Why Christians Don't Go "Seems Fiction" (All That Much)

OK, when I see a new novel, I do go "seems fiction" because it is presented as a novel.

Video I

Atheist Lee, "Does Christianity make atheists?"
Lee Lemon | Ajoutée le 23 janv. 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZSfvfLRS4

I

When we talk about "raised Muslim and become atheist" (as I think you are going for), I recall some great neighbours, cultural Muslims but of atheist conviction, where I studied.

[That was what she was going for.]

II

Other analysis of his reaction.

"Seems fiction"

You know Arabian Nights? It contains much more stories than (at least very fleshed out) the Coran does.

This work is generally regarded as fiction.

Now, I think Arabian Nights as well as Santa Claus can be used to give people the idea that "x seems fiction" because of similar content.

When I judged - just the other day on quora - some diaries by Richard Lionheart as fictional, it was based on:

• diary keeping was not a big thing with chivalry, its literary pleasures were more about hearing recitals than reading and turning pages, so, they would normally not be very obsessed with the idea of writing
• Richard spoke French and Occitan, the "editor" pretends to have translated them from Latin
• Richard was known to be very taciturn, he was nicknamed "Oc e No" - meaning "Yes and No" (like : he hardly uttered other words), his writing diaries is about as probable as a local hockey star doing so
• the diaries were supposedly lost for centuries and discovered very recently in moves including a Nazi desecrating a tomb to get them
• while Nazis on lower levels could desecrate Jewish tombs - or perhaps not, perhaps that is more what certain Neo-Nazis are supposed to do - descrating tombs was not really a big thing with Nazis. If they ditched pieties forbidding cruelty in some cases, respect for tombs was not one they ditched
• since the paper or even parchment is supposed to have been in a tomb together with a corpse, it would be a miracle if the diary survived
• no miracles have been tied to that tomb.

When a Muslim says about Gospels "seems fiction" he is more like ...

• Satan takes Jesus off to a high mountain, Jinns do that with people in Arabian Nights
• Herod and Pilate are political authority, in Arabian Nights you find powerful people being wrong (unless they are Harun arRashid or Jafar)
• the story seems to be the point in the Gospels, as in Arabian Nights, while in the Coran, if there is a story, it is always (or nearly always) explicitly a side issue to illustrate a point which Muslims "cannot doubt"

There is a saint we celebrate day after tomorrow. St Blaise. He's invoked for diseases of the throat. One boy had swallowed a fish bone and choked to death, St Blaise raised him by picking out the fish bone.

To a Muslim, this "seems fiction," because of the Garrulous Barber doing so in Arabian Nights.

It's a bit as when Samson story is dismissed on the ground that "oh, obviously unreal, we've seen the Incredible Hulk do that too".

Nothing, really nothing specific to the case is needed with that attitude, just knowing your fictions and being able to draw parallels. And by case, I obviously mean the case of "supposing it is real, how do we know that" case.

So, actually the Muslim is not "biassed about his community". He is simply using its criteria.

Now, the problem is, they seem also to use this as criteria about mental sanity.

When I read Arabian Nights, one thing stuck with me. You could tell which weekday it was, what the order of the weekdays were, and recite the Shahada, you were sane. Later I figured, great idea, I can recite the Apostolic Creed and ... er, no. Only works for Shahada, I think. I think one origin of the practise may have been to give "apostates" to Christianity a "second chance" by declaring them insane, and ... well, on THIS level I would say Muslims definitely do have a community bias. Not despite the "seems fiction" criterium, but because of it.

Oh, by "no miracles have been tied to that tomb" - I mean not even dubious claims which have been debunked. Or attempted to debunk. As a Catholic and a miracles fan, I am obviously somewhat knowleddgeable on whether a Latin Catholic of the Middle Ages has or has had a canonisation process ongoing.

Video II

Atheists - Why Christians Think the Bible is Proof of God
Lee Lemon | Ajoutée le 4 nov. 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmJ6d6h7gmU

I

2:04 No. My normal logic does not go out of the window.

My normal logic does not involve "miracles do not happen, this includes a miracle, therefore it is fiction".

My normal logic does not involve "obviously God can't have spoken to Mohammed" or "to Joseph Smith" or "to Arjuna" (there are some Hindoos who have monotheist leanings and would call Krishna in Bhagavadgita a manifestation of God) or "to Zarathustra" : it only concludes God didn't because their revelations involve sth contradicting mine.

If I had no idea of Christianity (and were not a dedicated atheist), I would definitely be open to one or more of them really having a genuine revelation.

My normal logic does not involve "this reminds me of a work of fiction, therefore probably is fiction".

My normal logic does involve "if earliest mentions of a text take it as fiction, it probably was fiction, if earliest mentions of a text take it as lies or truth (doesn't too much matter which) it probably was lies or truth (and let's find out which)". It does involve "if God reveals Himself, He can't contradict Himself" (hence Christianity or Islam, Christianity or Brahmo Somaj, one in each pair has to be a lie, if they contradict). It does involve "if miracles do happen, they have a connection to God (or at worst the Devil)".

2:47 You mentioned Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah.

Has it occurred to you that some people who suffer rather than perpetrate unbearable living conditions can find relief in death?

Some atheists are fine with man taking "euthanasia" in his own hands, but find it terribly unjust if God were to do so to a society ("euthanasia" for the relatively innocent and punishment as punishment for those more perpetrating what makes others want to die)?

II

4:14 I am definitely not your "first type of Christian".

While some OT rules are no longer applicable, they were good and perfect for their time.

5:51 I would definitely consider God did help out translating OT to Greek through seventy translators who all got the same text, independently of each other. Makes me the second kind of Christian, right?

7:06 While it is not crazy for God to write the whole Bible, as He did three times with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20, Exodus 34, John 8) each time on mineral support, it is neither what the Bible says about itself, nor what the Tradition says about it, nor what Biblical inerrancy logically requires.

A mum is not allowing her kid to put gazoline in food, and that parallel is just so right.

III

7:41 No, that is not entirely the reason.

I do not believe the Coran was inspired by God, remember, but I will count it as evidence about events in Muhammed's life.

Precisely because the kid is not getting to use gasoline in food, I believe the Bible is also inerrant. But I believe it is sound evidence even before it is recognised as inerrant.

Biographically, I have never been there. I knew the Bible was inerrant, mother toild me, at least a year before I read Dale and Elaine Rhooton's Can we know? - but I totally agree with them, a sound investigation of what really happened has to treat the Gospels as some type of actual evidence, not as an irrelevant fable.

I cannot treat Lord of the Rings as evidence of physical events in the 20th C. I cannot NOT treat the Gospels as evidence of physical events in the 1st C. AD. Because of who was believing what about the texts soon after they were written. Soon may be relative, in the sense Papias is several decades a near century after Synoptics were written, and some centuries even after St John's Gospel.

But even with "early reception" getting "early" as a relative word (Papias is not a bookreview published in a newspaper between printing event and release event), it is conclusive. Gospels may be fact or error (apart from the faith excluding the error part of lemma), but they are not fiction and not meant as fiction.

8:22 Different type of evidence?

Well, if so, the Gospels containing evidence about the Resurrection would, on your view, rationally, be marred evidence.

How about going through how many types of marred evidence there is (lie, honest mistake by sane people, someone going insane and hallucinating, there aren't umpteen more of them), and then see whether any of them would fit the bill with the Gospels?

With the Coran, even without insulting the sanity of Mohammed, two types of marred evidence come to mind and cannot be excluded : Mohammed could have lied (he was not exactly sacrificing his life for what he had "received") and Mohammed could, himself, have been deceived by an evil spirit.

And probably some Mohammedans reading this will go "Hans Georg could be lying or be batshit crazy - if he prefers, deceived by an evil spirit" (I don't equate those concepts, by the way). The thing is, I am not lying, because I am not the one discovering for the first time ever this cannot apply to the Gospels, the thing is, I am not receiving this in a vision either; the thing is, your own version of apologetics is not to prove Mohammed could neither be a liar nor deceived, but to get past that question (mostly) and get philosophising and conclude "if Mohammed's religion makes philosophical sense ..." no, there are more philosophies than one which make sense to the mind of fallen man, even atheism at times!

8:43 Again, even if you don't believe God had anything to do with writing of the Gospels, how do you explain they record miracles, and especially the Resurrection?

We do NOT have the Gospels lost from sight over hundreds of years and then someone digging them up pretending this is what the followers of Jesus wrote down just after, then it was lost, now we have found it. We do NOT have them lost from sight for hundreds of years and then someone claims "oh, we were secretly copying them and teaching they were the truth". We do NOT have the scenario I was outlining for a dystopia as a teen, where Gospels were lost for centuries and then someone finds them and concludes that, if people believed this, it cannot have started out as a story book.

We DO have Gospels recorded as being from the first the record of the Church and from the first, believed by it as such.

Church Life and what they Tell Children

In this video, Lemon Lee speaks in general of Christian camp, which she liked, but also of things she now as an Atheist reacts against them telling her. Or talking to her about.

These are, I abortion is murder, II martyrdom and for that matter death, III being prepared to die in general, there being an eternity with Heaven and Hell, "which there is no evidence for".

She finally, IV, asks for listeners' and viewers' experiences of Christian camps and Church life in general.

"Did you go to Christian camp?"
Lee Lemon | Ajoutée le 18 nov. 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPtZFSM0BNo

I

3:39 Er no ... one should know abortion is murder before one gets into puberty

I think you can see why.

IF you come to that age and IF you are careless and IF you get pregnant, and you don't know abortion is murder, you might under the circumstances of modern society (I just saw bad new from India where supreme court says a husband can't be with his wife if she's under 18, even if she's already 15 - not encouraging to teen marriages, is it?) make a VERY bad decision.

Knowing abortion is murder is actually one way of avoiding the situation.

I know a 13 year old girl in Sweden (a heavily pro-abortion country, like Canada, ok not quite as bad as Canada, they have restrictions after week 12, Canada hasn't) who kept her baby. She left the Catholic Church, though, probably partly for getting some bad looks for getting pregnant in the first place, but the baby was already saved.

In a way, yes, I'd prefer a society in which one hasn't to tell pre-teens abortion is murder - that would be one in which there are no legal abortions.

II

4:17 In a society where there were neither school obligation, nor school shootings (which have been ongoing over the last century of school obligation), nor other threats of martyrdom, yes, one could speak less about martyrdom to children. But not not at all - after all, most big Catholic feasts are martyr's feasts.

4:34 I am definitely beginning to see atheism as a "death denial" cult or a death tabooing one.

I can tell you about the tent camp (both adults and children) where my ma took me.

There was about Daniel in the lion's den, and about praying to have the courage of Daniel in such a case, but of course, he survived.

III

Oh, Jesus gave us the evidence - and the doctrine.

Btw, it is that doctrine which did perhaps most to abolish - gradually, over centuries - slavery in Europe.

When Roman Empire converted, as Chesterton noted, it was "as much a slave state as Antebellum South Carolina". In the day of St Thomas Aquinas, when he argues slaves have a right to marry and it is not cheating on their master's property rights to let them chose husband and wife as everyone else, he is arguing a master who would deny them that would be foolish, because there are so few good slaves anyway - and if he knew about the thing, it is arguably because he was born in a territory which up to 1033 had been under Muslim domination, he came to a France where it didn't exist, except locally at Marseille, illegally slave trading.

Why were so many slaves freed?

Because masters were fearing Hell if not being kind enough to slaves and masters were also freeing slaves to get someone to pray for them when they were in Purgatory, just in case they didn't go to Heaven directly.

IV

I already mentioned the camp where I was with ma.

Really small child, very little Church experience. Some I had was simply fun.

Bigger, Evangelical and similar (you know The Walk?) became too Puritan and oppressive culturally.

Also, some sentimental music which hadn't bothered me earlier, felt inappropriate when I was a teen.

I became a Swedish state Church Lutheran, services much more sober. My main experience with the youth group was "great" except for two things. I didn't meet my future wife there and they were against both literal Young Earth Creationism and literal belief in Christ's Presence in the Eucharist. After some time (I had been with "High Church Lutherans" questioning the Reformation) I decided to become a Catholic.

As I had committed a major sin and had to deal with it without the help of Confession, the conversion taking me from 16 to 20, that was a bit of an ordeal, even quite a lot of it. I tried to make up with God by accepting a monastic vocation (which a father confessor might have told me was not needed to be forgiven for that sin), and dreaming of that was also kind of a substitute for the communion I could not yet go to.

So, I had my spiritual life in a kind of ruins and in a kind of ill managed home made self repair when I became Catholic.

I have not reached stability, I have been part time Orthodox and didn't get a stable life there either (I also reacted to a progressive sermon which was criticising Ratzinger "Benedict XVI" for the wrong things, for not supporting condoms), and went back.

Atheist Classic : Equivalent Argument for Other Deity?

Would You Convert? - A question for Christians, Muslims, & other theists
Lee Lemon | Ajoutée le 6 août 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvanoKDr1tA

"God created everything"

A reason for Theism in general, but not per se sufficient for which Theism is correct.

However, this is a Classic in Theism : God is transcendent morality, He not just created morality for us, He is Morality Himself. God also understands us.

But our morality and the we He is supposed to understand are social things. This is why Trinity - God Himself being a Holy Family - works better than a mono-personal God.

I just got from a Muslim woman that God loves. I asked her "is God love?" She thought this illogic and irrelevant. No, if God is a single person, He can't be love (since love is interpersonal), and if God is not love, He can't love anything before He creates.

There are other arguments, though.

Now, Ahura Mazda.

Zend Avesta, Coran and Book of Mormon have exactly one problem in common. They are a revelation to one single man : Zarathustra, Muhammed or Joseph Smith.

Greek mytho-theology (which I distinguish from Heroic legend, which also counts as "Greek myths" but which is mostly historical) is actually non-Theistic, is actually more like Shintoism, a lot of spirits, but none of them transcendentally above the other ones.

Same, more or less, for Roman mytho-theology. So, Zarathustra, Mohammed, Joseph Smith would all need to agree that "Western Ancient Shintoism" is an error.

However, Greeks had Hesiod and Romans had Numa Pompilius to reveal it (technically, Numa was more like receing the arts of divination, but even so).

If a demon or several demons could fool Hesiod and Numa, why could not Zarathustra and Mohammed and Joseph Smith be fooled by a demon?

Before going on to ask the same of Noah or Moses or the Apostles of Our Lord, a very simple observation : none of Hesiod to Joseph Smith made any miracles of great divine powers necessarily implied before lots of witnesses, nor witnessed someone higher than them make such. None of them have the equivalent of their revelation leading to an Ark which survives a world wide Flood, none of them the equivalent of dividing a Sea and having a whole little nation walk through and then shutting the Sae so an army drowns. None of them had the equivalent of 500 men seeing a dead man alive again, and these five hundred also verified by some who had seen Him at very close hand.

Next, Catholicism provides for there being one people of God, recording all revelation up to its fulness and then keeping it, from Creation and on.

Zarathustra lived where "truth had been lost" due to magicians (probably of a "Western Shintoist" type). Mohammed came where "both Jews and Christians had falsified their Scriptures". Joseph Smith came because "the great apostasy already happened, soon after the last apostles, and there has been no continuous Church, therefore God reestablishes His Church again". Same story. Someone way after Adam is getting to say "I'm first, from now on".

Jesus Himself, while first ontologically, alpha and omega, was not first historically as a man, though He arguably was the divine person who appeared to Adam and Eve in human form. He could point back to a long story - and claim, everything in that story pointed to him.

The Shintoisms contradict each other on detail as much as Zarathustra, Mohammed and Joseph Smith do. Zarathustra requires you to be vegetarian, and think Adam's sin (or equivalent first man's sin) was slaughering a cow or bull and eating beef - Mohammed and Joseph Smith have no beef with eating beef. While Mohammed and Joseph Smith agree on polygamy and alcohol, they disagree on coffee and on the Trinity (Mohammed denying three persons, Joseph Smith denying singularity of God-Being).

The one criterium which is superior is a very long history through very various circumstances being fully internally consistent. Only Catholicism and Judaism have anything like that, and Judaism is unfortunately in a position of "waiting for" - to many it may alas be another Mohammed, Joseph Smith or Zarathustra (on the Catholic view : worse than the three put together), since the loss of the Temple proves their Old Covenant not self sustaining.

Forgot Freemasonry - claiming to be a primordial (in English version) Theistic tradition, but "Clark-Kenting" up to 1717 AD, much of the time.

I obviously have a problem with the Clark Kenting part, since it means earlier adherents "to same tradition" do not become historically verifiable as such. Precisely as with the kind of Evangelicals who think there were Clark Kenting Evangelicals up to Tyndale's time, but outwardly pretending mostly to be Catholics. Culdees were sth else, they were Irish monks of a fairly Oriental and non-Benedictine discipline. Perhaps Welsh monks too.

Answering "Lemon Lee" on Aquinas

"I always asked it expecting there to be an answer."

Lee Lemon or Atheist Lee on how she was asking questions about God and the Bible back when she was a Christian (other video).

I still do.

But, what is more, I had exactly the same attitude when asking questions about Big Bang or Evolution or Mind from Matter or Origin of Language in an Evolutionary perspective.

I don't do that any more. The reason I don't do that is that, back when I started believing in the Bible, I was getting to brickwalls when it came to these things often labelled "science".

Now, we'll see Lemon Lee doing some similar things when she is answering the five ways of St Thomas.

Video here commented on

Atheist Lee, "What about the proofs of Aquinas?"
Lee Lemon | added 11th Dec. 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4hcb-oVAg

Intro

0:36 These five are proofs of God.

While each ends with a (partial) definition of God corresponding to what he has just proved, Aquinas definitely does set up to prove God here.

Citing St Thomas

I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways.

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence — which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Summa Theologica, Part I, Q 2, A3
http://newadvent.com/summa/1002.htm#article3

I

1:02 Unknown to Aquinas, things can interact?

When Aquinas proves the unmoved mover, he is beginning with lots of panoramas of the interaction.

OK, a pen falls to the ground alone. But how many other things can a pen do alone?

How many directions are involved in falling to the ground? As I count, one.

A flame of fire can move in exactly one opposite direction, up.

If things as simple as being made of heavy or light matter were just moving themselves in those directions, and this from all eternity (while St Thomas doesn't actually use the Kalam of "beginning", he is of course aware that only without a beginning could a universe function in any way without God, so he concentrates in how even then the universe needs a God to function), well, there would be no movements left, since all which could soar up would have soared up and all which could fall down would have fallen down.

II

1:43 Things can "just happen"? Without a cause?

If I drop a pen, it is usually accidentally. My fingers let go because I am tired and the pen, left to itself, drops to the ground.

But how come the pen was above the ground? I had caused it to be higher by holding it.

How come I did not consistently so hold it? I was tired.

How come I was tired? Something had kept me from getting to sleep early enough or waking up late enough. A lot of that happens when you are homeless. But I would not say it "just" happens.

If I lie inside the first porch of a house, but outside the inner one, there is a lock preventing me from getting higher in the stair case. If I lie there, at a certain early hour, someone is going to take out the garbage bins for communal emptying. Now, this s not bothering a lot of other persons, but this is because they are further in, further from the noise. That was the night to yesterday. And the security agent this morning had been sent on purpose to wake me up. It was 6:16 when I got out.

1:45 half lives are not self caused, they are caused - or so they suppose - by instability in the nucleides set up.

And this is because stability in the setup needs to follow certain rules. Like Carbon 12 or Nitrogen 14, stable isotopes, at least until exposed to radioactivity, have 6 protons and 6 neutrons in Carbon 12, 7 protons and 7 neutrons in Nitrogen 14. Now Carbon 14 has 6 protons and 8 neutrons.

Hence, there is an instability and a half life.

And while Carbon 14 having 6 protons and 8 neutrons, this causing the half life, there is some cause why 6 protons and 6 neutrons or 7 protons and 7 neutrons is a "better idea." Stability wise.

1:58 The explosion of a grain silo is definitely caused.

It is caused by heat and growth of germing seeds.

2:05 And next question is, what causes certain conditions to promote ignition?

III

2:21 - 2:27

A bit wrong.

If EVERYTHING had the possibility of not existing, sooner or later over eternity, the non-existence of everything would coincide. But once that happens (and it would have happened an eternal number of times except for the following), whatever had existed before that could never more be brought back to existence, since only sth existing can cause the existence of a thing which can non-exist.

Therefore SOMETHING needs to be necessarily (and therefore eternally) existing. Creation is not even as yet considered. Even God being personal is only considered in some way in proof 4 and 5 - and in following questions.

St Thomas concludes this proof with "and this everyone calls God" but of course in the time of Epicure, one Epicure was identifying "atoms" (not identic to things like C12, N14 or C14, obviusly) as this.

2:32 "creator" is not even in the proof.

St Thomas had his reasons for not bringing in Epicure's atomism, like being unused to it and its being less intellectually satisfying than hylomorphism and Euclidean matter.

A non-identity of Euclidean matter with the eternally necessary is fairly obvious : it can be divided and it can be composed and is therefore a contingently existing thing.

2:50 "the idea that something has to be created" - is not involved in third way.

The idea that many observable things don't exist before coming into existence and many observable things cease to exist when destroyed (like a tree not existing before planted and not existing any longer when burned down) is very much involved. But it is also an everyday observation.

3:10 While Aquinas may not have had YOUR idea of what exists in empty space, he certainly did not consider it empty.

Also, the "nothing" he was talking of in case of an eternity of non-necessary only extants is a conclusion from that premiss, not an observation.

He most definitely did not think that there was a place or time when and where one would literally find nothing. So, that is not involved in his argument.

3:18 facepalm

• "people at the time" is not involved in St Thomas' argument and their limitations don't refute it - you need to refute it on its terms, not on its presumed indebtedness to a limitation he had because of living when he did;
• "contingent being creating" is so misunderstanding what the word contingent means - and the processes imagined for planets coming into being are contingent ones, not eternally necessary ones
• "creating" is not at all involved in the argument : from the fact St Thomas is a Theist and a Creationist, you are reading into his argument that he must have had creation in mind, when he is in fact not stating it there.

3:27 "we now know" - no, we don't, and most times you hear that phrase, it is false. The proposed process had never in fact been observed, in this case.

"how a planet can come into existence without the help from any intelligent being"

Was "intelligent" a mis-subtitling for "contingent" or was "intelligent" what you said?

Intelligence of the necessary being is not a consideration entering as yet into third way as such.

And contingency of what brings planets into being is not really denied by the sources you are using.

IV

3:54 "even perfection is an idea which we don't see in reality"

Sure we do, you and I are more perfect than the substitling automaton, since we understand language, which is a perfection.

4:05 St Thomas was stating from observed difference in degree of perfection that there is a being which is MOST perfect. I don't see how you have put that in doubt just by not getting what it means.

4:12 Perfection is subjective?

Well, I don't know of any subject to whom not understanding language is more perfect or as perfect as understanding it. Except of course, some subjects, if you can call them that, not understanding language and not understanding the difference.

The fact that subjects exist is an argument for St Thomas degree of perfections, not against it.

V

5:00 Recall some sense data.

Earth is still. Sun is moving about it each day, creating day and night.

You CAN prove that stars outside planets must be VERY far away, and even so, their angular speed is above that of the sun, they circle Earth in 23 hours 55 minutes. Considering the distance, that is at an enormous speed. (I have calculated that their local speed is, if one light day away, superior to the speed of light). Even at that enormous speed, they don't collide and don't burst or explode.

You are dealing with as perfect a machinery as you can get (this admiration was one of the reasons why, as a byproduct, regarding nature as a machine became popular). It is working day and night, year after year (and Sun changing the angle slightly along Zodiac plane is involved in seasons), producing the ideal conditions for biological life on Earth. It all happened by chance?

Hmmm ... next time you watch the Bolshoi ballet, how about considering the coordination of all the dancers also happened by chance?