Domina Nostra Nova Terra wrote:I am a traditionalist Catholic because I cannot see anything but truth in Christ who is Logos and truth. There are plenty of logical proofs for God (Platonic, Augustinian and Thomist - see Ed Feser's Five Proofs for the Existence of God)and all evidence (historical and otherwise), rationality and philosophy points towards Christ and His Church. You have to be deliberately blind or stupid not to see it.
Without Logos, truth and a central objective moral authority, there is chaos: world war between states, people, families and even in marriage. Without Logos, the unborn become nothing but inconveniences. Relationships just tools for sex and economic advantage. Women and men become nothing but objects with no inherent dignity - becoming nothing but pixels on a screen for pleasure or living sex toys for people who treat sex like its a competition.
There is no uniting factor for a people other than a piece of political paper or the colour of their skin. Marriage is just a piece of paper, you are just some dumb ape who lucky and the reason bad things are bad is because they don't feel good. That's where you get communism and nazism because people turn men into god or the material into the only thing that matters.
Even among people who are meant to be Catholic they are caught up in the world and they want to cast aside objective morality for the sake of pleasures: sexual or of other material means. That's why we have the current crisis in our Church.
Hilaire Belloc's: The Crisis of Civilisation is a must read to get a better understanding of this.
I'm not a Conservative because they have Conserved nothing nor am I progressive because progress for the sake of progress is doomed to failure.
The "first cause" arguments for God's alleged existence are debunked here:
Special Pleading
"A commonly-raised[4][5] objection to this argument is that it suffers from special pleading. While everything in the universe is assumed to have a cause, God is free from this requirement. However, while some phrasings of the argument may state that "everything has a cause" as one of the premises (thus contradicting the conclusion of the existence of an uncaused cause), there are also many versions that explicitly or implicitly allow for non-beginning or necessary entities not to have a cause. In the end, the point of the premises is to suggest that reality is a causally-connected whole and that all causal chains originate from a single point, posited to be God. That many people using this argument would consider God exempt from various requirements is a foregone conclusion, but citing "special pleading" because finite causal chains are said to have an uncaused beginning is hardly a convincing objection.
Effect without cause
Most philosophers believe that every effect has a cause, but David Hume critiqued this. Hume came from a tradition that viewed all knowledge as either a priori (from reason) or a posteriori (from experience). From reason alone, it is possible to conceive of an effect without a cause, Hume argued, although others have questioned this and also argued whether conceiving something means it is possible. Based on experience alone, our notion of cause and effect is just based on habitually observing one thing following another, and there's certainly no element of necessity when we observe cause and effect in the world; Hume's criticism of inductive reasoning implied that even if we observe cause and effect repeatedly, we cannot infer that throughout the universe every effect must necessarily have a cause.[6]
Multiple causes
Finally, there is nothing in the argument to rule out the existence of multiple first causes. This can be seen by realizing that for any directed acyclic graph which represents causation in a set of events or entities, the first cause is any vertex that has zero incoming edges. This means that the argument can just as well be used to argue for polytheism.
Radioactive decay
Through modern science, specifically physics, natural phenomena have been discovered whose causes have not yet been discerned or are non-existent. The best known example is radioactive decay. Although decay follows statistical laws and it's possible to predict the amount of a radioactive substance that will decay over a period of time, it is impossible — according to our current understanding of physics — to predict when a specific atom will disintegrate. The spontaneous disintegration of radioactive nuclei is stochastic and might be uncaused, providing an arguable counterexample to the assumption that everything must have a cause. An objection to this counterexample is that knowledge regarding such phenomena is limited and there may be an underlying but presently unknown cause. However, if the causal status of radioactive decay is unknown then the truth of the premise that 'everything has a cause' is indeterminate rather than false. In either case, the first cause argument is rendered ineffective. Another objection is that only the timing of decay events do not appear to have a cause, whereas a spontaneous decay is the release of energy previously stored, so that the storage event was the cause.
Virtual particles
Another counterexample is the spontaneous generation of virtual particles, which randomly appear even in complete vacuum. These particles are responsible for the Casimir effect and Hawking radiation. The release of such radiation comes in the form of gamma rays, which we now know from experiment are simply a very energetic form of light at the extreme end of the electromagnetic spectrum. Consequently, as long as there has been vacuum, there has been light, even if it's not the light that our eyes are equipped to see. What this means is that long before God is ever purported to have said "Let there be light!", the universe was already filled with light, and God is rendered quite the Johnny-come-lately. Furthermore, this phenomenon is subject to the same objection as radioactive decay.
Fallacy of composition
The argument also suffers from the fallacy of composition: what is true of a member of a group is not necessarily true for the group as a whole. Just because most things within the universe require a cause/causes, does not mean that the universe itself requires a cause. For instance, while it is absolutely true that within a flock of sheep that every member ("an individual sheep") has a mother, it does not therefore follow that the flock has a mother.
Equivocation error
There is an equivocation error lurking in the two premises of the Kalām version of the argument. They both mention something "coming into existence". The syllogism is only valid if both occurrences of that clause refer to the exact same notion.
In the first premise, all the things ("everything") that we observe coming into existence forms by some sort of transformation of matter or energy, or a change of some state or process. So this is the notion of "coming into existence" in the first premise.
In the second premise there is no matter or energy to be transformed or reshaped into the universe. (We are probably speaking of something coming from nothing.)
The two notions of "coming into existence" are thus not identical and therefore the syllogism is invalid."
URL: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_first_cause
And the "You can't have morality without God" argument is also debunked here:
Religion and morality
"Changes eventually came to Mississippi and to other parts of America but it seems something other than the demands of Christianity produced the transformation. As an agent of moral change, religion failed magnificently among its most ardent practitioners. Moreover, the specific theological commitments of Mississippians formed essential tools in the arsenal with which they deflected the religious critique of segregation. A gospel that demanded change in the social order stood little chance of converting a people long schooled to regard such a faith as dangerous heresy."
—Carolyn Renée Dupont.
"Christians often cite the idea of "absolute morality" as making them superior to atheists; their premise is that "absolute morality" can only come from God, so anyone who does not believe in God cannot accept any sort of absolute moral code.
The Mosaic Law (in particular, the Ten Commandments) is often cited as a foundation for this absolute morality; for example, the Sixth and Eighth Commandments have all the appearance of being absolute prohibitions against murder and theft. However, right from the get-go it was recognized that they were not all that absolute — if God made exceptions to these laws, people could kill with impunity.
An example can be found in the Bible not too long after the Ten Commandments are handed down, in the Book of Joshua: God commands the Israelites to go into the land of Canaan, which he has decreed belongs to them, and kill everyone in the thirty-one kingdoms therein, including women, children, and livestock. They do so.
Of course, God would not talk to just anybody to grant an exception; so the usual practice in the rest of the Bible if you wanted to kill someone was to grab a handy prophet and get him to transmit the divine sign-off. This was what King Josiah did in 2 Kings 22-23, embarking on a bout of holiness that involved killing large numbers of priests and posthumously executing others.
In short, the Christian take on "absolute morality" is not as absolute as it is sometimes portrayed; it simply makes such matters dependent on the whims of God (or whoever pretends to be speaking for him) rather than the whims of people in general.
Additionally, some people are bothered by the presentation of these laws as binding on humans, but not on God. If God were bound by the laws he would have quite a lot to answer for, such as killing almost the entire human population in the Deluge, or burning Sodom, Gomorrah, and two other "cities of the plain" to the ground because all the men in them were gay.
Even allowing for the "God is exempt from the rules" argument, there are still numerous cases where the law doesn't seem to apply to people either. The Book of Joshua also features the story of Rahab, the Canaanite harlot who assists Joshua in his defeat of Jericho. As reward for her help, she is married off to one of his sons, despite this being explicitly forbidden in the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy 7:3 — Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. (i.e. the Canaanites, as identified in Deuteronomy 7:1)
Morality without religion
Fundamentalist Christians often claim that ethics are bunk without The One And Only True God as a starting point from which right and wrong can be derived. However, Rosano's study of the evolution of religion suggests that ethical behavior preceded - rather than stemmed from - religion.[21] Moreover, claims of the divine origin of morality seem implausible in the face of ethical studies, as most ethical theories derive "good" from other things, which is actually much easier than trying to figure out why we should believe that something is "good" if and only if a religious deity says so.[22] Such theories, known as Secular Ethics and praised by people as diverse as Richard Dawkins and the Dalai Lama (the potential irony of his case is that he is a Buddhist), pose a serious challenge to claims that only religiously motivated individuals can behave well. The social contract, utilitarianism/prioritarianism, Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, ethical egoism and moral intuitionism are sufficient motivational substitutes for divine command. Many secular ethical theories go along very well with secular humanism, a much broader philosophy, or with effective altruism, a social movement.
Historically, the Chinese state has arguably seemed somewhat more morally and politically stable over the millennia since the Axial Age than the Judeo-Christian West. And Chinese traditional ethics stem largely from Confucianism (arguably not a religion). The Judeo-Christian divine ordinances of morality do not appear essential in this instance either.
Of course, in a properly-run medieval-style theocracy, all bets are off."
URL: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Morality# ... d_morality
And of course, you invoked the association fallacy by stating atheism is bad because Hitler and Stalin persecuted Christians (Nevermind the fact Stalin fostered a cult of personality around him and Hitler frequently dabbled in occultism and Nordic religions):
"Hitler wrote a book!"
—Protest sign against books, Postal 2.
"The association fallacy, also known as guilt by association, is a logical fallacy that occurs when a person/belief is supported or attacked because of its relation to some other person/belief. It is, to an extent, a version of a non sequitur.
This fallacy can be done in either a positive or negative (derogatory) way. In both cases, it is equally fallacious. This is best demonstrated by common examples.
The fallacy is an informal fallacy.
Form
P1: A is a member of group B.
P2: A is a member of group C.
C: Therefore, group B is C.
The basic structure
P1: RationalWiki is a wiki.
P2: RationalWiki likes goats.
C: Wikis like goats.
Positive uses
Positive association is called honor by association.
Example:
P1: Martin Luther King was a Baptist.
P2: King was a good person.
C: Therefore, Baptists are good.
In this case, the fallacy implies that the good things that people associate with Martin Luther King came from his being a Baptist. While this may, in part, be true, it is fallacious to state that all Baptists will be good, or that someone becoming a Baptist will become good. In politics, the association fallacy is often subtly combined a priori reasoning in a manner that is clearly nonsensical when spelled out:
P1: The Republican Party is opposed to raising the minimum wage.
P2: Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Republican Party.
P3: Abraham Lincoln was a good man.
C: Therefore, we should not raise the minimum wage.
Although it might well be true that Abraham Lincoln was a good man, this does not reflect on the Republican Party's political ideas today, and it also misses the historical context. More importantly, such arguments take as a premise that the Republican Party ought to oppose the minimum wage and then seek to rationalize it, rather than concluding the minimum wage ought not to be raised based on empirical evidence.
Negative uses
Negative association is called guilt by association.
P1: Stalin was an atheist.
P2: Stalin had millions of people killed.
C: Non-sequitur, atheism is evil.
Another classic example is the thought process used by some in the anti-nuclear movement:
P1: Nuclear weapons, which can destroy civilization, utilize energy from fission.
P2: Nuclear power utilizes energy from fission.
C: Non-sequitur, nuclear power is bad.
Negating the positive use above:
P1: Fred Phelps was a Baptist.
P2: Fred Phelps was intolerant.
C: Therefore, Baptists are intolerant.
With most negative uses of association fallacies, it relies on fear. In the former case, many of the acts that Stalin made are inherently fearful, but it is doubtful whether he ordered them on account of his atheism[note 1] or in the name of communism. Even if this doubt wasn't present, to attribute the negative aspects of Stalin to these beliefs is fallacious as the beliefs themselves say nothing about mass murder. This is similar to how, in a post 9/11 world especially, moderate Muslims have been subject to unfortunate associations due to the acts of fundamentalists and Jihadists. In the latter case, the fear of nuclear weapons inspired by Cold War propaganda is used to suggest that nuclear power should be similarly feared, because it uses the same physical process, even though the process of fission itself is morally neutral.
An example of conspiracy theorists demonizing (no pun intended) a debunker (Note: Stanton LaVey is a LaVeyan Satanist, and Joe Rogan is friends with Stanton LaVey.):
Therefore Joe Rogan is a Satanist and a shill.
Examples from the fringe
Molyneux's version
“”Determinists say humans are exactly like computers in causation but they only ever debate people.
—Stefan Molyneux on the Joe Rogan Experience.
Stefan Molyneux's argument against determinism goes as follows:
P1: Determinists say humans are identical to rocks in causation.
P2: Determinists debate people.
C: They're doing the same thing as debating rocks.
Molyneux elaborates on this by using the analogy that if a group of oranges is identical, "it wouldn't matter which one I eat"; without realizing the irony that according to his logic, oranges are identical to computers because of deterministic causation so he should eat computers.
Galileo gambit
Cranks often say, "But Galileo was persecuted in his day, and he was right!" when their ideas come under attack.
This follows the form:
P1: Galileo was persecuted for his beliefs.
P2: Galileo was right.
P3: I'm persecuted for my beliefs.
C: I'm right.
This is not even wrong — Galileo was persecuted not because people disagreed, but because if he was right it would have contradicted the dominant Christian worldview of the time.
Baiting
The construction "x-baiting," where x is an undesirable ideology or group of people, is often used when a speaker attempts to make an association (real or imagined) between a person or group and x. Examples include:
Green-baiting, associating all environmentalists with ecoterrorists.
Race-baiting, making racially divisive comments or associating a person of a certain race with some wingnut (e.g. associating African Americans with Louis Farrakhan).
Red-baiting, connecting a person to some (usually imaginary) communist plot or associating them with communism in some way.
Terrorism-baiting, making spurious accusations of the subject's relation to a terrorist organization.
Greece-baiting, connecting one's fiscal situation to that of Greece.
Pink-baiting, linking everything bad to homosexuals and homosexuality.
Hitler-baiting, connecting anything interpreted as bad to Nazism. See Godwin's Law."
