Reflections in the Marshlands

Art by Dorian Keeffe:

"Everything has a cause, so the universe must have a cause!" Deism. "Fine Tuning Argument!" Deism. "Anselmian Ontological Argu-" Deism.

"Modal Ontological Argu-" Deism. "Moral Argum-" Deism.

"Argument From Desir-" Deism.

"God of the Gaps-" Deism.

"You need God for knowledge and reaso-" Deism.

"Argument from conciousne-" Deism. "Just look at the trees-" Deism.

The only things left are the "fulfilled prophecies" in the bible, which are nearly all 1. not prophecies, 2. easily faked, or 3. changed to look like they were fulfilled. not to mention all of the prophecies that were simply just NOT fulfilled, like Jesus being named Emmanuel or you could go with the historical evidence for Jesus, including the "300 eyewitnesses" that were all only mentioned in the bible, the empty tomb there is no evidence for (and was not even mentioned in the earliest christian writing) and the apostles willing to die- an aspect shared by cults and religions across the globe

and then the only thing left is Pascal's Wager- the worst argument for God, described by Christians as "not even an argument for God", is impossible to functionally believe in and could apply to any religion or fairy tale or made up story, not just Christianity.

Of course there is the famous first way and that's horribly misinterpreted and even when it's not misinterpreted it's often preemptively dismissed by the existential inertia objection. Then there is  the simultaneity of local motion issue, which is another misconception. The first way is best explained in combination with the fourth way because God acts through the form of the object. 

I think there are a few problems with the way you’re framing Aquinas’ scholastic theology here, especially the idea that the universe “continuously depends” on a god and that the Fifth Way points to some kind of intrinsic teleology that can’t be accounted for by natural causes.

First, the whole notion that the universe needs a continuous sustaining cause isn’t an argument—it’s just baked into the Thomistic worldview. Modern physics doesn’t treat existence as something that has to be constantly “held in being” by an external agent. Things persist because that’s simply how physical laws describe their behavior. Saying “a god sustains them” doesn’t give us any additional explanatory power; it just relocates the mystery to a supernatural entity whose own existence isn’t explained.

Second, Aquinas’ appeal to teleology assumes an Aristotelian framework that modern science moved beyond centuries ago. Physics and biology don’t invoke final causes to explain anything—we explain regularities and functions mechanistically. The fact that natural phenomena behave in consistent ways doesn’t imply they are “aiming at” ends or that an intelligence is directing them. Regularity follows from the structure of the physical world, not from a mind.

Related to that, the idea that unintelligent organisms or natural objects require an external intellect to explain their “directedness” is undermined by evolutionary biology. Organisms display goal-like behavior because natural selection produced systems that behave in adaptive ways. That’s teleonomy, not teleology—purpose-like behavior emerging from blind processes, not from built-in, metaphysical purposes. Aquinas didn’t have access to these explanations, but we do.

If the claim is that things have internal teleology, that’s also questionable. What look like “ends” in nature can be entirely described in terms of physical dispositions, energy gradients, and evolutionary history. A falling stone isn’t pursuing the “end” of the Earth’s center; it’s responding to gravity. A cell isn’t “aiming” at replication; it behaves according to biochemical interactions refined by natural selection. Teleology is just not needed to describe these processes.

Even if we hypothetically granted that nature had intrinsic teleology, it still wouldn’t follow that the source is a divine intellect. That’s a leap from “there appears to be order or directedness” to “therefore god.” The argument conflates the descriptive regularity of natural phenomena with intentional purpose—as if because things behave consistently, they must be following a plan. That’s a significant logical jump, and not one most non-theists accept.

I’d also add that modern physics further complicates the claim that unintelligent things always act “toward determinate ends.” Quantum mechanics introduces genuine indeterminacy, which doesn’t sit comfortably with the rigid teleological interpretations Aquinas relied on. Nature isn’t as neatly directed as the argument assumes.

So from a naturalistic standpoint, the Fifth Way is not “misread” as an argument for external teleology; the problem is that its underlying metaphysics no longer line up with what we know about how the world works. The Thomistic framework assumes teleology and then concludes god; but if you don’t accept those assumptions, the argument doesn’t get off the ground.

Ok, to keep it simple...

It's because Aristotle's views and, by extension, Aquinas’s views are based on the present exists in a way the past and future do not. If either the past or future are as real as the present, cognition and logical argument would not be possible. I guess one could say that all objects have existential inertia but one would have to ask where that existential inertia comes from and it would be less sensible to assign it as a feature of each object than have it derive from one source even if that source is mysterious.  (This goes back to the brute fact thing.) Also that source isn’t necessarily mysterious because the source is characterized as existentiality itself. Not surprisingly, I've heard the first way described in a way that resembles the fourth way, the one that says that all forms derive from one form and are thus derivative of it. I don't think the ‘modern physics’ objection holds much weight because the proofs are derived from the most basic of facts and Modern physics more describes behavior then explains it.

Second, Aquinas’ appeal to teleology assumes an Aristotelian framework that modern science moved beyond centuries ago. Physics and biology don’t invoke final causes to explain anything—we explain regularities and functions mechanistically. The fact that natural phenomena behave in consistent ways doesn’t imply they are “aiming at” ends or that an intelligence is directing them. Regularity follows from the structure of the physical world, not from a mind.

Related to that, the idea that unintelligent organisms or natural objects require an external intellect to explain their “directedness” is undermined by evolutionary biology. Organisms display goal-like behavior because natural selection produced systems that behave in adaptive ways. That’s teleonomy, not teleology—purpose-like behavior emerging from blind processes, not from built-in, metaphysical purposes. Aquinas didn’t have access to these explanations, but we do.

Final cause is more concerned with a range of outcomes rather than a strict outcome. And Aquinas was all like “if teleology stems from nature, where does nature get it?” Of course, that concerns external teleology as well as internal teleology. Internal teleology is justified by the existence of traits or features that are not present in the mere combination of an organism’s parts. Of course, this is true for numbers and objects in anything that is not a mere composite of two different things with their own forms. I mean, this goes back again to the Fourth Way and of course some people have advanced the argument that all the ways are more or less the same way just with different ways of looking at it.

Skipping to the end because most of the points I’ve addressed already, Either every individual object has its own ability to sustain itself–in many cases reproduce itself–All without explanation, or this derives from some force which is difficult to describe in anyway other than as Aristotle's unmoved mover. 

However, I think this brings out the real crux of the disagreement, which isn’t about any single “Way” but about what counts as a good explanation and what assumptions we’re each allowed to build in.

A lot of what you’re saying hinges on presentism and the idea that persistence itself needs a sustaining cause. But those are not empirical conclusions; they’re metaphysical starting points. Presentism is one option among several (eternalism and the growing block I think are taken very seriously in contemporary metaphysics), and none of these alternatives undermine cognition or logical reasoning. So when you frame the Aristotelian view as necessary for thought itself, it looks less like an argument and more like a reassertion of the framework you’re trying to defend.

Likewise, the claim that objects need something external to account for their “existential inertia” assumes the very thing under dispute — that persistence is metaphysically in need of grounding rather than a default feature of the world. In physics, persistence doesn’t need a separate explanation beyond the laws that describe how objects behave. Saying “those laws themselves require an external source” is a move that’s metaphysically optional, not forced on us by evidence. And appealing to a single unmoved mover as the source of all existential inertia isn’t obviously simpler: a single, unexplained entity with unlimited causal power carries more metaphysical weight than a universe in which objects persist according to their natures.

On the teleology side, the same issue arises. When you say internal teleology is justified because wholes exhibit properties not reducible to the sum of their parts, that’s interpreting emergent behavior through Aristotelian categories. It’s not evidence that nature is teleological; it’s a particular philosophical vocabulary for describing patterns. Modern explanations of those same patterns — emergence, selection, self-organization, dispositions, and so on — don’t require ends or purposes. So the disagreement isn’t over whether traits arise; it’s over whether “purpose” is the right conceptual tool for describing them.

That’s why the critique of “modern physics only describes behavior” doesn’t land for me. Description is explanation, in the modern sense — identifying the mechanisms, regularities, and laws that reliably produce phenomena. Those explanations are empirically testable and predictive. Aristotelian teleology and the claim that existence must be continuously bestowed are not. They operate at the level of metaphysical interpretation, not observation.

So I think we’re really dealing with different standards of evidence and different ideas of what an explanation should look like. From the Aristotelian-Thomistic standpoint, teleology and a sustaining cause are built into the conceptual architecture, and the argument is that everything else must fit that architecture. From a naturalistic standpoint, teleology is a hypothesis about the world, not a bedrock assumption, and its job is to compete with other hypotheses on explanatory power. Likewise, the idea of a sustaining cause is not a default — it needs to be argued for, not assumed because the alternative feels unintuitive.

If we start with Aristotelian premises, we naturally end up with an Aristotelian conclusion. But if we don’t grant those premises — if we don’t assume presentism, or intrinsic teleology, or the necessity of a sustaining cause — the argument doesn’t get off the ground. And that’s why I think the real point of divergence isn’t about any particular "Way" but about the underlying methodology in how we decide what counts as evidence, what counts as explanation, and what assumptions we’re allowed to build in from the start.

"Everything has a cause, so the universe must have a cause!" Deism. "Fine Tuning Argument!" Deism. "Anselmian Ontological Argu-" Deism.

"Modal Ontological Argu-" Deism. "Moral Argum-" Deism.

"Argument From Desir-" Deism.

"God of the Gaps-" Deism.

"You need God for knowledge and reaso-" Deism.

"Argument from conciousne-" Deism. "Just look at the trees-" Deism.

The only things left are the "fulfilled prophecies" in the bible, which are nearly all 1. not prophecies, 2. easily faked, or 3. changed to look like they were fulfilled. not to mention all of the prophecies that were simply just NOT fulfilled, like Jesus being named Emmanuel or you could go with the historical evidence for Jesus, including the "300 eyewitnesses" that were all only mentioned in the bible, the empty tomb there is no evidence for (and was not even mentioned in the earliest christian writing) and the apostles willing to die- an aspect shared by cults and religions across the globe

and then the only thing left is Pascal's Wager- the worst argument for God, described by Christians as "not even an argument for God", is impossible to functionally believe in and could apply to any religion or fairy tale or made up story, not just Christianity.

Of course there is the famous first way and that's horribly misinterpreted and even when it's not misinterpreted it's often preemptively dismissed by the existential inertia objection. Then there is  the simultaneity of local motion issue, which is another misconception. The first way is best explained in combination with the fourth way because God acts through the form of the object. 

I think there are a few problems with the way you’re framing Aquinas’ scholastic theology here, especially the idea that the universe “continuously depends” on a god and that the Fifth Way points to some kind of intrinsic teleology that can’t be accounted for by natural causes.

First, the whole notion that the universe needs a continuous sustaining cause isn’t an argument—it’s just baked into the Thomistic worldview. Modern physics doesn’t treat existence as something that has to be constantly “held in being” by an external agent. Things persist because that’s simply how physical laws describe their behavior. Saying “a god sustains them” doesn’t give us any additional explanatory power; it just relocates the mystery to a supernatural entity whose own existence isn’t explained.

Second, Aquinas’ appeal to teleology assumes an Aristotelian framework that modern science moved beyond centuries ago. Physics and biology don’t invoke final causes to explain anything—we explain regularities and functions mechanistically. The fact that natural phenomena behave in consistent ways doesn’t imply they are “aiming at” ends or that an intelligence is directing them. Regularity follows from the structure of the physical world, not from a mind.

Related to that, the idea that unintelligent organisms or natural objects require an external intellect to explain their “directedness” is undermined by evolutionary biology. Organisms display goal-like behavior because natural selection produced systems that behave in adaptive ways. That’s teleonomy, not teleology—purpose-like behavior emerging from blind processes, not from built-in, metaphysical purposes. Aquinas didn’t have access to these explanations, but we do.

If the claim is that things have internal teleology, that’s also questionable. What look like “ends” in nature can be entirely described in terms of physical dispositions, energy gradients, and evolutionary history. A falling stone isn’t pursuing the “end” of the Earth’s center; it’s responding to gravity. A cell isn’t “aiming” at replication; it behaves according to biochemical interactions refined by natural selection. Teleology is just not needed to describe these processes.

Even if we hypothetically granted that nature had intrinsic teleology, it still wouldn’t follow that the source is a divine intellect. That’s a leap from “there appears to be order or directedness” to “therefore god.” The argument conflates the descriptive regularity of natural phenomena with intentional purpose—as if because things behave consistently, they must be following a plan. That’s a significant logical jump, and not one most non-theists accept.

I’d also add that modern physics further complicates the claim that unintelligent things always act “toward determinate ends.” Quantum mechanics introduces genuine indeterminacy, which doesn’t sit comfortably with the rigid teleological interpretations Aquinas relied on. Nature isn’t as neatly directed as the argument assumes.

So from a naturalistic standpoint, the Fifth Way is not “misread” as an argument for external teleology; the problem is that its underlying metaphysics no longer line up with what we know about how the world works. The Thomistic framework assumes teleology and then concludes god; but if you don’t accept those assumptions, the argument doesn’t get off the ground.

Ok, to keep it simple...

I'm sorry to hear about this problem that you seem to be having. I would spend perhaps too much time writing out how to best facilitate a conversation to bring you a new perspective. However, I believe Darante LaMar can give some insight.

He was a Pastor, long time christian, and serious about his faith. Now, after much consideration, he is an Atheist.

I post this video not to discourage but rather to open new doors. Take a moment, listen, and reflect. If this gets you to think critically, then watch his other vids.

Reconcile with the dark truth of your faith.

In Satanism, there is no god above the Self. No savior to kneel to, no divine calendar to obey.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲𝐫𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲𝐭𝐡. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.

Anton LaVey placed the birthday at the center of Satanic ritual not out of vanity, but as a deliberate rejection of spiritual guilt and external worship.

While traditional religions ask you to honor the births and deaths of others, often strangers or long-dead figures of doctrine, Satanism invites you to honor the only life you truly possess: your own.

Your birthday marks the moment you became a conscious force, a mind, a will, a body in motion.

To celebrate it is to affirm:

— I exist.

— I matter.

— I am the highest authority in my universe.

This isn’t narcissism. It’s lucid self-respect.

You are not the servant of the cosmos; you are its participant, its challenger, its artist.

To the Satanist, the birthday becomes a ritual of indulgence, of reflection, of carnal joy. It is the Sabbath of the Self, a holiday not dictated by myth but earned by your presence.

The Devil knows his name is very infamous, so he only roams the earth during stormy nights using the name of Cachafaz, disturbing those unfortunate souls who stumble upon him and working with those brave enough to conjure his name during dark rituals.

Most of the time, those who call out his name are people who have little to no musical talent. It is said those who want Cachafaz to teach them must wait for him in a dark room for nine nights straight with an accordeon by their left side. When the time comes, Cachafaz will show up with a deafening storm behind him and will shake the person's hand, before picking up the accordeon and playing a piece of cueca (a traditional Chilean folklore dance) that the person will have to dance to. After that, the student will play the accordeon themselves so Cachafaz can dance like only he knows. Once this is done, he will leave just as he appeared, surrounded by a big storm.

This is a favor Cachafaz doesn't charge for, because he knows the notes his students will play after he teaches them will be powerful enough to tempt other souls and keep the cycle going.

(EN--> "Myths and Legends from the Chanquín and Cucao Region, Chiloé National Park" a book by Jorge Negrón Vera that tells the story of Cachafaz and other local stories.) If you like metal music, here's a song you might like that tells the story of Cachafaz, by Chilean band Parasyche.

That's all for now. I hope you liked learning about this story as much as I did. Mythology around the world is a very interesting topic with various phenomenal stories.

In this post, we are even graced by some good music to exemplify the story.

Que viva el Cachafaz!!