Yea, I can't make it past that part either.

 

Maybe if I had formal training in logic it would make sense, but he's been consistent in ignoring my question as to why I should care if his theory is internally consistent but can't be verified externally.  It doesn't seem like a useful exercise to me.  When he said he was mainly engaging in the argument because it helped support his existing belief it made me extremely dubious about it.  It seems like the argument isn't convincing even to experts who also share his belief about God in general, so if it doesn't even convince all the theists, I'm really having a hard time seeing why it is supposed to convince someone on the other side.  

I know that is an argument from authority, but the premise doesn't move me intellectually or emotionally in the slightest, so I don't know what else to look for.  Every time I see the proof I just give a mental shrug...so what?  I dunno.  Maybe I'll track down a professor and pick their brain.  Or maybe one of the other atheists can explain why this type of argument might be useful in another case, where something else that can't be externally verified has been proven and it led to something more than...this.

Someone said it is used in math...are there math ideas it is used in, where you can't verify the concepts in any way but the equation turns out useful somehow?  Is that a proper comparison?

It doesn't matter how you feel.

It's whether or not it's 'workable', in an equation. Unless you are just trying to create a self refuting 'everythingness'. 

You mean sort of like a Christian ebonics?

WTF place does that have in an model or theory?

Argumentum ad populum.

This isn't a sermon.

We're trying to be 'logical'.

Now, we're finally going in a certain direction.

What's needed is some disambiguation.

Please make the underlined portion, unequivocal and unambiguous in meaning.

I'm not confident that it makes any sense.

Ummm, no.

This is not a strong argument for a god being a logical necessity.

I see no need for a god, at all.

None.

The universe seems to be surviving without any visible outside intervention.

Or, are you claiming that a god is 'powering', or 'keeping all the constants, constant'

False.

'Limits' are fine. Those are parameters we can use to predict outcomes. But you cannot model subjective terms like 'perfect', or the 'deepest depth', or 'breathtakingly accurate'.

If that's what the *cough* science of Metaphysics is about, then, I'd rather be called ignorant, TYVM.

You mean they're not created and held together by god?

So what keeps them together indefinitely?

Or is matter disposable? Is it like plates spinning on a stick, that one day, runs out of momentum? Does a god come by and set the plates in rotation again?

And there's a god that keeps generating new matter, once the old stuff is past it's lifespan, and falls apart?

That's a whole lotta useless hyperbole.

Perfection is a term to project a personal seal of approval. Every heard of 'A face only a mother could love'?

"One man's garbage, is another man's treasure"

Dude, that's fucking poetry, and a sermon.

Just the fucking facts, FFS.

 

Say what you mean, and mean WTF you say.

You're impressed with your subjective opinion of what a god might constitute. I get it.

But, it's meaningless. It has no actual value that proves anything.

It's an appeal to emotions.

It's not logical to use an outpouring of emotion.

According to whom?

So, you arbitrarily dismiss those limitations, or is there any evidence that the absence of such things to a 'being' are possible?

Puhleeze.

They're going to clarify these concepts?

Why would that be necessary? Are you asserting that all theists believe in god because they comprehend this drivel, and atheist's don't?

Ummm, ya, nice try, pal...

Mr M, lack of time or spatial dimensionality or their equivalent, and of any equivalent of materiality to provide a stable and persistent substrate for complex structures and processes, is extremely limiting, to the point of being no better than a featureless void.

And of course, Metaphysics is a primitive notion - beyond physics you have just empty speculation, devoid of anything that could count as knowledge.

The 'greatest possible being' is something that would have to be empirically determined, and would be dependent on the nature of the Laws of Reality. That ultimate nature of existence would have priority in constraining such a maximal entity.

There is absolutely no logical entailment that any such entity be 'limitless' or infinite, or have any of the mental or 'moral' attributes you mention.

 

Yea, same here.  :/

 

The thing that worries me is I'll spend a couple quarters and find out it is just as empty as it seems to be now.  Oh well.

I dunno if it would help, but I will try and explain the modal version of the ontological argument in plain English. First I will explain the non-modal form, then extend that to the modal form. If you already understand the non-modal form, skip the next paragraph.

Non-modal ontological arguments, generally speaking, define "god" as "the greatest possible conceivable being (GPCB) ". This having been said said the argument them supposes that it is greater to exist than to not exist. In order to be "greatest" it must exist, therefore the greatest possible conceivable being who is defined as "god" exists.

Modal versions are a little more convoluted as they import a lot of jargon that isn't "plain English" but specific to the world of logicians. First, there is there is the notion of "possible worlds". "Possible worlds" is as it suggests, worlds that could possibly exist: that means there is no logical reason they couldn't exist. Then there is the "actualized world" -- this is the world in which we exist.  Once you get that, you get that which is "necessary" and that which is "possible". That which is "necessary" must exist in all possible worlds, but that which possible may exist in a given possible world but not all possible worlds.

A critical part of modal versions is a formulation called "S5", which for the purposes of the ontological argument suggests that if something that is necessary possibly exists, then it necessarily exists.

Given this the argument would sound something like this. First, proponents conject that it is possible for a  GPCB or an analog to this concept to exist because it is internally logically consistent. Then it follows the same line of thinking as the non-modal forms do in that a GPCB is a necessary being, Next proponents use S5 saying, that because there is a necessary being that possibly exists, the GPCB necessarily exists.

 

Hope this helps... there's a lot more to it than this, because there are multiple versions of the argument from different camps.

Theists define maximal greatness such that maximal greatness requires necessity. I agree, that there is no requirement otherwise that it must exist, and in part why I think the argument begs the question.

My opinion and four bucks won't leave you with change at Starbucks but I wouldn't try to dig into the (edit:  Why the hell did I type OT?  I meant "ontalogical argument...).  As I alluded to in an earlier post, it may be the closest approximation to the childrens story "The Emperor's New Clothes" that I have ever seen.  It is a non argument that was concieved at a time when the general populous was poorly educated and many people could easily be impressed by someone using confusing words and arguments that smacked of "truthiness" even though they were devoid of any meaning or merit. 

 

It speaks volumes that these arguments are seen as so valid by the religious, in light of that.

I think your sentiments are feigned, and that you are merely pretending that you've approached the God issue from a position of neutrality when, in reality, you consciously chose atheism because the theistic alternative did not seem so attractive.  (Of course, if people knew that this issue for you was moral rather than rational, your argument would not seem as plausible; clearly, I can understand why you would propagate this.) I've dealt with enough atheists to know that this is the case.  'Common sense' is not a good argument for anything, since at one time common sense told us that fire involved phlogiston; common sense is only as good as the collective sentiments of people, and people are fallible (worse yet, according to the Bible, they are fallen).  Ockham's Razor has nothing to do with any of this; 'Ockham's Razor' is a phrase that philosophers subsequent to Ockham conjured up in order to describe Ockham's rejection of universals--Ockham was a nominalist, for he believed that ontological categories (such as 'dog', 'human', and so on) are mere fictions, and that we should not multiply beyond necessity the kinds of things that exist.  (Not once did Ockham state that the simple explanation is always better--in fact, this is demonstrably false.)  As far as 'logic' goes, allow me, for the purposes of this discussion, to bracket this point of yours; I will revisit it in a moment.

 

Go back to the original post and observe that the symbols in my argument were translated into English. 

No, that is not what I said.  Limitless is a negative term, which serves to negate for God anything the predication of which necessitates finitude.  To say that God is 'limitless' is to say that he is 'without limitation'--a negative phrase which actually says something positive, namely, that God is the living instantiation of the ideal of being.  He is the living embodient of being, emcompassing the full perfection of what it is to be. 

It begins with the idea that existence, in and of itself, is good; this is just self-evident, for it clearly must be better to exist than to not exist provided that whatever does not exist cannot be said to experience the perfection of non-existence.  Thus, we can say that existence, in and of itself, is a perfection.  Now, something is either limited in its perfection, or it is unlimited in perfection; what does this mean?  A limitation on x is y imposed on x by any precondition the absence of which precludes x; thus, a limitation on the perfection of being would entail that your being is on the condition of such-and-such.  Take matter, for instance: as it states in the Catholic Encyclopedia, which I highly encourage you to read, "For, though the reality that belongs to matter is, of course, a participation of existence and activity, yet the concept of it connotes the imperfections of that particular kind of existence which is composite and subject to disintegration (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02062e.htm)."  Since being itself is a properly basic category which cannot be reduced to any other category (everything shares 'being' in common), then limitless being would entail something objectively greater and more perfect than anything else.

What is 'materially limited'?  I did not use that term; I said that materiality is intrinsically limiting, meaning that materiality is, in and of itself, a limited participation in the perfection of being--material things depend on nature.

To say that God is limited because he is not limited is a contradiction in terms, and therefore it cannot suffice as a serious refutation to the argument.

Now, it is time for me to revisit what you just said earlier:  "I really would, I tried so hard for the longest time to believe in something.  But there's this nagging thing called common sense, and logic"

So, you admit to being untrained in logic, but your position is based on it? 

I'm not a good teacher; in fact, I'm not even a teacher.  I'm a layman just like you, but I actually am open minded. 

I know how it is that you think because I used to be an atheist.

I did not say that everyone here was jejune--I only said that about Bob.  Bob has not even come close to raising a serious objection to the argument; he raised several objections, each of which was ad hoc'd after I debunked the other.  Earlier, I began to feel sorry for him, as it is clear that he is philosophically incompetent and has had little exposure to good rigorous argumentation; however, his buddies started coming to his rescue, which gave him ample time to fine tune his objections with bigger words so as to seem more sophisticated, when in the beginning he could not even get the basics down (again, I'm assuming that people are conversing with him over PM and giving him ideas).  Clearly, the ontological argument was his introduction to modal logic, which explains why he is so antipathetic towards it--modal logic was not developed for theological reasons, just to be clear. 

I am aware of the issues with the possibility premise, and I've already addressed them.  I cannot prove that God is not impossible, except that I can stand on the general reliability of our modal intuitions and say, at least, that it is rational to believe in God, because the notion contains no prima facie contradictions whereas I find prima facie contradictions in the notion that he does not exist (e.g., a being both limited and limitless).

S5 discards information. Therefore any argument dependent on S5 can not be considered conclusive.

Its that simple. Deal with it.

I agree with you. I think that it can be rational to believe in god. And I know that everyone kids me about bringing Zeno up from time to time. But that is avery good example of the empirical and experiential problem you get into with logic verses observation. Zeno certainly can be explained mathematically but the general application of the logic fails with experience. It also succeeds in that it gives pause that experienced stuff may not be infinitely divisible, A ball does reach the ground.  20 years as a social worker and 10 with missions prior to that gives me plenty of experiential empirical data to question and analyse a traditionally offered god. Children with cigarette burns on their genitalia is evidence that there is not an all powerful/all knowing/ all good limitless being. One as with Zeno's arguments rightfully questions the correspondence value of the argument with the data from the actual world. The notion that god does not exist simply means there is no state or entity of being that is limitless. The idea has been argued from existence precedes essence and that to speak of a being or a state is itself limiting. These echoes go all the way back to Parmenides, Zeno's teacher and lover. If being is boundless it ultimately is no thing? That certainly is the Eastern Buddhist solution as well.  Nirvana is a void from which all things arise that are limited and transitory.  I serious think that if there is a boundless or a limitless a priori to creation then it is relative and limited  by creation or response. I understand the idea of a one to one relationship of all quid in the quod type to the limitless but it does not account for time space or process. Theodicy is a deadly issue as well.

 

 

Right here.  This is my problem.  This actualized world is so fricking imperfect, it is impossible for there to be any kind of a "limitless" or "perfect" or "maximally great" being.  And if I ever find out there was one all along, I'm going to kick his/her/its/their ass around eternity for being so fricking incompetent.  Which just goes to show how limited s/he/it/they must be.

And do NOT get me started on "its for their own good" or "said maximally great being has a 'plan'".  I'm in a mood today.

PS: And christian morals suck big time.

 

 

Nope, today I am not fair - or even generous.  Maybe tomorrow, but it is doubtful.  No perfect, limitless, infinite, maximally great being exists.  Because it is obvious in this world the dude is morally bankrupt and totally incompetent which makes him/her/it/them far from powerful.

 

Christian morality is ultimately evil.

 

 

 

Ahhh, I get that now.  Since something with higher quantity or fewer limitations is apparently considered 'greater' in a logical sense, a 'maximally great' deity would be repeated without limit, right?

Wouldn't the argument just be that 'limitless' precludes more than one being, since any additional beings would be encompassed by the first?

Assuming, that is, you can swallow the idea that something immaterial can have traits at all.

 

Quite telling for me is that the only presumed attributes of the immaterial being that are described with even the remotest clarity are blatantly anthropomorphic.  It must be a being because once it becomes immaterial it is an empty and nebulous concept, devoid of any meaning at all.  By dishonestly attributing "being" attributes to an immaterial entity the man behind the curtain is exposed.

Even if they do spend time as much time as they need to make a rebuttal it doesnt take away from the fact that they have defeated your argument. It sounds like you are saying what you say is right so long as know one can refute you at the moment, which is silly. If someone has to spend a day or two looking up why your wrong that doesnt mean your right because you got someone stumped.

I would say TBaker has a concern about the discipline rather than necessarily a respect. I studied Gettier and Counter Gettier arguments in the mid 80's which meant a lotta modal logic. Wiki below:

Gettier provides several examples of beliefs that are both true and justified, but that we should not intuitively call knowledge. Cases of this sort are now called "Gettier (counter-)examples." Because Gettier's criticism of the Justified True Belief model is systemic, a cottage industry has sprung up around imagining increasingly fantastical counterexamples. For example, I am watching the men's Wimbledon Final and John McEnroe is playing Jimmy Connors, it is match point, and McEnroe wins. I say to myself "John McEnroe is this year's men's champion at Wimbledon". Unbeknownst to me, however, the BBC were experiencing a broadcasting fault and so had stuck in a tape of last year's final, when McEnroe also beat Connors. I had been watching last year's Wimbledon final so I believed that McEnroe had beaten Connors. But at that same time, in real life, McEnroe was repeating last year's victory and beating Connors! So my belief that McEnroe beat Connors to become this year's Wimbledon champion is true, and I had good reason to believe so (my belief was justified) - and yet, there is a sense in which I could not really have claimed to 'know' that McEnroe had beaten Connors because I was only accidentally right that McEnroe beat Connors - my belief was not based on the right kind of justification.

Gettier inspired a great deal of work by philosophers attempting to recover a working definition of knowledge. Major responses include:

• Gettier's use of "justification" is too broad, and only some kinds of justification count;
• Gettier's examples do not count as justification at all, and only some kinds of evidence are justificatory;
• Knowledge must have a fourth condition, such as "no false premises" or "indefeasibility";
• Robert Nozick suggests knowledge must consist of justified true belief that is "truth-tracking"—belief held in such a way that if it turned out to be false it would not have been held, and vice versa;
• Colin McGinn suggests knowledge is atomic (it is indivisible into smaller components). We have knowledge when we have knowledge, and an accurate definition of knowledge may even contain the word "knowledge."^[1]

A 2001 study by Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich suggests that the impact of the Gettier problem varies by culture. In particular, individuals from Western countries appear more likely to agree with the judgments described in the story than do those from East Asia.^[2]

 

I also tolerated modal logic in the early nineties to defeat Plantinga's omniscient god free will defense.

Plantinga's argument is that even though God is omnipotent, it is possible that it was not in his power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil; therefore, there is no logical inconsistency involved when God, although wholly good, creates a world of free creatures who chose to do evil. The argument relies on the following propositions:

1. There are possible worlds that even an omnipotent being can not actualize.
2. A world with morally free creatures producing only moral good is such a world.

Given the ontological argument we went through this argument added to OA is like having the cake and eating it too.  Or at least a bit too much icing.

The defeater is that a god actualizing a world with full knowledge excludes meaningful freewill.  This itself is argued back and forth with possible worlds and so forth.  These reasons were why I was not a theist from the 80's on. I was a panentheist which is the Being/existence garbage I put up for fun and parody.  Given that I have been there I do have sympathy for the devil  I do not care for the arrogance and cock suredness.  But then there is a parallel between that level of research and sports such that a jock is a jock.

Dude, I already accepted your challenge to a debate, so stop running your mouth, like there's any reason to fear you.

Debating you, would be a pleasure among a room full of scientists and engineers. But, you'd have a difficult time getting them to attend.

Scientists and engineers can't take you clowns seriously, at all.

Because you don't actually debate, you don't produce anything workable, you posit a useless idea, and you argue with anyone who doesn't think your Snake Oil works.

 

It's that simple. No company I can think of, hires a 'philosopher'.

You're just a bunch of 'fresh air' inspectors, who argue that everyone else's sh1t stinks.

Translation : Damn the information age!! 

 

Like has been previously mentioned, these ancient arguments, were for superstitious people, who were afraid of their own shadows.

Buzzwords like 'Maximally Great', and 'Limitless Being', and whatever other nonsense, sounds like a Marvel comic book hero.

I doubt you take this drivel seriously. It's just how you troll, and get a rise out of people.

I notice how completely non commital you are all the time, with your 'that's not a good enough argument'.

You're just posturing. You're not saying you are 'correct', and that others are 'incorrect', because you don't want to acknowledge the truth.

That's fine.

You can't do much with this kind of drivel, except preach.

Science and education will breed more intelligent people, as religion dies off more and more, in America. America can't afford to have massive populations of 'god fearin' good folk', any longer.

They need to get 'hi tech'. They need to catch up with Europe.

 

It doesn't matter how many times you repeat yourself here, you're clearly full of sh1t, and your motives are so transparent it's not even funny.

There are 14 yr old boys who completely demolish William Lane Craig arguments, on YouTube.

 

I can't think of a single psychologist who wouldn't 'red flag' you as a complete sociopath.

 

Oh, that's easy. I'll show you. 

P1: -Fx&Qx >> PvQ >> 42

P2: I define "beings" as immaterial. Ergo, I'm immaterial.

P3: *poof*

Conclusion: Immaterial beings exist.

 

How about the argument that for a being 'great' enough to create a Universe, he would necessarily be even greater if he did it as a non-existent being than an existing one, so he must not exist...

 

Lol!  I genuinely laughed out loud.  Ahh...that's what it seems like most of the time, doesn't it?

It's all fucking arbitrary.

It's all a 'web' of presuppositions.

A god would 'have' to be immaterial, in order to make the 'afterlife', and where 'spirits' go, more convincing.

Immaterial, also' subconsciously makes the concept of 'perpetual', or 'infinite' being, more plausible.

It's completely 'arbitrary' to assume our universe wasn't 'caused' by something material.

It's completely 'arbitrary' to assume that our universe is all there is in reality.

It's completely 'arbitrary' to assume that there aren't other dimensions besides the 4 that we know.

 

Philosophy is just plain 'windbagging', and convoluted, sophisticated 'waxing poetic'. It's all fucking fantasy on the fringes of imagination.

These are the same clowns that were flat earth philosophers, and thought that the all matter on earth consisted of 4 elements, and that anything 'alive' was made of the same thing the stars were, aether.

Some scribbles in crayon on a piece of paper, do not= God exists.

 

Sorry, reality doesn't play by those rules. It makes the rules.

I think the theory that simply gravity could have 'made something from nothing', is infinitely more plausible than any intelligence, or consciousness of any kind.

Why is the concept of the universe simply being 'random' (sic) so dissonant? WTF?

Would people be that seriously distraught, if they discovered that?

I don't get it.

Seriously...

The S5 'axiom' ( *cough) that Mr.M relies upon is totally illogical and arbitrary.

The most basic and justifiable rule to reduce sequences of Modal operators is to make any sequence containing even one 'possibility' reduce to 'possibility', and only sequences of purely 'necessary' operators reduce to one 'necessary'. You will still lose some nuances of meaning, but it is far more defensible than the S5 nonsense.

Gravity and the Laws of Nuclear Physics created the Galaxies and all that they contain from dust and gas. Is that worth considering?

Solar radiation warming the oceans creates Hurricanes, by the laws of Thermodynamics, gas laws, gravity, etc, etc/

That guy is a dumb as OReilly.