Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 06/21/02 3:57pm
In reply to:
Don
's message, "Come on Wade--be honest.." on 06/ 7/02 9:27pm
Don, you have had a lot to say on the ontological argument without knowing that much about it. I advise you to restrain your bitterness, and if you read carefully you would know that I myself do not actually hold the ontological argument to be sound, but I also don’t claim that it is unsound. In short, I’m not entirely sure whether it works or not. The arguments you have put forth have responses, and I think you should be aware of them and aware of the ontological argument in general. As of late I have been feeling less compelled to participate in Ben’s message board in general, but I’ll respond to his post. I strongly recommend you (and everyone else) visit this web page if one wishes to understand the ontological argument.
>Wade you are still arguing mythology. You can say the
>greatest unicorn exist by necessity
>but you have yet to show the existence of unicorns.
Perhaps, but that’s not quite how the ontological argument works. See the web page.
>The greatest god in the universe is
>mythology for you have yet to show a conclusive search
>of the universe nor have you
>explored all the gods and given each a test to show
>greatness. So I ask you to even show
>the existence of eternity and I ask you to show that
>an all powerful god can make a rock
>too heavy for him to lift. You make a pitiful
>statement of mythology of some god story
>and then try to show it is real. You make a statement
>with no proofs what so ever based
>on concepts that do not stand a logic test of validity
>as god can make a rock too heavy for
>him to lift and expect others to believe you.
>Non-sense.
Two web pages I think you should visit. One I mentioned earlier, and this one to answer this.
>The word “greatest” IMV is a subjective word that
>only has meaning to the user and
>interpreted by the hearer according to his own frame
>of reference.
Well, that’s not quite true as can be seen by looking at the aspects involved. What kind of power does a perfect being have? Perfect power: omnipotence. What kind of knowledge? Perfect knowledge. Omniscience. These are objective qualities.
>So you recognize other gods? So you
>believe in more than one god? Of course
>you do if you claim one to be the greatest.
>You believe that Allah is real also but
>just not as great. Thanks for recognizing
>other gods.
No, I don’t recognize other gods, and the ontological argument does not in the least imply that. Maximal perfection (i.e. the greatest possible being) may exist but that does not imply the existence of lesser deities in any way.
>Have you been to all the worlds? NO. Have you seen
>all the gods? NO---come on Wade
>you are stuck in mythology and too proud to admit it.
>BTW how many universes are
>there?? Also knowledge can be perfect?
You betcha. It’s called omniscience. If I have limited or faulty knowledge it is clearly imperfect. Knowing everything that can be known, with all knowledge being of perfect accuracy, is perfect knowledge. This is an objective quality. Whether or not some perceive it to be subjective is irrelevant and does not change the hard facts of the matter. You have provided no justification for your claim of subjectivity of maximal perfection.
On possible worlds, you seem to have mistaken the definition. The concept doesn’t imply that multiple universes exist. See the ontological web page I referred to earlier.
>There is No perfect
>measurement and all measurements have room for error,
>we settle on a distance or a
>speed according to what will fit our needs of accuracy
>but it is never totally precise. So
>there for we can assume (if you are religious) that
>god can create error and if god is all
>things then we can say god is in error or has errors
>built into his system. So much for an
>absolute perfect god.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that we humans have limits that a supernatural being would not have. There is no logical or metaphysical reason to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent being would have such limitations that you speak of. Confer the definition of God I provide in the web pages.
>Either God exists or He does not exist
>
>LOL-- not this again. Why can you not have half a god
>or a forth of a god? Come on
>Wade where is your open mind.
It’s connected to my soul. To answer your question though, a half god (demigod) is still not God, because of the law of excluded middle. (Again, please see the ontological web page.) Either God exists or God does not exist. A demigod might exist without God existing, but that would fit into God not existing (since a demigod still isn’t God) and the law of excluded middle still holds.
>Regardless of what any dictionary says to say there is
>no god hardly represents a belief
>system of a universal nature. If so then define the
>system.
You seem to be missing the point. All else held constant, a belief that explains a set of data is more rational than a belief that does not. The fact that theism has explanatory power gives some degree of rational support for that belief. If atheism can only explain the set of data with ad hoc modifications, then atheism loses some points on this particular matter. (You could argue that, overall, atheism is more rational. But this is another matter.) If atheism does not have a system of universal nature, too bad. But a few such systems do exist (confer classical atheism) even if there is no single system.
>To me you are correct Dave. The greatest of all
>(anything) first would have to have a
>category. Ok the greatest god means we have examined
>all the gods and found one that is
>the greatest but then I suppose we would have to have
>a god war and see what god is left
>alive. Just think of the ensuing battles and blood
>shed spread all over the cosmos with
>little man caught in the middle....
Again, you are missing the point. In the ontological argument, God is defined as maximal perfection, i.e. the greatest possible being. Saying that one is greater or even could be greater would be breaking the law of noncontradiction. Also, nothing in the argument implies the existence of other deities.
>Ok, if logic is so great and all proving tell what is
>in this black box that measures about 1
>cubic foot.
Logic may be great, but it can’t prove and explain literally everything with rigorous proofs, and I never claimed otherwise.
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