Who gives a fck, then let it be an immaterial supernatural blahblah cat.
How could that which is formless and possesses no matter or energy resemble a cat? See, you're just tacking on even more arbitrary conditions.
No, they're inferences from the existence and knowledge of the universe. Obviously the cause of the natural world would have to possess enough power to create the universe. Obviously the cause of the natural world would need to be something not of the natural world, or there would be a logical contradiction. You're literally creating a being that must be sentient even though you have no proof that sentience is required to create a universe
The first cause would have existed in a timeless or changeless state and possesses no moving parts or any internal processes. In order for such a being to act, it would need agency. Otherwise, nothing would have happened. Or there would have been an eternal effect. The universe is 13.7 billion years old though so the effect is in fact not eternal. God rested or ceased to create on the seventh day. which contradicts your earlier statement that anything that exists has an origin.
No, I wrote that whatever begins to exist has a cause. God never began to exist. He has always existed. Moreover, a first cause couldn't have a cause itself or else it wouldn't be a first cause; and a first cause would need to be necessary (cannot fail to exist) or you'll run into the problem you're talking about. There is an alternative explanation though. That there wasn't a first cause. That the universe came into being, uncaused, from nonbeing. But that's patently absurd, isn't it? You feel that objective moral values exist yet you demand evidence that they do not?
No, I'm saying that it would seem that I can detect objective moral values. When I wonder if torturing and killing babies is really wrong and not just an opinion, it seems to me that it is really wrong. That it is objectively wrong like 2 + 2 = 93. And I have no reason to go against that feeling. In the same way, I feel the external world is real; and I have no good reason to go against that feelings either. Also, I believe that torturing and killing babies is wrong and that we should enforce rules against it, but that doesn't mean that I think this belief has to be ingrained in the laws of the universe to be valid.
Valid in what way? You would have to define that. If objective moral values do not exist, then somebody could just as easily say killing babies is good. Everything is permittable. How would you argue against somebody who told you they thought killing babies was a good thing? Human society discourages it because it finds such behaviour to be harmful
Human society in the united states and in other countries once encouraged slavery. Surely, that didn't mean slavery was good, correct? You do not have to prove the existence of the "external world" for any reason - if someone does not believe it to be real, then from their perspective there are no external entities to prove this to and they have nothing to validate.
I never said you had too. And you're just reinforcing my point. Most people feel the external world is real. It is a feeling which isn't dependent on any empirical evidence. In this same way I feel objective moral values exist. If "objective moral values" are divorced entirely from the belief or interests of any group that could enforce them, then they are functionally irrelevant and might as well be nonexistent.
I don't think objective moral values are completely divorced from people. There is moral epistemology and moral ontology. I believe God serves as a ontological foundation for morality and that we come to know of this ontological foundation through the way in which God formed our brains. Then we start enforcing these moral rules through human laws and such. The reason the vast majority of humans feel/believe killing babies to be wrong is simple, the protection of our offspring is biologically programmed into us because if we did not have it we would have died out long ago.
Let's say that is indeed the only reason. Under this world view, what this would mean is it is a "good move" or "logical move" to not killing babies because you'd "lose the game," as though we were playing a game of chess. I understand perfectly well how deductive arguments generate conclusions, you on the other hand have clearly skipped the "proving that the premises of the argument are true in the first place" step. And don't try and backtrack here, your second premise was not the design is the best explanation and your conclusion is not that design is plausible. Your second premise was that the other explanations are false and that therefore design is true.
What I'm saying is a stated several arguments. If you think any of the premises in the deductive arguments are false, then say so and why. Then I'll explain to you why I think they are true. Also, the mere occurence of a low-probability event does not imply that the event was generated by an outside force deliberately creating a bias. You will have to prove that the number of low-probability events occuring for a given number of trials is far in excess of the expected number of events that you would have in an unbiased distribution. Nobody knows how many life-bearing universes have been generated (number of events), how many times a life-bearing universe could have been generated (number of trials) or the probability of a life-bearing universe being generated, ergo we cannot deduce a conclusion.
As far as we know, to the best of our knowledge, there is only one universe. And as far as we know, to the best of our knowledge, there are trillions of different ways the universe could have turned out, but it instead formed into a life-permitting universe. This isn't stuff I'm making up. This is what people like Luke Barnes, Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Hawking, and Paul Davies have been saying for years. This isn't anything new. Except that the Judeo-Christian God is merely one example of a "maximally great being" and there is no reason to think that your original arguments, even if they were valid, prove the existence of this particular entity with its particular set of morals.
That is true. The arguments that I listed don't demonstrate the existence of a Christian God. But there are other arguments to show that the God I'm talking about in the OP is the Christian God. Also, since we're just making up arbitrary rules, the Judeo-Christian God is "immaterial and doesn't use energy" meaning it does not interact with matter and doesn't do work
It doesn't follow that an immaterial being wouldn't be able to form or interact with matter.
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