Rational Discussion With a Thomist

In my previous post, I attempted to show two things.  The first of these is that I understand a key concept that is part of the Thomistic cosmological argument - that is, what is meant by an "essentially ordered" causal series (or EOS).  This has been an area of contention, because they insist that I don't get it, and I am not alone in my ignorance - many atheists are similarly painted with this same brush, regardless of whether there is any truth to it.  The second thing is that regardless my acceptance of the meaning of this concept, it is still inconsistent with physical reality, and therefore, I reject the reality of the concept.  In response to this, Martin was good enough to make another post of his own to clarify his position and open up the topic for further discussion.  I congratulate him for his willingness to discuss something that has divided us for such a long time, and to try to clear the air in a rational manner.  To my surprise, I found that we couldn't even agree on something that I thought was already in agreement.

Theistic Arguments: Essentially Ordered Series

I have been in a revived discussion with Martin, The author of the Thomistic philosophy blog known as Rocket Philosophy.  The discussion first began three years ago on my post where I was talking about infinite series, and WL Craig's illogical "proof" that such a thing can't exist.  Theists make claims of that sort to bolster their theistic arguments, assuming that there must be a first cause or a first mover.  For the record, while I agree that there cannot be an infinite set of physical things within the confines of our finite universe, there is no reason in logic or mathematics that an infinite set of things cannot exist in principle, and Craig's argument (based on mathematical logic) is both naive and incorrect.  But the comments following my article eventually led to the topic of "Essentially Ordered Series", and Martin entered the fray, trying to explain to me what that is, and that I am exasperatingly stupid because I couldn't understand the concept.  Martin later made comments to that effect on his own blog, like this:

Another time I was trying to get skeppy, again, to just UNDERSTAND what is meant by "essentially ordered series" and he refuse to allow his brain to go that far. Carrying on and on about "science!!!!" and how "science!!!!" has refuted essentially ordered series. Here is that thread: http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/2014/09/theistic-arguments-series-on.html - Martin

It is my contention that Martin is so stuck on his medieval Thomistic philosophy that he refuses to take, or even to attempt to understand, a view that is more consistent with modern science.  Anyway, I stayed out of the discussion at his blog until just recently, and neither of us has budged in our position.  In light of that, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a more complete explanation of my own understanding of the concept of essentially ordered series, and why it is shown to be meaningless in the context of modern science.

What Matters Is What's True

Richard Dawkins, discussing what motivates religious belief, famously said:

Who cares what you feel like?  Who cares what feels good?  Who cares what makes you feel comforted?  Who cares what helps you sleep at night?  What matters is what's true. - Richard Dawkins

Religionists don't care what motivates their belief, or perhaps it's the case that they willfully ignore it.  But they take great umbrage at the idea that a non-believer could lay any claim to caring about what is true, because their faith tells them that Truth™ belongs exclusively to themselves.  This is a dogmatic assertion.  Don't bother trying to bring facts to the table.  Facts have nothing to do with it.  Reality has nothing to do with it.  To a militant religionist like Mikey at Shadow To Light, an atheist's relationship with the truth is "slippery".  But his own relationship with the truth is taken for granted, because God.  Mikey speculates that the only reason an atheist would place any value on truth is because he comes from a culture with a religious history that values truth.  So the first lie in his article appears in the second sentence.

Jesus: Just a Regular Guy

I've always heard that Jesus died as redemption for our sins.  We grew up being told that we were born sinners, and Jesus took our sins upon himself.  In so doing, he bore the punishment for those sins so that we could be saved and find our way to heaven.  Indeed this has been one of the central tenets of Christianity from the earliest days of the faith.  Unlike the concept of the Trinity, which wasn't established until centuries after the life of Jesus, the notion of redemption has direct support in the bible.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit - 1 Peter 3:18 

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Of course, this whole idea violates my own innate sense of fairness.  If Adam and Eve were sinners, why should that guilt be passed on to me?  And the idea that my own sins could be redeemed by someone else paying for them has never seemed right to me.  From the time I was a young child listening to these stories in Catechism class, it bothered me.  It didn't make sense.  This was the very first inkling of doubt that eventually led to my rejection of Christianity.

Secular Privilege - Say What?

Shadow To Light is at it again - bending reality to conform with his distorted views.  So obsessed is he with his hatred of atheists, that he sees God-haters and Gnus lurking in every dark corner, creating all the world's problems, and persecuting the poor, innocent children of God like himself, who are pure as the driven snow, and who would never do anything to deserve even the mildest of criticism.  I have already noted that Mikey has a tendency to associate everything he doesn't like with atheism, regardless of whether actual atheists are involved.  And that includes Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), most of whom are not atheists.  But it doesn't matter.  To Mikey, it's all the same.  If he doesn't like something he'll blame it on atheists.

Now, Mikey was recently incensed by an article by Suzannah Weiss about "white privilege", giving nine examples of how white people enjoy advantages in current American society.  As you may know, I am generally in favor of social justice, but I don't feel any great affinity for the SJWs, who often go overboard in their defense of the oppressed, to the point of being oppressive toward the rest of us.  Nevertheless, this article is basically factual and level-headed   So naturally, Mikey had to respond with a diatribe on "secular privilege".  Actually, I think he is quite confused about the difference between 'secular' and 'atheist', but as I noted, it's all the same to him.  See my note about his conflating 'secular' and 'atheist' *.

Another Illogical Conversion Story

William Alston is a religious philosopher who worked with Alvin Plantinga to develop Reformed Epistemology, which is a way for religionists to justify their God belief on the grounds that such beliefs are foundational, in the same way that empiricists would claim that belief in the existence physical objects based on the evidence of the senses constitutes foundational belief.  Alston also taught at the University of Illinois in Urbana, which happens to be where Victor Reppert got his PhD.  I don't know if they knew each other, but Reppert has posted an excerpt from one of Alston's essays that describes his return to the fold of religious faith after a period of youthful denial of that belief.  It struck me that this conversion story was in some ways similar to that of CS Lewis, whose writing figures prominently in the thinking and works of Reppert.  Both had grown up with religious belief and turned away from it in their youth, in the academic environment where rejection of religion was the trend.  And both lacked the scientific framework of understanding that would have given them a solid rational basis for non-belief.  So they ended up returning to belief, and making it sound as if their justification is logical and rational, when it really wasn't.

Chesterton On Miracles

Victor Reppert has posted a quotation from British apologist and philosopher GK Chesterton.  It is about the supposed incoherency of those who would argue against miracles.  Here is the quotation:

The historic case against miracles is also rather simple. It consists of calling miracles impossible, then saying that no one but a fool believes impossibilities: then declaring that there is no wise evidence on behalf of the miraculous. The whole trick is done by means of leaning alternately on the philosophical and historical objection. If we say miracles are theoretically possible, they say, “Yes, but there is no evidence for them.” When we take all the records of the human race and say, “Here is your evidence,” they say, “But these people were superstitious, they believed in impossible things." -G.K. Chesterton (quoted by Reppert)

This seems to be a typical example of of the style of argumentation that earned Chesterton the nickname "Prince of Paradox".  He famously asserted that paradox is “truth standing on its head to gain attention”.  And these snippets of paradox are much loved by his admirers, because of their snappy witticisms that point out the supposed illogic of those who don't buy Chesterton's "truth".

Being Brutally Honest

Let's face it.  The only truly honest Christians are those who lack a sophisticated philosophical understanding of their faith.  I noted in my previous post that faith, as practiced by ordinary believers, requires a resistance to any evidence that would subvert belief, and those ordinary believers who aren't philosophically-minded generally agree with that.  But it is the apologists who insist that faith is based on evidence.  The apologists are lying.  It is intellectually dishonest to say that their faith is based on evidence, and at the same time, steadfastly refuse to critically examine evidence that refutes belief.  But they have painted themselves into a philosophical corner, so to speak.  They can't honestly admit that they reject evidence and still claim the intellectual high ground.  So they take the path of intellectual dishonesty, in the hopes that most people aren't astute enough to see the truth about their philosophical stance.  And they even manage to fool themselves into believing their own lies, because, after all, faith really does trump reason.