Oh good to know!

Just for your info Ben was banned quite some time back. So don't expect a reply!

But that doesn't logically follow does it? Just because we haven't encountered something, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In fact, Aquinas would argue that we do experience, albeit in an indirect way, the existence of an unmoved mover by virtue that motion exists. His whole argument hinges on the fact that there would be no motion if there were no first mover.

And the idea that Aquinas mischievously sneaks God into his argument because he "wants such a thing" is also arguable. Aquinas is working off of Aristotle's argument for an unmoved mover. Aristotle wasn't a Christian, he was Greek pagan that, through his reason, came to believe that there is some first mover and the gods of the pantheon aren't any of them.

Aquinas never said that. If you think he did, show me where. This is what he says in the Summa Theologica:

"It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world SOME things are in motion" (ST II, q.2, a.3).

Notice, this is a particular proposition not a universal one. Therefore, Aquinas isn't admitting that the first mover falls under this umbrella. Aquinas' goal in the First Way isn't to prove that everything is undergoing motion (which is philosophical jargon for change--potency reduced to act), he's instead trying to show that there would be no motion at all unless there is a first mover who is pure act and can therefore impart causal activity to lower members of the causal chain.

Of course, it is still the water substance in a different phase -- that is solid phase, if that's what you mean that it is "still water." The main points are: (1) it is theoretically possible to imagine a system without any thermal energy in them; (2) removing thermal energy in things results to phase changes (e.g. solidification), in water, it becomes ice; (3) any closed system will never lose energy by virtue of the definition being "closed", thus, left alone, water cannot turn into ice without being in contact with a surrounding with low temperature.

Which of these you don't agree?

I utterly disagree.

In physics, this is theoretically possible and there are already substances that has been brought very low in the order of 10^(-15) degrees Kelvin, that's very close to absolute zero. At absolute zero, it is believed that all motion ceases (devoid of energy, besides the rest mass energy of course).

If water is left alone (as "closed system" in physics), there is no exchange in energy with surroundings and it will never become ice if left alone like that. It has to interact with the environment or an "external agent".

Wow, this is a blast from the past!

I do not think water can be devoid of heat and still be water. Being frozen is by no means being devoid of energy. Ice has lots of energy.

Coldness cannot be measured, heat can. "cold" is a label we apply to things that lack the heat we might expect or which drain heat from ourselves and so on.

Water can and will indeed turn into ice if left alone.

The idea that since one has "not encountered" something does not mean we ignore it as if we does not know such. For example, before the Higgs boson was "discovered" via series of experiments using the Large Hadron Collider, it was actually "predicted" via argumentation such including mathematical reasoning. We have not initial encountered Higgs boson before we said it existed.

Thus, one cannot dismiss the existence of God based on argumentation and intellectual "thought experiments" and rely totally on "ever encountering such". Einstein and his colleagues will have to disagree on the validity of "thought experiments" in knowing possibilities such as black holes and the like ... even time-space warping as the cause of gravity.