firedragon
Veteran Member
OMG.
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An Ontological Proof that God Does Not Exist
- Thread starter Tiberius
- Start date
OMG.
That's what 'real' means, existing in the world external to the self, not purely conceptual or imaginary. A real god would have to have objective existence.
You could test this hypothesis by living up to your netname and dropping a brick on your foot, no?
Scolopendra
Member
I'm an atheist but still I'd like to comment each premise.
Premise 1: This is true for most if not all monotheistic religions, but what about polytheism?
Premise 2: This is true only for some theistic religions.
Premise 3: This one is quite subjective. Most of us have the instinct to value sacrifice and carrying a burden as positive traits but I wouldn't be too sure about the universality of this claim.
Premise 4: True but simply as a logical consequence of premise 3. One might argue that the handicap has to be great but not too great to the point of limiting premise 2.
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
A fair point, but this was written in response to the ontological argument for God, and I've only seen that used for monotheistic religions.
true, but again, all the religions I have seen use the ontological argument have claimed that God created the universe.
As I've said earlier in this thread... If a person drives a car, that's an accomplishment. If a person drives a car with the handicap of having no limbs, that is a greater accomplishment, despite the fact that the end result is the same (that the car has been driven down the road). The increased greatness comes from the fact that the person with no limbs has had to overcome a challenge that the other person did not.
Ah, but those who invoke the ontological argument for God usually claim that God has no limits!
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
What? I'm using an argument that is designed to invalidate the Ontological argument. It's impossible to show that my ontological argument that God doesn't exist is flawed without also demonstrating that the ontological argument that he DOES exist is also flawed. So, this is meant for those people who believe the ontological argument is valid. Any flaws they point out in this argument also exist in theirs.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Scolopendra
Member
Driving a car with no limbs sounds more like suicide to me
Reality consisting of time and matter is still being researched. Saying God creates (verb) the universe is placing God into the universe, so it is a peculiar definition of God for a straw argument.
A god might, but God would not. This is called transcendence by theologians. Its alluded to in the NT for instance when an author says God is spirit or that God is in heaven. I'm not inventing it. People can insist it means God isn't real, but that's begging the question of the OP. Making God a part of this universe is a straw argument against God, because it denies God's transcendence. The strategy of the OP argument is to ignore transcendence by insisting God must be the agent creating the universe. When I object they then insist incorrectly that Christians must agree, but Christians have a transcendent God not an objective God, morality being of superior import to physical reality. They are trying to disprove the existence of a god. It is not the same thing.
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
Driving a car with no limbs sounds more like suicide to me
But if someone can actually do it, then you'd be pretty impressed, right?
It's not a straw argument if you think about it. God, after all, never appears, never says, never does, and the same is true of all the other gods worshiped on planet Earth now and throughout the past.
So it's fair to say that the only way God is / gods are known to exist is as a concept / thing imagined in an individual brain, no? If God were real, you could show [him] not just to me but to the world, no?
rational experiences
Veteran Member
Father and mother both proved to me no man is God.
One God O rock the entity is the one.
Finished as rock law of space.
God the rock entity created its own heavens.
No man is God.
Now an ape isn't. God. It has sex it's ape DNA produces an ape baby. Exact.
So if you say I believe in a type of pre existence where a human came from.
First it's not another humans thesis.
As you aren't any God. You're just a human.
And if it is true you wont ever know nor see it.
So we use words as humans words that state why I don't know. The human telling.
One God O rock the entity is the one.
Finished as rock law of space.
God the rock entity created its own heavens.
No man is God.
Now an ape isn't. God. It has sex it's ape DNA produces an ape baby. Exact.
So if you say I believe in a type of pre existence where a human came from.
First it's not another humans thesis.
As you aren't any God. You're just a human.
And if it is true you wont ever know nor see it.
So we use words as humans words that state why I don't know. The human telling.
PureX
Veteran Member
Premise 1. is a both baseless and subjective.
Premise 3. is therefor of no consequence and premise 4. is of no relevance.
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
The same is true of the ontological argument FOR God, and that's precisely what this was intended to show (see post 45).
Sheldon
Veteran Member
It would be the greatest handicap to achieving anything.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Hmm. Okay. Let me show you a flaw in your argument that does not exist in any of the so called "ontological arguments" in history.
Your premise 3 contradicts you'r premise 1. This is an easier fallacy to understand than your major fallacies in argumentation.
P1 says God is the greatest being. P3 says a God with a handicap is greater which means "handicapped God is greater" that means "God is not the greatest". It's an immediate internal contradiction in your syllogism. The fallacy is not only a conclusion that denies your own premise, but also the premises are contradictory. This is not a valid argument. And I have never come across such fallacies in any of the ontological arguments done by any philosopher in history.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
handicap
noun
- a circumstance that makes progress or success difficult.
Progress or success in your example, would clearly be more difficult for a non existent golfer, thus non existence seems to represent a handicap.
I also suspect that @Tiberius wasn't being entirely literal in the title, but rather parodying the ontological argument for a deity, by illustrating its flawed nature.
PureX
Veteran Member
"God" needs no supporting argument, as it is a self-evident concept. The problems come from the fact that we have no idea what "God" is: how to existentially define that concept, and no means of finding out. All we can do is speculate, act on those speculations, and see what results. But in the end, all that tells us is the functional value of our speculations. It doesn't tell us anything about "God".
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
Premise 3 indicates that the God described in Premise 1 must have some handicap in order to still fit the definition given in Premise 1. That's how I get the conclusion.
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
Any positive claim needs a supporting argument. To claim that God doesn't is special pleading.
firedragon
Veteran Member
That's a contradiction. Not only your conclusion, your premises are contradictory. They are formally invalid in argumentation.
If you think a philosopher's ontological argument is as fallacious as this, there is nothing much to say but that you have not even read up on any of the ontological arguments.