Version 2 of God argument 1

[Metacrock]

(1) The Universe is contingent upon "prior" conditions (conditions that existed "prior" to our understanding of space/time:





(2) By definition the "ultimate" origin cannot be contingent, since it would reuqire the explaination of still prior conditions (a string of infinite contingencies with no necessity is logical nonsense;the existence of contingent conditions requires the existence of necessary conditions).

(3) Therefore, the universe must have emerged from some prior condition which always existed, is self sufficient, and not dependent upon anything "higher."


(4) Naturalistic assumptions of determinism, and the arbitrary nature of naturalistic cosmology creates an arbitrary necessity; if the UEO has to produce existents automatically and/or deterministically due to naturalistic forces, the congtingencies function as necessities

(5) Therefore, since arbitrary necessities are impossible by nature of their absurdity, thus we should attribute creation to an act of the will; the eternal existent must be possessed of some ability to create at will; and thus must possess will.

Corollary:


(6) An eternal existent which creates all things and chooses to do so is compatible with the definition of "God" found in any major world religion, and therefore, can be regarded as God. Thus God must exist QED!













(a) Prior condition being space/time, or gravitational field.

Matter, energy, all physical phenomena stem from 'gravitational field' the prior condition of which is he big bang, the prior condition of which is the singularity, the prior condition of which is...we do not know.


(b)All naturalistic phenomena are empirically derived, thus they are contingent by their very nature.


As Karl Popper said, empirical facts are facts which might not have been. Everything that belongs to space time is a contingent truth because it could have been otherwise, it is dependent upon the existence of something else for its' existence going all the way back to the Big Bang, which is itself contingent upon something.(Antony Flew, Philosophical Dictionary New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979, 242.)

[Metacrock]

Hi Metacrock.

Hey I've been hanging around your argument for cosmological necessity and you run off and start a new thread.

Anyhow this topic appears in its essentail part to be the same as your main argument given on that other thread, so I'm going to reply here as I have there.

So I've now taken a full look at your main argument and here are some thoughts.

1) The Universe is contingent upon "prior" conditions (conditions that existed "prior" to our understanding of space/time:

(a) Prior condition being space/time, or gravitational field.

For the moment I’m going to accept your phrasing of “prior condition”. From what you have written elsewhere I take it you mean ontologically prior. I’ll run with that for a while. But is it sensible to talk about conditions that existed prior to our understanding of space/time? The universe could have been a dead universe. With no understanding it but there still be space time. Do you just mean “conditions prior to space time”?

Whichever way you want to ask that last question. Why the assumption at all? Maybe space time has no prior conditions? Please demonstrate they do to prove your point.

Odenwald of NASA:

ibid What is the relationship between space and time?
"Mathematically, and in accordance with relativity, they are in some sense interchangeable, but we do know that they form co-equal parts of a larger 'thing' called space-time, and it is only within space-time that the most complete understanding of the motion and properties of natural objects and phenomena can be rigorously understood by physicists. Space and time are to space-time what arms and legs are to humans. In some sense they are interchangeable, but you cannot understand 10,000 years of human history without including both arms and legs as part of the basic human condition.

that should indicate that space/time itself is made up of prior elements and thus those count as prior conditions.




You need energy/mass for their to be a gravitational field. So how do you know that space/time is a prioir condition to energy/mass, how do you prove it does not just come with energy/mass? There are subtle questions you are leapfrogging with some coarse assumptions.

Again our best gravity theory - Einstein’s - describes how energy/mass curves space time. But the implication of your point is that space time must be ontologically prior to the existence of things. And that is just an assumption.



Odenwald

Q:Which came first, matter or physical laws?

"We do not know, but matter is derivative from energy, and energy is derivative from 'field' so in some sense, the physical laws that determine the quantum dynamics of fields must have been primary, with matter as we know it coming much later."

"field" is syonimous with space/time
Dr.Sten Odenwald,NASA

Q:Which came first, matter or physical laws?

"We do not know, but matter is derivative from energy, and energy is derivative from 'field' so in some sense, the physical laws that determine the quantum dynamics of fields must have been primary, with matter as we know it coming much later."


"field" is syonimous with space/time

Dr.Sten Odenwald,NASA


This is a very complicated question to answer...and frankly we do not yet fully understand how to answer it. According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, which is our premier way of explaining how gravity works, there is no formal distinction between the description of what a gravitational field is, and what space-time is. Essentially, space is what we refer to as 3 of the 4 dimensions to a more comprehensive entity called the space-time continuum, and this continuum is itself just another name for the gravitational field of the universe. If you take away this gravitational field...space-time itself vanishes! To ask where space comes from is the same as asking, according to general relativity, where this gravitational field came from originally, and that gets us to asking what were the circumstances that caused the Big Bang itself. We don't really know.

Worse: the threat of a conceptual fallacy eludes you. If space time cannot subist without things existing then it is not ontologically prior in anyway. You first need to address this point to demonstrate you are steering your argument away from an ontological fallacy, and then you need to prove that space time can subsist without the existence of things.

That argument doesn't make much sense. It just means that space/time is contignent and made up of prior conditions.

[Metacrock]

(b)All naturalistic phenomena are empirically derived, thus they are contingent by their very nature.

All? How about the magnetic moment of an electron, the mass of an electron relative to the proton (1/1836.1526...), the strength of electric charge relative to its mass etc.

yes of course those are empirical. Being empirical doesn't mean we necessarily have empical evidence of them. but they the subject of empirical research. They are not accepted based purely on loigc.

OK some of these may turn out to be contingencies, some may not. At the moment some are numbers we plugged into our theories, because we don’t know how they are arrived at, the magnetic moment of an electron is a paradigm case of where predictive theory meets empirical observation.

I don't think you really undestand "empircal" in a scientific sesne. That doesn'tm ean we see it with the naked eye. Its' not empirical in the Cartesian sense. It means it's a product of empirical knowledge and that means propalaistic and inductive. Of course these are all contingencies. Just use the old Metacrock acid test; prove to me that x could exist without the conditions that form x. That's the way to know if it's a contignency or not. Space/time can't exist wihtout space and time.

Moreover the contingency is derived from our empirical method, not the nature of something in itself.

that is totally wrong. empirical knowledge is derived from our ability to exprapoloate probabilities based upon what we observe as regualr and consitant about the universe. Thus all empirical matters are matters of contingency because they all dervie from causes and they all depend upon prior conditions. Everything feeds back tot he singualrity. that's the only thing we know of directly that does not require prior condition is so far as we know. Thus everything elese that is naturalisistic is contignent.

Put another way: conclusions derived from our observations are contingent, we do not know whether everything is itself contingent per se.
Here you are guilty of a subtle leap in your logic that leads you into another fallacy. The nature of how we derive something empirically being a different nature to the nature of something in itself.

I think that's just more a matter of put up or shut. Do you have faith enough in your materlism to extrapolate to probabalistic conclusions or not?

As Karl Popper said, empirical facts are facts which might not have been. Everything that belongs to space time is a contingent truth because it could have been otherwise, it is dependent upon the existence of something else for its' existence going all the way back to the Big Bang, which is itself contingent upon something.(Antony Flew, Philosophical Dictionary New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979, 242.)

In big bang theory, if there is no bang then there are no electrons and protons etc. So that makes the bang temporally prior to protons and electrons. So there is a temporal contingency.

yes that doesn't hurt my argument. But in thinking of what might have produced the singualrity that would not be a tempral contingency, or necessity.

And for electrons and protons to be generated temperatures how to come down, and I think physicist talk about stuff like symmetry breaking. However the mass, spin, charge of protons and atoms might be and can be argued as existing in a universe of a particular temperature range. As long as certain conditions such as right temperature arise then you get protons and electrons etc. But then you could also argue that those conditions are dependent on the universe being a proton/electron universe. Viz., you cannot have the temperature range without protons and electrons etc.

backwards reasoning. What you have described is prior conditions to the nature of the universe.

So you get a biconditional relationship where there are conditions necessary for protons and where there being protons are necessary for the conditions. OK so the big bang came first, but for there to be a bang there has to be a change of conditions, and without the emergence of protons there can be no change of conditions, so there could never have been a big bang without the emergence of the building blocks of things. So we could just as easily say protons are are ontologically prioir to the big bang. This ontological fallacy is a very easy fallacy to make, it looks like Popper steers close to it too, viz., mistaking temporal priority with ontological priority. In a nutshell: the methodology of ascribing ontological priority is fatuous.

that has nothing to do with anything. It's a straw man. not my argument.

(2) By definition the "ultimate" origin cannot be contingent, since it would require the explanation of still prior conditions (a string of infinite contingencies with no necessity is logical nonsense;the existence of contingent conditions requires the existence of necessary conditions).

OK there is another jump in the logic going on here. Reading what you have written elsewhere I think you will want to say that an infinite regress is nonsense so there has to be an ultimate origin. Well you can’t have an ultimate origin and an infinite regress, that would be a contradiction and nonsense. And is difficult to see how the universe got started with an infinite regress. But the big bang universe as we understand it seems to have a possible beginning, but how do we know that all the temporal conditions that went together to make the state - whatever that was -prior to the big bang do not fall into an infinite regress. OK that idea is difficult to make sense of, but it does not form a contradiction..

you aer the one making the leap in logic. this argument is both a black is white slide and bait and switch. First you estabish that can't have ICR and the sort of imply that I do by stating what a contradiction it would be. OF course I dont' have an ICR so it's not my contradiction, then you say "how do we know that all the temporal conditions dont' fall into an ICR?" Since that's not my argument I need worry about it. I have proven ICR is logically impossible so we can assured that it is. that's how we know, to answer your question, although it didn't need answering because it's not raized by my argument.

The nature of the universe as expanding more and more rapidly indicates that it is not infinite and cannot be an ICR. The universe will die in heat death because it cannot contract at this point,that means ICR is just a bs forlorn hope of an atheist with no argument.

Have you not considered that the conditions prior to the big bang will never make sense and will always appear to us to be nonsense. Our best mathematics form singularities because the math falls into infinities, but have you stopped to consider that might not be a weakness in our mathematical theories, but that just the way the universe is. The fact we only see infinities and that make no sense to us does not change the ontology as it is in itself. Maybe to us puny humans the origins of the universe will always appear infinite and thus make no sense.

you are just beging the question here: O what if you are wrong? yea, what if? If the logic fits we should assume it. we are only interested in a rational warrant and if the logic supports a hypothesis then it is rational.

So your argument relies on dismissing an infinite regress as nonsense, without showing that the regress forms a formal contradiction, unless you assume an ultimate origin.

Now for the bait and switch. We have used sheer speculation and wishfulfillment to gain say arguments that otherwise proved their point, now we speak as though we've provne something! You have not established this by any means. You haven o answer to my argumetns. ICR is just bunck forget it, it's even disproven empirically.

But you only assume an origin because you can’t make sense of an infinite regress. But that tactic fails to recognise the difference between ones inability to comprehend an infinite regress, and the regress being nonsense in itself. To prove the latter requires you demonstrate how an infinite regress forms a formal contradiction. And you can’t do that without assuming an origin....and around and around in circles this goes.

again, you are merely gain saying the argument and relying on the bait ans switch.

[upallnite]

Wiki, I don't like what it is says. Wait utnil next week, it will say somethhing else.

Fine by me. I just found it easy to understand.

possiblity = contingency

By your definitions maybe. I have already shown that your definition is not easy to find.

my argument is based upon that of Charles Hartshorne who was one of the major developers of modal logic as it applies to God arguments.

Hartshorne is not in my local library. Do you see this as a good source of information on him? http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hartshorne/

Because naturally the termenology is taylored to the subject matter.

So a special definition is needed when discussing god? I am questioning how you taylored the definition.

You are doing in reverse what you are aqusing me of donig. You are saying "O there's a danger that God might actaully get provne here, we have to stop this right now. We must requite these definitions, the best way to so that is to argue that they are taylored to prove God" but you are merely tayloring them to exclude God arguments.

All I did was look up the definitions. You are the one that created special definitions to fit your argument. Now you are accusing me of changing them?

Eternal is loaded into the defition

there is nothing "loaded" about it.

This is how I get confused. Is it loaded or not? You called it loaded I agreed. You now say it is not loaded. It seams you will just change your argument until everyone gives up on it, then claim victory.

We match id's just like we find superman's figerprints we find Clark Kent's prints,t hey match, we know Superman is Clark Kent.

But it seams that you started with Spiderman's prints. Looked at Kent's prints and then changed Spidermans prints to match Kent's.

The concept of necessity and contingency has been discussed at length in a thread I did on it a month ago.

I read it. I mostly read on this site and seldom make a post. If you would like to continue this there I will.

that is just totally irrelivant. it has nothing to do with it. There are logical reasons to assume that the singularity is not the eternal necessity, the major one is the singuarilty is nothing, ti'sjust a hypothetical point.

Of course it is relevant. I was showing that your definition does not work unless it is only for god. I did not say that the singularity is the necessity. I am concerned with how and why you are defining necessity the way you are.

Quote:
A few other definitions for necessity I was thinking of are...
-true in all possible worlds.
-required for function.
I can explain where these definitions come from and what they are for. [/url]


Ok so let's see you make these relivant.

Sure.
-true in all possible worlds= I remember this from philosophical dictionaries. It seams to work in your argument but it does not come to the conclusion of god. I think that is why you changed it.

-required for function= I remember from math. I don't think function is the right word. Maybe calculation should replace function. Relevant to your argument, doesn't seam to be. But I did consider it.

[Metacrock]

Wiki, I don't like what it is says. Wait utnil next week, it will say somethhing else.

Fine by me. I just found it easy to understand.

possiblity = contingency

By your definitions maybe. I have already shown that your definition is not easy to find.

this is not a bord game. My defition is a technical for thecnical philosphers who interested in doing philosophy of religion. Ease of access has nothing to do with it.

my argument is based upon that of Charles Hartshorne who was one of the major developers of modal logic as it applies to God arguments.

Hartshorne is not in my local library. Do you see this as a good source of information on him? http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hartshorne/

I am surprized that he's not, but you can get his books on interlibrary loan. Unfortuantely one fo the best sites is no longer around. It was by a guy named Forest Baird who taught at U. of colorodo (I think). That was up as late as 2003.

the many faced argument by John Hick is good. It's about the ontologicla argument whereas my argument here is the cosmological argument. But the necessity and contignency stuff is there. He's tried to expalin it pretty well and then includes a very complex paper by Hartshrone.


you might look at this sight:


http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/ontol.html



here's my page on the ontologcial argument, which has sites and links on sites that deal with modal logic:

http://www.doxa.ws/Ontological/modal.html

Because naturally the termenology is taylored to the subject matter.

So a special definition is needed when discussing god? I am questioning how you taylored the definition.

when using modal logic. In the middle of opporating Doctors don't go "now don't use that thecnical termenology some people in the gallery may not understand you."

You are doing in reverse what you are aqusing me of donig. You are saying "O there's a danger that God might actaully get provne here, we have to stop this right now. We must requite these definitions, the best way to so that is to argue that they are taylored to prove God" but you are merely tayloring them to exclude God arguments.

All I did was look up the definitions. You are the one that created special definitions to fit your argument. Now you are accusing me of changing them?

apparently you aren't listening. I use the argument as made by Norman Malcom, Chrles Hartshorne, Alvin Plantinga and others. The termenology is adapted from s5modal loigc to use in discussion of god talk. I didn't do that. not my doing.

Eternal is loaded into the defition

there is nothing "loaded" about it.

This is how I get confused. Is it loaded or not? You called it loaded I agreed. You now say it is not loaded. It seams you will just change your argument until everyone gives up on it, then claim victory.


depends upon what you mean by loaded. I get the idea you are intent on using that term to mean "defining into existence." so in that snese it's not "lodaed." in the sense that it is put in therse terms so it makes sense in that use of modal logic, then in that way it's "loaded."

We match id's just like we find superman's figerprints we find Clark Kent's prints,t hey match, we know Superman is Clark Kent.

But it seams that you started with Spiderman's prints. Looked at Kent's prints and then changed Spidermans prints to match Kent's.

I don't see why you say that, I doubt that you know why either. IT's clealry NOT what I did. You haven't showen and cannot show any flaw in my loigc. many peoplethink logic is just opinion so disagreement is a "flaw in logic." But youc cannot show a real flaw in actual logic in my arguments.

The concept of necessity and contingency has been discussed at length in a thread I did on it a month ago.

I read it. I mostly read on this site and seldom make a post. If you would like to continue this there I will.

The most baisic modes of being are to etierh be dependent upon some predication for existence or indpendent. So those categoreis exist logically. like it or not. they are there and must be deal with.

that is just totally irrelivant. it has nothing to do with it. There are logical reasons to assume that the singularity is not the eternal necessity, the major one is the singuarilty is nothing, ti'sjust a hypothetical point.

Of course it is relevant. I was showing that your definition does not work unless it is only for god. I did not say that the singularity is the necessity. I am concerned with how and why you are defining necessity the way you are.

that's beging the question. You can't do that. You can't say "O if this was right you could use it for x" and then give it for something that can't usei t for. you can't use it for the univesrse or the singularity. they are not necessties!

you could use it for things other than God, such as being itself. of course I believe that God is being itself, but suppossed one disagrees with that view. Being itself is still necessary.

Quote:
A few other definitions for necessity I was thinking of are...
-true in all possible worlds.
-required for function.
I can explain where these definitions come from and what they are for. [/url]


Ok so let's see you make these relivant.

Sure.
-true in all possible worlds= I remember this from philosophical dictionaries. It seams to work in your argument but it does not come to the conclusion of god. I think that is why you changed it.

-required for function= I remember from math. I don't think function is the right word. Maybe calculation should replace function. Relevant to your argument, doesn't seam to be. But I did consider it.[/quote]


Plantinga has a possible words version of the argument. the point necessity has to be necessary in all possible worlds, and it would be. It's foolish to speak of it as limited to one world.

[Furrowed Brow]

Odenwald of NASA:

ibid What is the relationship between space and time?
"Mathematically, and in accordance with relativity, they are in some sense interchangeable, but we do know that they form co-equal parts of a larger 'thing' called space-time, and it is only within space-time that the most complete understanding of the motion and properties of natural objects and phenomena can be rigorously understood by physicists.
Space and time are to space-time what arms and legs are to humans. In some sense they are interchangeable, but you cannot understand 10,000 years of human history without including both arms and legs as part of the basic human condition.

that should indicate that space/time itself is made up of prior elements and thus those count as prior conditions.

Sorry but no. Look at what Odenwald is saying "Space and time are .....part of the basic human condition". The history of us humans shows that we prefer to talk about and think in terms of space and time. Whilst scientists are forced into a model of space-time. Though we non scientists prefer to separate space and time into two distinct concepts and have done this throughout history, this does not mean space-time is a prior condition. We didn't get our ideas of space and time from space-time, we got it from day and night, the seasons, then we cut a day up into 24 hours, and we measured objects in length, breadth, width. We got them from living life as the human condition. Historically speaking space time came before space-time. Conceptually speaking we invented separate concepts before we could put them together into space-time. But whatever is the reality of whatever space-time is, then either "space and time" or "space-time" are human concepts used to best describe the universe. To say one is prior to the other is nonsense.

I don't think you really undestand "empircal" in a scientific sesne. That doesn'tm ean we see it with the naked eye. Its' not empirical in the Cartesian sense. It means it's a product of empirical knowledge and that means propalaistic and inductive. Of course these are all contingencies.

No again. Because our knowledge is empirical, and as yet we cannot argue from first premises why some value has to be necessarily so, does not mean that phenomena, say for instance, the relative masses of the proton and electron ,or the strength of the electric charge are not necessities. We don't know! So until we do, you can only say all knowledge of these things is contingent, which is different from saying the phenomena in itself is contingent. Subtle difference.

Just use the old Metacrock acid test; prove to me that x could exist without the conditions that form x. That's the way to know if it's a contignency or not. Space/time can't exist wihtout space and time.

Ok Acid test. Prove space and time can't exist without space-time. If you can't your "priority" is bogus!

Moreover the contingency is derived from our empirical method, not the nature of something in itself.

that is totally wrong. empirical knowledge is derived from our ability to exprapoloate probabilities based upon what we observe as regualr and consitant about the universe. Thus all empirical matters are matters of contingency because they all dervie from causes and they all depend upon prior conditions. Everything feeds back tot he singualrity. that's the only thing we know of directly that does not require prior condition is so far as we know. Thus everything elese that is naturalisistic is contignent.

Ok Step by step.

1) "empirical knowledge is derived from our ability to exprapoloate probabilities based upon what we observe as regualr and consitant about the universe." OK
2) "Thus all empirical matters are matters of contingency" OK
3) "because they all dervie from causes " No. Wrong. They all derive from observations.

And for electrons and protons to be generated temperatures how to come down, and I think physicist talk about stuff like symmetry breaking. However the mass, spin, charge of protons and atoms might be and can be argued as existing in a universe of a particular temperature range. As long as certain conditions such as right temperature arise then you get protons and electrons etc. But then you could also argue that those conditions are dependent on the universe being a proton/electron universe. Viz., you cannot have the temperature range without protons and electrons etc.

backwards reasoning. What you have described is prior conditions to the nature of the universe.

Exactly! ](*,) Ontological priority is non temporal, and without relying on an implicit temporal argument you can reason ontologically both ways. That's the point. And the reason why ontological priority is fatuous.

So you get a biconditional relationship where there are conditions necessary for protons and where there being protons are necessary for the conditions. OK so the big bang came first, but for there to be a bang there has to be a change of conditions, and without the emergence of protons there can be no change of conditions, so there could never have been a big bang without the emergence of the building blocks of things. So we could just as easily say protons are are ontologically prioir to the big bang. This ontological fallacy is a very easy fallacy to make, it looks like Popper steers close to it too, viz., mistaking temporal priority with ontological priority. In a nutshell: the methodology of ascribing ontological priority is fatuous.

that has nothing to do with anything. It's a straw man. not my argument.

Sorry Metacrock. I missed something. Like a full and proper forensic refutation. It is your argument. The above analysis is exactly the pitfall your argument falls into but you fail to recognise. Do some work to prove otherwise please.

OK there is another jump in the logic going on here. Reading what you have written elsewhere I think you will want to say that an infinite regress is nonsense so there has to be an ultimate origin. Well you can’t have an ultimate origin and an infinite regress, that would be a contradiction and nonsense. And is difficult to see how the universe got started with an infinite regress. But the big bang universe as we understand it seems to have a possible beginning, but how do we know that all the temporal conditions that went together to make the state - whatever that was -prior to the big bang do not fall into an infinite regress. OK that idea is difficult to make sense of, but it does not form a contradiction

First you estabish that can't have ICR and the sort of imply that I do by stating what a contradiction it would be. OF course I dont' have an ICR so it's not my contradiction, then you say "how do we know that all the temporal conditions dont' fall into an ICR?" Since that's not my argument I need worry about it. I have proven ICR is logically impossible so we can assured that it is. that's how we know, to answer your question, although it didn't need answering because it's not raized by my argument.

Ok again step by step.

"First you estabish that can't have ICR" - where do I establish that?

"and the sort of imply that I do by stating what a contradiction it would be" I said "Well you can’t have an ultimate origin and an infinite regress, that would be a contradiction "

OF course I dont' have an ICR so it's not my contradiction,

I know you don't have an ICR. ](*,)

That's the point! An ICR is not a contradiction. You just assume it is, or dismiss it as nonsense. But it is not, unless you assume an ultimate origin - which you do. But without an ultimate origin there is not contradiction, and so if there is no contradiction, then you can't reject it as illogical, unless you want to assume an ultimate origin - and around and around we go.

[MrWhy]

you want to vest everything in empirical knowledge. you keep saying things like "we don't know." we don't know emprically but we know logically. that's enough. there is rational warrant for belief, that's all we need!

That's not enough. That's not all everyone needs. That's enough for the majority of the 6.5 billion, but there's a significant minority that thinks empirical knowledge is more powerful than the type of logic in the original post.

There's a fundamental problem with this logic process. As it progresses through the steps there are multiple points where the reference shifts from something that is empiracally known, to something that is abstract. This is the same kind of shift that occurs in the common watchmaker argument.

Finding a watch on the beach is evidence of a watchmaker. Therefore seeing a universe is evidence of a universe maker, and anything that can made a universe must be intelligent (god). This shifts from evidence for something that can be sensed and measured to something that cannot. The watchmaker and the god are very different types/classes. One is not abstract, one is.
There is that skeptical minority that thinks we should not believe a non-abstract thing exist until it can be demonstrated by empirical methods.

[Furrowed Brow]

you want to vest everything in empirical knowledge. you keep saying things like "we don't know." we don't know emprically but we know logically. that's enough. there is rational warrant for belief, that's all we need!

That's not enough. That's not all everyone needs. That's enough for the majority of the 6.5 billion, but there's a significant minority that thinks empirical knowledge is more powerful than the type of logic in the original post.

There's a fundamental problem with this logic process. As it progresses through the steps there are multiple points where the reference shifts from something that is empiracally known, to something that is abstract. This is the same kind of shift that occurs in the common watchmaker argument.

Sorry MrWhy I am forced to disagree with you. The OP makes some dodgy metaphysical presumptions form the off, and passes them off as a logical truth. Metacrock's argument does not display a logical process, though it does reveal a hasty rationale determined to force an argument where logic won't permit.

[FinalEnigma]

(4) Naturalistic assumptions of determinism, and the arbitrary nature of naturalistic cosmology creates an arbitrary necessity; if the UEO has to produce existents automatically and/or deterministically due to naturalistic forces, the congtingencies function as necessities

I followed up to here, but then lost it. I'm not sure what this means. I've looked up defininitions for everything and read some articles. But i cant quite figure out what this means. I admit I dont have a formal education to the level which would allow me to understand this. Does everyone else understand this and i am just being dense? or is it as nonsesible as it seems?

somebody please explain it to me.

[Goat]

(4) Naturalistic assumptions of determinism, and the arbitrary nature of naturalistic cosmology creates an arbitrary necessity; if the UEO has to produce existents automatically and/or deterministically due to naturalistic forces, the congtingencies function as necessities

I followed up to here, but then lost it. I'm not sure what this means. I've looked up defininitions for everything and read some articles. But i cant quite figure out what this means. I admit I dont have a formal education to the level which would allow me to understand this. Does everyone else understand this and i am just being dense? or is it as nonsesible as it seems?

somebody please explain it to me.

Translation, if I use a lot of big words that sound important, I can make people think I know what I am talking about. It is also known as 'Arguement from polysylable absurdity.

[Metacrock]

(4) Naturalistic assumptions of determinism, and the arbitrary nature of naturalistic cosmology creates an arbitrary necessity; if the UEO has to produce existents automatically and/or deterministically due to naturalistic forces, the congtingencies function as necessities

I followed up to here, but then lost it. I'm not sure what this means. I've looked up defininitions for everything and read some articles. But i cant quite figure out what this means. I admit I dont have a formal education to the level which would allow me to understand this. Does everyone else understand this and i am just being dense? or is it as nonsesible as it seems?

somebody please explain it to me.

Translation, if I use a lot of big words that sound important, I can make people think I know what I am talking about. It is also known as 'Arguement from polysylable absurdity.

Translation from Goat: I am intimidated by learning