From a Christian perspective, logical thinking is intrinsically connected to the ultimate reality of God and His nature. Thus in a profound sense "The real is rational and the rational is real." This also explains why Classical Humanists were able to reason from the facts of nature to the existence of God as in Aristotle's Cosmological argument, which is irrefutable. The work of the Holy Spirit is still necessary to effect salvation by changing the hearts of unbelievers, but there is a great deal that fallen man can understand if he wants to. The Classical Humanists seriously wanted to know the truth and learned a great deal, evolutionists are are, for the most part, foaming at the mouth fanatics incapable of rational thinking as witnessed by the fact that there are no logical arguments for evolution, it's all blind faith.
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If all things need a cause, what then caused God? If you allow that God can be uncaused (thereby violating one of the arguments premises), then why should that thing not be the universe and just leave out a god altogether?
There, refuted. But even if the argument were valid, which it isn't, nothing indicates the identity of the God in question. All hail Zeus! Or Odin! Or Cthulhu!
Aristotle isn't a good example of the Cosmological Argument; in fact he generally disagreed with the idea that the universe had a finite beginning, although he may have thought of it as having a "prime mover". And he certainly didn't imagine a universe created by anything like the Judeo-Christian God. Aquinas, 1,500 years later, is the source for the best-known version; and his version doesn't lead to the Judeo-Christian God, either: all his version says is that something at some time created the universe. It doesn't prove that the "something" still exists, that there was only one "something", that it has any other powers or did anything else or has any interaction with humanity.
From a Christian perspective, logical thinking is intrinsically connected to the ultimate reality of God and His nature.
Then why don't you honor your Deity & USE IT FOR A CHANGE?! GAWD!
1) The cosmological argument was first proposed by Plato, not Aristotle (although Aristotle did posit it as well).
2) The cosmological argument has been refuted too many times to count.
"evolutionists are are, for the most part, foaming at the mouth fanatics incapable of rational thinking as witnessed by the fact that there are no logical arguments for evolution, it's all blind faith."
Suuuure. Let's go with that. Never mind the massive projection at work here. Isn't it the religious folk that convulse and speak in tongues and take stuff on blind faith?
A) Aristotle believed in an eternal cosmos.
You may not understand the libraries stuffed full of evidence for evolution, but fortunately, people much, much cleverer than you , do. So there's no need to worry.
Oh, and to suggest that the Cosmological argument is irrefutable does, I'm afraid. make you quite a major dumb ass.
It's called evidence, fuckwit, and we have mountains of it. Your "Cosmological Argument" was postulated by someone who believe the sun spun around the earth and all things were made of air, water, fire, and dirt.
I know little about Aristotle, but I sure as hell know not a one of his arguments, as of any philosophy, were irrefutable.
Everything else is equal rubbish.
so, wait, the cosmological arguable, in spite of it's quantifier shift fallacy, and in spite of it's failure to indicate a specific first agency, is irrefutable proof of (an implied to be specific) deity?
I recall it being used to teach us to avoid such fallacies at college...
"From a Christian perspective, logical thinking is intrinsically connected to the ultimate reality of God and His nature."
- Which may explain why Christianity produces so few tangible results. When Christians, like Newton, do produce tangible results, they do so by putting their beliefs on hold and looking at the material world. When non-material beliefs enter the picture, you get logical dead-ends like alchemy and creationism.
Almost all of that's right out of William Laing Craigs debating opening statements.
It doesn't matter how much you philophocize your religion, it's just a different shade of the same bullshit assertions.
That everything must have a cause is a bare assertion, one incidentally that has a great deal of empirical evidence against it.
That this chain of causes cannot extend into an infinite past is an argument from incredulity.
That the universe must therefore have a cause is an unproven assumption based on flawed premises.
That this cause must be God is a non-sequitur.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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