Ontological Argument

Yup, that's what occurred to me when I saw the thread title.

In a sense, in this probabilistic Cosmos the shape of God is an infintely large bell-shaped curve*. But from my ego-perspective, every time I flip my coin the chances are fifty-fifty.

* correct me if I'm wrong. I am mathematically illiterate.

We don't know the probability of there being a God - that requires information, of which we have none.

We could just as easily say that the chances of fairies existing are 50-50.

I thought my posts on the previous page were quite good, even though they were the last ones, so they will never get read unless I prompt people. I'm prompting people now.

aperson,

Your arguments are predicated on the possibility of existence of "God" independently of existence of "us". Since this thread concerns itself with "ontology" you cannot assume that "independent existence" is axiomatic.

Protagoras once uttered ineffably, "We need to find a better argument".

1. By definition god is the greatest possible being.
2. The ineluctable Law of Large Numbers states that if something can happen it will.
3. Therefore god will happen, but maybe not today.


What further proofsmight the hand of god need?

It beggars belief that Setanta used "begs the question" correctly when 6 billion others never do. This combined with the iconic dog (god backing) and the et in santa point to the dog star, the brightest star. Sirius.

No, surely you can't be sirius.

i think the question's been buggered...



1. is grammar becoming ontology. just because nothing can "possibly" be greater doesn't mean something that big is possible. it's impressive how you turned an argument of exclusivity into one of inclusivity.

2. the keyword here is "if."

3. is logically nothing but a rewording of 2, minus the "if."

let me show you the same argument, worded to show its flaws:

1. by definition, nothing greater than god is possible. (same logical statement, worded more carefully!)
2. the ineluctable law of large numbers (this exists?) states that IF something can happen, it will.
here's the most confident conclusion you can arrive at from the above:
3. therefore, god will happen, if possible.

in fact, even i'm leaping a bit in part 3. the first argument is that irrelevant.

That was hysterically punny

I can see how 'finding people (not many, if any) who are smarter than me' can lead to the possiblilty of the improbable whilst simultaneously alerting us to the probability of the impossible in particular and implausibility in general.

If one can find people (not many if any at all) then I believe one could find anything unless of course it is missing.

Sorry, I meant that all of my peers who are smarter than me, whom I am associate with, understand probability worse than I do. This may be due to the lack of the people fitting the above criteria, but there are a sufficient number of them for me to make a good conclusion.

I apologize for my sardonic scorn.

Don't you dare say sorry.

Your observations about probability were subtle and salient.

Thanks, And ah, this may be a bit late but, welcome to A2K.

Yes, solipsister, WELCOME.