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Skunks · 05-15-2005, 05:22 AM

The issue is hardly as simple as you paint it, BLB: Thomas Aquinas died 731 years ago. If his proofs were 100% solid and convincing, every literate person would be Christian.

Instead, there are a bunch of /other/ ways of arguing for the existence of god, because nobody's really satisfied by all of these (it's a huge logical leap to say 'there must have been something that came before all of this, therefore it must be the Christian god'). The four types are broadly categorized as the '<A href="http://www.google.com/search?q=ontological+argument">ontological argument</a>', '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=cosmological+argument">cosmological argument</a>' (what Aquinas did), '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=design+argument">the argument from design</a>', and '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=moral+argument">the moral argument</a>.'

And if you read those and then bring them here, you should consider the context in which they were written: it's my understanding that most are not so much tracts trying to convince people to convert, so much as a rationale supporting the faith that somebody already has. The ontological argument, for example, completely does not work (as Kant points out) if you disbelieve both the concept of God and God's existence.

(I wrote a paper on this the other week. Bleh)

05-15-2005, 05:22 AM	#10
Skunks I thought I changed this. Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: western nowhere, ny Posts: 412	The issue is hardly as simple as you paint it, BLB: Thomas Aquinas died 731 years ago. If his proofs were 100% solid and convincing, every literate person would be Christian. Instead, there are a bunch of /other/ ways of arguing for the existence of god, because nobody's really satisfied by all of these (it's a huge logical leap to say 'there must have been something that came before all of this, therefore it must be the Christian god'). The four types are broadly categorized as the '<A href="http://www.google.com/search?q=ontological+argument">ontological argument</a>', '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=cosmological+argument">cosmological argument</a>' (what Aquinas did), '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=design+argument">the argument from design</a>', and '<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=moral+argument">the moral argument</a>.' And if you read those and then bring them here, you should consider the context in which they were written: it's my understanding that most are not so much tracts trying to convince people to convert, so much as a rationale supporting the faith that somebody already has. The ontological argument, for example, completely does not work (as Kant points out) if you disbelieve both the concept of God and God's existence. (I wrote a paper on this the other week. Bleh)