My proof of God's existence

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Oct 7 2005, 02:25 PM']besides, no one really [i]believed[/i] the earth to be flat.

anyone who actually found that as something to wonder about ("what is the shape of the earth?") was generally someone who investigated it.  like the ancient greeks.  they investigated it and discovered it must be round. 

there weren't really people saying "no, I believe it is a flat earth".  those people didn't necessarily believe anything about the shape of the earth.  to us living in high (and crumbling) western society, this seems odd... how could someone not have an answer to such a basic question?, we wonder... well the fact is: they really didn't even ask the question.  it didn't pop into their minds... it didn't matter to them. 

it especially didn't matter to the nomadic jewish people or later to the people of the nation of Israel who were charged with guarding the Law.

Most people lived their lives on a planet earth that was strong beneath their feet.  If you had asked them, they might have said there's probably an edge to the world or something because they didn't think it went on infinitely, but it wasn't something that concerned them so much that they would form an actual [i]belief[/i] about it. 

And when it did concern people that much, they asked and investigated and figured out it must be round.

Then that idiot Columbus told the greatest minds of his days "Asia is just right over that small stretch of water!  I can make it!"

and the people of his day told him "dude, you'll never make it.  we calculated the circumfrance of this spherical earth and it's way too far!"

if columbus hadn't been one lucky sob for catching a continent in between the two places, he would have died somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

anyway, what was this topic about again?  lol... oh yeah, God.  yeah, He exists.  That was a pretty good expansion of the unmoveable mover proof, Snarf.
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Actually, Thales (and I believe Anaximander and Anaximines) believed that the earth was cylindrycal in shape, and that we live on the flat top.

:

[Guest JeffCR07]

but seriously, I like it Snarf. Personally I find the Ontological Argument as put forward by Anselm of Canterbury to be more persuasive than any of the [i]a posteriori[/i] proofs, but as you have articulated the Prime Mover argument, I think it seems to be a sufficiently clear and scientifically erudite argument.

Yours in Christ,

Jeff

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

persoanly I liked the philosophy states that the very idea of God proves, God and the attempt to disprove really proves, or something like that, I don't remember all of my intro to philosophy right now.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='PadrePioOfPietrelcino' date='Oct 9 2005, 05:00 AM']persoanly I liked the philosophy states that the very idea of God proves, God and the attempt to disprove really proves, or something like that, I don't remember all of my intro to philosophy right now.
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That sounds like its a references to Anselm's Ontological Argument.

[Didacus]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Oct 8 2005, 12:09 AM'][snip]

it was a bit of a distortion from the truth.  the people in europe that objected to his trip told him the earth was larger than columbus had calculated, and that he'd never make it all the way accross to asia.  they were right if North America hadn't been here, [b]but there's no way anyone could've known that by simple calculations.[/b]
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[i]{empahsis my own}[/i]

ahem...

Yes you could,

an earthquake of large enough size would propagate a wave large enough to travel from one shore of the ocean, and bounce back to its point of origine. Hence, people who would scammer from their village because it was destroyed by an earth quake towards the beach would eventually be hit by a 'mysterious' tidal wave.

With the knowledge of wave speed propagation in water, and the time between the earth quake and the tidal wave, it was possible to calculate with acceptable (for sailing) accuracy the distance from Europe to North America using ancient accounts.


Just thought I'd give an engineering perspective.


[i]Back to you Bob...[/i]

[Snarf]

[i]So you're writing a book. Is it all on this type of stuff?[/i]

It's about rectifying science and religion, the first parts focusing on the history of Catholicism and its love/hate relationships with science. The bulk of it is about Coeternalism, and the appendix is my autobiography to explain why I believe the way I do.

[i]On a side note, have you refered to St. Thomas Aquinas reformulation of Aristotle's logic? It would be well worth the reading and reference.[/i]

Yeah, I do talk about Aquinas' reformulations elsewhere in the book.

[i]Are you familiar or knowledgeable with the theory of chaos and the laws of thermodynamics? If so, I could elaborate my own 'prrof of God' on those two principals and you can tear into them and let me know if my logic is faulty? [/i]

Yeah, I've seen many arguments in favor of God's existence on those grounds, but I haven't really been satisfied with any of them. If God's existence is to be proved, I think it should be done with ontological logic rather than raw probability.

[i]Snarf, your from Noblesville too? Do you go to Our Lady of Grace? [/i]

OLG is way too "modern" for me. I go to Sacred Heart of Cicero, sometimes going to OLG for the evening mass, or Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the Spanish mass.

[i]Hey Snarf... got your name from the Thunder Cats right?[/i]

Indeed.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

-Seth