The whole truth
Posts: 1554
Joined: Jan. 2012
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This is a chunk of gordo's latest Comments Off sermon at UD:
Newton was able to show that laws of motion such as Kepler’s three laws (including the elliptical orbit of the planets) logically followed from Newtonian Gravitation and his laws of motion, with the aid of some mathematics and basic observations. Later, he would write in his General Scholium to the famous Principia:
. . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets [--> notice, his focus on the system of forces and objects, not on the caricature of angels pushing planets around . . . ], could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another . . . . We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final cause [i.e from his designs]: we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. [i.e necessity does not produce contingency] All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. [That is, implicitly rejects chance, Plato's third alternative and explicitly infers to the Designer of the Cosmos.] But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from. the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.
Of course, after he had a headache on trying to figure our multiple body interactions and possibilities for perturbations and destabilisation, he suggested that occasionally God might adjust the system to keep it in order. But after the concept of perturbations was introduced, this was seen as a classic case of God of the gaps reasoning closed off by later progress of science. Though, actually, we do not even have general solutions to the three body problem, and after the impact of the butterfly effect and chaos in the past generation, we still have an active problem of the long term stability of solar systems, and indeed it seems that it is hard, very hard to get a stable one.
But we can easily see the point that Newton actually made a cosmological design inference, much along the lines of Plato before him:
Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change?Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second.
[[ . . . .]Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it?Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life?Ath. I do.
Cle. Certainly we should.
Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life?
[[ . . . . ]
Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul?
Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things?
Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things.
[[ . . . . ]
Ath.If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path.[[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.]
. . . and, Paul:
Ac 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
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Col 1: 16 For by him [the Eternal Son] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [ESV]
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My responses:
1. All science so far!
2. In NO way do Newton's scientific discoveries verify Newton's or gordo's or anyone else's religious beliefs and claims.
3. gordo, like other creobots, loves to make appeals to authority. gordo's numerous attempts to substantiate his, Newton's, or anyone else's religious beliefs by trying to make it look as though Newton's scientific discoveries made (and still make) Newton an indisputable authority on 'God', creation, evolution, and how science should be defined and practiced are really lame.
4. The Plato stuff is another lame appeal to authority.
5. His promotion of the Plato stuff shows that gordo is claiming that all living things have souls. Such a claim contradicts the christian claim (which gordo holds dear) that ONLY 'specially created' humans have souls. Baby jesus is crying because of gordo's blasphemy.
6. The bible crap is yet another lame appeal to authority, and it is more proof that gordo's and ID's agenda is religious (and political as a means of pushing their agenda).
7. I'm sure that gordo 'the god-wannabe' mullings LOVES the words thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities, and what they stand for.
8. gordo and other creobots sure do love to dig up dead people (often including some that never existed) in their deluded attempts to support their bronze age (and is some ways even further back) religious fairy tale beliefs.
9. And again, All science so far!
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Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27
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