Ontological Argument

Which is to say, the question is being begged. Begging the question is at the base of all ontological arguments for deities, or any supernatural being or conditions.

Absolutely. And most of us believe because we don't know. It's a natural human response to not knowing - getting answers no matter what.

Let me ask you this, mismi...
First, think of all the Christian folks you know. Now, what would their faith be if they grew up in, say, a community that worships multiple gods? Would they be Christians (believe in one god) or would most (if not all) of them believe in multiple gods?
??

E=MC2 because I believe it to be so? Ontology and faith have no real connection that I can see.

That is rather hard for me to answer seeing as I never have lived in that society. It is hard to say if having grown up around it - as you say - and being super familiar with it if I would venture outside my comfort zone, since being a deep thinker has never been my problem....

I have always been fascinated with Greek Mythology. And the little I have studied what I noticed most was the selfishness of those gods. In Roman Mythology as well...they were all out for themselves and out to please themselves. They were really no different than the people they ruled over except for their powers.

I think that eventually - I hope eventually I would realize that these gods were bogus and that they actually served no purpose. Apparently it was noted even in ancient Greece that the gods were made up and their "worship" and "festivals to the gods" were just opportunities to legitimize their behaviors.

I like order and I believe that creation absolutely points to an intelligent being that set it all in motion. Had I come upon scripture I have no doubt it would have moved my heart as it does now. Because I have not always been a believer. And it was scripture and the understanding of a God who loved beyond himself to give us purpose and weight and form in this miserable world. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4).

I do believe that there is something deep within each of us that longs for this relationship with God. There are some who need more than faith to believe though. They fill their longings with money, knowledge, alcohol, drugs...sex - whatever they think will fill it. I think that most people do not want to believe in God because they do not want to have to answer to anyone for things they do that they know are wrong. Gluttony, sexual impurity, greed, murder, lying, stealing...all of these things have to be answered to by someone other than oneself. We can serve ourselves and rationalize our wrongdoings if we believe there is no God.

But for me...between scripture and creation, I do believe I would have come to understand that there is one true God.

But even if existence is included in the definition of God, it's still not a trivial truth that God exists. There is still the question whether there is in fact something maching his description: omniscient, omnibenevelont, etc., and existent. Maybe there is; maybe there isn't.

I suppose the proponent of the ontological argument can try to claim that an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipowerful God would be greater than a non-omniscient, non-omnibenevolent, non-omnipowerful God; thus, for reasons similar to step (3), an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipowerful God must, by definition, exist. But this of course merely compounds the question-begging problem, as Setanta mentioned. Whatever the proponent wants to load into the definition of "infinite greatness," it will always be the case that the argument begins by assuming the qualities that it then purports to prove.

As I'm sure you're aware, the ontological argument has also been debunked on the grounds that it "proves" the existence of all sorts of ridiculous things. Its logic can be used to "prove" the existence of an omniscient, omnimalevolent, omnipowerful devil, for example, since the devil is defined as the greatest possible evil being, and an existent devil is more evil than a non-existent devil; the ontological argument can also be used to "prove" the existence of the greatest possible island, the greatest possible toaster, the greatest possible volleyball player, the greatest possible avacado, etc.

Very good, Shapeless. Logic does not point to any reality; it only organizes our thought about conjectured realities.

Say I define God this way: "God" = the existent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being. Does it follow (even allowing question begging) that God exists? Well, no. My conclusion - that God exists - would mean:

(1*) The existent omnscient ... being exists.

Which sounds trivial, but in fact is not. Consider the parallel:

(2*) The existent 12 foot tall man exists.

Is (2*) trivial? So far from being trivial, it's even false. I can define something as existent, real or actual till I'm blue in the face; there's always gonna be the further question whether anything in fact satisfies my definition.

I don't care how well one's logical performance may be. If it is based such constructions as the "omnis" listed here it cannot help to clarify the nature of reality. The concepts, omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipowerfulness and omnicompetence are not pictures of reality; they are constructs in our heads. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, they are abstract characteristics of their imagined possessor (God) and whether they are used in logical or illogical formulae they prove/say nothing about reality, only about our thinking about an imagined "reality".

I blame Aristotle.

Dys, I learned that--or something like that--from you the first time we met. Remember?

bm

Re: God is a question....


...because...?

Mismi40 uses a phrase that assumes the premise of theism: Faith is belief in Him.
The meaning here is that God exists and that the problem is whether or not we believe in Him.
Better to say that "faith" is unsupported "belief" in the thesist thesis.

The standard "ontological argument" is vacuous because the meaning of "existence" is unexplored.

1. "Existence" is "relationship".

2. Relationship operates at the level of "concepts" not "things".
Things cannot "be" except as concepts for an observer or "thinger".

3. In as much that a concept of "self" is in relationship with a concept of "God", then both are mutually "existent" whether that relationship is positive or negative, physical or non-physical etc.

4. Both theism and atheism are predicated on a "God concept".
A theist is a "self" which has a positive relationship with the concept "God" of the form "God as an ultimate observer". (The Bishop Berkeley position). An atheist is a "self" which has a negative relationship with the concept "God" of the form "God as a psychological paliative".

Fresco, I responded to your last post and lost if. I hate to go through the process. Let's see if it shows up. If not, I'll repeat myself.

ontological argument
One may think it is a question of faith. This argument may be fallacious.
When one looks around them one sees design innately. Early thinking man saw this in his 'pagan' or archaic religion. Our computerised frame of mind in contemporary life has many subtle signals to disaffirm anything not empirical . If one day we can escape this 'socio-cognitive'
mindset we may discover God.

Yeah, and math is the greatest therefore God is Math.

That's the crappiest logic I've ever seen. If God is not actual, then God is not possible. Once we assign God to actual or not actual, we have assign a possibility to him (1 or 0 respectively).

It's like you're saying, "The chance of me rolling a 6 is one in six. I then roll the dice, and it is a 4, but the possibility of the dice showing a 6 still exists".

Seriously, probability is a topic understood by a minute portion of the population. I have found that even some people who are smarter than me (not many, if any) do not understand probability. But you take ignorance, or idiocy, call it what you wish, to a whole new level.

Possibility is only a reality when a) the event has not happened b) we do not know the outcome of the event, and then possibility only exists from our perspective.

In other words:
From our point of view, God is possible (we assume this).
But in reality, God is either real or not real.

You have combine reality with our point of view, which ends in logic errors.