Yeah I'll root out the paper when I'm home, he's most famous in epistemology for the brain in a vat but this is an interesting paper. He writes really well as well.

The cosmological argument places "contingency" at the forefront of its expression. This is not only perfectly valid but logically pure and logically unassailable.

The question leads to another question; " does one touch the face of "G" via logic" ? At first glance it appears that one cannot if the material of the thought process stays within the material of the senses. If one says that I only see the world via my senses then one cannot see the "other" but the logic can still , via "contingency" lead one to "truth".

The question for the modern reader is " does "truth" express itself within logic" , the modern logic to wit, "logic of the senses".

I'll ask the question of the posters ; can logic come to these "truths", the "truths of the senses". Are we so immersed within sense bound activities we will not proceed any further than these sense bound activities. Do they not give us a stability even though we are within a rift of theory, hypothesis, inconceivability, even in dealing with the senses ?

Not as clear as I'd like but the question morphed becomes "how does one know something that one does not know" or does one, by default, justify via logic that to which one knows or thinks he knows ?

I like to think the universe is a non sentient being which procreates by intelligent beings within it creating new universes. It would also be nice if you have infinite regress in there somewhere to screw everyone up.

The paper is Hilary Putnam "There is at least one a priori truth" I've only got a hard copy but I'll take a look over the weekend, it should be available somewhere.

And of course some free agents to hint at the truth, just to make it complete.

I got it through the work library. Thanks, it looks like a brilliant read.

Yeah it is, I find his approach really easy to follow and he explains his position really well, he later goes on to argue against that paper but it's a good read.

Linking a post from another thread here.

My initial thoughts to all seeded from another dimension theories is that nothing substantial has changed if the point of doing so is to provide a plausible alternative to the theological model, because now we're left with the question of who created the aliens etc. If your theory has the alien as always being with no origin, you may as well call him God.

Perhaps you're aware of that point, so that's why you're proposing that the parent universe doesn't have causality?

"No causality", and not "beings created universes" seems to be the much more difficult concept to fathom. (edit - fwiw to Uke-Master types)

What say ye? What hath ye sought to accomplish with this thread?

There wasn't really a big goal or aim with the thread, more an open musing.

I'm what they call a weak atheist. I don't support saying "there is no god", I would rather say something ala "There is little to support there is a god", and in that there is of course also the implied admission that a god could exist.

This was an example of how one could imagine such a god. The keyword being imagine. While I try to be careful to not contradict established evidence, it's certainly just fictional guesswork and not much of substance. Still, I could (hypothetically) believe in it with little to no practical difference from my atheism.

If there is a argument to make at the end, it would be that weak atheism is more sound than a complete rejection of theism.

So, where do we stand now? Still, "Turtles all the way down"?

Well, my personal opinion would be that "there are no good reasons to believe in God". Sure, we have unsolved mysteries as to explain how we and the universe came about - but religious explanations offer little of substance in that regard.

But I'm not going to tear anyone's head off intellectually because they disagree. The existence of God isn't overly important to my world view. I'd rather have the fights when specific religious beliefs make people question sound ideas, and for most religious people that isn't the case.

So Bob being a Christian isn't an issue. But if Bob starts invoking theology to explain why biology lies or tectonic plates don't move, then we have an issue. On the flip-side if I start running around saying "science disproves God", then Bob would be more than justified in protesting.

What about when god beliefs cause people who in every other respect are right on, liberal, caring, tolerant, non-nationalistic, non-racist and non-sexist types, to claim that homosexuality is a terrible thing and oppose same sex marriage? (I know someone like this)

Like I said, I'm more than willing to debate specific religious beliefs. My personal opinion is that human morals should be vested in utility, reason, our human traits and sound arguments. Or to put it in child's words (which I find is often the best language for morals), basically "pain is bad, harmless is okay and helpful is good".

For that specific example I see no issue that people have faith-based morals (I will certainly take issue with many such morals, but people should be free to hold them), but they must be allowed no regulative power over people.

What if a religious person attempts to regulate murder as a crime because God said it was a sin?

If someone says they dont rape and pillage me because of God and vote against those things because of him. Alright...ultimately im good with that.

I'd say the reasoning was void, as it has no basis in utility or sound argument.

You can still find utility in it, but that's from other types of argument ("being against murder is a trait of healthy societies").

Of course, a clever person would say probably something ala "look at how healthy a society can be, when we follow the rules god put upon us about murder being bad". Which is the logic used (but now always admitted) when religion tries to sneak into politics.

Idk we all bring our stuff into politics from somewhere so if there is no harm there is no foul for me. There are atheists i have more political disagreements with then some Christians. So sneak it in there and where we disagree its time to talk. Otherwise..meh.

Well, like I said... my position is that morals that we use as a basis for regulation should be argued on the grounds of utility, reason and our human traits (like say, we tend to get hurt if people punch us hard), not appeal to special authority that has little evidence. Basically, I prefer a society to be secular.

What a personal beliefs a person holds, as not as they are not directly harmful, isn't very important to me. Noted here that it is possible to cross a line over to harassment, by the impact of such must be weighed against the danger of becoming "thought police". That territory is the tricky one to maneuver in.

I despise "ulterior motives" in politics, legislation that pretends to be something it isn't to sneak in the backdoor. For example Texas' decision to make it mandatory for women who have undertaken the abortion to have a burial performed.

I just read about this. My first thought was that it was silly and completely non-utilitarian. What should be done is to grind up the aborted fetus and use it as fertilizer. This recycling is also good for the environment. The remains could be treated and mixed with other nutrients to enhance plant growth. The Greens should get behind this wholeheartedly.

As a longtime lurker on this forum, I find it a bit odd that a random theological discussion was ultimately my impetus for registering an account, but then again, I've got to put that philosophy minor to use somewhere.

The problem with solving the "riddle" of the cosmological argument rests in the absence of an indisputable absoluteness point, i.e., logic's infinite regression (as you pointed out). No premise, no matter how pragmatically absurd or counterintuitive (e.g., "nothing exists"- sorry Descartes), can be principally eliminated. Practically, of course, this is of little to no concern, given that we differentiate between "absolute philosophical certainty" and "maximal certainty": we can't principally validate reason due to circularity ("reason is valid because of reason"), but we don't need to because its validity is axiomatic (self-evident through the production of consistently reliable and accurate conclusions about reality). Thus, we hold certain direct fruits of our sentience (e.g., "I'm typing on a keyboard right now"; "the sun appears bright"; etc.) as maximally certain from the start: no greater proof or determination is necessary to incorporate such phenomena into our corpus of awareness (and thus, basis for action).

But, ironically, this lack of absolute philosophical certainty gives rise not only to the confounding nature of the cosmological argument, but to the argument itself! Because the subject regards first principles, and, as has been established, logic provides no such philosophically absolute first principles, the critical question becomes as follows: what conception in the range of cognition provides a complete answer to the origin of existence as we comprehend it? Answer: God (meaning, in essence, an entity or force beyond logic that is not subject to logic's regression and is not limited by any force or tenet).

That is the force of the cosmological argument: God (per the definition above) is the only presently available complete answer to the question of first principles, which leads directly to your post's conclusion regarding there being nothing inherently "wrong" with the notion of an entity or force beyond logic creating our universe (or creating the base reality within which our universe resides). Because the notion of a 'first mover' is the only conception that provides a complete answer to the most fundamental of all questions, it is an incredibly attractive proposition (which is at least partly responsible for the immeasurable influence theism has had on this planet, and, most likely, on other planets with intelligent life). By the way, to clarify, by "complete", I mean an answer that does not, by its definition, invite any further questions on the issue: we don't have to ask where God comes from because God, by definition, is beyond logic and exists without beginning, and we're able to entertain the idea of such a being because logic itself has no established absolute point, so we cannot say that logic precludes such a being!

The "confounding" nature of this proposition, i.e., God, arises, of course, in its possession of a nature that runs contrary ("beyond" logic) to the principle of our sentience with which we discover it: reason! (It's like the ultimate mindf**k, really lol).

Now, this certainly does not mean that all atheists are in error by not believing in a creator entity/force- simply because there is, at present, only one complete answer to the first principles quandary does not imply that it is necessarily correct. But it does imply that holding a belief in the validity and actuality of such an answer (theism) is not necessarily without good reason (note that this does not apply whatsoever to any revelation, as you also correctly pointed out by differentiating it in your original post).

So what's the upshot? The upshot is 1) we have one complete (though unsatisfying) explanation for first principles that we have not established as possible or impossible, but have established as possessing strong conceptual validity; 2) we will continue to push the boundaries of what we hold as maximally certain by exercising our reason to discover more about our reality and use it to increase our power over nature; and finally 3) hope beyond all hope that in doing so, our efforts will eventually ripen into an attainment of philosophical absolute certainty (for what are the notions of "heaven" and "hell" but final answers to existence anyways? =D).

Deism is a valid position with respect to the cosmological argument;
Theism is not. As Christopher Hitchens said, the theists have all their explaining yet ahead of them.

To me deism is a sub-category of theism, so I wouldn't phrase it like that.

I know the word is sometimes used specifically about only revealed religion, and that this what you meant, but that makes the term inconsistent in regards to a-theism - so that interpretation seems clunky to me.

Well, it is a very good first post! Welcome to the forum.

That said (and I did mean it), I do have two quibbles. I don't think I would agree that the cosmological argument holds conceptual validity, but I guess it depends on what you mean by the the term? For me the terms concept and validity together would denote something that describes something else in a testable and / or useful manner.

I mean, the cosmological argument is logically valid in the sense that it is consists of properly formulated logical propositions with a valid deduction, but I'd be hard pressed to use the term "concept" to describe it.

Secondly I don't think you can get from the cosmological argument that "God is beyond logic", so that's an added axiom that has been added to the equation, so it's tough to argue completion.

That is indeed what I meant. I'm atheist in the sense that I think Jesus was not the son of god, nor did he die for our sins, Muhammed was not the prophet, the bible and talmud and koran are manmade, etc etc.

I'm agnostic with respect to deism in the sense that the existence of a 'prime mover' cannot be disproved.

It seems to me that someone such as William Lane Craig, when he presents his cosmological argument, smuggles in the notion that the creator whose existence he is trying to assert is the god of the bible.

Thanks! Regarding your points, by "conceptual validity", I mean just that, i.e., that the cosmological argument is a construct that is underpinned by sound reasoning: it provides the only (at least, as far as I am aware!) complete, albeit still unsatisfying, answer to the first principles dilemma. That, coupled with the notion that nothing counsels in favor of its impossibility, leads to the conclusion that the argument is conceptually rational/valid (which, of course, is not equivalent with being true). Admittedly, the phrase "conceptual validity" is somewhat ambiguous :-/.

Testability and usefulness are critical precepts for pragmatic disciplines (including where pragmatism is implicated, as in ethics): they are pivotal in ascertaining truth about nature/reality, but they are often inapposite in high-level metaphysical discussions (largely due to the sheer abstractness of the subject: ruminations on first principles are at the height of their substantive purity when logically segregated from any specific perceptive, ethical, or natural inclinations of the mind). For this reason, I have not taken them into account.

And as far as the second point, I understand the objection, but still cling to my original thesis. I find "God beyond logic" to be a derivative, not an appendage, of the cosmological argument. There are two paths for this reasoning that you might find persuasive.

First, logic regresses to the point of axioms and postulates; beyond that, it descends into circularity or infinite regressions. Because we are seeking absolute philosophical certainty (as opposed to 'maximal' certainty), those axioms and postulates cannot be our stopping point (this is essentially the concept of fallibilism, which I previously expressed through the idea of an absence of an absolute point). Enter the cosmological argument: it posits the unmoved mover, a force/entity that is beyond the axioms and postulates of logic as the fundamental origin of everything (including logic!). If God is bound by logic, then God is no true answer to the first principle dilemma because then God would be subject to the same logical strictures of circularity and infinite regression (and those are precisely the reasons why the cosmological argument was conjured up in the first place).

The other path of reasoning yields the same conclusion and is a bit more direct. The unmoved mover/force is posited as being bound by nothing and preceded by nothing, including logic, on account of being primal to all (the "alpha and omega", so to speak). From this derives the only essential characteristic of the concept of God: omnipotence. If God is bound by logic, God is not omnipotent because God bows to the tenets of logic (again, we can posit all of this, including omnipotence, because there is no absolute point with which we have to contend here! It's essentially the reason why we have the "omnipotence paradox", i.e., because omnipotence, in its pure form, completely violates the tenets of logic we hold near and dear!).

Anyways, I hope that clarified the ideas I brought up in my first post a bit more. Ontology (and philosophy in general) is a field where reasonable minds can easily disagree, so I welcome any feedback you have on this (including continued disagreement). I'm not saying that this is the "right" interpretation of the cosmological argument, only that it makes sense to me (and hopefully others as well). There are other independently valid positions on the subject that can be attained through different lines of reasoning.