Learner
Veteran Member
or:
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
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Deism, an intellectually serious position in previous centuries, now must reject scientific explanations
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steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
All things need a cause, except god who always was and always will be?or:
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
All things need a cause, god us that cause, therefore god is the cause of birth defects and diseases,
God us the cause of asteroid strikes and earthquakes.
Wiploc
Veteran Member
I think it's bad tactics to cede validity. The argument is valid only if they don't equivocate. They're always going to equivocate. Without equivocation, the first cause argument has no point.
Since they don't use "begin" and "universe" to mean the same things in the premises as they do in the conclusion, the argument is not valid.
bilby
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(Conclusion 1) God caused itself - From (1), (2) and (3)or:
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
(4) A real thing cannot preceed its own cause
(Conclusion 2) Nothing real can cause itself - From (1) and (4)
Contradiction - (Conclusion 1) and (Conclusion 2) cannot both be true.
Therefore your list of three (unsupported) premises cannot all be true.
Either some real things do not need a cause; Or God is not the cause of some real thing(s) (and specifically, of God); Or God is not real; Or more than one of these.
By the way, you know that a logical syllogism isn't just a list of premises, right?
Right?
You certainly seem to struggle with simple logic.
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Learner
Veteran Member
That wasn't a good thought-out quick (jokey) response I made previously, admittedly. Oh well.
But cheers for the response, as I can see you put a little effort into it...even though I don't take personal opinions like yours personally.
But cheers for the response, as I can see you put a little effort into it...even though I don't take personal opinions like yours personally.
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pood
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But the argument is logically valid. The issue is not its validity, but whether it is sound. For an argument to be sound, the conclusion must follow from the premises, and all the premises must be true. As you say, the premises equivocate, and as I pointed out, they are unsupported anyway. But that is perfectly OK for an argument to be valid. As long as the conclusion follows from the premises, an argument is valid even if the premises are bunk. And even if the premises are true, an argument cannot be ruled sound if it contains enthymematic, or hidden, premises which are themselves false or equivocal. Most arguments are like that.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
(1) and (3) do not support each other because if a god is real it needs a cause based on the first premise. A sound argument for an uncaused god would be:
(1) All things real need a cause.
(2) God is uncaused.
(3) God is magical.
(2) and (3) could be reversed and the argument would still be sound. An uncaused god only makes sense if it is something magical.
pood
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(Conclusion 1) God caused itself - From (1), (2) and (3)or:
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
(4) A real thing cannot preceed its own cause
(Conclusion 2) Nothing real can cause itself - From (1) and (4)
Contradiction - (Conclusion 1) and (Conclusion 2) cannot both be true.
Therefore your list of three (unsupported) premises cannot all be true.
Either some real things do not need a cause; Or God is not the cause of some real thing(s) (and specifically, of God); Or God is not real; Or more than one of these.
By the way, you know that a logical syllogism isn't just a list of premises, right?
Right?
You certainly seem to struggle with simple logic.
I think I see a
there.
pood
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To follow up, the argument as stated not only has equivocal and unsupported premises, it is plainly enthymematic. At least one hidden premise is: The universe is the kind of thing that CAN begin to exist. Once this premise is unearthed, we see a composition fallacy. While it may (or may not) be true that all things WITHIN the universe that begin to exist came into existence by something else, it does not follow that the universe as a whole is the kind of thing that can begin to exist.
Wiploc
Veteran Member
I hadda look up enthymematic. Enthymematic arguments have hidden or unstated premises.
Back in post 106, you say the argument is valid, but now you're saying they left out a premise? Can both be true?
Wiploc
Veteran Member
I don't think that's valid. But we can clean it up:
P1: All real things have causes.
P2: Gods do not have causes.
C: Therefore, gods are not real things.
If you want to reach the "gods are magical" conclusion, you'll need another premise, perhaps something like, "All uncaused things are magical," or, "All non-real things are magical."
pood
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Yes, both can be true, because the test for the worth of an argument is not its validity, but its soundness. An argument can be valid even if its premises are bullshit and the argument is enthymemetic.
Jimmy Higgins
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Yeah, that is why arguing via that shit is stupid.
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pood
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Itās not stupid, because establishing the formal validity of an argument is the first step toward discovering whether it is sound. Validity is a necessary but insufficient condition for soundness. If an argument is not even valid, it can be dismissed out of hand.
Learner
Veteran Member
I do notice of course the structure of your 1st premise that purposely limits God to a very particular conclusion by design, to suit.
Instead of the line in your 1st
premise that states: All things real need a cause....
...how about this alternative option out of a dozen & a half, one could design:
(1) All things in nature has a cause?
Jimmy Higgins
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I disagree. Arguing science via rhetoric is nonsensical.
pood
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I thought you were kidding about this argument because of the wink smilie, but maybe you are serious??
pood
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Itās not about science per se or anything in particular. Itās about logical structure applied to any generic argument. The truth of premises must be established empirically. The worth of the validity test is we donāt even need to consider whether the premises are empirically established if the argument is invalid ā if the conclusion does not follow from the stated premise. Itās a time-saving heuristic.
Learner
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I was ... I'm just responding to a later post.
pood
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or:
(1) All things real needs a cause.
(2) God is that cause.
(3) God is real
Assuming you are serious about this, the argument is invalid. The conclusion does not follow from the premises, The conclusion actually is saying that if God is real and all real things need a cause, then God needs a cause. In addition premise 2 is question-begging.