For and against God

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In this topic i thought we could have a lil fun with education. I will start with an argument why i think there is a God and then someone will tell me why my argument isn't correct. And so on and so on we ll try to cover all the issues of the existence of god. This will help me clear up some reasons why certain ideas i have of why god can exist arn't true or are true. And why ideas of him not existing are or arn't true. We ll see how it goes

First argument and its and old one, Ontological Argument:

We have a concept of a Perfect Being:
Such a Perfect Being must necessarily exist.
Why? If he did not exist, then he would not be perfect.

Old fashioned version(takes a lil longer to translate)
Assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.
Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

Easy version:
We have a concept of a Perfect Island:
Such a Perfect Island must necessarily exist.
Why? If it did not exist, then it would not be Perfect.

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The conceptions of the imperfect cannot be perfect.

Perfect is a meaningless, subjective word. Tell me a little detail of the perfect being you have conceived - shoe size for example? What if I don't think that is the perfect shoe size?

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question - For and Against God,

answer - Yes and No, (It depends on whether he agrees with me on the issue or not.)

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hingehead wrote:

The conceptions of the imperfect cannot be perfect.

Perfect is a meaningless, subjective word. Tell me a little detail of the perfect being you have conceived - shoe size for example? What if I don't think that is the perfect shoe size?

I think hinge has found the flaw in the ointment of "perfection proves that perfection must exist."

I think therefore I exist.
I think something is perfect therefore it must exist.
I must be god since I can create perfection and make it exist.

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That would be number 4 on the list of Over Three Hundred Proofs of God's Existence.

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my facetious response to the ontological argument: i cannot conceive of a non-existent being; otherwise, i should be able to conceive of a
dalrikbofzextej, for example. so in simply conceiving of a supreme being, i'm conceiving it as existing; there's no way to conceive of it as "existing in the understanding alone", because only things that exist can be called "beings."

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Best reason to believe in god?
"Because it makes me feel better."
This I can understand and accept.

Organized religion, however, strikes me as a huge mistake.

These logical arguments for the existence of god are nonsensical. Of course the link to the 300 arguments are supposed to be ridiculous (after all, atheists own the page).

Many arguments 'for' prove there is a god, if you already believe there is a god. They assume too much. Of course, so do many arguments.

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Re: For and against God
Discreet

Quote:

First argument and its and old one, Ontological Argument:

We have a concept of a Perfect Being:
Such a Perfect Being must necessarily exist.
Why? If he did not exist, then he would not be perfect.

I think that the best reply to the ontological argument - you put it very well, specially in Anselm of Canterbury version - is the one from Kant, in his first Critique.
Existence is not an attribute. We can define an unicorn even if unicorns don't exist. You can say that God is perfect but you can not include in the concept of perfection existence. Existence is not an attribute of the being
but an empirical experience.
A dollar in your mind as the same characteristics of a real dollar. A triangle in your mind has the same characteristics of a real triangle.

If we accept that perfection is an attribute (I don't) that doesn't mean that existence must also be an attribute. Your idea of a perfect God is the same, does He exists or not.

Anselm of Canterbury was a platonic.
The consequences of his argument would lead us to accept things like this:
If I can think of the perfect triangle, then the perfect triangle must exist. But in the world of our senses there is nothing perfect, not even a triangle. Then, there must be another world where the perfect triangle exists. It seems a bit strange, don't you think?

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(A) As God created human beings, God loves them.

(B) While human beings created God, they do not love God.

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Re: For and against God

Discreet wrote:

Assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.
Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

That one begs the question doesn't it. The author refers to something when he says 'that than which nothing greater can be concieved,' so he is assuming that there is something which that can refer to. He is assuming that there is a God in his attempt to prove that there is a God. There is a God, therefore there is a God. Not very convincing.

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Can someone explain to me why i am right or wrong in assuming that in the bible God seems like two completely different people in the old and new testament....

In the old he is a God we should fear and there are many stories of his wrath on man out of anger....(even though he is perfect)
For example in the great flood God killed everyeone except moses and his wife and 2 animals of every sex. What i don't get is how could every person on earth have been evil. A 2 year old child for instance?

In the new testament god sends his son Jesus to forgive the sins of man. So that everyone has the chance to go to heaven. It seems man should send a son to forgive the sins of god and all the innocent people hes killed

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No argument from me Discreet. I've watched a couple of doco series on the how the new testament came about, and the old testament as well - with lots of interviews with christian theologists, christian historians et al.

The aim wasn't to disprove God, just to understand how the bible was written.

It isn't the word of god, it's based on four gospels (= memoirs) of four people who hung around christ. From memory there were, after the death of christ, 27 gospels written by various people (including Mary Magdalene). What became the Catholic church chose 4 of them as 'official' gospels (for largely political reasons, because their messages suited their goals at various times in the two centuries after christ) for inclusion in the new testament and rubbished the rest.

My understanding is that Coptic churches do place value in gospels other than those four - but being a devout atheist I'm unsure of the details.

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To give my previous message a modern analogy think of the Constitution of the United States.

Written by a respected group of men and much revered.

How many amendments so far? 18? And at least one amendments has been deleted.

So is the constitution still the document the founding fathers intended it to be?

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For and against God

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