“This was some time before I became an atheist, which was some time before I became the observant Roman Catholic I am now.”

I love that move to try to gain some street cred with atheists.  It’s cute.

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Thomas Aquinas also surmised that human females, as opposed to males, were conceived due to weather conditions:  damp evenings when the wind comes from the south.

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Quick question, why doesn’t the cosmological argument lead to the inescapable conclusion that Ishtar is the cause of all things?

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I’ve read Aquinas (in a Catholic university, even!), and I can assure everyone that old Thomas has the stupidest bullshit of any of the antique philosophers.

But, he does indeed have hundreds of pages of it.  I’ll have to concede to Edward Feser on that point.

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Speaking of the cosmological argument, how come he no theist ever make the claim “everything has a cause”, when every single theist I have ever discussed that with always asserts that very thing?

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The cosmological argument comes down to “why is there something rather than Nothing?” This takes for granted that nothing is possible.  Aquinas is assuming this; which leads naturally to it having a cause or a time when it didn’t exist. If not, what would be the purpose of arguing that “God” was the reason for sustained existance?

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Scientists, many who are indeed atheists, have always been searching for the “why”, meaning the “cause”, of how and why the universe and everything, everywhere, works the way it does.

Why do you think we have scientists talking about quantum physics, “braines”, truly eternal (never started and never ending) universes, and related ideas being studied? To find out just what did in fact “cause” everything.

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Accusing atheists of not having read all the work of certain philosophers and religious apologists — whose ideas are mostly archaic and discredited — doesn’t convince me they’re wrong.

It’s unfortunate the author didn’t do an interview with Dawkins or Dennett. He could’ve asked them if — or how much — of the work they’ve read of the people he listed in his story.

Any attempt at a genuine rebuke of the New Atheists tanked with this sentence:

“If you have any doubt about this, feel free to pick up a copy or three of my book, The Last Superstition, which exposes the errors of the New Atheists, and lays out the case for the existence of God, at rigorous and polemical length. ... But you don’t have to take my self-promoting word for it.”

Weak attempt at self-deprecation, which weakened his argument. What a turnoff.

Lastly, how does someone go from being an atheist to an observant Roman Catholic? I’d suggest he did it for social reasons, but it doesn’t come across that way in his article.

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This whole thing read to me like one long ad hominem. You new atheists guys are stupid therefore all your arguments are wrong. What piffle.

I just had a conversation with a catholic last week—a very smart, well educated young man—so I asked him, why do you believe in god? His answer: “because there had to be a first cause.” Aquinas may not have said it, but so what? A lot of catholics hang their hat on this one, then go along with the rituals out of habit or adherence to family tradition.

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I like that he implies that Plato and Aristotle were writing to prove that there is a Judeo-Christian god.

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Brother Mario,

Refuting God’s existence may be out of my, and everyone else’s, intellectual grasp. Your comment, on the other hand…

“And when someone comes along that can help this multitude by sharing their absolute certitude of God’s existence by spritual gifts (added to reason), that person is easily dismissed.”

Asking someone to take your word for it is asking someone to have faith in the truth of your statement(s), right? So, if someone doesn’t believe God exists, and that assertion can be found in the Holy Books of Monotheism, alleged by their followers to be God’s word and having been around far longer than anyone alive today, why should they believe the middleman? Seems both redundant and presumptuous.

“Shut up. Get quiet. Ask. Seek. Knock.”

You’re advocating both complacency and action as means of growing larger wings. Unless they are supposed to be undertaken in the order listed, they are mutually exclusive. If these steps should be followed in order, why? And why do you suggest that we ask questions/seek answers when you also state that human beings don’t possess the mental faculties necessary for this endeavor when God is the subject of the inquiry? Perhaps you should present your thoughts in a more coherent manner, then try your hand at commenting on what you do or do not believe and know about God.

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