Comments on: Going Deeper http://transparenteye.net/?p=265 Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:20:10 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Lilly Miror http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-161 Lilly Miror Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:43:54 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-161 If you pray to God, any prayers for any person, they will all come true, but not always in the way you would expect. Meditation helps focus the mind, and sharpen the senses, it' s good for relaxation, and creative thinking also. I hope everyone follows my truthful, and helpful teaching. My ears are always open, and so is my heart. God bless to you all, and peace on Earth. Far Out Lilly. If you pray to God, any prayers for any person, they will all come true, but not always in the way you would expect. Meditation helps focus the mind, and sharpen the senses, it’ s good for relaxation, and creative thinking also. I hope everyone follows my truthful, and helpful teaching. My ears are always open, and so is my heart. God bless to you all, and peace on Earth. Far Out Lilly.

]]> By: Rick Heller http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-163 Rick Heller Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:23:35 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-163 Jim, Your previous comment inspired me to take out a lecture on tape about Kant from the library. From what I've heard so far, I'd say my views are very much on the empirical rather than rationalist side. I am skeptical of chains of reasoning of any sort, both those that would prove God and those that would disprove God. Rather, I see the world and try to make sense of it, both from my common sense and from science. It still seems pretty mysterious to me that we exist, and I also don't see anything in science that clears it up. Jim,

Your previous comment inspired me to take out a lecture on tape about Kant from the library. From what I’ve heard so far, I’d say my views are very much on the empirical rather than rationalist side. I am skeptical of chains of reasoning of any sort, both those that would prove God and those that would disprove God.

Rather, I see the world and try to make sense of it, both from my common sense and from science. It still seems pretty mysterious to me that we exist, and I also don’t see anything in science that clears it up.

]]> By: Jim Farmelant http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-165 Jim Farmelant Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:20:23 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-165 George H. Smith summarized the problem with the First Cause Argument in his book "Atheism, The Case Against God": "What caused the Universe? is an absurd question, because before something can act as a cause, it must first exist - ie., it must first be part of the universe. The universe sets the foundation for causal explanation and cannot itself require a causal explanation" (pg 240). " And the notion of First Cause has usually been understood in terms of necessary being. The First Cause is said to exist necessarily as opposed to everything (or nearly everything) else in the universe which is said to exist contingently, but David Hume in his "Dialgogues Concerning Natural Religion" exposed the problem with this concept: "Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being whose existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument as entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole controversy on it." I would agree with you (as did Hume) that if we could make sense of the notion of First Cause there would be no reason to suppose that it would be anything like the God of theism. That was always a problem with the use of the argument by religious apologists. Aristotle's First Cause was a completely impersonal entity. So its usages by people like Maimonides or Aquinas raised lots of questions that they had to struggle to answer. George H. Smith summarized the problem with the First Cause Argument in his book “Atheism, The Case Against God”:

“What caused the Universe? is an absurd question, because before something can act as a cause, it must first exist – ie., it must first be part of the universe. The universe sets the foundation for causal explanation and cannot itself require a causal explanation” (pg 240). ”

And the notion of First Cause has usually been understood in terms of necessary being. The First Cause is said to exist necessarily as opposed to everything (or nearly everything) else in the universe which is said to exist contingently, but David Hume in his “Dialgogues Concerning Natural Religion” exposed the problem with this concept:

“Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being whose existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument as entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole controversy on it.”

I would agree with you (as did Hume) that if we could make sense of the notion of First Cause there would be no reason to suppose that it would be anything like the God of theism. That was always a problem with the use of the argument by religious apologists. Aristotle’s First Cause was a completely impersonal entity. So its usages by people like Maimonides or Aquinas raised lots of questions that they had to struggle to answer.

]]> By: Rick Heller http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-166 Rick Heller Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:49:32 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-166 Jim, I don't accept that argument. No, it doesn't mean that a god suffices as a cause. But one is left with a big mystery. Actually, I think it undermines the belief that things that occur within the universe have causes. Perhaps they just exist, and we humans attribute causes to them. Jim,

I don’t accept that argument. No, it doesn’t mean that a god suffices as a cause. But one is left with a big mystery. Actually, I think it undermines the belief that things that occur within the universe have causes. Perhaps they just exist, and we humans attribute causes to them.

]]> By: Jim Farmelant http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-164 Jim Farmelant Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:25:29 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-164 Concerning the First Cause Argument, Immanuel Kant pointed out long ago that the argument goes off the rails because it attempts to apply categories like causality which have meaning within the phenomenal world to the nouminal realm, or to reformulate Kant's point in more up-to-date analytical philosophical language, the argument is based on a category mistake. As Bertrand Russell once pointed out it does not really make sense to speak of a cause of the universe, whereby the term "universe," we mean everything that exists. To suppose that it does would among other things involve committing the fallacy of composition in which case would involve falsely inferring from the fact that we speak of things within the universe as having causes to the conclusion that therefore the universe itself must have a cause. Concerning the First Cause Argument, Immanuel Kant pointed out long ago that the argument goes off the rails because it attempts to apply categories like causality which have meaning within the phenomenal world to the nouminal realm, or to reformulate Kant’s point in more up-to-date analytical philosophical language, the argument is based on a category mistake. As Bertrand Russell once pointed out it does not really make sense to speak of a cause of the universe, whereby the term “universe,” we mean everything that exists. To suppose that it does would among other things involve committing the fallacy of composition in which case would involve falsely inferring from the fact that we speak of things within the universe as having causes to the conclusion that therefore the universe itself must have a cause.

]]> By: Dudley M. Jones http://transparenteye.net/?p=265&cpage=1#comment-162 Dudley M. Jones Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:05:07 +0000 http://transparenteye.net/?p=265#comment-162 "Prayers can be expressed in ways that don’t offend the sensibilities of humanists and naturalists." True in theory, I am not sure it is true in actual UU practice. UU humanists can have pretty strong opinions about prayer. best wishes “Prayers can be expressed in ways that don’t offend the sensibilities of humanists and naturalists.”

True in theory, I am not sure it is true in actual UU practice. UU humanists can have pretty strong opinions about prayer.

best wishes

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