An interesting sociological discussion for another time, no doubt; but in this context, it means nothing. We are not dealing with a real religion here; we are dealing with a logical argument that you must be able to account for. Saying what you think would “almost certainly” happen is quite irrelevant.
Your challenge was to imagine that Pastafarianism actually was a real religion. If that wasn't what you wanted me to do, you should have asked a different question. You didn't present a logical argument; all you said was "imagine."
Now, if we want to drop the Pastafarian nonsense, there actually is a religion out there that has a pretty wacky God concept going on: Mormonism, where to the best of my knowledge, the Trinity is conceived of as separate physical entities instead of in the traditional fashion.
The arguments of classical theism could not be used in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of such beings, because they are not necessarily existing, they are not immaterial, they could not be described as Pure Act, they are not utterly simple, and so forth and so on. This is why I don't see the need to take Mormonism seriously--the gods that it asserts don't match up with arguments like PSR, Aquinas's Five Ways, the Ontological Argument, etc.
Since he is speaking of “first principles” I take it he is arguing that God caused the universe to come into existence? If so, it falls prey to the flaws of special pleading that we have already discussed. I like how he says “first principle” instead of “first cause” in an attempt to avoid the “who caused God?” question. But principles don’t act on their own or make conscious decisions, do they? So, if there was a first thing that started off the universe, the question becomes: what caused it to do so?
No. Plotinus thought the universe was eternal.
Like I mentioned in my brief explanation of step 1, by "first principle," we are thinking of something closer to the sort of Theory of Everything that is an aim of theoretical physics. A hypothetical Theory of Everything would not presumably be the cause of the universe, but it would be the sort of self-contained explanation that could be used to make sense of any phenomenon.
Plotinus is the major early proponent of the doctrine of divine simplicity: that the first principle, the source of reality, as it were, has to be utterly simple. To draw from modern physics again, an atom is not the utterly fundamental building block of reality, because it is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. These are more basic than the atom itself, but it seems that they are also not the basic building blocks of reality, given what we know of particle physics. Whatever is most fundamental in reality cannot be made of parts, since those parts would be more fundamental.
If I remember correctly, Plotinus adopts a theory of being whereby it is always characterized as being made of parts, so he identifies the first principle as being "Beyond Being," beyond differentiation. This is why his metaphysics is set up in a hierarchical manner, where his utterly simple first principle, the One, gives rise to a realm of forms, which then in turn produces physical reality. Again, this is not a temporal process--everything is eternal in Neoplatonism.
Now, if you think that something like the Flying Spaghetti Monster can be identified with Plotinus's utterly simple One, I think you need to reconsider the logic he uses to come to his conclusion. The FSM is made of pasta; for the FSM to exist, the individual strands of pasta have to exist, so we can identify things that are more fundamental than the FSM itself.
Beyond that, "what caused God?" is actually a notoriously bad objection, and you are still conceptualizing things from within a different type of metaphysics than the one being presented. Something that exists necessarily, something that is the grounds of being, is not itself caused. It is eternal. Whatever activity it undergoes comes about as a result of its own nature--it can't be made to do anything by an external cause, since it is where the causes terminate. In the Neoplatonic model, existence is a sort of overflowing of the essence of the One, not a decision. The Abrahamic model introduces Creation as a willed choice, but that is beyond the scope of these sorts of arguments.
As I said before, I don’t think that one can argue for the FSM, because I don’t think the cosmological argument itself is valid. However, it’s quite possible to point out that if it were valid, then we have no idea at all what First Cause the cosmological argument would lead to, and so the FSM is as valid an answer as any that you propose. Declaring that your cosmological argument is not a chronological one does not get you off the hook either. If you are saying there must be a Prime Move, then you face the same problem: what is it, and how do you know?
You are simply wrong here. Classical arguments all aim at demonstrating something about the First Cause. The Plotinian one, for example, shows that it must be utterly simple (and thus non-physical, since physical things are always composed of parts, unless they eventually break down into pure Potentiality).
You are really misreading all of these arguments. If you are really interested in them, I would suggest a careful study of the whole intellectual tradition, preferably starting with someone like Parmenides. Lack of familiarity with Greek philosophy can really be devastating for understanding what these particular arguments are trying to show.
Not at all. I’m not the one contending that the Prime Cause is divinely simple. And you have yet to explain why simply asserting that the FSM has the ability to be in whatever form it wishes and do whatever it wants to is not allowed.
If you are arguing that the FSM has properties such as necessary being, divine simplicity, and so forth and so on, and merely chooses to manifest itself as a plate of pasta, then that would be acceptable. One of the divine avatars of Hinduism is literally a tortoise, after all, but that doesn't conflict with the claims made about Brahman.
We had this discussion some pages back, and agreed to use “prove” in the informal sense, as in “demonstrate it” or “provide reasonable evidence for your views”. It is more fun to use the word “prove” as a synonym for “provide evidence or reason for your arguments,” because then you can just say “Prove it” to the theist, who is unable to provide evidence or reasons, only assertions.
You should probably be aware that most atheistic philosophers of religion (i.e., the only atheists who are really familiar with the subject) actually do think that theists can provide legitimate reasons for their beliefs. They may not meet a standard of proof necessary to compel belief from all reasonable people, but that doesn't mean they are inexistent.
Wrong. That’s only the case if the arguments themselves are valid. If they’re invalid we might end up with things their original framers did not intend; which is, of course, rather the point.
Do you have any background in the study of logic? Validity is really not that difficult a barrier--if an argument is invalid, you can easily tighten up the steps involved to make it valid. The real barrier is soundness and whether your premises are true, but you can't get from controversial premises to wild conclusions that have nothing to do with the logic at hand.
If you read back, you’ll see what I rephrased. You will remember that you said you were not contending that the universe was not eternal, so I pointed out that it was an unjustified assertion to say that the universe required God in order to exist.
I don't see how it's unjustified. If you don't accept physicalism and do not believe that physical entities can be the foundational building blocks of reality, then your options are limited to theism and idealism/nondualism.
I'm fine with either option, though I think theism makes more sense. I don't think that the universe is the sort of thing that could exist if it wasn't being maintained in existence.
How strange. Is “I believe that the universe was caused by some natural or non-natural process” your idea of an argument for God?
No. Why would it be? I think you really need to wrap your head around the fact that not every theist accepts the Kalam.
Since we are now speaking of a universe which began to exist, I think I had better remind you that our language of cause and effect is based entirely upon our experience and understanding of how things within the universe itself operate. But in this case, we are not discussing a thing inside the universe. We are discussing the universe itself. “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” may be sound logic, but the universe is not a thing. It is the sum of all things, and you can’t draw an inference or law from the relationships between items in a set and have it apply to the set as a whole.
First of all, I will have to remind you in return that I am a rationalist, not an empiricist, and I think our understanding of causality is to a certain extent a priori, not based on experience. You can continue to assert an empiricist theory of epistemology without any argumentation to back it up, but I am under no obligation to pay it any mind.
That said, I don't particularly care about the origins of the universe. I think it's a red herring and the sort of thing that distracts from the key issues at hand here. You need to stop interpreting everything everyone says as being precisely about the physical origin of the universe. It's not.
If we suggest that the universe is a “thing” then we are implying that there is something different to it; something outside, or beyond it. But how could that be? The universe is all that is. Do you have evidence that there is another one? Are you able, in some way, to say “Here is where the universe is not?”
This is fallacious logic. You are assuming the truth of your conclusion: that the physical universe is all that is or could be. Obviously theists would disagree with this, so simply asserting it as the obvious truth is invalid.
I am a Platonist, not a materialist. I would deny that even the mind itself is fully physical in nature, which means that I think there is evidence of things that in some sense transcend spacetime. I think things like universals and the laws of physics pose insurmountable problems for naturalism, and that it's just as possible that the seemingly physical world as we experience it is an interplay between the mind and abstract truths. Your inability to conceptualize anything aside from materialism does not make it the only option out there.
Even from a purely naturalistic perspective, there are plenty of theoretical physicists who swear by multiverse theories, so I'm not sure why you would insist that nothing aside from the universe could possibly exist.
If, as you say, the universe is not eternal, then your logic fails to account for it. So does mine, of course, but I’m not the one trying to get around that by unjustifiably inventing an answer.
How does it fail to account for it? I will retreat into Hindu theology, since I think it's alien enough to not immediately get misinterpreted, and say that absolute reality is awareness, not matter. I see no problem with a timeless, spaceless, simple self-awareness as that from which all being springs.
I think we would also need to explore the question of justification more closely. I am not a fideist myself, but I think even fideism is justified. With questions of ultimate concern, there is no obligation to accept the sort of epistemological boundaries you've imposed upon yourself, and good reasons not to.
Actually, if you look at Redac, you’ll see that’s exactly what he or she has been doing – arguing for intelligence, for eternalness, for omnipotence, and other characteristics generally thought to be held by God.
He's not defending the Kalam. The issue at hand is not the "cause of the universe" in a temporal fashion.
