RevCrossHugger writes:
quote:
1...Anything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence
Are you sure that this is true? How? Is it just "obvious"?
I have already defended that premise, but its an observation. Please have a look at why this is a rational concept. Am I sure? As in 100%? Nothing is 100% certain, absoulty nothing.
It may look like, or even be a rational concept, but that doesn't make it necessarily true. It has already been mentioned that quantum theory suggests that uncaused events are real possibilities. You may doubt this, but quantum theory is one of the best supported scientific theories we have, as the degree of precision to which observations agree with its predictions attests.
But let's, for the sake of argument, assume you're right: your premise #1 is a rational concept. It's very strange then to see you dismiss a further qualified statement, namely that the cause is a natural one, as merely an assumption, whereas I would say it's an even more rational version of the original. The only alternative to a natural cause is a supernatural cause. So by dismissing the qualified statement as "failed", and at the same time upholding the unqualified original premise, you implicitly state that the cause is a supernatural one. So effectively, your syllogism combined with your subsequent apologetics commits the fallacy of begging the question.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
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