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When you travel by ship to England, and there's nothing but water, water, water, then one day, wow, there's Land's End, and after that the rest of Old Blighty, do you wonder "What caused Land's End?" or do you just accept that England begins there?hoghead1 wrote: OK, well, I don't quite follow you here. One assumption I am going on is that nothing comes out of nowhere. Everything has a cause.
There is not one theist who can emphatically say, right across the board, that there is no possibility of pink unicorns. However, small it may be, all rational theists are probabilistic theists. There probably aren't pink unicorns. Now, we can't let pink unicorns stand as a mere probability, since it is more superior to be actual than to be merely potential, which is why we seek to actualize our potentials. Hence, granted pink unicorns are a possibility, however slight that may be, means that pink unicorns do in fact exist. QED (I guess).hoghead1 wrote: Hnece, my revision the ontological argument goes like this: There is not one atheist who can emphatically say, right across the board, that there is no possibility of a God. However, small it may be, all rational atheists are probabilistic atheists. There probably isn't any God. Now, we can't let God stand as a mere probability, since it is more superior to be actual than to be merely potential, which is why we seek to actualize our potentials. Hence, granted God is a possibility, however, slight that may be, means that God does in fact exist.
A wise man sought to find the true nature of reality. He meditated daily in front of the fence surrounding his humble dwelling. He would look out at the world through a missing slat in the fence. Beyond his yard was a green pasture with a small herd of cattle. Every morning the cows would walk past the fence in single file on their way to graze. Every evening they would return, again in single file. As each beast passed by the wise man, he would first glimpse the snout through the missing slat, followed by the head, body and finally the tail.hoghead1 wrote: I don't follow your argument here. Sorry. I will say that yes, I have wondered why such-and-such is there, what caused it. Also, I don't accept that things have definite boundaries on them.
The meaning of the story, Doctor, is that the idea of time as a series of causes and effects might be an artifact of choosing a narrow field of view, like the missing plank.hoghead1 wrote: Sorry. Don't follow you. Are you trying to argue there is no causality, what? Incidentally, an animal is an organic whole. Every part is interconnected to all the others. They are anything but collections of random, purely independent events. In a way, then, the tail and nose are rationales for each other. That nose couldn't be doing the job it is without that tail and vice versa.
Says you. What if I think pink unicorns are the most perfect of all beings? How is your assumption any different than mine?hoghead1 wrote: [Replying to post 322 by benchwarmer]
Sorry, but the pink unicorn argument doesn't work. Unicorns are not assumed to be the most perfect of all beings, whereas God is.
