ep21 - One God - St. Thomas Aquinas -We perceive the world inaccurately because our tools are not perfect -our senses are failing us, our senses is flawed - Assumed god is responsible - Mistaking correlation with causation - Use of human reason to arrive at truth - You are still human looking at a lot of bias gathered in real life, based on the time you're born in, your level of education, etc - Darwin's theory gives an alternative theory of how things could be seemingly providentially ordered and designed - Modern times allows us to see alternative explanations we couldn't see in space - Harmonious ordered cosmos - Why is there something rather than nothing? - Why is everything moving, the celestial stars? - Aristotle (empiricist) St. Thomas Aquinas - Lived in the 1200s - Christian Aristotelian - Loved Aristotle - Aristotle's prime mover argument or the unmoved mover argument - Nothing moves unless with the help of something else - There needs to be a beginning that initially moved everything that wasn't moved, that thing was God - Compatible with the modern idea of gravity - This is one of Thomas's five logical proofs for the existence of God - Because we refer to this mover as God, God thereby exist - God is eternal, external to time itself - How can someone who accepts things based on faith alone hope to win an argument against someone who uses logical syllogisms or real evidence for what they believe - reason triumphing over faith was met with a lot of hostility - switching the fight to a physical fight - Fight between Aristotle and the church was inreconcilable - Aquinas didn't think reason and faith were incompatible if you read them correctly - Within Aristotle's idea of the universe existing eternally - Aristotle believed the universe had always existed, Faith believes God created the universe at a particular date - Aristotle, "does infinity exist?" - Time must work like infinity John Philoponus - The idea between God creating the universe and the universe existing eternally - Aquinas believed reason alone can never demonstrate that the world had a beginning - God is the efficient cause of the universe - Reading the scripture literally causes the people to get confused about what is possible Q. What is the final cause of human beings?

Thanks for introducing me to the postal service!

The methodology used by St Thomas Aquinas reminds me a lot of Avicenna's proof of the truthful, perhaps St Aquinas was influenced by Avicenna's methodology, who himself was an admirer of Aristotle.

For those looking to learn more about Aquinas, Edward Feser is a great resource. Can't recommend his blog enough (philosophy of mind, natural law, etc)

I got a new favorite song. Thanks Steve.

Aquinas takes quite a few huge leaps with the concept of infinity.

Cutting off the patient's feet to make him fit the bed is irrational.

in answer to the question "What is the final cause of a human being?".. there's one experience where my body said "YES, good job, do more of that!" and that was sex.. it seems like if anything is the cause of a human its that.. and it "causes" more humans too!

l feel sleepy 😴

Ancient and oriental philosophy was relevant, interesting. Mid age philosophy is so entangled with the topic of god and interpretation of religious scripts, why should I care?

i take it hes not a theist

You lost me when you starting talking about supernovas and solar flares. Those are fairy tales as far as I can tell