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Blatant logical fallacy?
It drives me absolutely nuts when Christians refer to Thomas Aquinas's First Mover principle. When asked, "If the universe was bound by the cause-and-effect rule, why wasn't God? He must have needed a creator also, if the universe's need for a creator was such glaring evidence that you felt the need to use it as proof of an omnipotent God," they feel the need to respond with, "God's eternal. He doesn't have a beginning or an end because it's against his nature. He doesn't need one."
Some cop out.
So my question is, could the universe have also been eternal, like your God? If he doesn't need a beginning, why does the universe?
9 Answers
- EvanLv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
In Thomas Aquinas' time, religious people were the elite, educated class. They were some of the only people capable of reading. Their opinions were probably highly regarded.
It would have been so easy for a smart, glib-tongued religionist with an agenda to hoodwink the illiterate masses.
- ?Lv 77 years ago
The standard answer is " God's kind of magical. So I make a special pleading fallacy here to avoid logic!". Well, the theists don't use thes words of course but basically that's what they are saying.
Then they go on with things like "nothing physical exists with out a cause for it to exist" without any evidence or empirical or logical support for that claim! Creation ex nihilo would mean applying a cause on nothing and get an effect. Of course most of us understand that this is impossible. Those who don't become theists!
- AdamLv 77 years ago
The real logical fallacy is using naked logic in the first place. Hypotheses need to be based on observed reality in order to be testable.
Nobody saw this universe begin.
Nobody saw God creating any other universe.
Nobody has seen any other universe known to be non-created.
Therefore there's no scientific basis for the hypothesis that universes need creators.
With no observational foundation for a testable hypothesis, the hypothesis becomes worthless. Claims of Goddidit become unfeasible, and only as likely as anything else humans can imagine.
We might as well hypothesise that the creator is a quantum frog called Jeff, who ate a quantum fly and farted out a singularity.
- ?Lv 77 years ago
Aquinas' alleged "proofs" are not really good proofs. They're more of a catalog of ways to think about God.
If it drives you "absolutely nuts" when Christians refer to that one, then they've probably achieved their objective.
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- 7 years ago
Personally, I think God and the Universe are one and the same :-) What someone else chooses to believe is up to them.
Shalom :-)
- ?Lv 77 years ago
None of those "proofs" for God work since they rely on the laws of physics which do not apply outside the universe.
- GregoryLv 77 years ago
could the universe have also been eternal, like your God?
no the universe s physical
If he doesn't need a beginning, why does the universe?
because the universe is physical made up of physical particles
nothing physical exists with out a cause for it to exist
god is not bound by physical laws
god is a spirit he is beyond the physical laws of nature
- Matthew TLv 77 years ago
Before the Big Bang was discovered, many atheists assumed that the universe was eternal.
