/lit/ - Literature

>>18191063

"dude god is real just because lmao"

>The Bible said so
There you go. Everything else is window dressing. Shut the fuck up and do what your Priest tells you to.

>>18191063
The definitions and attributes that are given to the concept of God are not based on empirical evidence, they are only synthetic judgments that are given a priori, so affirming its existence or nonexistence is absurd

>>18191063
So, Christianity posits the Trinity, which says that God is actually made up of three entities with the same nature (this is a tl;dr, some LARPer will get butthurt about this simplicity and come up with an ancient heresy in response). This was causing problems on two fronts: firstly, Muslims and Jews were making fun of Christians for not being real monotheists. Under the Islamic conception of Allah, Allah is essentially an infinitely large discrete sphere made of himself. Whether or not Allah has bodyparts had been hotly debated by Muslims, because on one hand him having an elbow would violate his Oneness (tawhid), but on the other hand the Quran is literally 100% true and it says he has at least one hand, a face, at least one eye, at least one ear, etc. There is, however, just one of him. The Jewish conception of Yahweh, meanwhile, posits Yahweh as essentially a cosmological background force that is ontologically related to the Jewish people, the Torah, and the Temple, and as such there actually can't be more than one of him because, well, there's only one universe and one Jewish people (the implication that a multiverse would result in multiple Yahwehs and multiple Chosen Peoples as such is fully accepted by many Rabbis).

The problem is that these Jewish and Muslim views of monotheism are COMPLETELY irreconcilable with the Trinity. You have to reject fundamental Christian doctrines to actually achieve "monotheism" under the Semitic ideas of monotheism. This started leading the laity and Jews/Muslims to arguing that Christianity is either a form of polytheism or a form of atheism. The Five Ways Aquinas comes up with are rhetorical parlor tricks for educated yet non-scholastic Christians to rebut these claims by Jews and Muslims or peasants a bit too clever for their own good by demonstrating that a Christian actually HAS to believe in God, and only one, because it's simply logical (it isn't of course, the Five Ways rely on many implicit assumptions that aren't actually explained, such as the idea of a finite historical past and finite historical future, which Aquinas ultimately justifies by saying that these two ideas have to be true to explain the Bible being true).

>>18191112
What does this have to do with the thread?

Edward Feser sure can

>>18191063
1)Change/ motion/ efficient causation occurs
2) only actual things can change/ move/ cause
3) these chains of changers/movers/causes cannot proceed back to infinity
4) there is some first mover who is wholly unchanged, unmoved, and Uncaused.

Not going to bother with Fourth and Fifth way, because they’re even worse.

>>18191112
>discrete sphere
Doesn't make sense

>>18192743
You people are always so hyperbolic when talking about Aquinas. The first four proofs are interesting and logically valid, despite not being convincing. Only the fifth is actually bad, and he tacitly admits this himself given its literally like 5 lines and barely nuanced in the way the rest are.

>>18192846

When you say that such-and-such is logically valid yet not "convincing", you undermine your own credibility to pronounce on the truth value of that same such-and-such. You begin to gibber.

>>18192743
What’s wrong with this argument?

>there is causality
>therefore god dun did it
Basically this with a lot of jargoneering added to it, while never seeming to be aware that causality doesn’t necessitate a conscious will and while never explaining why the cause of the universe couldn’t possibly have been one without a conscious will. Also never explains why we should puck the Christian God

>>18192743
That's Socrates Phaedrus nigger

jesus christ why does he cause so much seething? The other thing else I know that makes atheists this mad is Pascal’s Wager

>>18192885
>All philosophers are purple.
>Socrates is a philosopher.
>Therefore Socrates is purple.

This is logically valid. Are you convinced though?

>>18193671
Because atheist often believe that their atheism makes them smarter than most, although generally they don't know anything about religion. So when you point out that there are very smart religious people, their ego is hurt.

>>18191063
Edward Fewer has several books about this topic

>>18194321
*Feser

>>18193943
>accuses others of Dunning-Kruger
>while being a perfect example of it

>>18192918
>while never explaining why the cause of the universe couldn’t possibly have been one without a conscious will.
He spends hundreds of pages discussing this
>Also never explains why we should puck the Christian God
Not even the point of his argument

I swear it's the same lines every single thread over and over and i'm pretty fucking sure it's the same anons in every thread

>>18194321
I would also reccomend Etienne Gilson if you're ready for more advanced philosophy. The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas is an excellent book on the subject.

Aquinas is the ultimate filter for brainlets. Literally no fedora-tipping midwit has the intellectual ability to just start reading the Summa, they just take secondhand summaries because of their own stunted intellects. You can always tell an uneducated brainlet by their reaction to Aristotelian metaphysical arguments.

>>18192743
You only summarized the First Way

>>18192743

You got it wrong...it's not about going back infinitely in time. Aquinas does not conclude on whether or not an infinite series going backwards is philosophically plausible. The argument is that causes cannot go back infinitely in a SINGLE MOMENT, at one point in time.

The argument is that causality cannot be reliant on an infinite number of vertical causes at any one moment. A power extender plugged into a million other power extenders, and an infinite number more, still cannot produce electricity. It must be put into a power socket, the ultimate cause of power, which is analogous to God.

>>18193782
yes. we all knew Socrates was purple wtf. do you even read?

>>18195253
Then explain how Aquinas tells physical causality apart from intentional causality and rules out the universe as the product of physical causality

>>18195693
You already got your answer last thread

>>18192885
You've outed yourself as a pseud. Take a logic 101 course before ever posting again.

>>18195693
First, define your personal understanding of the terms "physical causality" and "intentional causality". If we are to have an actual discussion, this is essential.

>>18195881
Physical causality is change caused solely by the laws of physics, such as a rock rolling off a mountain and hitting another rock. Intentional causality is change caused by a conscious will, such as a guy throwing one rock into another

>>18191063
Tonsure looks much cooler in paintings.

>>18196767
To better understand how your personal terminology relates to the Aristotelian metaphysical structure of reality utilized by Aquinas, it might help to corelate your ideas of "physical causality" and "intentional causality", to the Aristotelian idea of an efficient (or moving) cause, motivated by some given agent.
Now, this includes both unconscious and conscious agents (eg. force exerted onto the moon by an asteroid, and a man throwing a ball, respectively) - but actions efficiently caused by a conscious being's "will" more specifically correlate to your idea of intentional causality.
So you could say that while both forms of causality you describe fall under the category of efficient causality, they are differentiated by whether the causative agent involved is conscious or not (or, in other words, the presence of a will in the agent).

As for how he rules out the universe as a product of (purely) physical causality, we would first rephrase the statement to be more aligned with the Aristotelian terms I just outlined: "How does Aquinas rule out the universe as being efficiently caused by a being without a conscious will?"

He would probably respond in a way similar to this:
First, we can prove that there must be a first cause of the universe, and that this first cause must be pure actuality:
1. There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
2. It is not logical to posit a regress to infinity in efficient causes.
3. To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
4. If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
5. Therefore, a First Cause exists.
And this first cause, which exists before all else, is what men call God.

As such, we know that God is the first being in the order of efficient causality.
If this is so, there can be no potency or unrealized potential in God. For if something has the potential or latent capacity to act, then its activity must be precipitated by some prior actuality.
But in this line of reasoning, there is no actuality prior to God. It must follow, then, that God is pure actuality, and this in virtue of being the first cause.

And, following logically from this, we can infer the omniscience of God by nature of His being pure actuality; because if He were deficient in some piece of information, it would imply a potentiality - namely, that He could know something, but doesn't.
This is, of course, impossible, because as we just showed, God is a being of pure actuality per se, and so it is logically impossible for Him to have any potentiality or privation in His knowledge.
Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the first cause of the universe is not a blind efficient cause without a will, but is rather a being with no privations in its knowledge - and thus, this being must have a conscious will, for it to not have a will would imply a privation (namely, that it could potentially have a will, but doesn't actually).

>>18197190
Very succinct anon, nice

>>18195632
This vertical approach seems misguided. These vertical causal relations are strictly symbolic, and only appear to be otherwise because people perceive them as such. For instance, in the case of the power extender, the notions of power extender and power outlet are human abstractions of a physical phenomenon. There is no electricity being produced at the moment of connection, there is just a connection established that will let electricity be drawn into a load. The actual transference of electrical energy only occurs in time.

>>18197190
>So you could say that while both forms of causality you describe fall under the category of efficient causality, they are differentiated by whether the causative agent involved is conscious or not (or, in other words, the presence of a will in the agent).
And here’s where it goes wrong. Your term of efficient cause serves as little more than a conflation of physical and intentional causality. I intentionally separated the two, because the two are different. They need to be, that was the whole point of my post. You seem to be doing the same thing that Aquinas does. You equate two separate terms into a single term, despite that my question was all about separating these two, and justifying them in your proof. That’s the point that I was making. Aquinas does this very conflation, and in doing so asserts what he needs to prove. We can see this going wrong when you get to the logical sequence:
>First, we can prove that there must be a first cause of the universe, and that this first cause must be pure actuality:
>1. There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
>2. It is not logical to posit a regress to infinity in efficient causes.
>3. To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
>4. If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
>5. Therefore, a First Cause exists.
And this first cause, which exists before all else, is what men call God.
Notice how in this sequence, the distinction between physical and intentional causality is suddenly been replaced by the conflated term of efficient cause? This gives the wiggle room you need for the next sequence:
> As such, we know that God is the first being in the order of efficient causality.
If this is so, there can be no potency or unrealized potential in God. For if something has the potential or latent capacity to act, then its activity must be precipitated by some prior actuality.
But in this line of reasoning, there is no actuality prior to God. It must follow, then, that God is pure actuality, and this in virtue of being the first cause.
Because you used the conflated term of efficient cause, and thereby omit the distinction between physical and intentional cause, it allows you to neatly move on to God, despite that you never explain why none of this could also apply you physical causality. After all, the term of ‘physical causality’ was absorbed as it were by the term ‘efficient cause‘, thus giving the impression that you’re explaining something, despite that you’re omitting something here, namely the distinction between physical and intentional causality. This omission allowed you to move onto God, and his omniscience, which is important for the final bit: (1/2)

>>18197478
>And, following logically from this, we can infer the omniscience of God by nature of His being pure actuality; because if He were deficient in some piece of information, it would imply a potentiality - namely, that He could know something, but doesn't.
This is, of course, impossible, because as we just showed, God is a being of pure actuality per se, and so it is logically impossible for Him to have any potentiality or privation in His knowledge.
Once again, this asserts what needs to be proved, namely the ‘-science’ part in ‘omniscience’. The necessity to prove this fell away when you omitted intentional causality by replacing it with efficient causality. This is important in the next part:
>Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the first cause of the universe is not a blind efficient cause without a will, but is rather a being with no privations in its knowledge - and thus, this being must have a conscious will, for it to not have a will would imply a privation (namely, that it could potentially have a will, but doesn't actually).
This is not a ‘therefore’ at all, or something that you’ve logically derived, but something that you assert. Instead of explaining how one gets from physical causality to intentional causality, you merely conflate the two into efficient causality, in the hope that no one will notice that you didn’t explain, but simply omitted the difference between physically and intentional causality. Throughout this argument, all you do with intentional causality is hide when you don’t need it (in the middle of your argument, when you have to justify the first cause as having intentional causality), and show it when you do (after you’ve ‘proven’ it through the earlier conflation and omission). It’s a nice piece of philosophical sleight of hand, but in essence little more than a piece of sophistry

>>18197478
>Your term of efficient cause serves as little more than a conflation of physical and intentional causality.
Literally both of those terms are just descriptions on whether or not the thing causing a given change is conscious or not. By any objective standard, both are describing a form of efficient causality. You haven't provided any evidence to show that the two terms cannot be encompassed by the Aristotelian notion of efficient causality, you have only asserted it. What is your exact argument as to why your "physical" and "intentional" causalities are not solely distinguished by the quality of the being performing the action having a will? It seems to be needless sophistry and semantics, seeing as you have not yet actually shown how they are distinct from notion of efficient causality.

>Aquinas does this very conflation
Which philosophers before Aquinas used this distinction between different forms of efficient causality when having discussions on Aristotelian metaphysics? You make it seem like he intentionally misrepresents a position on causality which was well known - in reality, are you not just anachronistically applying your own personal nominal distinctions onto his philosophy? Again, how are your two forms of causality not encompassed by efficient causality?

>thereby omit the distinction between physical and intentional cause,
Again, how is this not just a modern anachronistic term being applied to the much more comprehensive notion of efficient causality?

>when you omitted intentional causality by replacing it with efficient causality.
You have not shown why intentional causality is not just an action of efficient causality performed by a being with a will.

Look at the four causes posited by Aristotle, and tell me where your notions of "physical" and "intentional" causality fit in. Do they warrant a fifth and sixth category of causality which is completely separate from the four already described by Aristotle? I'd love to hear this.

>>18197524
>>18197478
>Your term of efficient cause serves as little more than a conflation of physical and intentional causality.
As I already pointed out, both of those terms are referring to the same thing, only distinguished by whether or not the thing efficiently causing a given change is conscious or not. By any objective standard, both are describing a form of efficient causality. You haven't provided any evidence to show that the two terms cannot be encompassed by the Aristotelian notion of efficient causality, you have only asserted it. What is your exact argument as to why your "physical" and "intentional" causalities are not solely distinguished by the quality of the being performing the action having a will? It seems to be needless sophistry and semantics, seeing as you have not yet actually shown how they are distinct from the notion of efficient causality.

>Aquinas does this very conflation
Which philosophers before Aquinas used this distinction between different forms of efficient causality when having discussions on Aristotelian metaphysics? You make it seem like he intentionally misrepresents a position on causality which was well known - in reality, are you not just anachronistically applying your own personal nominal distinctions onto Aristotelian metaphysical terms? Again, how are your two forms of causality not encompassed by efficient causality?

>thereby omit the distinction between physical and intentional cause,
Again, how is this not just a modern anachronistic term being applied to the much more comprehensive notion of efficient causality?

>when you omitted intentional causality by replacing it with efficient causality.
You have not shown why intentional causality is not just an action of efficient causality performed by a being with a will.

Look at the four causes posited by Aristotle, and tell me where your notions of "physical" and "intentional" causality fit in. Do they warrant a fifth and sixth category of causality which is completely separate from the four already described by Aristotle? I'd love to hear this.

>>18197190
I might be missing something, but what eliminates a large quantity of energy in a small space as a potential First Cause?

>>18197577
>Literally both of those terms are just descriptions on whether or not the thing causing a given change is conscious or not. By any objective standard, both are describing a form of efficient causality.
Yes, but one has a conscious will and the other one doesn’t, which is the vital difference you have to demonstrate when you’re asserting that the cause of the universe was a conscious agent named ‘God’. An efficient cause is in essence just another term for intentional causality. That’s why I made the distinction, because intentional causality is demonstrably not the only form of causality, as my rock example was meant to demonstrate.

This is also the reason why we don’t use Aristotle’s four causes anymore. Aside from the fact that the teleology of the final cause is pretty dubious, implying a kind of omniscience on the part of the person who uses it, the material and the formal causes are also pretty dubious. This is why I used physical and intentional. After all, gravity isn’t a material, nor does it have an appearance that we can see change. I don’t really see gravity, but we can see its effects. It wouldn’t fit in either four of the Aristotelean causes. It’s not a material, not a shape, isn’t the result of a conscious agent, and doesn’t have a teleological goal apart from letting things fall to the ground.

All you’ve demonstrated is how horribly limited the Aristotelean conception of causality is and why we don’t use it anymore

>>18197190
Based thomanon can you clarify the following for me
>If this is so, there can be no potency or unrealized potential in God. For if something has the potential or latent capacity to act, then its activity must be precipitated by some prior actuality.
Not really? Epistemologically yes we need to have seen some prior actuality to know there is a potential, but since he has an ontological account of causation(efficient cause remains there independent of our understanding) he surely should have one for potential? Does God - or rather as we have it so far, the first cause - need a prior actuality to lack some knowledge or power? By definition all the things in the universe are within its powers, but how did we actually eliminate any set of theoretical powers independent of that cause?

In the pussy, up the bum, in the mouth, in a bullet wound (but it has to be a slug just smaller than an erect pl), or if she recently had a c section in the stomach.

>>18195253
Why did God create people who are too stupid to understand arguments for his existence?
Not shitting on Aquinas or anyone else. I just don't get it.

>>18197723
Why should/did God do anything at all? It doesn't make any sense to rationalize his "choices"

>>18191063
.womb
.sacrafice
.creed
.momma
.gog

>>18192592
OP asked for an explanation of the Five Ways.

>>18192834
Tawhid, Allah is characterized by Oneness. He has to be "discrete" because he is entirely himself, so he can't blur into anything else. He's "spherical" because he has no internal disparity or distinction as he is entirely himself and himself alone, meaning you can't break him down into parts.

>>18195253
Not sure what you mean by "Aristotelian metaphysical arguments", Aristotle posited that we live in an uncreated eternal polytheistic universe ruled by forty-seven to fifty-five Gods who are he Olympians as described by Homer and Hesiod. Most of Aquinas' life's work was arguing against Aristotle.

>>18197622
Although the existence of eternal energy is a compelling counter-argument to the nature of the first cause, there are several difficulties which arise when taking the hypothesis to its logical conclusion. For example, the existence of order and harmony in the universe; why are things so intelligently ordered if the efficient cause of the universe is mindless and unintelligent? How can lifeless energy, over a long period of time, condense into incredibly complex beings which have life? How can simple and mindless energy, condensing over a long period of time, lead to the presence of beings which have conscious minds? How can an unintelligent body of energy efficiently cause the creation of a being which is more intelligent than itself? And lastly, the fundamental question of why there is anything at all, rather than nothing? The combination of all of these questions, unsatisfactorily answered by materialist science, sways the balance of probabilities in my head towards the first cause of the universe being necessarily intelligent and conscious.

>>18197659
>you have to demonstrate when you’re asserting that the cause of the universe was a conscious agent
See above. It requires a set of increasingly improbable leaps of faith to claim that the mindless and unconscious energy at the beginning of the universe randomly expanded, creating the elements, planetary atmospheres, biological life, and finally, intelligent beings capable of metacognition. It requires too much of a leap of faith for me to assume that this wildly improbable outcome occurred as a result of a mindless and unconscious set of energies existing in a singularity.
>we don’t use Aristotle’s four causes anymore
Maybe you don't, but there are large numbers of Thomistic and Aristotelian philosophers who do use the four causes. Argumentum ad populum is incredibly fallacious, as you should know.
>final cause is pretty dubious, implying a kind of omniscience on the part of the person who uses it
An acorn having in its DNA the final outcome of becoming an oak tree is logical - how would a person observing that the final cause of an acorn is becoming an oak tree, lead to a kind of presumed omniscience?
>It wouldn’t fit in either four of the Aristotelean causes.
The force of gravity would be an efficient cause. For example, stars are created because the force of gravity causes the condensation of matter into what we call a star. Therefore, gravity is the preceding efficient cause of stars.
>and why we don’t use it anymore
Again, argumentum ad populum is not a valid point.

>>18197673
If I'm understanding you correctly, then yes, first cause would have to have a privation in its actuality for it to lack some power. There are no theoretical powers which can be eliminated, as to lack those would imply a potentiality, namely that it could have those powers, but doesn't. This is why omnipotence logically follows from being actus purus.

when will /lit/ understand that Aquinas was talking about an essentially(per se) ordered series instead of an accidentally ordered one?

>>18197723
To be completely honest with you, that first post was made mostly in jest, due to my disdain for that type of person who rejects Thomistic metaphysics because he hasn't put in the effort to study it rigorously. Memes aside, I believe that most people who reject arguments for God's existence are not too stupid, but are rather blinded by their own pride and ego, and are subconsciously afraid of what their life would look like if God was actually real. They have been thoroughly invested in a position that they initially accepted due to poor arguments, and now look with biased eyes, already presupposing that the argument is wrong. I honestly believe that anybody who genuinely seeks proof of the existence of God,, with an open mind and heart, will find it.

>>18197953
Cringe, an actual unironic follower of the notorious pedophile warlord Muhammad arises. Shouldn't you be praying for murderous, thieving false prophet, who married a 6-year old child, and mounted and raped her at 9-years old, when she was still playing with dolls? If Allah prays for him, you definitely should, too (but who does Allah pray to? It's a mystery, alhamdulillah). Anyways, you are only proving that you haven't actually read Aristotle's Metaphysics, because he concludes those postulations with the quotation "The rule of many is not good; one ruler let there be.", showing that he understood that, in the end, there must be one creator of the universe, although not denying the existence of other gods (which is extremely impressive for a philosopher living in a pagan society). You clearly have some reading to do, get back to me when you've done your homework habibi.

>>18197320
A better example is:
The book sitting on the shelf is possible inasmuch as the shelf is sitting on the floor. The floor holding the shelf up is possible inasmuch as the floor is being held up by the ground... etc.
No one can deny that each entity in this series is dependent on the last. If we are to regress back to infinity we will have no explanation at all for the book's position.

>>18198269
I'm not a Muslim.

Anyways, you haven't read Metaphysics, his statement is in reference to the singularity of the heavens, not anything to do with Gods, which Aristotle demonstrates there have to be multiple of. He provides a logical proof of polytheism, but the actual number is purely empirical and left to the astronomers (this is why he said that there were 45-55 of them, as the precise number is really irrelevant, just that it's greater than two but less than infinity; he actually says 49-55, but then does a calculation which yields 47-55). But then, you haven't read Metaphysics, so of course you're unaware of this.

>>18198269
if he were a muslim he wouldnt be arguing that aristotle was a polytheist you braindead retard. stop watching jay dyer videos and go read a book.

>>18198331
Not that anon, but why would a Muslim not argue that Aristotle was a polytheist?

>>18198362
because every muslim knows that aristotle was a good muslim that did salah five times each day towards mecca and instructed alexander the great in shariah. men like avicenna and ibn sina demonstrated this centuries ago. the fact that this is just as absurd as claiming that aristotle was a christian centuries before fucking judaism, let alone christianity, was invented is irrelevant because its just known in the ummah that aristotle was a muslim.

>>18195253
>people are turning away from Christianity because they haven't read Aquinas! If only more people would read Aquinas then the churches would fill up again!
This is genuinely what tradlarpers believe.

>>18198312
My bad, I see the word Allah and my blood boils. It's one of my weaknesses. Anyways, as far as I understand it, he is not referring to the singularity of the heavens (which is already assumed), but rather the irrationality of the idea of multiple governing principles of the universe, rather than a single governing principle (which I understood to mean the ordering principle of the unmoved mover). I did have a hard time understanding it, though, so I'm happy to be corrected if you have a more thorough understanding.

>>18198331
If I were an eastern orthodox Christian who watched Jay Dyer videos, I wouldn't be defending Thomism. Stop watching me insult atheists and go read a book.

>>18198386
Who are you quoting? I never said that. I think people are turning away from Christianity because the concupiscent, carnal nature of our hedonist and materialist society is attracting people into the pit of sin and degeneracy. Reading Aquinas would definitely help, though.

heres his arguments btfoing an atheist sacred cow. hello to all the gaytheist midwits ITT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2GjKPbQds

>>18198423
People are turning away from Christianity because it is an unbelievable system. You can quote Aquinas all you want but it doesn't change the fact that according to Christians circumcision was a decree from *input Aquinas' cope terms for god* himself.

If you think posting about actuality this actuality that will ever change that then you're just deluded.

>>18198488
People turn from Christianity (in the western world) due to secularization and the obliteration of socialization between groups.

>>18198493
there are more christians alive today than there were in 1900. religion isnt going anywhere

>>18198506
Of course, because people misrepresent the data by only focusing on Europe. The reality is that the fall of Christianity in Europe is offset by its dramatic rise in Africa and East Asia.

>>18198436
That was more of leibniz' argument from contingency though.

>>18198488
If the first mover exists, and it is more probable that it is an intelligent being of pure actuality, rather than an unintelligent and mindless collection of energies, I believe it is not illogical to posit that this omnipotent first mover may have revealed itself to humans at certain points in history. Just because you have too large of a fedora covering your eyes to admit that this is a reasonable and logically consistent position, does not mean that it is unbelievable. Keep on believing that the universe is random and meaningless, you don't have a soul, and you are just a pointless collection of subatomic particles who helplessly seeks out happy chemicals to distract him from the void of his existence. Just don't spread that hedonistic irrational garbage around, go be meaningless and irrelevant somewhere else.

>>18198510
yes, so when africans are the majority population in europe (i estimate 30 years) europe will be christian again inshallah

>>18198184
>If I'm understanding you correctly, then yes, first cause would have to have a privation in its actuality for it to lack some power.
For the powers we know of, yes. We can say for it to not be able to do B in the world it must have been independent of A, which contradicts it being the effective cause of both, hence ruled out. but for powers outside what is natural(which are included in omnipotence) this doesn't seem necessarily true if I am not missing something. Is the basis for that prior not just our account of the events we perceive(that potential), why the thing it would lack to have some unrealized potential or lack some actuality would have to be prior to him rather than just (for the lack of a better term) orthogonal to him? Just an independent, theoretical power. Of which omniscience is one, as there is no single effective causal chain that can prove omniscience of any entity at the end of that chain.

>There are no theoretical powers which can be eliminated, as to lack those would imply a potentiality, namely that it could have those powers, but doesn't.
What did you mean by eliminated here, when I used the word I meant "eliminating them from taking place in a possible objection for omnipotence" while you seem to have used it as "eliminated from the list of powers of the first mover" just making that clear in case you misread my usage as well.

>>18198488
>an unbelievable system
To anyone with only a brainlet understanding of it, sure.

>>18198522
God wills it

Midwit retard here hate to interject but this conversation about trying to prove god is irrelevant to most atheists and I think underlines the waste of time these conversations amount to.
When an atheist says there is no god they're not denying that ~something~ is responsible for the creation of the universe and if you'd like to call that God or allah or the big bang it's all good and doesn't make a difference.
The biggest problem atheistd have is with people devoting time and energy into suplication before an imaginary deity.
There is no doubt that whether or not the universe has its origins in some kind of intelligence creator this being (if it exists) has no impact on our lives, has never intervened in lives of man, and therefore no amount of our active worship or he or she or they or it can do is any good.
From what I've seen in this thread the absolute best an absolute theist can convince anyone of is that "since the universe has a begging and since we see order and complexity then the original creation itself must be the product of an intelligent act" which I still don't accept but like I said already I'm not a mensa or whatever just a dude. I still think that this whole affair could be a complete coincidence and as there were no observations made at the creation no one can prove empirically one way or another.
Regardless of the nature of creation 'religion' I the western sense where on believes that by acting a certain way they can obtain certain benefits from a 'god' remains untrue as no amount of prayer or tithing will physically effect your life then I must see the religious man (especially the outspoken religious man) as a paranoid schizophrenic who has lost the plot of reality in his own delusions.

>>18198552
>christianity is simply too big brained for the average individual!

>>18198599
This really is a midwit post

>>18198606
It obviously is, I very, very rarely run up on anyone who understands it to any degree of depth.

>>18198599
Its just bait why take it.
This type of thread is posted sometimes even before the last dies.
Its just some rhetorical flex that looks like two cucks fighting over the Nintendo switch while Tyrone fucks their poly wife to everybody else

>>18198610
So what's your excuse for worshipping your imaginary friend? It does you no good and is an objective waste of your time

>>18198599
the highest consciousness of man always moves toward God. hinduism, plato, and judaism all developed the intuition toward the immaterial source of being. all mystic and philosophic experience from the upanisads to the interior castle are the movement toward this onesame source of existence. its truth always inspires kindness and love

>>18198655
Its the truth, lol.

>>18198655
And you did it.
Good luck in the fight for that Nintendo switch

>>18198599
At least you admit that you hold a midwit position. Your stance, a theological idea called Deism, is not self-evident. First of all, as you should be able to see from this thread, there are indeed many atheists who deny that there is an origin to the universe in some kind of "intelligence creator".
Your position would by necessity suggest that every single person who has experienced a mystical union with God is a paranoid schizophrenic, despite the fact that the vast majority of these people are completely logically coherent, often taught students a systematic methodology for similar experiences, and wrote rather compelling treatises on their mystical experiences. The fact that societies all around the world came to such experiences, which are remarkably similar, suggests that mystical experiences are a legitimate phenomenon which can be learned and experienced, and are not simply schizophrenic delusions. This is not even mentioning the existence of miracles, which can be further explored in the comprehensive work Medical Miracles, by PhD hematologist, former president of the American Association for the History of Medicine and Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, and recent Canadian Medical Hall of Fame inductee, Jacalyn Duffin.

TL;DR Deism is for brainlets

>>18198667
Ok I reached the same conclusion by taking mushrooms and watching the sunset when I was 17 and I didn't need to tack on a bunch of mythological bullshit to come to those conclusions (though I'll admit that as they reach the same basic conclusions then it's just as fine a method)
My point remains that in general people are better off ignoring the deity aspects of religion as they can do nothing to help one In their life (unless they're the type who needs the threat of eternal hellfire to keep from misbehaving)
>>18198677
How can you be so certain when there is no evidence to support your claim and in fact since we can physically travel above the clouds and confirm there are are no angels there the authenticity of any physical religion being true looks worse and worse with every day.
Belief in things which are not real is called a delusion and as an insane man may react to invisible people who he sees as real you are similarly reacting to invisible deities that as far as any man
or machine cann prove do not exist

>>18198635
So much for Jesus being Logos...

>>18198701
>every single person who has experienced a mystical union with God is a paranoid schizophrenic
Yes
Chadface.jpg

>>18198714
>supposed paranoid schizophrenics like Buddha, Moses, Plato, Plotinus, Francis of Assisi, and Teresa Avila have contributed more to the intellectual history of the world than I ever will
How can one BTFO themselves so hard?

>>18198706
you are in a thread about aquinas. the immaterial nature of God and angels was established by his time. they knew they werent in the sky

>>18198728
So you're only argument is that since these insane men were so interesting to us and we've written stories about them that have lasted millennia that their delusions are to be asserted as fact despite the fact your only evidence to support these claims are 'well I'm not the ONLY schizo who talks to voiced in my head what about Charles Manson he had voices in his head too!"
Once again I'll say it, there's no proof of a deity, no physical evidence, you're reacting to stimuli that exist withing your own skull or even worse existed in some other schizos skull 2000 years ago!

>>18198706
I'm starting to get /lit/ its actually pretty funny

>>18198735
This is done goalpost moving, you admit there is no physical evidence for the supernatural, but somehow the fact that the universe has a beggining is evidence enough that the 5000 pages of bullshit and fairy tales must also be irrefutable fact.
In the end spending your time in conversation with imaginary beings you're wasting the only asset which you actually own your time.

>>18198386
What could you mean by this? It is true. Perhaps you don't agree with it merely because you don't fall under the category of a non-secular person, so I'll restructure the arguments in a way that perhaps would better suit you.

>More people would be smarter if they read philosophy!
Yet philosophy is, if not, one of the most unread genres of books. So people remain unaware and don't think critically.
>More people would get paid more if they graduated with a degree!
It's true, yet a lot of people drop out and complain that they aren't millionaires.
>If I obtain a discipline of eating right and working out, I will not only feel better but look better as well!
Of course, there is no lie here. Yet people don't as they do not have the discipline to continue physical activity, or making the right choices when it comes to their nutrition. Usually, it is met with excuses and resentment instead.


These are but some examples, but I'm sure you get the idea. Some choices will have an obvious effect if done, and usually for the better. The ad-hominems on your part only prove true of the statement implied previously. If one were to read Aquinas with an open heart, they will be susceptible to be moved and have their ideas changed, and vice versa to any books that are of different religions or against the notion entirely.

The difference with someone like you, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you come in angry and bitter. Unable to even pretend to be open to the ideas of literature. And if you close yourself off like that, you will quickly find yourself denying everyone that does not have the same view as you. You cannot live in a reality that only has the same belief as you do, as that reality does not exist.

>>18198746
those schizos created the social and moral world we all inhabit. they serve a purpose

>>18198760
making false claims.
arguments for an immaterial and self existent source of somethingness instead of nothingness arent the same as arguments for why you think jesus was his message to us. you start with the existence of this necessary being, and then ask which religion is most true based on that. exoteric and esoteric

>>18198746
I don't think it's possible to be so retarded, this must be bait. If you think Plato and Aquinas were just insane schizophrenic men who had stories written about them, instead of prolific authors who shaped much of our socio-cultural world, you are more than ignorant - you have surpassed midwit, and gone into full brainlet territory. Do everybody a favour and go "pretend" to be retarded somewhere else.

We are reaching the name calling phase soon like fucking clookwork I'm calling it now

>>18198762
The consequences of their actions are irrelevant to the fact that they were delusional men and that if we are to try and better our species and society we would be best to leave these ancient fairy tales in the dust bin where they belong.
There is no reason to dear Zeus the thunderer when we can harness the power of electricity and we need not fear the eclipse when we can predict when and where the next 10,000 will be occuring

>>18198776
Fuck 4 seconds late.

>>18198788
Now he's gonna dig the hole deeper by trying to defend his vanity

>>18198706
>Ok I reached the same conclusion by taking mushrooms and watching the sunset when I was 17
You should take some more mushrooms, a lot more desu.

>>18198746
Theres no physical evidence that you exist either (reminder, you are not your body or the actions of your body)

>>18198805
Cogito ergo sum
I am certain I exist but cannot be quite as certain for anything else

>>18198809
But is there physical proof that you as awareness existence?

>>18198809
Res sunt, ergo cognosco, ergo sum res cognoscens

>>18191063
Let's concede that if reality is intelligible and where truth is possible then God must be logically necessary. And let's concede that reality is so. But how does it account for any religious description of god? How you go from that to saying such god must possesses *perfect* wisdom? Shouldn't we also say He must have also perfect stupidity? That he is perfectly abhorrent, perfectly cruel, perfectly irrational? And when someone question why there is so much evil in this world wouldn't it be a much more compelling answer to say: "Because god is perfectly evil, he in his infinite stupidity created this infinitely senseless universe and gave us the opportunity to contemplate his creation, as his great mischievous joke he gave us the tools to make sense of that which doesn't make any."

>>18198853
Those qualities do not have any existence in themselves. Stupidity is merely a privation of intelligence, cruelty is merely a privation of mercy, irrationality is merely a privation of rationality, and evil is merely a privation of good. Therefore, it is illogical to posit that any being, much less the first cause, contains these characteristics which do not actually exist - but perfectly logical to posit that the first cause is, by nature, pure actuality, as opposed to a hypothetical "pure potentiality" - and from this essence of pure actuality, we can derive the rest of the typical "Godly" characteristics, like omniscience, omnipotence, etc.

>>18198386
I'm reading Gilson who has this interesting view that the modern philosophical paradigm beginning with Descartes has led to a broad atheism and relativism. Everyone has a worldview and most people really arent aware of the worldview they're immersed in. The prevailing worldview comes to us from Kant. When Descartes put the first act of being in personal cognition he made an unbridgable gap between the object of perception and the thing in itself. To reconcile this Descartes developed a view of God who serves only as some kind of underlying postulate to his metaphysics. Now Descartes could save metaphysics because his worldview was mathematical and therefore subsisting in the rational and immaterial. But the bridge between the percepi and thing in itself proved to be unbridgeable by many following philosophers, most notably Hume. This left us with Kant who totally severed ascess to the metaphysical and left us only with a means of empirical knowledge. This empirical worldview produced the positivism and relativism we have today which can only result in atheism. So prior to Descartes, God was intuitive. His hand was seen in everything. After Descartes through Kant, God is unreachable.
Some neoscholastics are trying to reclaim direct realism and telos to bring us back to a worldview where God is present.

I wish I had more time to read Gilson. I'm always so busy and when i'm not busy i'm too fucking tired.

What a beautiful cycle of life
Bless you OP

>>18198876
Intelligence is merely the privation of stupidity, mercy the privation of cruelty, rationality the privation of irrationality and good the privation of evil.

>>18198884
what gilson book?

>>18198894
This.

>>18198876
No.

>>18198894
>existence can be a negative

>>18198894
So by that we must conclude that the ultimate creator was without any thought, without any presence, and without any power
Therefore the universe must be created by a coincedence and anyone who disagrees with me is a reddit fedora theist cringe soiboi
Brilliant!
Also that's literally their argument in the reverse, I'm not sure how a thinking man can assert so ignorantly that they understand the nature of the creation of the universe, much less assert that their desert religion just so happens to be 100% correct in the matter

>>18198899
I gathered most of that from his book God and Philosophy. He elaborates a little more in Methodical Realism. I think his magnum opus is generally considered to be Being and Some Philosophers and thats where his theory is at least said to be laid out most succinctly. I havent read it yet so I cant really say for sure.

>>18198935
ty

>>18198894
My man didn't begin with the greeks

I am >>18195632 and this >>18198277 is a better analogy than what I meant.

>>18197320

Sure but you could just consider all the physical causes that operate in the universe in one second. Within one second of observation it is clear that there must be an infinite regress of causes, which is a logical absurdity. Not an infinite regress going back in time, but within that second of time all things that are happening require an infinite number of prior things acting on them at that time, which is to say it is the turtles all the way down fallacy. Therefore, within any arbitrarily defined moment of time, there must be an unmoved mover, or first cause, which stops there being an infinite regress of causes.

>>18198906
touché

>>18198908
No, we must conclude his thoughts were perfectly stupid. Infinite eternal stupidity if you will.

>>18198894
Okay brainlet, asserting something does not make it so. A shadow is merely the privation of photons, and if you try to assert the opposite, you are a brainlet. The greatest evil occurs where the greatest good should be - relationships of trust, or familial relationships. To posit that "rationality is the privation of irrationality", when the word irrationality is literally using the prefix "ir" as a modifier to suggest an absence of rationality, is completely foolish. How can a think have existence in itself, when it is merely a negative of something which actually exists? Just because you are a brainlet who hasn't read the basics of logic, doesn't mean we all have to subscribe to your irrational philosophy.

>>18198908
>>18198951
>t. fedora-tipping sodomites who love to sin and reject God because they have daddy issues and hate authority
NGMI

>>18198960
>has no argument so he resorts to name calling
You're the one who unironically talks to imaginary beings and asks for their wishes to be granted. The rest of us look at you as an unironic schizo

>>18198965
Yeah, you and all the cool kids atheists can sit around and jerk yourselves off for being so enlightened, while I'll unhappily sit in the corner with unironic schizos like Plato, Tesla, Heisenberg, Newton, Buddha, Augustine, and Aquinas. Fuck off, retard

>>18198965
>doesnt respond to the argument, focuses on semantics
upvote!

>>18198960
>asserting something does not make it so
How can you not see the irony in this statement when you are trying to convince people there must exist some kind of ephemeral omnipotent power that no one can measure, no one can observe, he (or she or they or it) never do anything and the only reason you seem convinced it must be here is because some schizo 2000 years ago told you this was true and you never bothered to think critically for yourself
>>18198975
>Me and all the other schizos are seeing voices man! They're not like, the same voice, and we all fight about which voices are the true voice, but we're all pretty sure that our invisible friends are real
Yeah, I've never cared about being cool and I never called myself an atheist. Pretty sure i'm an agnostic deist if anything.
Like I said there MAY have been an intelligent creator but the fact is you can never prove whether or not there was and regardless of the creation there is no god(s) doing anything tangible in our lives today so giving them any amount of your attention is insanity. It's literally reaction to stimuli which are not real, it's the definition of delusional. It's unironically schizophrenia
>>18198979
I respond to the part that was directed to me, see above where I tear the 'logic' to bits.

>>18198965
I remember my first mystical experience. Man it changes everything. I feel sorry for the people who dont experience it, but desu i cant hold your attitude against you. How could you know otherwise?

>>18198997
Do you believe the insane shirtless man when he comes up to you and screeeches about the bug people biting him?
Do you offer to buy him a gun when he says he needs one to defeat the lizard people and reclaim the golden cup of pericles or whatever nonesense he comes up to you babbling about?
If you are having mental delusions (IE speaking to voices that are not there, seeing images which are not real) You unironically need help, maybe medication, maybe meditation, but something. Normal people do not have 'mystical experiences' unless we ingest a hallucinogenic drug and even then there exists a rational explanation for the stimuli which others cannot see. Namely that we took a poison which is having an effect on our brain and causing us to hallucinate (see and hear things which are not real)

>>18199008
I believe many schizos, yes.

>>18199016
Explains why you believe in religion at least.

>>18198993
>no one can measure, no one can observe
There are many things that cannot be observed or measured. We dont have the tools to measure anything. We are severely limited to observe everything in the universe because the only reality is confined within our limited perception.

>>18199025
the only reality we know*

Its not clear who gets the Nintendo switch yet

>>18199025
Jesus this again, if you want to be that way we go back to Descartes' I think therefore I am and we agree that nope nobody can 'prove' shit beyond the fact that they themselves exist because our senses could be flawed and this could all be an inaccurate representation of reality.
If we can agree on our common observations being a basis for reality then we can at least 'prove' anything that we can measure, the number of wheels on a bike, the number of atoms in H2O things like that.
What you are trying to do is move beyond anything anyone has ever measured, observed, or honestly recollected. Religion is literally founded on liars and a few unironic schizophrenics but since none of their claims can stand up to a simple cross examination then we can't continue to pretend like they're correct.
If you wanna go back to 'well you can't prove anything' then why are we even talking to each other? You must surely be the only thing you can be certain exists so why do you care about winning an argument with a figment of your own imagination
For me, i want that nintendo switch

>>18199045
>if you want to be that way we go back to Descartes' I think therefore I am and we agree that nope nobody can 'prove' shit beyond the fact that they themselves exist
Descartes didnt end with the cogito.
>If we can agree on our common observations being a basis for reality
Spiritual experiences are common. More common than people without these experiences. You can chalk it up to some psychologism but that would only serve to refute your own point
>but we can't measure it
Pure cope

>>18199045
We cant measure our awareness either yet its still here. So stfu.

>>18198960
Photons are merely the privation of a shadow. And so on and so on. Am I saying anything different? Perfect unstupidity is impossible because it is merely an absence of stupidity. etc. etc.

>>18199062
>Descartes didnt end with the cogito.
Where on earth does he go from there? I don't seriously believe you can actually recover from that, it's like the ultimate MOBA in one of these discussions because if my pereception of reality is flawed then you cannot actually prove anything to me, literally no kind of evidence would apply since I'm not registering it in a coherent way
The fact that multiple people experience religious delusions is a by-product of biological and corruptible our human brain. I absolutely do chalk it up to mental illness and it has absolutely no effect on my persisting claim that 'to assert the existence of a god is to assert your own delusions'
Without any external measurable tangible evidence then your argument simply amounts to schizo babbling and a bunch of finger pointing where you argue that since some schizo 2000 years ago also had voices in his head that validates the voices in your own.
>More common than people without these experiences
Simply not true and again even if the entire world were suffering paranoid delusions that would not change the actual nature of the universe (though that again calls into question the nature of our reality and if one's perception is incorrect (which they would not personally be able to be aware of) then they could not be absolutely sure of what reality is)
In fact, this conversation makes me almost want to assert DESCARTES as the fucking ONLY truth. Maybe I should start worshipping a wooden statue of the man because he's ultimately right, I can't be sure my brain is correct in it's perceptions of reality
>>18199067
Imagine being this stupid.
You can ask a question, recieve a response. That is as close to 'proof' of another consciousness as you can recive.
Notice that when asking me a question you will ACTUALY get a response while when you talk to voices inside your head the best you can get is another voice inside your own head.
But again, we can't really be sure of anything except
Cogito ergo sum

>>18199095
the cogito is retarded. lightning doesnt happen 'to' anything, it just happens. how do you know consciousness 'happens' to you and isnt just there?

>>18199099
Do you seriously not understand the fucking argument?
I know I exist because I am sitting here thinking. If I didn't exist there wouldnt be any though. I KNOW I am thinking therefor I know I am.
I cannot KNOW you are thinking same as you cannot know I am thinking.
The lighting (if it's thinking) could prove that it exists via the same argument but since no one has ever had a conversation with a lightning bolt, and we literally understand what it is where it comes from and why it exists we are all pretty confident in saying "no, it has no capacity to 'think' as far as we are familiar with the term"
Thought in general is just literally neurons in your skull firing in a pretty pattern anyways, there's no magic there either

>>18198894
If vices are merely the absence of virtues should we conclude that without a first cause stupidity, cruelty and evil would still exist?

>>18199095
I'm no good a philosophy teacher so I'd reccomend you look further into descartes. I can't hold it against you since the only thing most people know about him is his Cogtio. But the fact is he was not a radical skeptic. He was actually establishing a foundation for science to rest to on and ironically it's his legacy that your worldview operates through.
>by-product of biological and corruptible our human brain
And here we are in the stage of self refutation. You held that we can ascertain knowledge through common perception. And now you tell me that common perception must be invalid because human consciousnesses is inherently unsound. I would encourage you to refine your epistemology.
>this conversation makes me almost want to assert DESCARTES as the fucking ONLY truth
See again above, Descartes didnt end with the Cogito and he was the first to really systematically lay out a defense of natural science and the accuracy of perception

>>18199075
>Photons are merely the privation of a shadow
The true genius of atheism on display, folks

Ok, I've got it now, this is concrete

>Because we cannot be certain that our own brain is correctly interpreting the rest of the universe we cannot be certain of anything but our own existence. We can make predictions and use these to help ourselves in our life but we cannot be sure that even the results are real as we are a flawed being and our brains are susceptible to not only diseases but persistent biases.
>As a result of this we cannot assert with absolute confidence anything beyond the existence of ourselves
>Therefore we may be confident in the existence or absence of a god, but not certain
>Therefore any man who asserts either of these positions to be correct is in err
>Therefore the only rational position to take is "I'm not sure either way"

Fucking suck that DICK you retard absolute theists (and retard absolute atheists)
I have proven my original argument >>18198599 using the Descartes shit we got side tracked on and the rest of you trannies, and degenerates, and christcucks, and aquinian virgins and SUCK MY NUTS

I want to add before I go that i'm reading a Thomist who actually says we shouldn't appeal to Descartes and that we should absolutely reject the cogito because it puts us into a position which inevitably leads to atheism. Atheists should absolutely love Descartes. In any case, his indirect realism calls into question the entirety of Scholastic metaphysics and therefore the Five Ways.

Now i'm gonna go get wasted and watch kino. Cya

>>18199158
But anon, Descartes took the cogito to prove God! Cogito ergo sum was more or less copy pasted from Saint Augustine who used it to affirm an eternal and trasncedent Truth. Please, dive into the rabbit hole.

>>18199170
I have just demonstrated that any assertion on the reality of God one way or another is a logical fallacy.
What did he even write lol I've literally read 3 words by the guy but I'll grab one of his books what's the /lit/ recommendations?

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
Sithi uhm ingonyama

>>18199095
>You can ask a question, recieve a response
I cant be certain you possess consciousness the same way I do. Simply responding to me means nothing, chat bots exist.
Cant measure other peoples consciousness, cant measure ours, we only feel it the same way someone feels God.

>>18199179
Rec for a translation? I cant help. His principal work is The Meditations. For secondary sources my modern philosophy class used pic rel as a supplement. Read some of Descartes Meditations and then read the sections on descartes in here as a guide. I'm happy you're deciding to take the dive into philosophy. Its a great rabbit hole.

>>18199158
>As a result of this we cannot assert with absolute confidence anything beyond the existence of ourselves
Quite contrarily, we can use logic and reason to come to truths about the world, and things around us. It is this truth, based upon empirical studies and the scientific method, that led to the creation of the modern world, with all of its technological luxuries. Of course, we frequently forget that the entire scientific revolution as we know it was spearheaded by devoutly religious Catholic friars, like Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus. It is very interesting that we type on our electronic devices about how humans cannot use logic and reason to know anything about the universe around us, while it was the exact opposite philosophy which led to the electronic devices we are typing on.

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." - Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize Winning Physicist and the creator of Quantum Mechanics

"“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible.” - Nikola Tesla

>>18198894
What you are doing is the typical 'Evil God' argument, negating the positive realities vs privation view of Aquinas. But the privation view follows from the thesis that things have essences. For example, if the essence of the brain is intelligence then stupidity would clearly be a privation, etc.

>>18199163
>"inevitably" leads to atheism
not alone, im sure. you need social decay for that. simple fact is according to Jesus Christ himself, not everyone will be saved.

i'd like to hear more about this guy you're reading. name for starters.

>>18199163
Based Feser-chad.

>>18199221
I mentioned earlier, Gilson. Now please I need to get drunk and focus on this movie

>>18199240
oh he's a brainlet on the level of de chardin.

>>18199247
Why dont you like Gilson?

>>18199240
what movie, and whatchu drinking anon?

>>18199252
The Unity of Philosophical Experience was underwhelming.

>>18198960
>A shadow is merely the privation of photons, and if you try to assert the opposite, you are a brainlet.
It's hilarious that you brought this example up. In electrodynamics, an electric current is "traditionally" define as the flow of positive charges in a circuit, and this view is still used today when performing calculations. According to the "real" view (which is totally arbitrary), it is actually electrons moving around the circuit. But it literally doesn't matter which way we think of it, because as long as we rearrange the equations appropriately we still get the correct answers either way. Thus, it is still technically correct to assert that light is the privation of darkness, which is the default state.
>The greatest evil occurs where the greatest good should be - relationships of trust, or familial relationships.
All of these unsubstantiated words. "shoulds" which you are just cramming into your post without justification.

>>18199278
Einstein's relativity is humorous as well. We've gone from an Earth-centric view of the solar system, to heliocentric, and now to acentric, where there is no objective reference point, and the only difference between the Earth orbiting the Sun, and the Sun orbiting Earth, is the complexity of mathematics needed to describe each reference point. Neither is the objectively correct answer, only correct for practicality's sake.

>>18199278
So a shadow, created by the interruption of the unobstructed flow of photons, cannot be accurately described as a phenomenon characterized by the absence of photons in a given area? Please provide your alternate definition.

>All of these unsubstantiated words. "shoulds" which you are just cramming into your post without justification.
These truths are self evident. Why is it more painful to be backstabbed by a friend, than an enemy? Why is it more painful to be abused by one's father, than a random citizen? Why is it considered more reprehensible that a pregnant woman is assaulted, rather than a non-pregnant woman? I'm curious to hear your answer.

>>18191063
>>18191063
>>18191063
the year is 1885. GPO is safe. andwere all reading joyce in booths /lit/

>>18199258
The Unborn. I really like those overly dramatic 2000s horror flicks

The basis for morality this is going to be a good one too

>>18199321
>So a shadow, created by the interruption of the unobstructed flow of photons, cannot be accurately described as a phenomenon characterized by the absence of photons in a given area
My point is that it can be accurately described by both, ergo the mere possibility of a description from one point of view means literally nothing. A shadow is the presence of darkness (which, as I said, is the default, positive state of existence). The natural darkness of the universe is deprived by photons. To be more specific, this is what we call a shadow: The contrast between light and dark, where the light is the deprivation of the natural, positive state of darkness.
>These truths are self evident.
Brainlet moment.
None of those things are evil, they are just facts of life which you can let affect you, or not, depending on how advanced you are along the path of wisdom.

>>18199367
>be a pregnant women
>get assaulted, your baby dies as a result
>some enlightened fedora comes up to you and says "that wasn't a morally evil action, it's just a fact of life. you can choose to let it affect you, or not. are you even advanced on the path of moral-relativist wisdom?"
This is where denying the positive existence of qualities like goodness and rationality gets you - some fedora telling you that it is not morally evil to assault a pregnant woman. Bravo relativists, inspiring performance.

>>18199405
Nothing that happens is evil or good. It is all as it is; some things are, for practical purposes from certain perspectives, better or worse. That is probably the most liberating epiphany anyone will ever have if it reaches the core of their being. I'm not sure why you assume I'm an atheist either, merely because I reject moralism and semantic games which can be re-cast to suit any moral position. My God is the author of this world as it is, and the eternal creator, maintainer and destroyer of it all.

>>18198184
Thanks for your answer. However, the answer does not seem to be an argument based on the thomist proof, but rather an answer based on your assessment of its plausability. Based on the 5 steps of your argument, and the definition of causality, there does not appear to be any reason to rule out a singularity of pure energy as the first cause. It is not clear how this is not pure actuality, so I was hoping for an explication of something in the thomist argument that could invalidate this position.

>>18198312
aristotle literally claims reality is intellect intellecting itself, no gods at all, just pure being. start reading books.

>>18199493
the divine nous is an actual entity though. its not some pantheist nonsense

>>18199515
yeah but i never implied otherwise. ontological transcendece, pure actuality, not compoud, etc etc

>>18199457
>nothing that happens is evil or good
>That is probably the most liberating epiphany anyone will ever have if it reaches the core of their being
It's beyond parody. The rape of an African child by a guy with AIDS is not a moral evil, it's just "worse". Bugman-tier garbage, that could've only arisen out of India, the home of such beautiful expressions of enlightenment as humans being justifiably treated as worth less than a cow, because they were born as a dalit.

>>18199483
If one accepts the arguments from motions and efficient causality, it is an important step in the explication of the nature of the first cause - it necessitates the discarding of notions like an infinite regress of efficient causes, and both parties can agree that a being of pure actuality exists as the first cause. From then, one can prove further aspects of the first cause's nature, like that the first cause must have an intellect, such as by the argument from design. You might also want to check out the Summa Theologiae I.I.14 Question 1, although its heavy usage of Aristotelian notions of form and nature make it exhausting to use against atheists who initially deny the existence of such qualities. Of course, one can prove the existence of form and nature, but it makes the whole process more exhausting than just going from the argument by design. Here's the most important section from that article, but be sure to read the rest of the question if you still have questions on the essential thesis:
>Question [paraphrased]: Is there knowledge in God?
>"I answer that, In God there exists the most perfect knowledge. To prove this, we must note that intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent beings in that the latter possess only their own form; whereas the intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower. Hence it is manifest that the nature of a non-intelligent being is more contracted and limited; whereas the nature of intelligent beings has a greater amplitude and extension; therefore the Philosopher says (De Anima iii) that "the soul is in a sense all things." Now the contraction of the form comes from the matter. Hence, as we have said above (I:7:1) forms according as they are the more immaterial, approach more nearly to a kind of infinity. Therefore it is clear that the immateriality of a thing is the reason why it is cognitive; and according to the mode of immateriality is the mode of knowledge. Hence it is said in De Anima ii that plants do not know, because they are wholly material. But sense is cognitive because it can receive images free from matter, and the intellect is still further cognitive, because it is more separated from matter and unmixed, as said in De Anima iii. Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality as stated above (I:7:1), it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge."

>>18199528
>It's beyond parody. The rape of an African child by a guy with AIDS is not a moral evil, it's just "worse". Bugman-tier garbage, that could've only arisen out of India, the home of such beautiful expressions of enlightenment as humans being justifiably treated as worth less than a cow, because they were born as a dalit.
Is this the height of your supposed reason? Bland insults and slang? It seems to always come down to this on the topic of morals.

>>18199532
Just because you fetishize some Indian philosopher, doesn't make their philosophy on moral ethics correct. Anybody with a functioning prefrontal cortex will recognize that the random assault of a pregnant women is not just "worse", but that there is something fundamentally wrong with it, a strong inversion and privation of the universal morals of all known societies, which every non-deluded individual calls "evil". You are free to continue subscribing to your deluded sramanic tradition because you fetishize Eastern mysticism, but just know that your position is not actually logically defensible to anybody with a functioning conscience.

>>18199571
>Anybody with a functioning prefrontal cortex will recognize that the random assault of a pregnant women is not just "worse", but that there is something fundamentally wrong with it
This is all just conjecture. There is nothing universal about it. The fact that we have biological urges does not really prove the existence of morals. Calling the people you disagree with "deluded", as you said, does not make your philosophy on moral ethics correct, nor does appealing to biological instincts.

>>18193671
Aquinas is too dense for the average atheist so they just don't read him and grossly exaggerate him so they feel less stupid (just look itt). It's not "fun" to refute him because of how humorless and logical scholasticism is.

The funnest thing to make atheists seethe is still Anselm. "God is the best thing imaginable; something that exists is better than something that doesn't exist; God therefore exists" is so simplistic that it feels like trolling to them even though they can't "logically" refute it.

>>18199571
just because you fetishize some Jewish masochist who enjoyed being crucified, doesn't make their philosophy on moral ethics correct

>>18199601
Literally every recorded society of humans to ever exist has recognized that the assault of defenseless people is morally wrong. People have to philosophize themselves out of this universal truth that manifests itself in every culture. You have not shown any evidence for your assertion that there are no objective morals. I have shown that vastly distinct societies, even with very little mixture of biological phenotypes, hold to the same basic moral tenets, and this is compelling evidence to suggest that these moral ethics are not arbitrarily socially constructed, but rather an inherent part of humanity per se.

>>18199616
I haven't appealed to the teachings of Jesus once, brainlet. Try to keep up.

>>18199634
>Literally every recorded society of humans to ever exist has recognized that the assault of defenseless people is morally wrong.
citation for that? if that were true wouldn't the best defense to be defenseless? instead we see increasing fortifications everywhere as civilization "advances"

>>18199634
>Literally every recorded society of humans to ever exist has recognized that the assault of defenseless people is morally wrong.
This is incorrect. Most pre-Christian nobilities were fine with enslavement and harsh treatment of the defenceless, because that was their lot as inferior beings (that is, being subjected to the whims of the superior). War, rape and pillage was considered holy by, and not limited to, basically all pre-Christian Indo-European religions and cultures, the most striking and clear example being recorded in the Iliad.
>I have shown that vastly distinct societies
No, you haven't. You've just made baseless assertions without evidence.
>ou have not shown any evidence for your assertion that there are no objective morals
Because I do not need to assert it, the opposite is what needs to be proven, which you still have only done by providing conjecture, appeals to instinct (which can equally justify the opposite for given human types), and appeals to common sense (the frontal lobe, which is merely, again, a type of biological instinct).

>>18199158
just call it "le universe" and chill man, you know if you refer to it that way that your brain will mellow out it's schizophrenic blockade rejecting God.

>>18199657 not the other guy
>This is incorrect. Most pre-Christian
Yet it still happened under and by kings which by monarchy gets his authority from god by that logic its the same with or without god it can't be rooted in Christian or god but in something else then
>A = B
You really slipped up here jimbo not knowing you monarchy from earlier larps

>>18199752
>Yet it still happened under and by kings which by monarchy gets his authority from god by that logic its the same with or without god it can't be rooted in Christian or god but in something else then
It is the nature of superiority and power. It is nothing "moral" as such, merely inherent power.

>>18199610
Agreed, it is pretty sad to see, honestly. I also love the ontological argument, but it leaves a dirty feeling in your mind, that you've been tricked. I do think it is for the best that Aquinas BTFO'd Anselm's argument, because I also think it is too weak to hold up upon deep scrutiny. "Muh perfect island" is just too easy to counter with.

>>18199640
>>18199657
To be fair, I will admit that I made a mistake in the formulation of this >>18199634 response. I should have said that the assault of defenseless people within a given ethno-cultural group has been regarded as morally wrong in all cultures with written records. Obviously, the world history of slavery has long been a narrative of ingroup preference and outgroup dehumanization. The Ancient Egyptians had their concept of rectifying evil through Ma'at, Babylonians the Code of Ur-Nammu, Indians the Manusmirti, and Hebrews the codes of the Torah - all of these include some form of recognizing injury done to an innocent party, and a subsequent retribution as rectification for that injury.

>>18199528
Thanks! If its any recourse to the beleaguered thomist, its also exhausting for the atheist to sort through antiquated aristotelian concepts to address thomist arguments.

>>18199868
>>18199657

Is this you because you abandoned that ship real quick
And if not what do you mean
You neither deny or agree, are you talking with yourself ?

>>18200002
My pleasure. Trust me, I get where you're coming from - before I was a Thomist, I was an agnostic, and it was definitely a paradigm shift to get acquainted with Aristotle's terminology. At a certain point, it all of a sudden made sense to me as the most accurate way to describe reality. I hope you continue looking into Aquinas' positions, because his style of thought can really change you from the inside-out - not least because it makes theism no longer a laughable improbability, but a serious contender worthy of thorough deliberation and meditation.

If I can ask a slightly off topic and maybe dumb question, do I have to read the bible to read Aquinas?

>>18200060
It's not necessary for parts I and II of the Summa, at least, but you definitely need an understanding of the New Testament for part III. You should probably be familiar with Aristotle's De Anima and Metaphysics, but it is not a requirement if you are capable of concurrently researching terms/utilizing a secondary source to help you understand Aristotelian terminology. You will find Aquinas' "On the contrary, [...]" to be pretty strange without a basic familiarity with the Bible and the basic ideas of the early church fathers, but it is not expressly necessary.

>>18199933
>rectifying evil
"Evil" has always been cast in very different terms to what Christians now know it as. Just because they use that word (or at least our "best guess" translation of it), it does not mean that they had the same ideas about what constituted right or wrong, or even "good" and "evil", which are more recent ideas which you seem to be attached to. In many instances the two views were diametrically opposed, which Nietzsche, whether you love him or hate him, correctly pointed out in the distinction between aristocratic and slave morals, the latter of which came to dominate. One is fundamentally negative and objective, the other creative and subjective. Different views even existed within the same "ethno-cultural" groups, depending on whether you examine the lower castes or the higher.
Even this:
>I should have said that the assault of defenseless people within a given ethno-cultural group has been regarded as morally wrong in all cultures with written records
Is simply false. What about the gladiatorial games in Rome? Feeding defenseless men to lions for divine sport? It was only opposed by actual Christians such as Augustine, not any of the more ancient pagan sensibilities. It was fine for nobles to commit so-called atrocities even against members of the same "ethno-cultural" group if they refused to give homage to their rightful superiors; take their land, take their women, murder them, imprison them, etc. The only thing that can be given certainly is that the idea of hierarchy, of the subordination of inferior to superior and the right of the superior over the inferior, has been generally true. But even this is still not totally universal (or it at least seems to exist in a dissipated and materialistic form) given the state of the world today.
>>18200040
I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about. My point is that the Divine Right of Kings is that of pure authority and superiority to everything below, and that no mundane moral connotations or anything fallacious like that exists in such a concept, at least not originally. It is merely the right and bestowal of higher power on Earth. Of the metaphysical ideal of the higher, the most powerful, over the lower. A reflection of God projected onto Earth and man.

>>18198184
>It requires a set of increasingly improbable leaps of faith to claim that the mindless and unconscious energy at the beginning of the universe randomly expanded, creating the elements, planetary atmospheres, biological life, and finally, intelligent beings capable of metacognition. It requires too much of a leap of faith for me to assume that this wildly improbable outcome occurred as a result of a mindless and unconscious set of energies existing in a singularity.
This is just one giant argument from ignorance. I can’t imagine any physical cause, so God must have done it

>Maybe you don't, but there are large numbers of Thomistic and Aristotelian philosophers who do use the four causes.
And their utter lack of producing any new insights for centuries now shows that not taking them seriously is anything but an argument from popularity. The only fallacy here is an argument from authority, which is committed by you, not me

>An acorn having in its DNA the final outcome of becoming an oak tree is logical
No it isn’t, because DNA mutates constantly. Most of these mutations are useless or harmful, but a small number of them produce unexpected and beneficial results. That’s how new species emerge, because teleology is not absolutely true. Most acorns will, but not all of them, and 99 percent is not 100 percent. Highly probable will never become inevitable

>The force of gravity would be an efficient cause. For example, stars are created because the force of gravity causes the condensation of matter into what we call a star. Therefore, gravity is the preceding efficient cause of stars.
No, because there’s no agent involved, gravity is a force. This is why much of these Aristotelean concepts don’t work post-Newton, because gravity doesn’t need any kind of intelligence, and if it does, you’re free to demonstrate it

>Again, argumentum ad populum is not a valid point.
And neither are arguments from authority

>>18200294
You must have spoken past me it gets hard to figure out what going in this car crash
Do you guys even what your first disagreements was and how far from that you are now?

>>18200337
My fundamental disagreement with every Christian is the universality of so-called moral law, not the existence of God. That is exactly what I am arguing with respect to.

>>18200321
>This is just one giant argument from ignorance.
The argument from design is not an argument from ignorance. The fact is that we have an immensely complex universe, and a world brimming with life, and atheists posit that all of this complexity and fine-tuned properties arose from the mindless condensing of literally unconscious and mindless energy. It is simply implausible at best, and an intelligent designer is a much more plausible theory to explain how simple electromagnetic forces could coalesce into hypercomplex beings capable of metacognition.

>And their utter lack of producing any new insights for centuries now
Just because you haven't looked into it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Jaques Maritain and Ed Feser are just two examples of relevant Thomistic philosophers in the modern era.
>The only fallacy here is an argument from authority
Asserting this doesn't make it so. I haven't made a single argument from authority in this conversation.

>Most acorns will, but not all of them, and 99 percent is not 100 percent.
Just like in the vast majority of uninterrupted cases, a human embryo will turn into a human infant, an acorn will turn into an oak tree. A single mutation also does not change the final end of that being - we don't call humans born with 11 fingers a different name, nor is an oak tree with a random mutation not classified as an oak tree. The fact remains that final causality is a logical concept, which represents reality effectively - acorns turn into oak trees, and embryos into infants.

>because gravity doesn’t need any kind of intelligence
This clearly demonstrates your lack of understanding of Aristotelian causality. Nowhere is an agent of efficient causality specified to require an intelligent mind - dust flying into the air from an asteroid impact is now in motion because a mindless asteroid efficiently caused it to fly into the air.

>And neither are arguments from authority
Again, a baseless assertion. I have not made an argument from authority in this discussion, while you have clearly made several arguments from popularity. Don't be disingenuous just because I called out your fallacious logic.

>>18200164
Thanks anon

>>18200294
`properorder.bury another house ep.
>ib4cosmicleech

Only real objective moral good thing is existence, and bad nonexistence.

Is this right?

>>18200321
>This is why much of these Aristotelean concepts don’t work post-Newton, because gravity doesn’t need any kind of intelligence, and if it does, you’re free to demonstrate it
How can gravity act between two totally unaware and inert points without intelligence or anything to allow them to directly interact, like physical contact? There has to be intelligence to enable the connection between every disparate point in the universe, because gravity from one atom acts (and is acted upon), albeit infinitesimally, by and upon every atom in the universe. So what we have is an entire universe where every piece of matter is "magically" in contact with one another, without any intelligence or direct physical contact to make that even theoretically possible. This seems like more of a confirmation of Aristotle than refutation. Also, we could take this one step further and come to the realization that gravity is not a force, but a curvature of non-Euclidean space-time, so it is simply a kind of inertia in reality (because Newton was actually wrong).

>>18200294
Prisoners, and those guilty of apparent treason, have never been considered equal to those within the broader ethno-cultural group. This continues even to this day in "Christian" societies, with American prisoners being legally enslaved, as per the 13th amendment.

>>18200412
>Prisoners, and those guilty of apparent treason
Yes, except "treason" used to be considered "not submitting to me, because I'm more powerful", irrespective of one's ethno-cultural group (this belief in ethnic identity is also fairly recent; the ancient nobles were more concerned with themselves as higher natures than with any plebeian nationalist identifications. The idea of a nation itself didn't exist until after the printing press), nor any prior promises given. It used to be considered a given that the inferior should submit to their betters, and if not then their power is put to the test through war.

>>18200385
>It is simply implausible at best, and an intelligent designer is a much more plausible theory to explain how simple electromagnetic forces could coalesce into hypercomplex beings capable of metacognition.
No it isn’t, because such an assessment requires empirical evidence, which you don’t supply us with. You once again assert what you have to demonstrate

>Jaques Maritain and Ed Feser are just two examples of relevant Thomistic philosophers in the modern era.
Give me three examples of recent innovations that resulted from their work, or any work related to it

>Asserting this doesn't make it so. I haven't made a single argument from authority in this conversation.
You’ve done little else in this conversation. You literally just stated that because a large number of Thomistic and Aristotelean thinkers use the four causes, that makes it valid. You also do all of it to prove the Bible, which is considered true because God says so, a nearly prototypical argument from authority

>Just like in the vast majority of uninterrupted cases, a human embryo will turn into a human infant, an acorn will turn into an oak tree.
>>Most acorns will, but not all of them, and 99 percent is not 100 percent.
I’m afraid there’s either something wrong with your ability to read, or you’re just willfully ignorant

>Nowhere is an agent of efficient causality specified to require an intelligent mind - dust flying into the air from an asteroid impact is now in motion because a mindless asteroid efficiently caused it to fly into the air.
That just returns us back to the first question, what distinguishes a mindless efficient cause from a conscious efficient cause and what rules out a mindless efficient cause from being the cause of the universe? Also, do you now see why I used physical and intentional causality instead of efficient cause? Because you’re once again conflating the two, which makes it a needlessly confusing term. Once again, you demonstrate yourself why we don’t use the Aristotelean four causes anymore

>Don't be disingenuous just because I called out your fallacious logic.
You have done so such thing. All you’ve done so far is use hopelessly outdated concepts from Aristotelean philosophy, and demonstrated yourself why they’re considered outdated, because they’re needlessly vague and filled with assertions that need to be demonstrated. Now, I’m going to ask you once again, how does Aquinas distinguish between causes without a conscious will behind it from causes with a conscious will behind it, and how does he rule out that the universe was caused by a cause without a conscious will behind it?

>>18200410
From what do you derive this necessity from intelligence? From what you described, there only needs to be a set of laws governing interactions, and based on our current understanding of physics, there needn't be many of these laws.

>>18200410
>How can gravity act between two totally unaware and inert points without intelligence or anything to allow them to directly interact, like physical contact?
I don’t know, have you ever demonstrated that an intelligence is responsible or necessary for this? If not, why should we assume this, then?

>>18200412
zyezye, sailor.!

>>18200465
>there only needs to be a set of laws governing interactions
What is "governing"? What does "governing" presuppose? Not only this, but these laws govern particles invisibly, ie inexplicably without material explanation, over incomprehensible distances. The universe in its entirety contains a thread which binds everything into contact according to an intelligent governing principle.
> there needn't be many of these laws.
Great, that also coincides with the idea of Divine Simplicity, so science and Thomism are in agreement.
>>18200468
>have you ever demonstrated that an intelligence is responsible or necessary for this?
What other explanation is possible apart from "magic"? See above.

>>18200570
Governing presupposes materiality, nothing more. From the atheist perspective, human intelligence emerges from the complexity resulting from these laws, and some initial conditions. Intelligence cannot, at least without a solid reason to transcend this materiality, be attributed to any extra-material entity.

>>18191079
Ayy lmao.
As if the ground of your post isn't an a priori axiom without evidence.

>>18200588
>Governing presupposes materiality
By what logic? This is simply erroneous. Let me show you why.
This is the correct order of dependency: Materiality necessitates governance (because how can we find material if it is not governed according to law? We call that an incoherent dream; immaterial; imagination), governance necessitates intelligence (because governance cannot be achieved without intellect, otherwise it is simple non-governed chaos which results in non-materiality - ie that irrational dream-state). Ergo, because of this chain of dependency, the existence of material necessitates, ultimately, intelligence as a ground for both governing laws and the resulting materiality.

>>18200600
My usage of governance was sloppy. Materiality does not necessitate governance, it necessitates determinance. The existence of deterministic laws does not necessitate a law-giver, at least in the atheistic formulation. Perhaps some thomist argument can negate this, but the argument put forth seems to hinge on the implicit existence implied by the use of the word governance.

>>18200600
"Governance requires intelligence, because without intelligence, there is simply non-governance" is not an argument.

>>18191069
>atheist "humor"

>>18193671
Because people (and with people i mean Anal*tics and M*rxists) don't understand the Aristotelean metaphysics that Aquinas bases his arguments on. It's why people think that the prime mover, for example, is a temporarily primary (as in, it is the first in a series of events in time), when it's actually a transcendent primal cause outside of time.

>>18198436
>Russell's voice
Holy shit it all makes sense now

>>18191112
Isn’t it funny how all the Abrahamic religions really aren’t monotheistic? Ask a Muslim if Muhammad is really dead and gone or a Christian about the saints and Mary. Christian theologians used Greek philosophy to rationalize the trinity but as I get older it seems that polytheism has been a natural impulse throughout history.

>>18200372
Do you not agree that there are objective truths? Then why would moral truths be any different?
>>18199657
>This is incorrect. Most pre-Christian nobilities were fine with enslavement and harsh treatment of the defenceless, because that was their lot as inferior beings (that is, being subjected to the whims of the superior). War, rape and pillage was considered holy by, and not limited to, basically all pre-Christian Indo-European religions and cultures, the most striking and clear example being recorded in the Iliad.
This would be like saying that since some cultures have disagreed about astronomy, then there are no astronomical truths.

>>18197190
>but is rather a being with no privations in its knowledge - and thus, this being must have a conscious will, for it to not have a will would imply a privation (namely, that it could potentially have a will, but doesn't actually).
Why would not having a will be considered a privation? Volition is of a totally different nature than knowledge, so not having volition is not a privation of knowledge anymore than being blind is a privation of one’s sense of smell. The other perspective is that will is a limitation and as such an infinite entity would not be subject to limitation in the form of volition.

>>18198423
>My bad, I see the word Allah and my blood boils

>>18198812
>asking for material proof of an immaterial thing that reveals itself to itself in an immaterial way

>>18199528
>home of such beautiful expressions of enlightenment as humans being justifiably treated as worth less than a cow, because they were born as a dalit.
and yet Hindus have never slaughtered other Hindus en masse for professing the wrong type like the Albigensian Crusade or the brutal Catholic-Protestant wars

>>18199634
>Literally every recorded society of humans to ever exist has recognized that the assault of defenseless people is morally wrong
every society has had atheists and skeptics as well

>>18191063
The sneed
The seed
The feed
The chuck
and The city slicker path

>>18202054
And these were not by reason of religious dogmas like the hindus.

>>18202107
I’m sorry I dont understand your point. Are you saying that by taking a heretic stance the Cathars were not actually Christian and hence deserved to be mercilessly slaughtered and so its not equivalent to Hindus arguing with other Hindus? That’s exactly my point, that the worldview which allows one to get on board with slaughtering cities for not being the right religion is arguably worse than or as problematic as the one which results in discrimination towards low-caste people.

>>18200632
Determination requires intelligibility. Laws likewise cannot be unintelligible for they would not be defined and would not be what they are. By the way, matter is composed and composites cannot be composed indefinitely for the parts will be composed of other parts indefinitely and a whole will never be actual, that is, there will never be “determinance”.

>>18202130
The conflict between cathars was mainly political, even though they were indeed accused of heresy their heresy had social implications - you will tell me that they were all saints, i know - with behaviours countering the social institutions and conventions of time and obviously leading to disruption of law and costumes, not to enter in question of morality. See Belibaste, a murderer. I know many innocent cathars (heretic but not justified to be killed) died for sure, however this is what happens in conflicts like this.
>hindus arguing
Arguing? Lol. How many hindu women were buried or burnt alive together with their deceased husbands?
You need to decide whether we judge based on axiological merit or based on each religious institutional dogmas which preserve the community.

>>18202190
>their heresy had social implications
does the social implications of them following Catharism justify their slaughter? What are the bad social implications of following a life of non-violence, vegetarianism and celibacy anyway as the Cathars did? It sounds just like Christian monasticism but for laymen.

Sati or widow-burning is not taught in any of the scriptures of Hinduism and it’s not derived from the principles of Hinduism, it’s rather an Indian cultural practice which is no longer in vogue; and already in the medieval era some writers in Sanskrit were questioning it and saying it was bad.

If you believe in transmigration and caste, then people ultimately deserving whatever caste they transmigrate into is a consistent worldview. And this is not to get into the additional details that Hinduism is not in agreement on this and various sects of Hinduism either reject caste or consider it not very important; there are many tales from the hagiographies of popular saints talking about how they had low-caste students and teachers, there have even been low-caste Hindus saints.

>>18191063
Here is Thomas mistake: true chads don't need to justify themselves.
Whether you believe God is real or God isn't real instead of trying to prove to others with facts and logic epic style you let your actions and the grace of your own being do the talk, others will follow.

>>18199493
You haven't read Metaphysics.

>>18202054
Yes they have. There's plenty of inter-Hindu violence, both today and historically. "Hinduism" is literally just "anything in India that isn't Abrahamism, Buddhism, Jainism, or Sikhism". Someone's going to get upset about this because the Vedas are just the Pajeet Bible (they aren't), so I'm going to pre-empt that by pointing out that there are schools of Hinduism that reject the authority of the Vedas (Advaita Vedanta, humorously, is one). Lacking a central doctrinal authority like the Catholic Church, largescale idealogical dissent from an orthodoxy that everyone is supposed to adhere to becomes impossible because there's no orthodoxy to dissent from. There's just small groups disagreeing and coming to blows.

>>18202274
He wrote the Summa for Christians, though.

‘Now then, my lad, you’re still young, and as time goes on you’ll come
to adopt opinions diametrically opposed to those you hold now. Why not
wait till later on to make up your mind about these important matters?
The most important of all, however lightly you take it at the moment, is
to get the right ideas about the gods and so live a good life:—otherwise
you’ll live a bad one. In this connection, I want first to make a crucial and
irrefutable point. It’s this: you’re not unique. Neither you nor your friends
are the first to have held this opinion about the gods. It’s an illness from
which the world is never free, though the number of sufferers varies from
time to time. I’ve met a great many of them, and let me assure you that
none of them who have been convinced early in life that gods do not exist
have ever retained that belief into old age. However, it is true that some
men (but not many) do persist in laboring under the impression either
that although the gods exist they are indifferent to human affairs, or
alternatively that they are not indifferent but can easily be won over by
prayers and sacrifices. Be guided by me: you’ll only see this business in
its truest light if you wait to gather your information from all sources,
particularly the legislator, and then see which theory represents the truth.
In the meantime, don’t venture any impiety where gods are concerned.
You may take it that it will be up to your lawgiver, now and in the future,
to try to enlighten you on precisely these topics.’

>>18202318
>>18191063
ATHENIAN: Come then, if ever we needed to call upon the help of God,
it’s now. Let’s take it the gods have been most pressingly invoked to assist
the proof of their own existence, and let’s rely on their help as if it were
a rope steadying us as we enter the deep waters of our present theme.
Now when I’m under interrogation on this sort of topic, and such questions
as the following are put to me, the safest replies seem to be these. Suppose
someone asks ‘Sir, do all things stand still, and does nothing move? Or is
precisely the opposite true? Or do some things move, while others are
motionless?’ My reply will be ‘I suppose some move and others remain
at rest.’ ‘So surely there must be some space in which the stationary objects
remain at rest, and those in motion move?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Some of them,
presumably, will do so in one location, others in several?’ ‘Do you mean’,
we shall reply, ‘that “moving in one location” is the action of objects which
are able to keep their centers immobile? For instance, there are circles
which are said to “stay put” even though as a whole they are revolving.’
‘Yes.’ ‘And we appreciate that when a disk revolves like that, points near
and far from the center describe circles of different radii in the same time;
their motion varies according to these radii and is proportionately quick
or slow. This motion gives rise to all sorts of wonderful phenomena,
because these points simultaneously traverse circles of large and small
circumference at proportionately high or low speeds—an effect one might
have expected to be impossible.’ ‘You’re quite right.’ ‘When you speak of
motion in many locations I suppose you’re referring to objects that are
always leaving one spot and moving on to another. Sometimes their motion
involves only one point of contact with their successive situations, some-
times several, as in rolling.

>>18191063
>>18202345
‘From time to time objects meet; a moving one colliding with a stationary
one disintegrates, but if it meets other objects traveling in the opposite
direction they coalesce into a single intermediate substance, half one and
half the other.’ ‘Yes, I agree to your statement of the case.’ ‘Further, such
combination leads to an increase in bulk, while their separation leads to
diminution—so long as the existing states of the objects remain unimpaired;
but if either combination or separation entails the abolition of the existing
state, the objects concerned are destroyed.
894 ‘Now, what conditions are always present when anything is produced?
Clearly, an initial impulse grows and reaches the second stage and then
the third stage out of the second, finally (at the third stage) presenting
percipient beings with something to perceive. This then is the process of
change and alteration to which everything owes its birth. A thing exists
as such so long as it is stable, but when it changes its essential state it is
completely destroyed.’
So, my friends, haven’t we now classified and numbered all forms of
motion, except two?
CLINIAS: Which two?
ATHENIAN: My dear chap, they are the two which constitute the real
purpose of every question we’ve asked.
CLINIAS: Try to be more explicit.
ATHENIAN: What we really had in view was soul, wasn’t it?
CLINIAS: Certainly
ATHENIAN: The one kind of motion is that which is permanently capable
of moving other things but not itself; the other is permanently capable
of moving both itself and other things by processes of combination and
separation, increase and diminution, generation and destruction. Let these
stand as two further distinct types in our complete list of motions.
CLINIAS: Agreed.
ATHENIAN: So we shall put ninth the kind which always imparts motion
to something else and is itself changed by another thing. Then there’s the
motion that moves both itself and other things, suitable for all active and
passive processes and accurately termed the source of change and motion
in all things that exist. I suppose we’ll call that the tenth.
CLINIAS: Certainly.

>>18202351
ATHENIAN: Now which of our (roughly) ten motions should we be justi-
fied in singling out as the most powerful and radically effective?
CLINIAS: We can’t resist the conclusion that the motion which can generate
itself is infinitely superior, and all the others are inferior to it.
ATHENIAN: Well said! So shouldn’t we correct one or two inaccuracies
in the points we’ve just made?
CLINIAS: What sort of inaccuracy do you mean?
ATHENIAN: It wasn’t quite right to call that motion the ‘tenth’.
CLINIAS: Why not?
ATHENIAN: It can be shown to be first, in ancestry as well as in power;
the next kind—although oddly enough a moment ago we called it ‘ninth’—
we’ll put second.
CLINIAS: What are you getting at?
ATHENIAN: This: when we find one thing producing a change in another,
and that in turn affecting something else, and so forth, will there ever be,
in such a sequence, an original cause of change? How could anything
whose motion is transmitted to it from something else be the first thing
to effect an alteration? It’s impossible. In reality, when something which
has set itself moving effects an alteration in something, and that in turn
effects something else, so that the motion is transmitted to thousands
upon thousands of things one after another, the entire sequence of their 895
movements must surely spring from some initial principle, which can
hardly be anything except the change effected by self-generated motion.
CLINIAS: You’ve put it admirably, and your point must be allowed.

>>18202275
>Yes they have. There's plenty of inter-Hindu violence, both today and historically.
Nothing on the scale of the Albigensian crusade or the Catholic-Protestant wars
>"Hinduism" is literally just "anything in India that isn't Abrahamism, Buddhism, Jainism, or Sikhism". Someone's going to get upset about this because the Vedas are just the Pajeet Bible (they aren't)
Practically every school of Hinduism accepts either the Vedas or the Hindu Agamas as scripture and those who accept primarily the Agamas still say that they come from the same source as the Vedas; despite the incredible diversity within Hinduism there are some things that still unite them.
>so I'm going to pre-empt that by pointing out that there are schools of Hinduism that reject the authority of the Vedas (Advaita Vedanta, humorously, is one).
That's incorrect, Advaita Vedanta does not reject the authority of the Vedas but it upholds the Vedas as revealed scripture. You don't sound like you know what you are talking about. Advaita says that the pre-Upanishad portions of the Vedas deal with karma-khanda and the Upanishad portion of the Vedas deal with jnana-khanda; but they still uphold the entire Vedic text as a revealed and infallible scripture which provides knowledge about ultimate reality.
>Lacking a central doctrinal authority like the Catholic Church, largescale idealogical dissent from an orthodoxy that everyone is supposed to adhere to becomes impossible because there's no orthodoxy to dissent from.
Sunni Islam doesn't have a central doctrinal authority either, that doesn't mean there is no orthodoxy in Sunni Islam; in Hinduism just because there is no centralized institution representing orthodoxy that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Obviously Hindus and non-Hindus will disagree about what what is orthodox but orthodoxy, like truth, is not determined by consensus.

>>18202358
ATHENIAN: Now let’s put the point in a different way, and once again
answer our own questions: ‘Suppose the whole universe were somehow
to coalesce and come to a standstill—the theory which most of our
philosopher-fellows are actually bold enough to maintain—which of the motions
we have enumerated would inevitably be the first to arise in it?’ ‘Self-
generating motion, surely, because no antecedent impulse can ever be
transmitted from something else in a situation where no antecedent im-
pulse exists. Self-generating motion, then, is the source of all motions, and
the primary force in both stationary and moving objects, and we shan’t
be able to avoid the conclusion that it is the most ancient and the most
potent of all changes, whereas the change which is produced by something
else and is in turn transmitted to other objects, comes second.’
CLINIAS: You’re absolutely right.
ATHENIAN: So now we’ve reached this point in our discussion, here’s
another question we should answer.
CLINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: If we ever saw this phenomenon—self-generating motion—
arise in an object made of earth, water or fire (alone or in combination)
how should we describe that object’s condition?
CLINIAS: Of course, what you’re really asking me is this: when an object
moves itself, are we to say that it is ‘alive’?
ATHENIAN: That’s right.
CLINIAS: It emphatically is alive.
ATHENIAN: Well then, when we see that a thing has a soul, the situation
is exactly the same, isn’t it? We have to admit that it is alive.
CLINIAS: Yes, exactly the same.
ATHENIAN: Now, for heaven’s sake, hold on a minute. I suppose you’d
be prepared to recognize three elements in any given thing?
CLINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: The first point is what the object actually is, the second is the
definition of this, and the third is the name. And in addition there are two
questions to be asked about every existing thing.

>>18202366
I'm not going to bother picking apart this pilpul garbage. Either make a point or shut the fuck up, nobody wants to nitpick with a retard like you. Go read a book.

>>18202373
CLINIAS: Two?
ATHENIAN: Sometimes we put forward the mere name and want to know
the definition, and sometimes we put forward the definition and ask for
the name.
CLINIAS: I take it the point we want to make at the moment is this.
ATHENIAN: What?
CLINIAS: In general, things can be divided into two, and this is true of
some numbers as well. Such a number has the name ‘even’ and its definition
is ‘a number divisible into two equal parts’.
ATHENIAN: Yes, that’s the sort of thing I mean. So surely, in either case—
whether we provide the name and ask for the definition or give the definition
and ask for the name—we’re referring to the same object? When we
call it ‘even’ and define it as ‘a number divisible into two’, it’s the same
thing we’re talking about.
CLINIAS: It certainly is.
896 ATHENIAN: So what’s the definition of the thing we call the soul? Surely
we can do nothing but use our formula of a moment ago: ‘motion capable
of moving itself’.
CLINIAS: Do you mean that the entity which we all call ‘soul’ is precisely
that which is defined by the expression ‘self-generating motion’?
ATHENIAN: I do. And if this is true, are we still dissatisfied? Haven’t we
got ourselves a satisfactory proof that soul is identical with the original
source of the generation and motion of all past, present and future things
and their contraries? After all, it has been shown to be the cause of all
change and motion in everything.
CLINIAS: Dissatisfied? No! On the contrary, it has been proved up to
the hilt that soul, being the source of motion, is the most ancient thing
there is.
ATHENIAN: But when one thing is put in motion by another, it is never
thereby endowed with the power of independent self-movement. Such
derived motion will therefore come second, or as far down the list as you
fancy relegating it, being a mere change in matter that quite literally ‘has
no soul’.
CLINIAS: Correctly argued.
ATHENIAN: So it was an equally correct, final and complete statement of
the truth, when we said that soul is prior to matter, and that matter
came later and takes second place. Soul is the master, and matter its
natural subject.
CLINIAS: That is indeed absolutely true.

>>18202366
>hat's incorrect, Advaita Vedanta does not reject the authority of the Vedas but it upholds the Vedas as revealed scripture
is this a joke? shankara throws out like half the vedas. its part of why hindus dont take him seriously, because he completely rejects the idea that the vedas are all derived from om but still arbitrarily holds onto some of it.

>>18202381
ATHENIAN: The next step is to remember our earlier admission that if
soul were shown to be older than matter, the spiritual order of things
would be older than the material.
CLINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: So habits, customs, will, calculation, right opinion, diligence
and memory will be prior creations to material length, breadth, depth and
strength, if (as is true) soul is prior to matter.
CLINIAS: Unavoidably.
ATHENIAN: And the next unavoidable admission, seeing that we are
going to posit soul as the cause of all things, will be that it is the cause of
good and evil, beauty and ugliness, justice and injustice and all the oppo-
sites.
CLINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And surely it’s necessary to assert that as soul resides and e
keeps control anywhere where anything is moved, it controls the heavens
as well.
CLINIAS: Naturally.
ATHENIAN: One soul, or more than one? I’ll answer for you both: more
than one. At any rate, we must not assume fewer than two: that which
does good, and that which has the opposite capacity.
CLINIAS: That’s absolutely right.
ATHENIAN: Very well, then. So soul, by virtue of its own motions, stirs
into movement everything in the heavens and on earth and in the sea.
The names of the motions of soul are: wish, reflection, diligence, counsel, 897
opinion true and false, joy and grief, cheerfulness and fear, love and hate.
Soul also uses all related or initiating motions which take over the second-
ary movements of matter and stimulate everything to increase or diminish,
separate or combine, with the accompanying heat and cold, heaviness and
lightness, roughness and smoothness, white and black, bitter and sweet.
These are the instruments soul uses, whether it cleaves to divine reason
(soul itself being, if the truth were told, a divinity), and guides everything
to an appropriate and successful conclusion, or allies itself with unreason
and produces completely opposite results. Shall we agree this is the case,
or do we still suspect that the truth may be different?
CLINIAS: By no means.

>>18202392
ATHENIAN: Well then, what kind of soul may we say has gained control
of the heavens and earth and their entire cycle of movement? Is it the
rational and supremely virtuous kind, or that which has neither advantage?
Would you like our reply to run like this?
CLINIAS: How?
ATHENIAN: ‘If, my fine fellow’ (we should say) ‘the whole course and
movement of the heavens and all that is in them reflect the motion and
revolution and calculation of reason, and operate in a corresponding fash-
ion, then clearly we have to admit that it is the best kind of soul that cares
for the entire universe and directs it along the best path.’
CLINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: ‘If however these things move in an unbalanced and dis-
organized way, we must say the evil kind of soul is in charge of them.’
CLINIAS: That too is true.
ATHENIAN: ‘So what is the nature of rational motion?’ Now this, my
friends, is a question to which it is difficult to give an answer that will
make sense, so you’re justified here in calling me in to help with your reply.
CLINIAS: Good.
ATHENIAN: Still, in answering this question we mustn’t assume that
mortal eyes will ever be able to look upon reason and get to know it
adequately: let’s not produce darkness at noon, so to speak, by looking at
the sun direct. We can save our sight by looking at an image of the object
we’re asking about.
CLINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: What about selecting from our list of ten motions the one
which reason resembles, and taking that as our image? I’ll join you in
recalling it, and then we’ll give a joint answer to the question.
CLINIAS: Yes, that’s probably your best method of explanation.
ATHENIAN: Do we still remember at any rate this from the list of points
we made earlier, that all things are either in motion or at rest?
CLINIAS: Yes, we do.
ATHENIAN: And some of those in motion move in a single location, others
898 in a succession of locations?
CLINIAS: That is so.
ATHENIAN: Of these two motions, that taking place in a single location
necessarily implies continuous revolution round a central point, just like
wheels being turned on a lathe; and this kind of motion bears the closest
possible affinity and likeness to the cyclical movement of reason.
CLINIAS: What do you mean?

>>18202262
>does the social implications of them following Catharism justify their slaughter?
Does the social implications of rejecting Sati and all other sacrifices and caste system justify the murder or expulsion of the individuals who stood for such positions in India? You did not understand what I meant though. The integrity of the society can only be maintained by the institutions, if these are threatened the whole community will be, conflict will be totally spread. Repression will be needed and the conflict will be local. This is just one aspect of what we were discussing. If you will we can discuss the purely axiological values in its universality applied to the occasions.

>following a life of non-violence, vegetarianism...
Will you be dishonest? Just tell me so I can stop talking to you right off. There were legitimately people concerned with this spiritual practice in spiritual ways, but there were some who were not. This can be applied likewise to the Church members of the time. These aren't even threats to the institutions at the time, their heresies and their proselytism were, their murders were. All of them were heretics and should be managed properly, heretic innocents in a way and the murderers in another.

>Sati or widow-burning is not taught in any of the scriptures of Hinduism
It was an institutional practice of a time. The Mahabharata does contain it and we all know myths are the foundations of a community. You relativize the institutional customs of the hindus to the detriment of the ones of the Church. That is why I said we need to decide whether we should discuss axiologically or locally.

>f you believe in transmigration and caste, then people ultimately deserving whatever caste they transmigrate into is a consistent worldview.
Again, decide yourself.

> Hinduism is not in agreement on this
I know but you seem to forget that the political actions by the Church were not unanimously supported either. So what? Will a few exceptions invalidate the rule?

>>18202405
ATHENIAN: Take reason on the one hand, and motion in a single location
on the other. If we were to point out that in both cases the motion was
determined by a single plan and procedure and that it was (a) regular, (b)
uniform, (c) always at the same point in space, (d) around a fixed center,
(e) in the same position relative to other objects, and were to illustrate
both by the example of a sphere being turned on a lathe, then no one
could ever show us up for incompetent makers of verbal images.
CLINIAS: You’re quite right.
ATHENIAN: Now consider the motion that is never uniform or regular
or at the same point in space or round the same center or in the same
relative position or in a single location, and is neither planned nor organized
nor systematic. Won’t that motion be associated with every kind of unreason?
CLINIAS: Absolutely true, it will.
ATHENIAN: So now there’s no difficulty in saying right out that since we
find that the entire cycle of events is to be attributed to soul, the heavens
that we see revolving must necessarily be driven round—we have to say—
because they are arranged and directed either by the best kind of soul or
by the other sort.
CLINIAS: Well, sir, judging from what has been said, I think it would be
rank blasphemy to deny that their revolution is produced by one or more
souls blessed with perfect virtue.
ATHENIAN: You’ve proved a most attentive listener, Clinias. Now attend
to this further point.
CLINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: If, in principle, soul drives round the sun, moon and the
other heavenly bodies, does it not impel each individually?
CLINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Let’s take a single example: our results will then obviously
apply to all the other heavenly bodies.
CLINIAS: And your example is . . .?
ATHENIAN: . . . the sun. Everyone can see its body, but no one can see
its soul—not that you could see the soul of any other creature, living or
dying. Nevertheless, there are good grounds for believing that we are in
fact held in the embrace of some such thing though it is totally below the
level of our bodily senses, and is perceptible by reason alone. So by reason
and understanding let’s get hold of a new point about the soul.
CLINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: If soul drives the sun, we shan’t go far wrong if we say that
it operates in one of three ways.
CLINIAS: And what are they?
ATHENIAN: Either (a) the soul resides within this visible spherical body
and carries it wherever it goes, just as our soul takes us around from one
place to another, or (b) it acquires its own body of fire or air of some kind 899
(as certain people maintain), and impels the sun by the external contact
of body with body, or (c) it is entirely immaterial, but guides the sun along
its path by virtue of possessing some other prodigious and wonderful
powers.

>>18202410
CLINIAS: Yes, it must necessarily be by one of these methods that the
soul manages the universe.
ATHENIAN: Now, just wait a minute. Whether we find that it is by stationing
itself in the sun and driving it like a chariot, or by moving it from
outside, or by some other means, that this soul provides us all with light,
every single one of us is bound to regard it as a god. Isn’t that right?
CLINIAS: Yes, one would be absolutely stupid not to.
ATHENIAN: Now consider all the stars and the moon and the years and
the months and all the seasons: what can we do except repeat the same
story? A soul or souls—and perfectly virtuous souls at that—have been
shown to be the cause of all these phenomena, and whether it is by their
living presence in matter that they direct all the heavens, or by some other
means, we shall insist that these souls are gods. Can anybody admit all
this and still put up with people who deny that ‘everything is full of gods’?
CLINIAS: No sir, nobody could be so mad.
>>18191063
here you go

>>18202366
>Nothing on the scale of the Albigensian crusade or the Catholic-Protestant wars
Sure, you are telling us that three millenia of conflicts made less victims than the albigensian crusade or the catholic protestant wars?

>>18202424
>>18191063
‘Men, according
to the ancient story, there is a god who holds in his hands the beginning
and end and middle of all things, and straight he marches in the cycle of
nature. Justice, who takes vengeance on those who abandon the divine
law, never leaves his side. The man who means to live in happiness latches
on to her and follows her with meekness and humility. But he who bursts
with pride, elated by wealth or honors or by physical beauty when young
and foolish, whose soul is afire with the arrogant belief that so far from
needing someone to control and lead him, he can play the leader to others—
there’s a man whom God has deserted. And in his desolation he collects
others like himself, and in his soaring frenzy he causes universal chaos.
Many people think he cuts a fine figure, but before very long he pays to
Justice no trifling penalty and brings himself, his home and state to rack
and ruin. Thus it is ordained. What action, then, should a sensible man take,
and what should his outlook be? What must he avoid doing or thinking?’
CLINIAS: This much is obvious: every man must resolve to belong to
those who follow in the company of God.
ATHENIAN: ‘So what conduct recommends itself to God and reflects his
wishes? There is only one sort, epitomized in the old saying “like approves
of like” (excess apart, which is both its own enemy and that of due
proportion). In our view it is God who is preeminently the “measure of
all things,” much more so than any “man,” as they say. So if you want
to recommend yourself to someone of this character, you must do your
level best to make your own character reflect his, and on this principle
the moderate man is God’s friend, being like him, whereas the immoderate
and unjust man is not like him and is his enemy; and the same reasoning
applies to the other vices too.

>>18202275
>You haven't read Metaphysics
then please correct me.

>>18202379
>I'm not going to bother picking apart this pilpul garbage.
they are not even arguments, but moreso observations, make of them what you will
>>18202383
>is this a joke? shankara throws out like half the vedas.
No he doesn't anon that's completely wrong, so wrong that it's almost embarrassing. You have no idea what you are talking about. Please provide a source for your claim such as citing anywhere in his writings where he explicitly rejects the Vedas (he doesn't do this once). Other Hindu thinkers misrepresented him and greatly exaggerated certain things about his doctrine. Shankara does not reject the Vedas and Vedic ritual, but to the contrary Shankara viewed the performance of Vedic rites in the manner prescribed by the Vedas as being an important preparation or preliminary stage for later entering into monasticism, and this is how he writes about rituals in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya for example. This is not contradicting the Vedas in any way.
>its part of why hindus dont take him seriously,
He is nearly universally acknowledged as one of the most influential Hindu philosophers by Hindus and non-Hindu academics alike. His ideas were made the
>because he completely rejects the idea that the vedas are all derived from om but still arbitrarily holds onto some of it.
No he doesn't, Shankara consistently says that the Vedas & Upanishads are all one and the same revealed text and that a certain portion of it instructs people at a certain stage of life in rituals and observances and that another portion of the Vedas in the form of the Upanishads instruct people about Brahman, this is not arbitrary or inconsistent in any manner but it reflects the differences in the text themselves, the earlier Veda portions provide instruction for rituals to reach specific results, while the Upanishads state (such as in the Brihadaranyaka) that only the Upanishad portions of the Vedas provide knowledge of Brahman.

>>18202469
wait, how does he consider the vedas revealed? revealed by what? what is revealed in illusion? if what is revealed is true is what is in illusion true? how can that be?

>>18202496
>wait, how does he consider the vedas revealed?
He considers the Vedas as being apaurusheya or authorless scriptures which proceed from Brahman effortlessly in a manner comparable to breathing. This can be seen in many works of his, but as an example here is from his bhasya on Brihadaranyaka 2.4.10.

> It is the eternally composed and already existent Vedas that are manifested like a man’s breath—without any thought or effort on his part. Hence they are an authority as regards their meaning, independently of any other means of knowledge. Therefore those who aspire after well-being must accept the verdict of the Vedas on knowledge or on rites, as it is. The differentiation of forms invariably depends on the manifestation of their names.[6] Name and form are the limiting adjuncts of the Supreme Self, of which, when they are differentiated, it is impossible to tell whether they are identical with or different from It, as is the case with the foam of water. It is name and form in all their stages[7] that constitute relative existence. Hence name has been compared to breath. By this statement it is implied that form too is like breath. Or we may explain it differently: In the passage, ‘The Brāhmaṇa ousts one.... all this is the Self’ (II. iv. 6; IV. v. 7), the entire world of duality has been spoken of as the domain of ignorance. This may lead to a doubt about the authority of the Vedas. In order to remove this doubt it is said that since the Vedas issue without any effort like a man’s breath, they are an authority; they are not like other books.

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/the-brihadaranyaka-upanishad/d/doc117950.html

>revealed by what?
By Brahman to Vedic rishis (sages) who entered them into the prior Vedic texts, revealed in the sense that they pertain to eternal truths and this knowledge was deposited so to speak into the rishis intellect instead of them producing it from their own human intellection
>what is revealed in illusion?
The Upanishads are meant to eliminate ignorance, and when ignorance is revealed Brahman reveals Himself. That the Upanishads are capable of doing this is due to their divine origin. To the question “how can something belonging to the realm of ignorance eliminate ignorance?” one medieval Tamil Advaita text (I believe its the Kaivalya Navaneeta) says that this can be so just as a grove of bamboo swaying in the wind produces a spark from friction that burns down the whole bamboo grove.
>if what is revealed is true is what is in illusion true? how can that be?
The Upanishads are not ultimate reality like Brahman is, they just eliminate ignorance about ultimate reality.

>>18202629
> which proceed from Brahman effortlessly in a manner comparable to breathing
ok so how there is a distinction between this procession of this revelation and a procession of... a cat? i mean, if it proceeded from brahman, then everything proceeded from him including the world. then why affirm ajativada?

>>18202663
>ok so how there is a distinction between this procession of this revelation and a procession of... a cat?
I don’t understand the question
>i mean, if it proceeded from brahman, then everything proceeded from him including the world. then why affirm ajativada?
The Vedas proceed from Brahman in a manner that is not inconsistent with Ajativada, Shankara is not contradicting Ajativada when he says the Vedas proceed like breathe. The Vedas are not excluded from Ajativada. Ajativada doesn’t deny that we have empirical experience of x y and z, the point of Ajativada is that this was not the result or product of any original transformation or creation but the x y and z is perceived because of a beginningless (but not endless) ignorance that is sustained by Brahman.

>>18202775
To clarify: the point of the breathe analogy is to provide an example of how something can proceed effortlessly from an entity, like the unconscious regulating of breathing that happens effortlessly. It’s not saying that the Vedas actually proceed from Brahman as a transformation of creation that violates Ajativada. The Vedas are still just a part of maya like everything else.

Just read the actual proofs you twit, Aquinas is easy to understand.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum005.htm

>>18202801
*as a transformation OR creation

>>18202775
i mean that qualitative distinction that makes the illusion known proceeds in the same way all other objects are but are considered illusions. this natural procession, including everything that proceeds, is taken to be proceeded by brahman and by necessity, since it is natural; brahman posits ignorance necessarily?

>>18191079
Quite the contrary. God is the conclusion of observations of nature. You arrive at God from empiricism. Left-brainers can't understand this because their reality is disconnected and text-based. Left-brainers cannot sit silently and observe nature. They don't understand analogy.

>>18202840
>brahman posits ignorance necessarily?
Ignorance is synonymous with maya in classical Advaita, both are one and the same Brahman’s power. Brahman doesn’t deviate from His own nature and so in that sense it can be considered natural for Him to express His own nature through wielding maya/ignorance. Things don’t differ from what is their inherent nature, so yes; something adhering to and fulfilling its own inherent nature is indeed necessary.

>>18201807

You're right, I misrepresented the train of thought, I apologize. It actually runs thus:

"Dude god is real because if he wasn't real then he wouldn't be really real, but the definition of god entails that he be really real so really, he's real. Consider how an acorn becomes a tree. Q.E.D." -t. Aquinas

>>18203011
That's a really lame bastardisation of the ontological argument. Aquinas is famous for the Cosmological Argument...

Essentially ordered series do not exist.

>>18203023

>missing the point this hard

Soon you'll be doubling down on the niceties between the two. Maybe toss in a third species.

>>18203011
This but unironically

>>18203038
>>18203546

>>18203024
real distinctions do not entail seperability

>>18203024
Elaborate. Does the movement of a rock being pushed by a man with a stick not get its causal power from the stick, the stick from the hand and so on? Hume's arguments don't work here. This event is simultaneous and cannot be thought of as loose and seperate.

>>18205134
You are right, and even in a more apodictic presentation the one is simultaneous to the two in order that it cannot be removed and the latter be preserved

>>18191063
Wow this thread still exist

>>18205134
>Does the movement of a rock being pushed by a man with a stick not get its causal power from the stick
Not within a single moment, because within a single moment there is no cause or effect, only actuality without dependence of cause-and-effect. The rock is moved by the accidental motion of the stick in time, not by any essential motion (motion implies time: ie it, and by extension force (which determines change in motion over time), must be accidental and non-essential).

>>18191063
>Can somebody explain me the Five Ways?
No its all pseudo logic, and besides the only right way to love God is fideism, faith its self.

>>18197190
>1. There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
>2. It is not logical to posit a regress to infinity in efficient causes.
>3. To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
>4. If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
>5. Therefore, a First Cause exists.


What's the difference between 2 and 4 really?

I never try to talk about Aquinas online because he's apparently one of the most esoteric philosophers to exist since nobody can understand him. I don't think most people are actually trying to understand him and more specifically the arguments for God, they're just looking for some way to dismiss them.

>>18191063
The Quinque viæ (Five Ways) are:

1. the argument from "first mover";
2. the argument from causation;
3. the argument from contingency;
4. the argument from degree;
5. the argument from final cause or ends ("teleological argument").

This, very simplified, is the following:

>Motion: Some things undoubtedly move, though cannot cause their own motion. Since, as Thomas believed, there can be no infinite chain of causes of motion, there must be a First Mover not moved by anything else, and this is what everyone understands by God.

>Causation: As in the case of motion, nothing can cause itself, and an infinite chain of causation is impossible, so there must be a First Cause, called God.

>Existence of necessary and the unnecessary: Our experience includes things certainly existing but apparently unnecessary. Not everything can be unnecessary, for then once there was nothing and there would still be nothing. Therefore, we are compelled to suppose something that exists necessarily, having this necessity only from itself; in fact itself the cause for other things to exist.

>Gradation: If we can notice a gradation in things in the sense that some things are more hot, good, etc., there must be a superlative that is the truest and noblest thing, and so most fully existing. This then, we call God.

>Ordered tendencies of nature: A direction of actions to an end is noticed in all bodies following natural laws. Anything without awareness tends to a goal under the guidance of one who is aware. This we call God

>>18205134
It only appears that way because the stick is short, and your perception is limited. If the stick were several light years long, you would see that it is clearly accidental. After initially pushing the stick, you could let go and the rock would move anyways.

>>18208345
Besides the fact that you just changed the analogy to something I never defended there are other examples. One being the dependency of a certain thing to exist in actuality at one point. For instance, the cup sitting on the table is only possible insofar as the table is on the floor. This type of dependency is essential as each entity is dependent on the prior for its actuality (i.e the potential for the cup to sit on the table is actualized by the table). This is not the cause and effect that Hume deems loose and seperate (Hume gives the example of a billiards) as the event is simultaneous and has nothing to do with time and one event following another. Though the cup and table are distinct they are not seperable. Just as the radius and circumference are really distinct but not seperable. (for the radius to exist the circumference must exist). Therefore, the cup depends on the table if it wants to sit on the table, the table depends on the floor and so on... This sort of dependancy is what we mean by essential and does not focus on the motion but on the actuality as it is and change in the metaphysical sense.

Aquinas is best husbando.

let's say I believe that miracles can happen as the spirit acts through a person. Really they can happen however God wants, but he tends to center them on saints, ie men of Spirit.
let's say I believe that Jesus was the ideal man, that I believe in the immaculate conception and that Jesus was throughout his life untainted by sin, so that through him the light shone unhindered. He was the personification of Gods Love, of His Grace, of His Mercy. He was, in this sense, God.
let's believe that I do not believe that he was God in another sense, namely that I believe that God is either the metaphysical King, or the King of metaphysics, where this is not possible to make known, as Jesus was known, so that it is absolutely impossible for anything but God to be God. Really this leaves two possibilities: either God alone is God, or the shared Spirit is God (as the hindus claim).
let's say that I believe in the resurrection as a proof that the Life is the Spirit, and the Spirit does not die: a making manifest of this fact. Whether this Life and Spirit is God or not is unknown, but if it is then not only was Jesus God: then we are all God.

Would there then be any christian sect that could see eye to eye with me in this? The one significant argument against this is that christ fulfills what to me seems an arcane jewish mystical role of sacrificial lamb. Still I think this is misrepresented generally: he sacrifices himself knowingly to show the greatness of the Spirit. It is knowledge of the Spirit that can free one from sin, and belief in christ leads to knowledge of the spirit.

Any takers?

>>18209799
in other words:
let's say I believe that Jesus was not God, but he was the only adequate proof other than direct gnosis, and possibly he was a characterization of the knowledge gained in gnosis so that in a sense believing in him is gnosis.

>>18209799
>>18209813
or to really put it really simply
let's say that I don't believe that something that can be known by the faculties of knowledge of man can be God, but I still love and believe in Jesus.

is it the common interpretation of Acts that Paul holds on to the old testament law in an attempt to be diplomatic and meet the jews half way, but that he abandons this project right at the end of Acts so that thereby the old testament law is also abandoned? I mean if christianity is going to be the salvation of the heathens, the apostles have settled was this is to mean for the heathens in terms of legalism, so then this simple law should be the law of christianity (for a modern really only marked by making fornication a sin, unless you mean to say that atheist slaughtering of animals is sacrifice to no God)?

>>18209864
>settled was this is
what this is*

>>18209827
You would have to argue from revelation to make your case and I don't see that happening considering John 1:1-17 and the word made flesh.

I also believe there are many neoplatonic arguments which show how since God or "the One" is goodness itself and the source of goodness, His goodness is self communicative or self-diffusive. This goodness meets with creation in an intimate way. This is Jesus.

I think you would be inclined to believe in Unitarianism but they aren't considered Christian really.

>>18209864
The New Law fulfills the Old Law.

Gal 3:24-25
>24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

>>18209900
I think that one distinction and which makes me choose Christianity over platonism is that God is not The Good, but Love - and this perfectly expressed with the Trinity and perichoresis. The One being Good communicates by its own nature, and here we see a naturally determined expression with the emanations, but in Love there is no necessity, it is out of pure will and because of that pure freedom.

>>18209948
meaning a christian can be a fornicator without that constituting any conflict?

>>18209900
>You would have to argue from revelation to make your case and I don't see that happening considering John 1:1-17 and the word made flesh.
well for instance look at how Jesus describes the grape vine and the branches: he is the vine (the spirit) and we are the branches. Where is God in this simile? God tends to the vine, ie is essentially separate from it and in command of it

>>18210095
God is love itself for the Christian too. In fact Augustine comments on how the Trinity can be compared to the three relations of love.

> There, then, also are three things: he that loves, and that which is loved, and love. [Augustine, On the Trinity (Book VIII)]

>>18210117
No of course not. The Old was lacking in some ways and was fulfilled by the New.

>>18191069
/thread

>>18210145
It's a parable which discusses the distinctions between the different persons of the trinity. Jesus is essentially the mediator to the father who is the "vinedresser", yet he is still coequal and coeternal with the father, him being the true vine which cannot be ignored. “I am the true vine"

Nevertheless, if you want to use John as a book to disprove Jesus as the second person of the trinity you really can't sidestep John 1 or these other verses.

John 10:30
>"I and the Father are One"

John 8:58
>Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

John 20:28
>Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

>>18210228
well how do you understand it when Jesus says that we can all become sons of God?

Sometimes I'm of the impression that other people around Jesus make claims, but that Jesus himself is more conservative. Regarding being the Father- can it really be assumed that the Father is God? In particular if the Father is the Son, and the Son can be all of us?

>>18198746
The "insane" men are the basis of western civilization. With out them we would have bronze age technology and live in a hellenistic pagan society.

>>18210244
That passage can be more accurately translated as "children (teknon) of God" rather than the commonly referred to Son (hyiós) of God as Jesus is called.

Yes the father is God. "Our Father who art in heaven..."
Also the famous John 1 and John 3:16 of Jesus being begotten, not made, from the Father:
>And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

>>18210190
But I was referring to Christianity and how I think it is superior to the platonic godhead.

>>18210307
how do you understand it when Jesus says that what he does is not from him?

>>18210307
the thing about the opening of John, is that by some understandings John was not a prophet. The thing is that Jesus should be understood by what Jesus said of himself, and no secondary source can be assumed to portray this correctly.

>>18210330
I'm guessing you are referring to John 14:10.
>"Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. "

One sentence later He says,
>"Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me."

Jesus is basically saying that he acts in accordance with the will of the Father, who is God, and since he and the father are one and coequal, He is God.

do you generally speaking believe that God is the Spirit? When Paul says that we live through God, this is what I take that to mean. The language of God as Father, understood as Spirit, also fits very well with a brahman-atman theology. Then Jesus is only unique in manifestation, not in... well, I mean he would be unique in essence, but that would be the only essence in which we all share.

The alternative as I see it is to consider God as beyond being unfathomable, so that truly nothing can be said of God and all statements are equally true (ie equally false) regarding His essence. It's either that or God is the spirit. And God knows best.

>>18210368
>I am in
is not the same as I am. It's an enormous difference.
>I am in the Father
I exist as an illusion within the greater consciousness that is the father
>and the Father is in me
I only exist as the Father is conscious of me.

both of these are true of all human beings afaik

>>18210337
>The thing is that Jesus should be understood by what Jesus said of himself
So are you denying that the book of John is revelation? And where exactly are we to get the source of what Jesus said?

When Jesus says in John 8:58
>Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Are you saying we should doubt His word or deny that it IS His word? If it's any of these two then where should we find the answer?

>>18210383
>is not the same as I am. It's an enormous difference.
Yes because there is a distinction between the Father and Son in the trinity. The passage is meant to show how the Father and Son are coequal yet distinct.

John 5:18
>18 Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.

>both of these are true of all human beings afaik
All humans are not the only begotten Son of the Father though.

>>18210392
I can't speak to the book of revelation, I haven't read it.
the thing of it is that I AM is true of the Spirit, everything he says there is true of the Spirit, which either us or God or both.

I don't believe that the evangelists dared change direct quotes from Jesus. That is not the same as them not writing down their own understandings of the events.
>All humans are not the only begotten Son of the Father though.
well, if that is the Spirit, then yes, at least in essence.

>>18210458
>>18210400
>>18210392
generally speaking there is a way of handling prophecy as a thing in early Christianity that is foreign to me. this does not mean that it is automatically wrong. But if John could speak on and on behalf of the metaphysical nature of Jesus with authority, without then being some party in the trinity, so that he was authorized to speak with authority on the nature of God... How is he not Jesus? Can someone be that Holy and not be Jesus?

cus I figure there's a great focus on the created Jesus, but as Paul said we ought to focus on the Creator, not the created, miraculous though it may be. All of creation is truly equally miraculous, the virgin birth shocking us is only due to our prejudice

>>18210552
>our prejudice
which is, in turn, created

>>18210458
>the thing of it is that I AM is true of the Spirit, everything he says there is true of the Spirit, which either us or God or both.
We as humans are not existence or pure being itself as God said he was in Exodus (I am who am). In humans, there is a distinction between essence (what a thing is) and existence (that it is). God's essence, however, is existence itself. This is what he means by "I Am." So while it is true that we have existence, we are not existence itself. Only God can say quid sum ego sum.

>>18210480
The gospel is inspired by God the Holy Spirit. That does not necessarily mean that the person writing it is God Himself. Just as the prophets of the old testament were messengers of God, so too were the evangelists.

>>18210552
This is actually similar to what Gilson and Augustine said but this doesn't take away from the miracles, that is, the posteriora miracula, that Jesus showed us.

The Spirit of Miedeval Philosophy 375:
For a Father of the Church, such as St. Augustine, there
was no particular difficulty about the idea of miracle In
a way everything is a miracle. At the marriage of Cana
Jesus made water into wine and everybody was astounded ;
but rain becomes wine in our vines every day, and we take
it all as a matter of course. Nevertheless, it is God Who
creates the rain and the vine and the wine ; but He does
it regularly, and we get so accustomed to it that we cease
to wonder. Again, He speaks, and one rises from the
dead and the whole countryside flock to see ; but men are
born every day in the usual manner and we enter the birth
in the civil register as if it were the most natural thing in
the world. Thus in a created universe miracle remains
supernatural, but still philosophically possible:

“The very God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes and
rules all things by His Word ; these primary miracles are
effected by the Word as God ; the secondary and later
ones are effected by the same Word, but now Incarnate
and made man for us. Since we wonder at the mighty
works of the man Jesus, let us also wonder at what He has
done as God.” Between the priora miracula and the
posteriora miracula there is no essential metaphysical
difference : the divine omnipotence accounts equally for
both."

>>18210266
>bronze age technology
I wouldn't mind it...

>>18210609
>these primary miracles are
>effected by the Word as God
if you don't mind, could you tell me more about how this Word is understood? can it in any way compare with the platonic ideal plane, for instance, with the ideals being words as examples of the category Word?

>>18210633
It has to do with the Logos as understood in Greek Philosophy, more specifically the Stoics I believe. The generative principle of the universe. This is what we Christians refer to as God and what we mean by the incarnation "the word was made flesh."

So no I don't think it can be compared to the platonic understanding of it. The logos seems more of an instrument of the One rather than it being the One itself.

>>18210685
>The generative principle of the universe
as in "that aspect of God that makes Him the Creator?" Is it the impulse, the will, that leads to creation or the creation itself, if you will?

>>18210699
or something else entirely

>>18210699
>The generative principle of the universe
As in the source from which proceeds everything that exists.
>Is it the impulse, the will, that leads to creation or the creation itself
Yes, if I understand you correctly. More specifically, God's love creates.

>>18210748
I understand. I mean, I don't, but I have an understanding of what it is I do not understand. So creation is an act of Love, and if that Love were made a person that person would be Jesus?

>>18210764
this is essentially what the muslims say of Muhammad as well, and an idea in hinduism. In Islam the main and most important quality of God is Love, but there are auxiliary qualities as well, such as justice.

>>18210764
A lot of this has to do with the doctrine of divine simplicity which argues that the attributes of God are identical to God. One attribute of God is love. Therefore, God is love itself but his creation is an act of love (an act of God then) as it is an act which intends for His creation to partake in His essence (pic related). This means that Jesus (the Word made flesh) would be love itself becoming incarnate. As love is an attribute of God and is equal to God Himself.

>>18210831
>the doctrine of divine simplicity
do you know how this was arrived at? I think this differs from other theologies, which rather say that the attributes are how God is approached by our intelect, but that His true essence is entirely transcendent. This has been how I have understood the trinity, that it is a phenomenon that arises out of the composition of our intelect as it tries to relate to God

>>18210624
Based and Evola pilled

>>18210921
>do you know how this was arrived at?
https://eclecticanecdotes.com/2020/07/church-fathers-divine-simplicity
It was arrived at by some of the Church Fathers after considering Exodus and its theology. This tradition continued with the Medieval Scholastics although I believe the Eastern Orthodox reject it. There are also many arguments which show that God must be simple, as we find that that which is most absolute is simple without parts (Argument from Composition being one of them).

>but that His true essence is entirely transcendent
The totality of the Divine Essence, the essence of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, can only be known in Heaven with God. This is the Beatific Vision and the final end of man.