Thanks Ubuntu.

It can be hard when you're waist deep in an argument, to remember that the core of your opponent's case has no basis in reality. Thanks for laying that out.

 Good post, I think Mr. M. exemplified the majority of your points, and then went out to make a few more fallacies.  The problem with his argument is that it was fractally wrong.  When you dissected it, it failed on every level.  And that was just the first premise lol.

Mr. M was the latest, but there's been at least 2 or 3 in the last few months. I guess he was the straw the broke the camel's back.

The objections I've made have always been the same, and eventually the OA advocate turns to fallacy laden mud-slinging tactics.

 It's really an argument out of semantics.  The problem that I noticed, as a layman, was that they selectively assign the 'infinite' adjective to specific attributes only, and leave others out.  The way I understood his whole argument, in order for this to work, god MUST equate infinite, or limitless, or some other such synonym.  As soon as you start to knock down parts of the infinity, the whole thing fails.  To me that was the biggest leap of faith.  If God is truly infinite, he is everywhere, and everywhen, and everyTHING.  Mr. M. says, no, god is everywhere, and everywhen, but not everyTHING.  That kind of kills the first premise right there.   Hence the fractally fallacious argument.  Add to that the fallacies you have pointed out, and the whole thing just crumbles.

That's a good point.

In Mr.M's terms, he is in fact "limited", in that he doesn't encompass us. If we have 'free will" as they claim, then He cannot encompass our minds/souls, whatever they conceive of as making choices.

They will say he deliberately 'chose' to grant us free will. So he chose to 'limit' himself? But surely that still makes Him 'limited'...

Aaarrgh, WTF, this is such transparent nonsense.

"Amen", brother.

Hallelujah! praise the Lord!!!

The soundness fails in the first two words, "God is." That's begging the question.

In other words, the first premise, "God is the greatest possible conceivable being," is only true if God exists. "God exists" is the conclusion, so it cannot be a premise.

Viewed another way, it is an equivocation fallacy. The first premise is made to look like it is saying, "'God' is the concept of a greatest possible conceivable being," but it is used in the argument to mean, "there is a greatest possible conceivable being, and it is God." If it meant the former, then the conclusion would be, "Therefore, the concept of God exists." (Of course, that would also be begging the question, since that was the premise. This argument is filled with fail.)

Many theists have no idea what is entailed by the world "infinite" and they throw it around as if they did. When I started reading Cantor, I quickly found that it is was not as simple they'd like to think it is. In any case, I've learned to press for clarity when someone starts dropping the word "infinite".

Plantinga avoids this in his argument by having two working definitions, and he never explicitly calls any one of them "god". That's why I suggested it was possibly begging the question.

I think other more clear explicitly define God as merely and idea rather than an actuality first, and I think this is valid, but it categorically is no different than other ideas such as pixies, ghosts, and dragons at this point. Suggesting that such things exist a priori and then suggesting that such things by definition must exist in reality is not grounded in reality, and why I challenged the soundness.

The Modal version, which Mr.Metaphysics was pushing, depends on an invalid use of the S5.

I think I have finally got my head around this stuff.

A significant part of it is due to confusion/conflation of two uses of the word 'possibly'.

The use in Modal Logic means that something is contingent, that it is not inevitably or 'necessarily' the case.

This is distinct from its use to convey a sense of uncertainty about the truth value of a statement that is purely due a lack of sufficient knowledge to determine its truth.

Given the first usage, the statement that "it is possibly the case that A is necessarily the case" is equivalent to "A is necessarily the case" does follow. So S5 is valid, but only if "possibly" is being used strictly in the Modal sense, which assumes adequate knowledge to determine that A is indeed necessary.

So Mr.M's argument amounts to " if we have sufficient knowledge to know that God is a necessary being, then he necessarily exists."

But since God, by definition, would encompass or impact all of existence, 'sufficient' knowledge would require pretty much total knowledge of Everything.

Lacking that level of knowledge, Mr.M's OA can prove nothing, even if valid as stated.

I would contend that he has no real knowledge of anything at all, given that every statement he makes about reality is made divorced from reality. Modal OA's propose a set of possible worlds that are entirely the product of a priori speculations. Just because someone can think of something that exist necessarily in the proposed set of possible worlds does not entail that it actually exists, and a priori, this cannot be asserted.

Yeah, well, that has always seemed to me the basic fallacy of any kind of OA, the idea of trying to 'prove' something about reality purely a priori.

So the OA can prove nothing, really, and it is clearly circular, or at the very least, totally contingent, ultimately boiling down to: "IF a being matching my conception of God exists, THEN God exists", which is essentially all a purely a priori argument can do.

The KCA is little better: "IF everything needs a cause, then existence needs a cause, which BY DEFINITION could only be my conception of God."

The TAG is different: I have always thought of it as conflating the map with the territory: "the Universe behaves in an orderly manner consistent with the Laws of Logic; the LOL are a conception of a mind; therefore the orderliness of the Universe necessitates a Universal Mind." At least it seems to be based on an empirical, ie not a priori, observation. But it equates that observation to a conceptual model  of that orderliness, or worse, reverses the relationship - the orderliness is a consequence of the concepts of order existing in a Universal mind.

All these are such clear fallacies when boiled down to their essentials, so it is the task of the Theologians and Apologetics to devise formulations of these arguments which as far as possible conceal that they are just combinations of logical fallacies and naked assertions, strung together by logic operators, IF, THEN, THEREFORE.

 We need a detailed website that explains every fallacy in all the popular OAs.  That way we just point the OA poster to the link so they can all be on the same page.  It would save a lot of time cutting through their illogic. 

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I always feel like a genius when things I think of are things other people with larger brains have thought of.

Also, uhhg, the blog format drive me nuts.

That is all.

interesting link, this is exactly what I had in mind except it is obviously biased towards atheism, and thus would turn any theist off.  I want thinking less narrative, more point form.  That being said I really like that website, thank you for posting it.

Edit: typo

Hi Bunty

We all know that you wrote this on my behalf since you have not been able to answer my questions. I refuted your position so bad, you had to snuggle with your mommy for months.

Of course you won't admit it. But once again you misrepresented my argument.

The Bible does say that you are a fool and are ignorant (I Cor. 1:14) because you are not a Christian. God has sent you a delusion of stupidity (II Thess 2;9-11).

Anselm's Ontological Argument is NOT my argument. .  Anselm was a Rationalist from the scholastic school of thinking. Anselm's argument is full of contradictions.

While Anselm does argue deductively from definition, I argue deductively from axiomatically. While axioms need not be justifed, however, the Imago Dei roots in this reality.

While Anselm argues via particular and does not define definition thus making it a particular, I argue from sola Scriptura as another axiom in the equation of things.

It drives you crazy that my argument is sound and valid. You are only left with probability probable which leaves you in a circle of death and confusion.

Perhaps I ought to educate you more on the subject.

But I remember you telling me you were in the occult. What type of Thelma Organization were you in. There are at least 4. It makes sense that you are seeking for everything BUT truth since NOBODY seeks God (Romans 3:10-12).

You are an evil foolish man. If I have refuted you, just admit it. I like you BuntY, but is it to much to ask one that worshipped demons to be honest?

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3)

Lol, he sent a delusion of stupidity.

umm...no

um...no

This is pure equivocation. And besides, it still has the same problem, and as I and others pointed out, Godel showed that no set of axioms is complete.

One cannot assume something into reality independent of reality. That's question begging. As I showed with Anselm and other OA's is that I could do the same for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Your either-or thinking has also been your problem. Your conservative-christian-republican vs liberal-atheist-democrat dichotomy among other things shows that you assume that you know things rather than evaluate knowledge as it exsists.

You call me a foolish man, presume you've "refuted" me , and ask me if I worship demons... and you say "Respectfully"....

You lost my respect a long time ago concerning credibility...

But why would an atheist worship demons when atheists raject the existence of such things... that's a contradictions in terms.

 Hehe, is this guy for real? Jean.  The more I read, the more Poe he seems.  Funny though

I was a bit cranky before I read this post but now I have a smile on my face. It must be the work of the lord.