To many people this makes sense, like me included. Thank you for bringing Aquinas' thoughts accessible this simple way! Although I do have to wonder if our ability for "rational" thought is less valuable than we tend to think. I say this because typically if you really listen to people, their arguments don't arrive from an actually place of reason, rather they come from a feeling or intuition, and the rational mind tries to explain that in anyway possible. So both the arguments for or against the existence of God have already been made up, and now it is only the rational mind trying to convince you further. I argue that the feeling comes always first, before the rational thought. Maybe it is related to this old metaphor on the rider and the elephant. Rider being the rational conscious and the elephant the irrational unconscious. What ever it may be, I choose to believe in God and in the goodness of Jesus, because it makes life more valuable and precious.
Just don't blindly take the advice of Jesus. He said to sell all of your stuff, including your computer, by the way, and give the money to the poor and then follow him and not worry about tomorrow, because the birds don't worry. Be careful in all things. If you truly read the bible and see all of the horrible stories, it doesn't mean that it's true, or good for that matter.
@@blackswan8653 I wrote I choose faith, in both God and Jesus. I don't think I wrote I believe blindly to anything. I read the bible often, and the chapter you mention, you have to understand he said that to this young man who inherited a lot of wealth and was uncertain of himself. This suggestion to this young man was directed to him. Not as a general advice, and the young man did not even follow this advice and walked away worried. The bible is a collection of deep meaningful teachings about the realities and possibilities of experience. A book is powerful, and needs knowledge and thought.
@@pekka1900 I made up excuses like that when I was a believer as well. It's really not a good book. It's a book written from the perspective of people who lived during the times they were written. If you take off your god goggles, you may see that. I threw you a soft ball with that example in the bible. Read Luke 19 -27 and tell me the moral of that story. Have a good day.
@@blackswan8653 I'm sorry you had bad experience, because of the bible. I hope you can remember that it's the people acting that is important, not the book, if people use the bible or any book for that matter to cause harm or misguide people, the problem is the people doing these things, not the source. I did read the chapter on luke 19:1-27. I'm going to think on that part, but I'm also going to consider it as a part of an over arching message, not as an independent short bad sounding story. But briefly, I think the message in that story was that sometimes when you think you are doing good is not the right thing, and if you are given you should give it forward, and the evil magistrate is a representation of the consequences of your actions, and you don't always know what the consequences are before hand. I don't think the moral there is that people in power can do what they want and the weak just suffer. People can interpret the stories as they want and this is where the patience and good will in humanity comes in. I wish you a good day too!
@@pekka1900 Maybe you didn't get the gist of the story. That evil magistrate was Jesus. Plus, you assume too much. I never had a bad experience because of the bible. You are correct, that people can suck especially the ones who follow that horrible book. I'm not harping on you in particular and I wish you well. I'd rather that you cherry pick the bible to only take the good parts out and dismiss the evil stuff, but not all people do that. Far too many people, (myself included once upon a time) use this book as an excuse to behave badly, for example the priests who took many of the African slaves into the country to enslave them here in America. The bible endorses slavery, teaches "otherism" and separates families. You have no idea of the damage done by this fictional book to the world. Clueless. You just make excuses for the atrocities.
God has asked me to tell you this story "A naïve man who spent his time helping people and lived in a wealthy city distanced himself to a mountainous land. On his way there he kept helping people. He then falls ill and these thoughts come to him: What will I do afterwards? I will go to the top of the mountain and let the vultures eat me; I want no riches of this world; I am going to help my father, and I can work. He then goes back to the wealthy and miraculously finds work that allows to come out of his illness. He then understands. The vultures are the people he attracted and due to being naïve he did not know he attracted; he wants no riches of this world because he is human values in particular he is humble the greatest of virtues. He helps his father to die without suffering, and he works. In short God does exist and wants a peaceful world. This story explains the purpose of life.
This. I don't know when you posted this, but thank you. My father is currently passing due to after effects of corona pneumonia and possibly skin cancer. It has only been 5 days since my spiritual awakening, through my own self realization of my self-destructive habits. My lovely partner was so perfect it made me want to learn why I wanted to run, instead of just running like every other time before. Through dealing with my previous traumas and thoughts, I came to the realization of the necessity to keep my relationship with my father. I am 21 years old currently, and yes my father is a large aspect of my trauma. I told myself I'd call him, and I didn't want to, so I did. We talked for a bit and made plans to meet in person after some time. We talked and discussed our journeys, I discussed my journey and the signs I've seen in the world that are helping me make the right decisions. Because of these signs and odd and systematic coincidences, I believe in God now, after being an atheist for 11 years. I discussed how paradoxes now make sense to me, and why people invert when in reality, we need to exvert to find ourselves and to find others who understand our objectives to become the best possible human BEINGS we can. The entire talk and the food we ate after (along with more and more discussions of life and how we as human beings fundamentally operate) was extremely beneficial for both of us. After he cried hugging me and I hugged him even harder. I learned to eat my pride, and I learned to love my father even through all of our own separate internal torments. Now, I may not be "excited" to go back due to my own learnings through some of the more recent stuff he said/did/rejected, but I CHOSE to try, and it was a beautiful day because of it. Thank you for the confirmation of my journey so far. Bless 🤙❤
These arguments have numerous flaws. First, the narrator's last sentence was "There He must exist". (obviously not true since God is a woman). But basically, Aquinas still lived in an era when the ideas of Aristotle had a major influence on Christianity,. The arguments of Aguinas tend to (from his pov) to support the "God" (The One, the Good) of Aristotle, and this Substance/Entity (The Unmoved Mover), is far from having the properties of the Judao-Christian Creator God. So for those trying to gain support for the Christian "Trinity", the arguments of Aquinas are useless.
Aquinas starts with the unfounded assertion that a "god" gave us the ability to understand things. First mistake. An unmoved mover is like saying an "undone doer" or an "unreal realization", a walking talking contradiction in terms or a "timeless spaceless" being. The infinite regress argument then comes into play when you have to ask who started the god, or what moved the god or what created the god. The argument where fried chicken is god, is ridiculous. Assume nothing. Verify everything, including your god.
