From: billc@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu (Morbius)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.secular.atavism,alt.atheism,sci.skeptic,alt.religion.sexuality,alt.recovery.catholicism,talk.religion.misc,alt.gobment.lones
Subject: Re: believing in Jesus and salvation
Date: 26 Oct 1994 00:12:58 GMT
Organization: Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh
Lines: 71

In article <38jl8r$jh8@rpc07.gl.umbc.edu> dhilbu1@umbc.edu (hilburn daniel) writes:
>Listen, if someone doesn't accept the Necessity/ Contingency
>argument, it is faulty reasoning.

Oh, you are just so sure of yourself, aren't you? Let's see
if your arrogance is justified. 
 
>                                  Some people don't accept
>the Law of Non-Contradiction, or the Law of Sufficient Reason.
>I'd like to see the gaping hole found in the N/C argument.

Well then, let me point it out to you. It is in treating 
spacetime as merely the arena in which cause and effect is
played out. This leads to two separate errors: first, that no
cause need be found for spacetime,i.e. "it was always there"
or some other equally moronic fundamental misconception;
and second, that the matter and energy in the universe can be
considered separately from spacetime. That these are errors
is obvious to anyone familiar with cosmology and elementary
particle physics. Spacetime cannot be considered separately
from the matter within it. So, any "cause" of the universe
*must* be a "cause" of spacetime, and a "cause" of spacetime
is a nonsensical concept since cause and effect only act  
*within* spacetime (If this statement doesn't seem right to 
you, then try to think of a counter-example: Something which
was caused, but wasn't caused at anyplace(s) or at any time(s)). 
The universe was not caused by anything at all. It is just there.

>In the Russell/Copleston debate, Russell fell back on denying
>the Law of Sufficient Reason. Doesn't he need a reason for 
>rejecting the LOSR?  

Russell was a gifted mathematician who was familiar with general 
relativity. He had no naive misconceptions about spacetime. He, too,
stated that the universe was just there.
     
>                    I imagine you are more philosophically astute
>than Russell though, so your objections would demolish all the 
>arguments. Professor Brian Davies (Oxford), Professor Mortimer
>Adler (U. of Chicago), Professor Ralph McInenry (Notre Dame),
>et.al., are idiots.

Yes,  if they are trying to make statements about the "cause"  
of the universe using naive ideas about spacetime. However, as
you have presented no arguments in this post but merely *talked*
about arguments, I will just call *you* an idiot.

BTW, I can drop names as well as you. Check out the writings of
Stephen Hawking and Paul Davies for confirmation of what I stated
above.
 
>                    They don't know what they are talking about.
>Some non-professional philosopher from a state college in New
>Jersey will demolish their arguments. 

I am just a fourth year physics grad student from a university in 
Pennsylvania, and I think I've done a pretty good job of making 
you look like an moron.

>                                       Get a clue pal!!!!!!

He sure as hell won't get one from you. You never had one.

You have very little to be arrogant about, unless you find
stupidity to be admirable. 



-Morbius