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Re: your response to my question
Hello, you responded to my question about religion earlier. I thought I should deal with some of the arguments you put forward, since I thought that they were either weak or contained some misconceptions.
Here is what you said in your reply:
"If you are a true materialist then you would not mind If I killed you. Because why waste our time living if we are just going to die like a leaf fallen from a tree."
Well, being a materialist does not make me a nihilist. Nihilist believe that life is meaningless and pointless and can be quite depressing people to be around. I, however, choose what my life means: I think everything through and make it good for myself. I don't have any problem with that, and I value my life very highly.
Then:
"But even the tree knows there is a God. Everything that is known is known from cause and effect. If you see a new born calf you would know it has a mother right? Right. See creation is an effect. You and me are here because of some previouse cause adn they just go back and back and back one effect and cause to another. But answer me this. How can something come from nothing. How can a universe be created if there is nobody to create it."
This is the First Cause argument, and it is quite weak really. There are several possibilities when trying to answer "what was the first cause?"
1) There was no first cause as such because our ideas about cause and effect are incorrect, or because cause and effect didn't really work before time existed.
2) There was a line of causes stretching back into infinity.
3) There was a first cause, and...
i) It was not your god.
ii) It was your god.
So there are several possibilities, of which your answer is only one. I see no reason to pick yours in particular.
Then you said:
"I have all of your answers I am not a feel good hippy, I am a catholic. I REAL catholic not these people you see who know nothing but rules and regulations those people are sheep. I have my degree in Theology. theo=God ology=logic God logic. I know stuff that will make you cry tears of joy. Email me at baseball@stthom.edu if you are interested."
This is all very nice, but a bit worrying. Saying "I have all your answers" is a bit over-confident, especially for someone who is only a student. Also, it is quite a claim that you know things that will make me cry tears of joy, though doubtless a good psychiatrist or trickster could get such a result.
Incidentally, "theo" comes from "theos", which does indeed mean "god", but "-logy" comes from "logos", which means "word" or "writing" or "understanding" or "thought".
Finally, you said:
"We are not just some accident. Do you look at a building and think that all that design came about by accident."
When I look at a building, I certainly do not think it just popped up out of nowhere. But when I look at things in nature, like people or plants or animals, I see the result of millions of years of fascinating evolutionary processes. And when I look at the non-biological world, I see the result of lots of simple rules interacting in extremely complex ways to produce beautiful and bewildering results. And I see a lot of good fortune (and bad). But I don't see a god, because everything's a bit too messy and inconvenient for that, and besides there are much better explanations.
Thankyou for responding, though, and it would be lovely to hear your reply to this posting.
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Want to answer more questions in the Miscellaneous category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Spirituality?
I recommend checking out www.peterkreeft.com and going to the audio files its rather interesting to say the least. However I leave you with this either God exists or He does not exist, and we must of necessity lay odds for (A) or against Him (B).
A)
If I wager for and God is -- infinite gain;
If I wager for and God is not -- no loss.
B)
If I wager against and God is -- infinite loss;
If I wager against and God is not -- neither loss nor gain.
In the second case there is an hypothesis wherein I am exposed to the loss of everything. Wisdom, therefore, counsels me to make the wager which insures my winning all or, at worst losing nothing.
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