Numbers denote the relationship a part has to the whole. As representations, they depend on human minds, but as existing relaitonships, they don't.
The whole is unity, which with the empty set, can produce all numbers.

That something exists without having being caused to exist by something else does not entail that this thing necessarily exists — Michael

I didn't describe anything "without having being caused", I've been describing an entity which is non-contingent. Causation isn't contingency. And yes, it does entail it necessarily exists, because lacking contingency means lacking dependency, in which case that thing can't fail to exist.

and it certainly doesn’t entail that this thing is eternal and omnipotent. — Michael

False. I'll re-post what I wrote to you earlier.

Something's eternal if it isn't dependent on conditions. Contingency means to have a condtional dependency, so a non-contingent entity is eternal.
Something's omnipotent if everything stands in dependency to it. Everything in a contingent series is dependent on the non-contingent member of the series, so it is omnipotent.

Your earlier reply was inadequate, you gave synonyms for "eternal" and "omnipotent" as if they contradict the above; they don't.

This initial singularity may have come into existence by accident/chance — Michael

Then it wouldn't be non-contingent/necessary. Accidents are contingent, they obey laws of physics and they only occur under certain conditions.

and even if its existence was “necessary” it certainly isn’t anything like God. — Michael

The term "God" makes no sense without metaphysical necessity. If it's dependent on something outside of itself, it's not God.

Something can do anything if everything is dependent on it. Something exists forever if it isn't dependent on conditions. — Hallucinogen

These are non sequiturs. — Michael

Prove it.

And you are, again, equivocating. That a 2nd term depends on a 1st term to have existed does not entail that the 1st term must still exist. — Michael

I didn't say that it does.

A clock must have been made by a clockmaker, but the clock doesn't cease to exist after the clockmaker dies. — Michael

Not analogous to the argument. The 1st term of existence is metaphysically necessary, it doesn't depend on conditions, so it doesn't go out of existence (it's eternal).

Your conclusion, that there is a God that necessarily exists, simply isn't proven by the claim that causation is not an infinite regress. — Michael

Still not getting the argument right. My conclusion is that a necessary entity exists. The reasons I'd call that God aren't in the argument. And I didn't say it's proven by the claim that causation is not an infinite regress, it's proven by the contradiction inherent to an infinite regress of contingent entities.

I am explaining that "if some A is the nth term then some B must have been the 1st term" does not entail "the 1st term necessarily exists (and is omnipotent)". — Michael

The argument at the beginning of the thread doesn't claim that's how it's entailed. You've decided to base your critique on removing premises from the argument.

Hence, why your first comment was unclear to me.

If not-A entails (B and (not-B)), then A is entailed. Is that what you're saying isn't the case?
Is B here the proposition that the universe has an nth term? And A is the proposition that there's a non-contingent entity in the universe's series of terms? — Hallucinogen

You didn't answer these questions, instead, you chose to double-down on simplifying the argument into absurdity.

The example of the Presidents explains what I mean in simple terms.
You conflate "A is required for B" and "A is necessary". The former does not entail the latter. — Michael

So, going back to what I wrote in the argument. The entailment to what you've described as "the 1st term necessarily exists" is provided by the impossibility of all entities being contingent, given that, (2) for all series, having no 1st term implies having no nth term, and (3) the universe has an nth term. If it's the 1st term then it isn't contingent on anything, because there's no term prior for it to depend on.

The etymology of 'agnostic' leads directly to the definition i gave "Not-knowledge". — AmadeusD

No, because to claim that reality can't furnish a proof of God is a knowledge claim.

to not knowing. — AmadeusD

No, to knowing that God is unknowable. That's a knowledge claim.

It's not a commitment anymore than thinking you could know is — AmadeusD

It is, because for an agnostic to think God is unknowable is to place constraints on reality and on what we can know. For an agnostic to only think God's existence is unknown is to remain skeptical and uncommited about whether knowledge is constrained in such a manner.

This is how Atheism is used in the 'broader sense'. — AmadeusD

I thought you were arguing that atheism is only denial of a personal God?

Even if I agree to this (it's how I used it in the thread title), it doesn't mean that it's not how agnostic is used in the broader sense, so my point would still stand. Accepting a broad sense of the term atheism doesn't displace the broad sense of the term agnostic, especially because the latter is accepted by dictionaries.

Your conception of 'theism' is wrong, on my account — AmadeusD

My account of theism is belief in an omnipotent, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent entity. A necessary entity is all of those things, but I grant that you can be an atheist who believes in a necessary entity just by denying that it entails those characteristics. I have spoken with very few atheists who acknowledge an omnipotent, eternal entity, most argue vehemently against such a claim. So your concept of theism is different to mine?

Your conception of 'theism' is wrong, on my account, and doesn't capture what 'theism' represents. It would also capture deism — AmadeusD

Deism is a variant of theism: it's belief in a God. The non-intervention of that God doesn't change this, it's still belief in the existence of a God.

The sources I found agree with the way I defined deism.

: a movement or system of thought advocating natural (see natural entry 1 sense 8b) religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe — Merriam Webster

Belief in a god who created the universe but does not govern worldly events, does not answer prayers, and has no direct involvement in human affairs. — Oxford Reference

the belief in a single god who created the world but does not act to influence events: — Cambridge Dictionary

spawned “deism”, the idea that God set the initial conditions of the universe and then left it to play out on its own — Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy

Wikipedia says a deist God is not necessarily impersonal.

Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it, — Wikipedia — Hallucinogen

An omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity is either inherently theistic or not, why would it be unlikely that an atheist would believe in such? — Hallucinogen

The bold doesn't bear on the non-bold here, at all, in any way. — AmadeusD

?
If belief in an omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity entails theism, then no atheist would believe it, by definition. It wouldn't just be "unlikely". If in an omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity doesn't entail theism, then an atheist could believe in it. So the bold is actually quite decisive in bearing on the non-bold.

The reason an atheist is hardly taken to believe in a deistic God (of some kind - make it super-vague if that helps) is that an atheist is far more likely to be thinking rationally and wanting evidence instead of settling for an inference — AmadeusD

OK, multiple things. Firstly, I don't agree. But second, why would an atheist be "more likely" to be thinking rationally and wanting evidence than a deist? I asked why an atheist would be unlikely to believe in an omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity, but you've answered by just shifting the claim onto an atheist being more likely to be rational, but why is that the case? Thirdly, why is making an inference separate from thinking rationally? As far as I can see, all thinking involves making inferences, and using inference is ubiquitous when it comes to judgments about evidence.

You're begging the question. Here are two scenarios: — Michael

No, I'm not. You're trying to equivocate between a series of presidents and the series of existence as a whole.

2. A 1st term is contingent. A 2nd and 3rd term follow. — Michael

Take another look at the argument in the OP. The 1st term of existence (which is being used synonymously with "the universe", i.e., reality as a whole) isn't contingent. Contingent means it's dependent on a condition prior to it; there isn't anything prior to what is first.

Given that a 2nd and 3rd term exist in both scenarios you cannot use the existence of a 2nd and 3rd term to prove that the 1st term is necessary. — Michael

Your second scenario is false because the first term isn't contingent when all entities are considered, only when entities within some partial context are, like a series of presidents.

Even if some X is necessary and even if this X is "omnipotent" and eternal it does not follow that this X is God. — Michael

I didn't say it does.

You are introducing properties unrelated to your argument. — Michael

It was you that introduced them, not me.

And I also suspect there's more to your "necessary being" than just being eternal and omnipotent. Is it conscious with a will of its own? — Michael

As an atheist I could accept that there is some impersonal force – e.g. the union of electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force, and gravity – that necessarily exists. — Michael

Then you wouldn't be an atheist about a necessary entity and you wouldn't commit the contradiction.

Something's eternal if it isn't dependent on conditions. — Hallucinogen

Something is eternal if it exists forever. — Michael

Something exists forever if it isn't dependent on conditions.

Something's omnipotent if everything stands in dependency to it. — Hallucinogen

Something is omnipotent if it can do anything. — Michael

Something can do anything if everything is dependent on it.

The one does not entail the other. — Michael

If everything contingent depends on it, then it isn't in a contingency relation to anything else, and it doesn't depend on conditions.

And neither entails nor is entailed by necessity. — Michael

My text that you're responding to disproves this, and simply giving synonyms for "eternal" and "omnipotent" isn't a rebuttal.

And I also suspect there's more to your "necessary being" than just being eternal and omnipotent. Is it conscious with a will of its own? — Michael

In my view it is, but my view doesn't change the fact that most God concepts are omnipotent and eternal.

An atheist can accept this latter thing. — Michael

They can, yet most atheists don't accept the contingency argument.

A 2nd President does not entail that a 1st President is metaphysically necessary. — Michael

Because a 1st President is contingent.

A 2nd term of the universe does not entail that a 1st term of the universe is metaphysically necessary. — Michael

That's false, a 1st term of the universe isn't contingent. And if you view "terms" as all being dependent on the series formula, then this isn't consequential as it means the series formula is non-contingent because it trivially redefines the formula as the 1st term.

Perhaps the 1st term of the universe was an accident — Michael

Accidents are contingent, so the non-contingent component of the series can't be an accident.

the first line in my comment just gives a brief summary while expressing the non-ampliativity. — jorndoe

I don't understand how it shows that the argument in my OP is non-ampliative because it doesn't appear to address it.

"But God is the creator of any of the possible worlds", which departs from modal logic — jorndoe

But why is departing from modal logic an issue? I did ask this before.

(and commits petitio principii anyway) — jorndoe

Not necessarily, the example you've given doesn't make it clear what the reason for the claim is. You need more than just the claim itself to show that's the fallacy being committed. When that very claim is made on the basis of Aquinas' original argument, it commits no petitio principii.

"But it's not logical necessity, it's metaphysical necessity", which roughly does the same by introducing a sufficiently vague/vacant phrase — jorndoe

Why do you think it's vague? It's just the negation of contingent, which in the argument is the predicate of being dependent on conditions. What's vague about that?

whereas the logic is what we use to reason/deduce things. — jorndoe

The claim of metaphysical necessity is concluded on the basis of logic.

A possible world is a self-consistent entirety; — jorndoe

And "entirety" needs to include whatever it is that distributes over all possible worlds, which is what is metaphysically necessary.

intelligible — Hallucinogen

... and possible aren't the same — jorndoe

That was implied when I said

that any possible world that is intelligible to us — Hallucinogen

(As an aside, whatever "eternal" means, atemporal mind is incoherent (2022Nov11, 2024Sep22), atemporal living is nonsense.) — jorndoe

But your reasoning still isn't very explicit in the posts you're linking to. It appears you're saying intelligence is a process, which has to be temporal, and minds have intelligence, so minds are also temporal. Even if I were to agree with the premises I don't think it follows. Stuff in space is mathematical, but that doesn't mean mathematics is temporal. The set that contains the elements doesn't necessarily have the same properties the elements have.

"God is necessary" turns out to be a definition of "God", it's not an observation or a deduction, — jorndoe

The claim is that there's a necessary entity, and that's deduced in the argument. Whether or not you call it God is going to depend on other reasons.

No, not quite. Deism is belief in a pervasive force of creation. Some resort to the Gaia version of this when they want to personalize it, but it has not personality, the way a 'God' does. — AmadeusD

The sources I found agree with the way I defined deism.

: a movement or system of thought advocating natural (see natural entry 1 sense 8b) religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe — Merriam Webster

Belief in a god who created the universe but does not govern worldly events, does not answer prayers, and has no direct involvement in human affairs. — Oxford Reference

the belief in a single god who created the world but does not act to influence events: — Cambridge Dictionary

spawned “deism”, the idea that God set the initial conditions of the universe and then left it to play out on its own — Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy

Wikipedia says a deist God is not necessarily impersonal.

Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it, — Wikipedia

No. This has been gone over so many times, it's really disappointing that you're throwing this line out. Agnosticism is the position that we can't know whether or not God exists. — AmadeusD

Almost every source I've looked at gives both the definition I gave and the one you've given. Typically they say that an agnostic is someone who believes that ultimate reality/God is unknown or unknowable. So there's widespread ambiguity on whether it means one or the other or both.

But I regard including "unknowable" in the definition to be problematic, because it means the definition of agnosticism about God now deviates from what the broader meaning of agnostic is. For example:

a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something — Merriam Webster

2 a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
3 a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic:
Socrates was an agnostic on the subject of immortality. — Dictionary.com

And the definition of agnostic that you're giving is a major commitment to knowing about reality. It states that reality cannot furnish knowledge or proof about its ultimate nature. That's a very shaky claim with complex entailments. As such, defining agnostic in that way makes it unlike how agnostic is used in the broader sense, to not have a commitment to some belief.

If it's not a theistic one, then by the lack of definitional restriction, yes, you could — AmadeusD

What I was asking you is if you think that belief in an omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity is a theistic belief. So it sounds like you think some further critera is where the fault lines are between theism and atheism. Is that the belief that the necessary entity in question is omniscient as well as eternal and omnipotent?

Seems highly unlikely, but sure. — AmadeusD

Oh, but why? An omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity is either inherently theistic or not, why would it be unlikely that an atheist would believe in such?

Hallucinogen, the only necessity in modal logic is logic itself. — jorndoe

The argument I presented uses first-order logic, in which "contingent" and "necessary" are predicates.

I don't see why claims that are confined to modal logic would act as a constraint on what I'm able to prove. Philosophers have been talking about necessity before modal logic was formalized, so it's not obvious to me why your comment is contrary to my post. But assuming that we are limited to modal logic, and that it entails what you claim, do you mean to claim that only logical necessity exists but metaphysical necessity doesn't?

• Banno (Jul 5, 2021)
• Banno (Jul 7, 2021)
• jorndoe (Jul 6, 2021)
• jorndoe (Jul 2, 2024) — jorndoe

OK, so you're dumping the links to 4 comments in front of me. Am I supposed to read through each of them with the benefit of the doubt that they're truthful, and work out what it is in each that you think supports your reply to my argument?

Can't you just write out the reasons why you think the only necessity in modal logic is logic itself, and why this undermines the case I argued?

The main statement among those comments I'd dispute is this one:

Anyway, so, R3 is a possible world, a boring, barren, inert, lifeless world. No minds here, — jorndoe

I could just say that any possible world that is intelligible to us obeys the rules of cognition that our world obeys, so simply identifying anything intelligible about such hypothetical worlds entails they require mental structure. Hence, there's no possible worlds in which a grounding in mental structure isn't implied.

Sorry, no, that's not how it works. — T Clark

We haven't even gotten into "how it works".

You can be an atheist and not deny a non-contingent entity at all. — AmadeusD

Do you think you can be an atheist and believe in an omnipotent and eternal non-contingent entity? Because those properties are mutually inclusive with non-contingency.

IN fact, my point about deism was exactly this. You can be atheist, but deist. — AmadeusD

Doesn't make sense. Atheism is the denial or lack of belief in the existence of God. Deism is belief in God that doesn't intervene. Not intervening isn't the same as not existing.

Atheism is, etymologically, and practically-speaking "best" understood as only non-assent to theistic doctrine — AmadeusD

That's agnosticism.

That's what justification means in this context - empirical evidence. You're just playing with words. — T Clark

Justification doesn't solely consist of empirical evidence, why do you think that? It can consist solely of a priori axioms and rules of inference, or a combination of both, but never of only empirical evidence.

Sorry, no, that's not how it works — T Clark

Why not?

It's clear your premise is nothing but a "seems to me" proposition, — T Clark

You're resorting to straw-manning, because I never said that.

given that all non-contingent entities are necessarily omnipotent and eternal — Hallucinogen

That's not a given. — Michael

Something's eternal if it isn't dependent on conditions. Contingency means to have a condtional dependency, so a non-contingent entity is eternal.
Something's omnipotent if everything stands in dependency to it. Everything in a contingent series is dependent on the non-contingent member of the series, so it is omnipotent.

The example of the Presidents explains what I mean in simple terms. — Michael

The example of the Presidents doesn't answer my question. The 1st President is contingent because it is an nth term of the universe, and it is necessary for there to be a 2nd President. It's just not metaphysically necessary.

You conflate "A is required for B" and "A is necessary". The former does not entail the latter. — Michael

If B is any nth term, then the former does entail the latter.

In our previous exchange, you claimed your initial premise is justified "...by distinguishing events and observing entities..." — T Clark

I didn't actually say "justified". I said it's not an assumption, it's a description made possible by those distinctions and observations. If I were to explain the justification, I'd say it's because there's a correspondence between the series formula and the events being distinguished.

How many of those ((10^80)^80)^80 interactions have you observed? — T Clark

I don't know.

How many do you have to have observed for your premise to be justified? — T Clark

Just one.

I suspect any dictionary will provide definitions I would find acceptable for starting a discussion — wonderer1

OK, then I stand by what I said earlier:

To deny theism is to deny a necessary entity, — Hallucinogen

That's based on dictionary definitions of "God" and "theism", along with the consideration that these discussions don't focus on the ontological status of polytheistic worldviews.

This premise is patently false — Bob Ross

Why is it?

and is the denial, implicitly, that the concept of infinity is coherent. — Bob Ross

That's not implied by my premises.

you are getting this argument to work by denying that infinity, in principle, is internally coherent. — Bob Ross

Also no.

The fact that an infinite set has no last nor first element — Bob Ross

My argument addresses an infinite regress, not infinite sets in general.
An infinite series has a first term, but not a last term.

There's nothing internally incoherent with the idea of an infinite series of causal events — Bob Ross

I'm not arguing that there is. I'm arguing that there's a contradiction in the idea of an infinite regress of causal events.

There's literally nothing in that argument that goes any way towards suggesting that the first "necessary" thing is anything like what we would call a God. — flannel jesus

The OP presupposes that it's unnecessary to explain to people that metaphysical necessity is a property required of God. Acknowledging a necessary entity implies acknowledgement of something omnipotent and eternal, so contrary to your claim, necessary entities and God are very much alike.

Atheists aren't making the claim 'nothing is necessary', they're saying 'these deities in these books don't exist'. — flannel jesus

The descriptions of God offered by Abrahamic religions and Hinduism are all descriptions of a necessary entity. And atheism is more than what you've described it as, because it denies the existence of all God concepts, in connection to a specific religion or not.

you're confusing 'atheism' about personal gods with some other claim that atheists generally don't make. — flannel jesus

Denying the personal God concept is denying a necessary being, which is why atheists oppose the contingency argument and presuppositionalism, whenever they're presented. Most atheists understand that conceding the conclusion of the contingency argument signs them onto much of what is meant by theism.

Every case of atheism about a personal God is a case of atheism about a necessary being, because the definition of God is inclusive of metaphysical necessity:

God : the supreme or ultimate reality: — Merriam Webster

If it doesn't have metaphysical necessity, then it isn't supreme or ultimate. The same goes for any definition that mentions ruling nature, a creator, or being omnipotent.

Why use the word 'atheism' at all, instead of just saying 'not believing there is some necessary thing is a contradiction'?
Atheism isn't a general term for not believing something... — flannel jesus

Atheism is a term for not believing or denying some God concept, which is how I've used it. And that's how it's used in philosophy, since philosophers distinguish between local atheism (denial of/disbelief in some specific god) and global atheism.

The ontology of causation and contingency don't depend on our epistemology about them, or keeping track of them.

According to the internet, there are something like 10^80 particles in the universe. Starting from zero, they've been moving outward and bouncing off each other for 14 billion years. Show me a series of entities and events in that. — T Clark

OK, the particles = the objects denoted by the terms. "Starting from zero" = beginning of the sequence. "Moving outward and bouncing off each other" = the transformations of the sequence.

Atheism involves not believing in or the denial of an omni potent, eternal creator as defined in theism. Atheism is not about a necassary being just becuase that is an attribute of the omnipotent eternal creator (as defined by theism). — DingoJones

Metaphysically necessary means that everything is contingent on it, which makes it omnipotent. A metaphysically necessary entity is non-contingent, which means it is eternal. Denying or disbelieving in those of those means rationally having the same attitude toward metaphysical necessity because they are mutually inclusive.

Just like my poem
about my dog is not a poem about a german shepard even though a german shepard and a husky are both dogs. — DingoJones

No, it is not just like that. The concept of a German Shepherd neither implies, nor is mutually inclusive with, your specific dog.

(1) Existence is not a series (of anything) — SophistiCat

OK, so you don't think existence consists of a sequence of events or transformations. It's difficult to respond to this because it seems observably self-apparent to me.

(3) The universe does not have numbered "terms" — SophistiCat

Term: A linguistic expression used to denote objects. — Encyclopedia of Math

So you think it's false that the universe contains objects that we can denote? And "numbered" in turn just denotes ordered transformations.

(5) Does not follow — SophistiCat

Why doesn't it? You said that all the premises were false, so why is (2) false?

If we take 'entity' to mean any solid identifiable object, that would theoretically have been a sub-microscopic infinitely hot, dense ball of matter that blew itself up. — Vera Mont

Not really, for 2 reasons. Firstly "entity" doesn't imply "solid" or even "object". The standard definition is something with an identifiable existence. That could easily be something abstract, like Pythagoras' theorem. Secondly, the state of matter at the beginning of the universe wasn't necessary, because it blowing itself up, as you put it, depends on a pre-existing law of physics that entails that it behaves that way. Depency = contingent. Contingent = non-necessary.

and then you add consciousness and agency and it becomes totally absurd — Vera Mont

We're not necessarily doing that in this argument. It's an argument against denial of / disbelief in a necessary entity. But anyway, why do you think it's absurd?

If we take 'entity' to mean a self-aware organism, there must have been a first one of those, long ago, on some planet of some galaxy. In that case, all of its progeny depended on its having existed, but they don't preclude other organic life arising and becoming self-aware on any number of other planets, in any number of galaxies, and they didn't depend on that one first one, regardless of their chronological order, and none are 'contingent'. — Vera Mont

I don't really know what to say in response to this because it's not required by the argument. I'm not arguing some organism on some planet is necessary. Of course all organic life is contingent because all of it depends on prior events.

No imaginary spirits, gods or djinns are necessary. — Vera Mont

God as conceived by classical theism and monotheism is metaphysically necessary, it's required in what "God" means.

What do you mean by "existence" in P1. — tim wood

The perceptual aggregate, all observables across space and time.

"Series" is an abstract term; do you mean the Universe is an abstract term? — tim wood

The objects within the universe are the terms and the functions/natural laws of the universe can be abstracted as the formula of a series.

What is a series of entities? — tim wood

By entity, I mean the dictionary definition, and by series, I mean a sequence of transformations in space or in abstraction.

What is a series of events? — tim wood

By event, I mean a transformation of an object in space.

However, if space and time are in a circular loop, an eternal return, within the wheel of time or a part of the Big Bounce, then no term can be said to be either the 1st or the nth. — RussellA

When you say if space and time are in a circular loop, you mean that the events are in a loop, right? I'm just asking because space might loop in on itself, but that wouldn't mean that time does or that events do.

Even if you have events going in a loop, it doesn't imply that no entity is non-contingent, because the laws the events obey, (e.g., that they go in a loop, that momentum is conserved, universal constants, etc) are non-contingent with respect to the events. Unless you have a reason why those things are also contingent?

The metaphysical problem with your scenario though, is that if past events are contingent on future events, then this either implies that the past event doesn't come into existence (because its future dependency doesn't exist) or it just does away with the idea of contingency. If the past event doesn't come into existence because it is contingent on some future event is in a "loop" with, then neither events exist and there is no loop.

Therefore, unless you restrict your descriptions to only refer to theistically-derived entities, — AmadeusD

It's restricted to denial of a necessary entity, because that's where the contradiction is.

Some form of deism, even, could go through. — AmadeusD

I don't see how you could have deism without the concept of a non-contingent entity.

The only way X is unchangeable in relation to every other changing Z (i.e. non-necessary Z) is that X itself is simultaneously X & not-X, — 180 Proof

Yeah I don't understand that inference. Is this about metaphysical necessity only, or also logical necessity?
I could point out that eternal mathematical relationships (e.g., Pythagoras' theorem) don't change as everything else changes, how does that imply that those mathematical relationships are simultaneously both themselves and not themselves? I could do the same with logical tautologies like the PNC.

For my part, it is merely a matter of being skeptical towards the idea that the theist that I happen to be talking to knows what he is talking about in matters theistic. Is there some reason to think that you are in a position to speak for what all people mean by "deny theism"? — wonderer1

Define theism and define God, please.

"B and if not A then not B" does not entail "necessarily A".

B ∧ (¬A → ¬B) ⊭ □A — Michael

If not-A entails (B and (not-B)), then A is entailed. Is that what you're saying isn't the case?
Is B here the proposition that the universe has an nth term? And A is the proposition that there's a non-contingent entity in the universe's series of terms?

One can believe in some necessary thing without believing that this thing is God. Theism does not have exclusive ownership of necessity. — Michael

Which is why the thread is titled "Atheism about a necessary being".
And in the heading of the argument itself I'm making it clear that it's about rejecting a non-contingent entity.
Aside from that, given that all non-contingent entities are necessarily omnipotent and eternal, to reject a necessary entity already rejects the majority of God concepts, since it rejects the concept of an eternal creator. All that's left to dispute over is omnibenevolence and omniscience.

I believe describing existence as a series of entities and events is inaccurate. That is based on my own observations and my understanding of physics. — T Clark

Alright, could you provide more detail?

That is an assumption - an unsupported supposition. — T Clark

No, it's not an assumption. It's a description made possible by distinguishing events and observing entities appear and disappear as conditions change.

You seem to be claiming, without stating explicitly or providing support, that existence in a series of events implies contingency, i.e. causation. — T Clark

Contingency. Contingency isn't the same as causation.

The point is that denial of a necessary entity entails a contradiction. — Hallucinogen

– IFF "a necessary entity" is not itself a contradiction in terms, which it is as I've pointed out. — 180 Proof

Did you read the earlier part of my response to you? I asked why a necessary being is a contradiction in terms. I'm denying that it entails both being and non-being. That's what I want you to explain.

Even if one concedes a necessary entity (note it doesn't have to be an entity at all.) you still have said nothing about a contradiction in atheism. — DingoJones

Atheism involves disbelief in, and/or denial of, a necessary being, because metaphysical necessity is a defining feature of an omnipotent, eternal creator.

You have to deal with this:

Lastly, atheism denotes rejection of theism (i.e. theistic conceptions) but not any nontheisms (e.g. animism ... pandeism, acosmism). — 180 Proof
Because it renders everything else in your argument powerless. — DingoJones

And you read my response to it, hopefully? To deny theism is to deny a necessary entity, which entails a contradiction. Rejecting theism but not nontheism doesn't mean not rejecting theism... it's still rejecting theism. Get it?

I haven't acknowledged any 'entities', necessary or otherwise — Vera Mont

You said

I don't know what the first entity was. I will never know. — Vera Mont

"Was" typically means you're acknowledging it existed.

And, AFIK, atheism is unbelief in deities, not entities. — Vera Mont

A deity fits the definition of an entity.

I'm not an atheist about any specific proposition of your choosing; I'm an atheist by virtue of disbelieving in all deities. — Vera Mont

The deities of monotheism and deism are all metaphysically necessary entities, so disbelief in all deities entails disbelief in those metaphysically necessary entities.

Possibly in some realms of the imagination; not in my reality. — Vera Mont

In objective reality, something that is non-contingent is eternal because it doesn't depend on outside conditions, and it is omnipotent because everything else is contingent on it.
"Your" reality just means your imagination, so it's irrelevant what's true in your reality.

It's uncommon to see an argument with multiple premises, all of which are false. — SophistiCat

Do you want to explain why you think this?

There is no first (or last) number on the real number line. — 180 Proof

They're all contingent on the value of unity, the set as a whole and the series formula. That would be the "first" term.

(i.e. both being and not-being simultaneously) — 180 Proof

Why is this entailed?

Lastly, atheism denotes rejection of theism (i.e. theistic conceptions) — 180 Proof

The point is that denial of a necessary entity entails a contradiction.

They, the words, have to be well-defined so that at least at first they seem to be applicable in both. So your first problem is your words. — tim wood

Where?

Your second is your presuppositions: each of your propositions contains at least one that is unclear or questionable. — tim wood

Could you explain each?

Just for example, everything that is in a sequence has a starting point. A circle is a sequence. A circle has no starting point.... — tim wood

What defines a circle is the formula for a circle. An observable circle is composed of finite points, but they are all observed simultaneously, they aren't in a sequence in the sense of one point depending on the previous point.

If you're acknowledging that there's a non-contingent first entity then you're not an atheist about a necessary entity. Metaphysical necessity is mutually inclusive with being eternal and omnipotent, so the acknowledgement concedes a lot of important ground to theism.

it's morally OK to abort a foetus because it isn't viable? — Hallucinogen


It is. — AmadeusD

OK, why do you think viability is what is morally relevant enough to make the difference between for it to be or not be permissible to abort/kill someone?