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Guywiththehead said:If everything must have a cause eternal beings can't exist.
Matthew777 said:Everything must have a cause within the natural universe. God is by definition an eternal being and by definition beyond nature.
caravelair said:how convenient.
Matthew777 said:Why would the architect of nature need to follow the laws of nature?
Peace.
caravelair said:i am skeptical of claims that are consistent with any evidence we could possibly ever find. they all seem equally unlikely to me.
Matthew777 said:If the universe had a first cause then it must be eternal and uncaused. Otherwise, there would be infinite regress.
caravelair said:even if that were true, it would not mean that this "first cause" is a sentient being.
Matthew777 said:How could an uncaused, eternal being not be sentient?
Peace.
caravelair said:who said anything about a being? you just said a cause, that could be anything.
"Everything must have a cause" and "everything has a cause within the natural universe" are statements of two completely different kinds. The first one is axiomatic and doesn't neccessarily have any connection with the actual situation. From the first statement, it logically follows that there can be no uncaused events and that there is no "uncause first cause". Infinite regression is not a problem for logic, while a contradiction certainly is.Matthew777 said:
Everything must have a cause within the natural universe.
Matthew777 said:The cause would have to be uncased, to be uncaused it must be eternal.
Peace.
truthmonger89 said:If causality is a law, then everything must have a cause. To say that one particular thing has no cause is to dismiss the law of causality.
But to say that the law of causality only applies to effects reduces the law to nothing but a different way of putting forth a definition. IOW, to say that the law of causality only applies to effects and still call it a law is like saying there's a law of un-marriedness but it only applies to single people.Code-Monkey said:Actually that's not true. To say that causality is a law would only suggest that all effects have causes.
I certainly don't. If the universe had a beginning (and the evidence at this point suggests this is true) then the cause could be anything. To make the leap from "cause" to "eternal being by definintion outside of nature" takes an imagination more than anything else. Imagination and previous belief. There's certainly no evidence to suggest such a thing.Matthew777 said:Once it is demonstrated that the universe had a beginning, one wonders whether an eternal being caused it.
Code-Monkey said:Actually that's not true. To say that causality is a law would only suggest that all effects have causes.
Loudmouth said:A law is defined as a consistent observation that is thought to be universal. Causality does not fit this definition. There are many observations, such as radioactive decay, that do not have a known cause. Therefore, causality is not a law.
Remember that laws are models of reality. What happens in reality trumps law.
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