stationary glass molecules start to accelerate away from each other at unequal magnitudes.
4. A moment where the glass molecules acquire a non-zero speed.
5. A moment where atomic bounds are sufficiently far enough from their previous neighbor in order to break.

Lets take Kants example, about the heat and a fire. Heat does not propagate instantaneously, the heat you may feel right now does not come from fire that exists right now, but from fire past which is now gone that released the heat. If the universe had just came into existence and you were to find that you instantly fell the heat and there is a fire ranging, the heat was not caused by the fire, but rather the heat and the fire just exist independent from one another.
Take any example you can possibly think of, and you will find out that the case is always the same every time.

There is no such thing has effects that are simultaneous to its cause, such a thing is incoherent! It just sounds like something that might be sensible, to humans that don't understand what is going on, but it utterly falls apart at any type of close scrutiny.

You are presenting a false dilemma,

Its not a false dilema, its an important point in the relation of causation that you are simply not getting.

the glass was not broken before the hammer touched the glass.

Bingo!

I agree that this is a controversial point and that there is peer reviewed literature on both sides, but if our alternatives are.
1 Accept simultaneous causation as possible
2 Accept that the universe came in to existence “a causally”

I would go for the first, since the second is demonstrably incoherent while the first has never been proven to be incoherent.

Number 1 is the incoherent one. While number 2 must necessarily be the case, despite your objections.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

It is utterly frustrating having a conversation with you. I just demonstrated mathematically the absurd implications of your statement, and you completely ignored it. You failed to address any of it, you just forgot about them, moved along, forgot that they existed, and continued to spew the same miss-informed nonsense.
If you take a snapshot of the universe at any given state, the glass is either broken or it isn't. If it isn't then the point is moot as the glass is not broken. If single snapshot of the Universe (a state) comes into existence and you see that the glass is broken and the hammer is pressing against the shards, you don't have an hammer breaking the window as much as you have a broken window and a hammer pressing against the shards. It wouldn't make any more sense to say that the hammer caused the broken window as to say that the broken window caused the hammer.
It is also impossible according to the laws of physics as no information can travel faster than the speed of light, so no effect can propagate outside the light cone and the glass is not the hammer. For the glass to break, the once coherent glass molecules must move relative to one another and cover a distance sufficient enough to break the bonds, and this process is not instantaneous, since you need:
1. A moment where the hammer is moving towards the glass with an X amount of kinetic energy
2. A moment where the kinetic energy of the hammer is transferred unevenly onto the glass. i.e. Where the glass has the kinetic energy and the hammer doesn't.
3. A moment where the previously stationary glass molecules start to accelerate away from each other at unequal magnitudes.
4. A moment where the glass molecules acquire a non-zero speed.
5. A moment where atomic bounds are sufficiently far enough from their previous neighbor in order to break.

Lets take Kants example, about the heat and a fire. Heat does not propagate instantaneously, the heat you may feel right now does not come from fire that exists right now, but from fire past which is now gone that released the heat. If the universe had just came into existence and you were to find that you instantly fell the heat and there is a fire ranging, the heat was not caused by the fire, but rather the heat and the fire just exist independent from one another.
Take any example you can possibly think of, and you will find out that the case is always the same every time.

There is no such thing has effects that are simultaneous to its cause, such a thing is incoherent! It just sounds like something that might be sensible, to humans that don't understand what is going on, but it utterly falls apart at any type of close scrutiny.

I think at this point, leroy is clinging less to the line that he quoted and more to something Kant said later on where he suggested that the cause must necessarily be occurring when the effect begins, and that we know this because the cause couldn't have actually been the cause if it ceased to be before the effect began.

Whether or not Kant was asserting this, accepting this, or simply stating it as part of the counter claim that he was setting up at the time, I'm not sure. It should be in the quote provided earlier.

Out of curiosity, though, would you be willing to accept that the cause comes first, but is still occurring as the effect occurs? For example, that the fire is started before heat is produced, and that it's still burning as the heat is being produced?

 

[leroy]

It is simple. What you find hard is understanding simple and direct answers when they have more than 1 word.

Because “long” and ambiguous answers leave the door open to move from one position to an other.
When I ask something like:

leroy wroteo you affirm that efficient causes necessarily imply material causes? Just kidding I know that I won’t get a direct answer from you.

You wont answer with a simple YES or a simple NO because a YES would require a burden proof and a NO would imply contradicting your atheist friends. This is why you rather keep your position unclear and ambiguous.

Case in point:
Why is your answer NO? Aren't you just asserting NO out of your personal incredulity?

Well you didn’t asked me to justify my answer, you simply made a yes or no question. A bachelor by definition is someone that is not married, therefore the idea of a married bachelor is incoherent.

Again Leroy, your own words: With "universe" I mean al space time and everything in it.

So you don't have even have to reformulate premiss 1 with the supporting arguments you regurgitate from Craig, you could only reformulate premiss 2 with what you "mean".

Maybe something will dawn on you but I doubt it will.

So if you grant the premises and the conclusion of the KCA and you add an additional (independent) argument I would argue that you can conclude that the cause of the universe is immaterial, space less, timeless etc. and it would imply Creation Exnihilo

So in other words, yes I do think that the conclusion of the KCA entails creation exnehilo but not on the basis of the KCA itself but on the basis of an additional argument that may or may not be correct.

Is it really that hard to understand?



For example you don’t conclude “Darwinian evolution” on the basis of transitional fossils by themselves, ( Lamarckism would also predicts transitional fossils) you conclude Darwinian evlution on the basis of transitional fossils + additional (independent) arguments that would exclude Lamarkism as a viable possibility.

 

[MarsCydonia]

Because “long” and ambiguous answers leave the door open to move from one position to an other.

But I was talking about short and simple answers... Which you've yet again failed to understand.

If we can count on something, it's your consistency Leroy.

When I ask something like:

leroy wroteo you affirm that efficient causes necessarily imply material causes? Just kidding I know that I won’t get a direct answer from you.

You wont answer with a simple YES or a simple NO because a YES would require a burden proof and a NO would imply contradicting your atheist friends. This is why you rather keep your position unclear and ambiguous.

It isn't just "long and ambiguous answers" that leave the door open to move from one position to another. Dishonest questions and assertions too. For exemple, (Leroy's ever-changing definition of choice/freedom/will/free will/libertarian free will/etc. and Leroy's definition of transcendent that means the opposite of transcendent come to mind.

But what you yet again fail to understand is this short and simple thing:
Perhaps your question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.

Your question has been answered by others multiple times and each time you have failed to understand it. And note, only you have failed to understand their answer. Why is that?

You're comitted to a script which makes you refuse to acknowledge very simple facts and concepts. Let's see another exemple:

Well you didn’t asked me to justify my answer, you simply made a yes or no question. A bachelor by definition is someone that is not married, therefore the idea of a married bachelor is incoherent.

And you went exactly where I wanted you wanted you to go, even though I gave you a chance not to. I did write "Think about your comments on the previous page before you answer Leroy. Maybe something will dawn on you but I doubt it will.", didn't I?

So why would I? Didn't you assert there that Master_Ghost_Knight was making an "argument" based on his personal incredulity? Why, yes you did:

So far he is making an “argument” based on his personal incredulity,

I don't know what an efficient cause without a material cause is. There is no example of such a thing anywhere else in the Universe. You won't be able to give me an example.
So you have zero basis to make any inferences about efficient causes. To me the concept isn't even inteligeable. Sure you can say words, like a married bachelor, but the concept is devoided of meaning.

So why is it not personal incredulity when it's Leroy while it is with Master_Ghost_Knight? Did you miss that Master_Ghost_Knight specifically mentionned "married bachelor"?

Is there any explanation other than Leroy's dishonest double standards and/or his failure to understand the concept?

Again Leroy, your own words: With "universe" I mean al space time and everything in it.

So you don't have even have to reformulate premiss 1 with the supporting arguments you regurgitate from Craig, you could only reformulate premiss 2 with what you "mean".

Maybe something will dawn on you but I doubt it will.

So if you grant the premises and the conclusion of the KCA and you add an additional (independent) argument I would argue that you can conclude that the cause of the universe is immaterial, space less, timeless etc. and it would imply Creation Exnihilo

So in other words, yes I do think that the conclusion of the KCA entails creation exnehilo but not on the basis of the KCA itself but on the basis of an additional argument that may or may not be correct.

Is it really that hard to understand?

So I suggested a very simple exercise to Leroy and again, complete failure from Leroy in understanding it. I'll do it for Leroy then, so here's the Kalam cosmological argument clarified with what Leroy means:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause
2. Space, time and everything else within (the whole of materia) began to exists
3. Therefore the whole of materia has a cause.

Let's take a look again at premiss 2 and include what Leroy says it does not imply:
- The beginning of materia does not imply it began to exist ex nihilo
- The other option is that "the whole of materia began to exist ex materia (from previous materia)".

:lol:

But that completely incoherent concept is easily fixable by clarifying where the mistake is: either the Universe isn't "the whole of materia" or the universe began ex nihilo.

It isn't what the KCA implies Leroy, it's what you imply with your definition of the universe. It really is simple Leroy, I explained the concept to my 12 year old niece and she understood it:
If you define the universe to mean the whole of materia then it couldn't begin to exist ex materia.

 

[leroy]

It is utterly frustrating having a conversation with you. I just demonstrated mathematically the absurd implications of your statement, and you completely ignored it. You failed to address any of it, you just forgot about them, moved along, forgot that they existed, and continued to spew the same miss-informed nonsense.
If you take a snapshot of the universe at any given state, the glass is either broken or it isn't. If it isn't then the point is moot as the glass is not broken. If single snapshot of the Universe (a state) comes into existence and you see that the glass is broken and the hammer is pressing against the shards, you don't have an hammer breaking the window as much as you have a broken window and a hammer pressing against the shards. It wouldn't make any more sense to say that the hammer caused the broken window as to say that the broken window caused the hammer.
It is also impossible according to the laws of physics as no information can travel faster than the speed of light, so no effect can propagate outside the light cone and the glass is not the hammer. For the glass to break, the once coherent glass molecules must move relative to one another and cover a distance sufficient enough to break the bonds, and this process is not instantaneous, since you need:
1. A moment where the hammer is moving towards the glass with an X amount of kinetic energy
2. A moment where the kinetic energy of the hammer is transferred unevenly onto the glass. i.e. Where the glass has the kinetic energy and the hammer doesn't.
3. A moment where the previously stationary glass molecules start to accelerate away from each other at unequal magnitudes.
4. A moment where the glass molecules acquire a non-zero speed.
5. A moment where atomic bounds are sufficiently far enough from their previous neighbor in order to break.

Lets take Kants example, about the heat and a fire. Heat does not propagate instantaneously, the heat you may feel right now does not come from fire that exists right now, but from fire past which is now gone that released the heat. If the universe had just came into existence and you were to find that you instantly fell the heat and there is a fire ranging, the heat was not caused by the fire, but rather the heat and the fire just exist independent from one another.
Take any example you can possibly think of, and you will find out that the case is always the same every time.

There is no such thing has effects that are simultaneous to its cause, such a thing is incoherent! It just sounds like something that might be sensible, to humans that don't understand what is going on, but it utterly falls apart at any type of close scrutiny.

I think at this point, leroy is clinging less to the line that he quoted and more to something Kant said later on where he suggested that the cause must necessarily be occurring when the effect begins, and that we know this because the cause couldn't have actually been the cause if it ceased to be before the effect began.

Whether or not Kant was asserting this, accepting this, or simply stating it as part of the counter claim that he was setting up at the time, I'm not sure. It should be in the quote provided earlier.

Out of curiosity, though, would you be willing to accept that the cause comes first, but is still occurring as the effect occurs? For example, that the fire is started before heat is produced, and that it's still burning as the heat is being produced?

The point that I am defending is that causes and effects can be simultaneous; I am not saying that it is always the case.

Sometimes the cause comes first, sometimes the cause comes first and overlaps with the effect, sometimes they both come in to existence simultaneously.

For example when you cut an spherical object made out of wood, in 2 halves (cause) you get two semicircles (or 2 hemispheres ) made out of wood (effect)

In this case both the cause and the effect are simultaneous. The 2 hemispheres began to exist at the same moment in which you finished cutting the sphere.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

No, leroy, the cause is the knife doing the cutting - thus it clearly comes chronologically before the two hemispheres' existence.

This is the point being made to you - and the one Kant made in his treatise.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[leroy]

Greetings,

No, leroy, the cause is the knife doing the cutting - thus it clearly comes chronologically before the two hemispheres' existence.

This is the point being made to you - and the one Kant made in his treatise.

Kindest regards,

James

sure, but the Hemispheres come in to existence in the same moment in which you end up cutting the spherical object.

Not to mention that you are suppose to be on my side, your are suppose to believe (or atleast you consider the possibility) that the universe might be eternal.

This means that you believe in causes that took place an infinite amount of years ago, where the effect would also have to occur an infinite amount of years ago. under your view, both the cause and the effect took place at the same time.

If simultaneous cause and effect where incoherent so would the idea of “infinite past” and the idea of an actual infinite

 

[Rumraket]

If causes can be simultaneous with their effects, then an entity can in principle self-create.

It begins to exist simultaneously with it creating itself, thus it doesn't have to exist before it creates itself, hence there is no contradiction.

Bill Craig's Kalam-argument rests on philosophical principles that undermines the very conclusion he seeks. Rather ironic in my opinion. :lol:

 

[leroy]

If causes can be simultaneous with their effects, then an entity can in principle self-create.

It begins to exist simultaneously with it creating itself, thus it doesn't have to exist before it creates itself, hence there is no contradiction.

Bill Craig's Kalam-argument rests on philosophical principles that undermines the very conclusion he seeks. Rather ironic in my opinion. :lol:

Care to elaborate an argument? (provide premises and conclusions)

How do you go from “simultaneous causation is possible” to therefore “something can create itself?”

 

[Rumraket]

If causes can be simultaneous with their effects, then an entity can in principle self-create.

It begins to exist simultaneously with it creating itself, thus it doesn't have to exist before it creates itself, hence there is no contradiction.

Bill Craig's Kalam-argument rests on philosophical principles that undermines the very conclusion he seeks. Rather ironic in my opinion. :lol:

Care to elaborate an argument? (provide premises and conclusions)

How do you go from “simultaneous causation is possible” to therefore “something can create itself?”

I would not claim that follows necessarily. Rather it has traditionally been argued by some philosophers that something creating itself from nothing is impossible, because something (whatever it is) would have to first exist before creating itself. The idea is that causes are always chronologically prior to their effects. So if something were to cause itself to exist, that would imply it had to exist before it caused itself to exist (because the cause must be prior to the effect), which would imply a contradiction.

But obviously for self-creation to follow by necessity, it would have to be the case that some entity has the property of being able to create itself.

In some models of inflationary cosmology, the universe can spawn daughter universes. As in, in these cosmologies the laws of physics of our universe predicts that it will cause new universes to exist. So it's a multiverse model. So basically the universe has the ability to create universes. In so far as the laws of physics exist, and they do if the universe exists, then the laws of physics will create more universes.

If the cause (the laws of physics) can be simultaneous with the effect (the coming into existence of a universe), then the universe can in principle create itself, because the laws of physics in these inflationary cosmologies can create universes.

The same is true for some quantum physical formulations of spacetime. In these models, the inherent uncertainty in quantum mechanics implies that spacetime itself can fluctuate in and out of existence. So the universe has these laws which imply there is a mechanism by which spacetime can come into existence. Since both the uncertainty principle and spacetime is a property of the universe, it has the properties necessary to be able to create itself: the uncertainty principle applied to spacetime.

I'm not giving these arguments because I believe that's how the universe came to be, (because I don't believe the universe began to exist at all). I'm only putting them out there to show that if you accept a dubious philosophical principle, lots of strange shit you didn't take into account becomes much more difficult to argue against. If you open to door to causes being simultaneous with their effects you provide an opening for certain models of physics to make the self-creation of the universe possible.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

sometimes they both come in to existence simultaneously.

No!
The state of a subspace at time T is not determined by the state in another subspace at time T, but it is determined by the state space at T-1.

For example when you cut an spherical object made out of wood, in 2 halves (cause) you get two semicircles (or 2 hemispheres ) made out of wood (effect)
In this case both the cause and the effect are simultaneous. The 2 hemispheres began to exist at the same moment in which you finished cutting the sphere.

No! That is an illusion caused by the limited perception of humans.
To cut a piece of wood you need a saw, the saw essentially just kick out atoms from a thin strip of the wood such that they are no longer connected. When the last atom bond is broken is when the 2 halves become the 2 halves. The moment prior to the bond breaking the atom is still bonded, the bond is broken in the next instant because the atom moved to a new position far enough for the bond to be considered broken, the atom moved to this new position because the atom on the instant before was in a previous position and add a relative speed in a given direction. The previous position + the relative speed in the previous state is what determined the current position of the atom. I.e. the state at time T (now) is determined at time T-1. This happens long after the saw has made contact with the last atom, the current state of the saw has nothing to do with it.
This is not a debatable position, this is determined by the laws of physics, no information travels faster than the speed of light and the position of the saw is not the position of the last atom. This is a principle in physics not ironically named "Causality"

Even worse, even if you could have some made up physics in which information was not limited by the speed of light, there is currently no model at which dispar sub-states of the same state space have any effect on each other, if such a model were to exist, it would have to be so phenomenally aberrant that you would have to throw away things like the non-preferential principle of the Universe in a way that is impossible to consolidate with any definitive state, and you could forget about any ability to distinguish any causation anyway. Shit, it is even possible to define coherent models of retro-causality (i.e. states in the past are caused by future states), but never simultaneous.

The fact that cause and effect can not be simultaneous is not an open argument still up for debate. This is an open and shut case. It does not exist. There is no logic that could make sense of it when scrutinized.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

According to how English works. We already know that words can have more than one meaning, hence why equivocation can happen in the first place.

Sure, but the word “creation” is not even used in the KCA, therefore equivocation can’t happen.

Is the phrase "things that begin to exist" not synonymous with "creation"?

Beyond that, of course no apologist would care to be accurate when formulating it. If they cared to be accurate, they would not use it in the first place.

The guy who makes the argument is the guy who decides how the argument should be formulated.
Any alteration of the original formulation is by definition a straw man.

Thus, according to you, correcting logical errors in an argument is a straw man? Good to know.

I define "Christian" as one who molests children.
Dandan/Leroy freely admits that he is a Christian.
Thus, dandan/leroy is a pedophile.

the KCA does not say anything about the type of causation,

Yes it does. Anyone that understands English can see that. That is also why the Apologists have to hide it.

 

[leroy]

That is not a definition its a tautology. Since you failed to make things clear, I'm just going to provide an interpretation of your "definition" for you, based on the highlight in bold:
In the statement "A causes B" the efficient cause is "A".
Well... wasn't that helpful?

Sure the ball would be the efficient cause for the broken window and “broken bonds in crystal” would be the material cause. The point that I am making is that material and efficient causes are independent from one and other, you can (at least in theory) one without the other. Do you agree with this specific point? If not can you explain why is it that necessarily an efficient cause implies a material cause?

Why is it then that you don't say that the broken window caused the ball?

Because broken windows don’t cause balls,

Pretend that nobody observed the event, and therefore nobody saw which came first chronologically, wouldn’t you still conclude that the ball caused the broken window and not the other way around?

What is it exactly that you mean by "the ball caused the broken window"?

That the ball was responsible for the broken window, without the ball the window would have not been broken. And without a broken window we would still have a ball.

And what exactly do you mean by efficient cause without a material cause? In case you haven't notice, an "A" must exist. Do you suppose that there could be such a thing as an imaterial A that exists and it can cause things? Or do you suppose that an non-existent A (that exists) causes B? How is this not absurd to you?

In fact I suppose that you don’t understand the meanings of material and efficient cause. Read the source that I provided, or read any source that you would consider reliable.

If you don’t prove to me that you understand the concepts of material and efficient cause ether by explaining them with your own words or by providing examples, I won’t answer to your posts related to this topic.

If you add ice to a glass of water then:

Efficient cause for cold water: ether you or the ice
Material Cause for cold water: warm molecules transferring energy/heat to cold molecules

If you turn on the light switch:
Efficient cause for light: ether you, or the switch
Material cause for light: electrons generating electricity, which is then transformed in to light.

If you create a ball with clay
The efficient cause for the diameter (assuming that diameters exist as real abstract objects) would be you
Material Cause for the diameter: none


The point is that the idea of an efficient cause without a material cause is at least coherent

 

[Rumraket]

The point is that the idea of an efficient cause without a material cause is at least coherent

Sure, but no concrete example is known from reality. There's no good reason to think such a thing is possible.

All efficient causes known were also material objects. You can think of me as the efficient cause of my dishes being washed, but I am a material object acting on other material objects.

The totality of human experience affirms the connection between aristotelian efficient causes and them being tied to material objects. One material object acting on another material object.

The concept of a bare efficient cause is, while not logically incoherent, as best we can tell simply imaginary.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Sure the ball would be the efficient cause for the broken window and “broken bonds in crystal” would be the material cause. The point that I am making is that material and efficient causes are independent from one and other, you can (at least in theory) one without the other. Do you agree with this specific point? If not can you explain why is it that necessarily an efficient cause implies a material cause?

Sorry I do not agree with your contention.
Unless you want to claim that a ball is imaterial. The only thing you did was to extend the chain of causality further in the past.
I do agree that there are certain authors that try to make this distinction, that is not what is at stake here. What I'm stating is that this distinction is arbitrary and nonsensical, as everything that it ever refers is not only always material every single time it has ever been cited, the descriptions are always interchangeable, and furthermore it must always also be material in order to be categorized as a cause (i.e. in order for something to be a cause, it must be "some-thing", i.e. an object who's description has a physical counter-part in the real world).

Why is it then that you don't say that the broken window caused the ball?

Because broken windows don’t cause balls,

I know fully well that broken windows don't cause balls. The point is either or not you know why broken windows don't cause balls?
What is it that we look for in this relationship between a ball and a broken window that makes it nonsensical to say that broken windows causes balls?

Spoiler, broken windows causing balls is not even a nonsensical statement.
Because as nutty as it might seam, if you had a seen a glass being broken followed by a ball being formed out of the shards, all of a sudden the statement "the broken window caused the ball" would not only not be nonsensical, it would be the perfect description of what just happened.
So what is it about my description of broken glasses causing balls that makes this statement reasonable while the same statement is nonsensical when applyed to your previous conception of broken glass causing balls?

That the ball was responsible for the broken window, without the ball the window would have not been broken. And without a broken window we would still have a ball.

How would you know? Couldn't a window be broken without a ball?
You see although you have not realized, the assumptions you made to make this statement proves my point. Because you couldn't realize a state where a window would have not been broken without a ball given that a window was broken because of a ball, if the window was not previously in a non-broken state. And that there is a minimum requirement for the ball as the cause that it must exist prior to the effect (no judgement is made to its existence post), and that removing the effect the object of cause does not suddenly disappear because it already existed prior to the effect and thus continues to exist after the effect should have occurred if not otherwise removed.

This is painfully obvious.

In fact I suppose that you don’t understand the meanings of material and efficient cause. Read the source that I provided, or read any source that you would consider reliable.
If you don’t prove to me that you understand the concepts of material and efficient cause ether by explaining them with your own words or by providing examples, I won’t answer to your posts related to this topic.

Here is the problem. I understand it better than your citations, I just dismiss it as being nonsensical drible. Because I understand enough to realize that they can not describe different things, despite the fact that you use different words.
And that it is in fact you and your cited sources that don't understand the distinction between "material" and "efficient" causes, because if you did, you would be able to provide an example of one without the other, and the failure of every single human being to have ever existed to do so proves my point. Because if you can not demonstrate how they differ, you are not justified in asserting that they differ.
All I am doing is to apply a principal in set theory, that if 2 statements A and B describe the same set, then they are in fact the same statement. And if there is no element in A that can not be found in B, or vice-versa, then A and B are the same set.
And the fact that you can't provide an example, shows this! Even if you used different words.

If you add ice to a glass of water then:
Efficient cause for cold water: ether you or the ice
Material Cause for cold water: warm molecules transferring energy/heat to cold molecules

Actually the cause of a "glass of water" "having ice" would be "you" wouldn't it? If you are however describing the phenomena of water getting cooler because of ice, then here is by objections.
Aren't the ice and the water also material?
Isn't the transfer of energy between 2 bodies also efficient?

If you turn on the light switch:
Efficient cause for light: ether you, or the switch
Material cause for light: electrons generating electricity, which is then transformed in to light.

Isn't the light switch also material?
Aren't the electrons also efficient?

If you create a ball with clay
The efficient cause for the diameter (assuming that diameters exist as real abstract objects) would be you
Material Cause for the diameter: none

Isn't "you" also material?
And no, you don't cause a diameter. A diameter is not a thing that exists. A diameter is a property that describes something that exists, in this case the shape of the ball of clay (which is material).
There is no such thing as the diameter of a ball of clay without a ball of clay. What you do cause is the shape of the ball of clay, which can be classified with properties such as the diameter, but also it is a description of a material thing because of the material thing.

 

[leroy]

Sorry I do not agree with your contention.
Unless you want to claim that a ball is imaterial. The only thing you did was to extend the chain of causality further in the past.
.

You are confused, If I ask you something like “why is the window broken” you can answer ether “because the ball hit it” or “because the crystal bonds broke” both answers would be correct and each of these answers is independent from the other, (disproving one would not disprove the other) Aristotle decided to call this causes as “efficient” and “material” accordingly, these are just tags that Aristotle invented, in no way does this means that efficient causes are “immaterial”

To put it clear, to say that the ball is the efficient cause (and not the material cause) does not imply that the ball is “immaterial” …didn’t you read my sources?

As for the rest, well I don’t have anything else to add; you asserted (but never showed that simultaneous causation is impossible)

As I said before, to me it is obvious that 2 hemispheres came in to existence at the same moment in which you cut an sphere in 2, there is no point in time where the sphere is cut and the hemispheres don’t exist.
We also have Quantum entanglement which implies simultaneous causation at least according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics.

+ if the universe is infinitely old, simultaneous causation would also be necessarily true, I personally don’t belive that the universe is infinitely old, but most members in the forum do, with this I simply what to show that you seem to be the only one in this forum who thinks that simultaneous causation is impossible.
It is simply too arrogant to assert that simultaneous causation is impossible, when it is obvious that this is an open and controversial question

 

[leroy]

[q

I define "Christian" as one who molests children.
Dandan/Leroy freely admits that he is a Christian.
Thus, dandan/leroy is a pedophile.

,

In fact the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises; one can in theory molest children without being a pedophile. (If a pedophile is someone who feels sexual attraction for children then; you don’t necessarily need to feel sexual attraction for children in order to molest them)

But anyway, your failure is that you are making thinks more complex than what they need to be.

THE KCA:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause (ether exmateria or exnihilo)
The universe begun to exist
Therefore the universe had a cause (ether exmateria or exnihilo)

At this point the conclusion doesn’t suggest one type of cause over the other.

Then you add an additional argument, and point to the fact that the universe necessarily could not have not been created “exmateria.” And conclude that the universe had a creation exnihilo.

This is analogous to:
All doctors are human (ether male or female)
John is a doctor
Therefore John is a human (ether male or female)

At this point, form the argument you can’t know if john is male or female, but you can in theory provide an additional argument and show that John is male.



Honestly your “favorite objection” to the KCA is very stupid,

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

You are confused, If I ask you something like “why is the window broken” you can answer ether “because the ball hit it” or “because the crystal bonds broke” both answers would be correct and each of these answers is independent from the other, (disproving one would not disprove the other) Aristotle decided to call this causes as “efficient” and “material” accordingly, these are just tags that Aristotle invented, in no way does this means that efficient causes are “immaterial”

I could have also answered "because I kicked the ball", or "because I was angry so I kicked the ball", or because "I was having a bad day", or "because by boss was busting my balls", or ... you get the idea.
To just stop at the "ball hitting" or the "crystal bonds breaking" and then name it differently is arbitrary.

To put it clear, to say that the ball is the efficient cause (and not the material cause) does not imply that the ball is “immaterial” …didn’t you read my sources?

Your contention is absurd. You are not paying any attention to what I'm saying. I never said that what you call "efficient cause" implies that it is imaterial. I'm saying the exact opposite, i.e. that your "efficient cause" are always also material. I'm saying that your "efficient causes" and your "material causes" are indistinguishable, and when you decide to call a cause one thing and not the other it is purely arbitrary, you can have simply switched the labels around and it would have made exactly as much sense.

As for the rest, well I don’t have anything else to add; you asserted (but never showed that simultaneous causation is impossible)

Quite the contrary, this was explained to you very clearly. That not only the laws of physics prevents this, linguistically if they are simultaneous they can not be called cause and effect.

We also have Quantum entanglement which implies simultaneous causation at least according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Really. Which one?

+ if the universe is infinitely old, simultaneous causation would also be necessarily true,

The age of the universe and the presence or absence of boundary conditions does not in anyway weight in on the relation of the state space in different instances.

with this I simply what to show that you seem to be the only one in this forum who thinks that simultaneous causation is impossible.

Only this forum? Except for all the physicists of course.

It is simply too arrogant to assert that simultaneous causation is impossible, when it is obvious that this is an open and controversial question

Do you want to know what is arrogant? To think that you know better when you clearly do not.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Everything that begins to exist has a cause (ether exmateria or exnihilo)

Can you give an example of something that has began to exist exnihilo? And to that effect, that it had an undisputed cause.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Hello Sparhafoc..

Are you not talking to me?

Well, obviously that's not the case.

Rather, I didn't notice your post. You could PM me if you specifically want me to reply to a post directed at me. If you look through my post history, you will see there was a gap of a number of months when you wrote this. That's because I was on a forced hiatus from internet activity on account of having too many classes comprised of too many students and not enough brain space remaining to even remember the forum, let alone you. So it's not I wasn't talking to you so much as I'd completely forgotten you even existed.

Hello Sparhafoc.

If you don't mind, I'd like to take a crack at these and you can tell me what you think. :shock:

I remember when you used to write like this. Even when I disagreed with you, I found your approach respectful and therefore worthy of respect in turn. Shame you've set fire to that notion in the intervening months.

1. God makes sense of the origin of the universe.

Sense? Really?

So it's sensible to posit that a being lives outside of time and space, who has the power to create universes with magical words, and did so with a special purpose in mind here, to create humans and tell them what they could or could not do, and wants to be in a relationship with them?

So this sense also includes making a space of at least 3.58×1080 m3, and then plopping down his special creation - the point of all this universe - on a small planet in an otherwise unremarkable solar system, with a livable area for his special purpose of just 24,642,757 square miles.

And this makes sense?

It makes no more sense than any other creation myth. Humans who didn't know about much at all, tried to imagine ways in which complicated things happened, and posited super human like characters to do the shaking and moving. No sense is involved, just story-telling, imagination, and ignorance.

It makes nonsense, I will give you that.

Well it's not nonsense. The Bible says we were created in the image of a living and relational god. So it would make sense that we are able to have a rational understanding of the Universe that god created for us to live in. Historically, pagans and Atheists have contributed virtuallly nothing. Christians own science. This true on so many levels. In terms of actualy founding a science, in terms of Noble recognition..in so many ways. I can continue on this if you like.

Your response has nothing to do with the post you're replying to, so what am I supposed to respond to?

I could respond to your absolutely false assertion about pagans and atheists, but I don't see the point other than showing that your'e wrong. Given that I've shown you wrong elsewhere on this very point, and you obviously failed to acknowledge your error, it wouldn't seem worth my time.

Similarly, elsewhere I've dismantled into shattered debris your contention about Christians owning science. So it's not true on many levels, or even one.

But again, it's irrelevant. You are responding to my post, and yet you've not addressed a single point therein. So I just point you back to the text preceding yours.

2. God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

The universe is manifestly not fine-tuned for life, so that demolishes in entirety the whole screed if they'd claim such manifestly delusional bullshit.

I have pointed out somewhere in a much earlier thread, that when scientists (even secular scientists) talk or publish something on fine tuning, even when they word it as "fine tuning for life", they are actually talking about the fine tuning for the existence of stars and matter.

Then your complaint is with William Lane Craig because, as you can see through my quotation of his 2nd argument, he contends that 'God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life'. I am not required to fix up his argument for him and then respond to that superior argument. Only to show that his argument is wrong.

It would be interesting for you, as an evolutionist, to explain why all the dirt or dust scattered throughout the universe should not be considered as "evolutionary stardust".

Well, it would be a very simple response. Life isn't determined to occur just because it has occurred on this planet. We've not spotted it elsewhere even with all the 'dirt and dust' which we're to take as 'evolutionary stardust'. You're assuming a Purpose (capital P) whereas evolution and nature doesn't operate that way. It's contingent, not determined.

3. God makes sense of objective moral values in the world.

Like smashing baby's heads against rocks, taking prepubescent virgins as trophies of war after killing their families, playing tricks on parents pretending to want them to murder their own children, sending floods to murder every human, every animal, plant and organism on the planet in a fit of pique.

Those kind of morals, you mean?

I don't know why you think any of these have anything to do with a biblical, moral expectation of us.

They're in the Bible portrayed as good. If God wrote the Bible, and God's work is your guide to knowing what is moral or immoral, but yet you can determine that smashing babies' heads against rocks, raping virgin girls, etc. is not morally correct behavior, then you're employing something other than the purported work of God. Ergo, it's not God that makes sense of alleged objective moral values, but rather humans that do.

Further, objective moral values that shift according to what is decreed by the God are not 'objective' in my understanding of the term.