WolfpackN64 said:
People asked me the same question five times over. I elaborated as much as I could but I can't help it if people simply fail to understand the argument and reply with counterarguments that miss the point I was trying to make in the first place. And no, You saw me write down this argument over and over so refrain from making simplistic statements because I'm kind of losing my patience here. |
I edited my last post to better illustrate my point, but I may as well put it here since it works as a response to this anyway. Just a couple of points first.
1. Maybe if people keep asking you, your answer doesn't actually answer the question? Either we're all too dumb to understand it or your answer sucks. Personally, I'm thinking the latter.
2. I'm not sure what simplistic statement you're referring to...anyway...
You cannot say your argument has true premises, and is still in doubt. If you have premises that you've demonstrated, and the structure of the argument is valid, then the argument is true. If you acknowledge that there are still doubts about your argument, then either one or more premise is not supported, or the structure is invalid. Unless you're claiming the argument is actually proven though, one of those problems has to exist. I'd personally say it's the premises, because your "justification" of the premises has been to repeat some variety of "god is necessary" which is the conclusion of your argument. Using the conclusion to support your premises is question begging.
As for the Christian god being outside the scope of the argument... no. You made that the conclusion of your argument. How can you say the conclusion of your argument is outside the scope of the argument? That's nonsensical. Which is why most proponents of the cosmological argument are wise enough to end it at first cause.
I'm sorry if you're losing your patience, but logic has rules. If you want to present a logical argument, expect people to hold you to them.
Edit:
I'm going to give a more detailed description because I'm trying to distract myself from something. But maybe people will learn more about logic.
If you're presenting a formal logic argument, then it has to be proven or not proven. Its closer to math than philosophy in that regard. There's no real middle ground to be had.
For an argument to be true or to "stand" it needs to be valid and sound.
Valid means that the conclusion will follow the premises, assuming the premises are true.
For example...
P1: All Sony first party games suck.
P2: Uncharted is a first party game.
C: Uncharted sucks.
This is a valid argument. If the premises are both true, the conclusion would have to be true. Of course, someone will likely point out the flaw that P1 can not really be demonstrated. But, whether or not the premises are actually true has nothing to do with validity. The truth of the premises is all about soundness.
Sound means that an argument is valid + the premises are all true. So, this argument would not be sound because I could not realistically justify P1.
An example of a sound argument would be.
P1: The 3DS game plays all DS games.
P2: Nintendogs is a DS game.
C: The 3DS can play Nintendogs.
That argument is both valid and sound. All of the premises could be demonstrated (unless there are some DS games I'm unaware of that won't play on a 3DS... but for the sake of convenience lets pretend Guitar hero DS doesn't exist), and the conclusion follows from the two premises.
So, is your argument valid? Nope.
Your conclusion is "6) This necessary being is God."
For your argument to be true, this conclusion has to be demonstrated by the premises and the premises alone. You can use outside information to demonstrate the premises, but you can't use any outside information to prove the conclusion. Because the whole point of the argument is that the premises prove the conclusion. So when you say,
"But why is this necessary being God?". The awnser is, given the argument, we know it must be God through... revelation.
