|
Why Athiesm is false! (pg. 10)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| Xo|oX |
| quote: | Originally posted by whiskers
both statements that god doesn't exist and that he does are fals, they're a paradox.
|
well, thats why its called believeing, not knowing... |
|
|
| MaRt |
All religions are wrong!
:D |
|
|
| 'mju:zik |
| there is a mathematical equation that proves that g-d exists. but i doubt anyone on TA would understand it. |
|
|
| Pheobius |
didn't the philosopher Aquinas provewithout doubt there was a god?
If he did i'd like to know how and i'd also like to shake his hand, despite the fact i need no proof to back up my faith (i presume that there is a very good chance aquinas is dead already - i was speaking hypothetically) |
|
|
| rainbow_marble |
| ...this is where faith helps :D (silly people who need hard proof!) |
|
|
| Rhythm |
there are all sorts of arguments for the existence of God... from Descartes to Berkeley to St. Anselm.
Anselm's indirect argument for the existence of God is a "reductio ad absurdum" argument reducing the atheist's claim that God doesn't exist to absurditity.
First, Anselm assumes that the Atheist is right in believing that God doesn't exist. The atheist claims that God exists in the mind, but not in reality. So, in effect, God is a creature of fictin like Santa Clause.
Anselm characterizes God as the greatest conceivable being... God is a being which NOTHING COULD be better.
Anselm states that existence in the mind and in reality is GREATER than just existing in thought. If the atheist believes only that God exists in thought, and that existing in reality is greater than only in the mind, then God is not the GREATEST conceivable being.
The argument is as follows:
1) Assume: God exists in thought only, not in reality (assuming the atheist is right)
2) A being is God if and only if it's the greatest conceivable being.
3) Existence in thought AND reality is greater than existence in thought alone.
4) We can conceive of God existing in reality.
Therefore, 5) So, we can conceive of a being greater than God (this follows from premises 1,3,4)
Given the concept of God specified in premise 1, it follows from premise 5 that:
6) We can conceive of a being greater than the greatest conceivable being (this follows from premises 2,5... this is a contradiction in the atheist's line of thought... so the assumed premise 2 must be false.)
So, 7) The assumption is false: God doesn't exist in thought alone - God exists in reality as well as in understanding.
(The greatest conceivable being exists in reality because existence in reality is a perfection. Therefore, it is only rational to be a theist) |
|
|
| kr00t0n |
| It's all about 42 ppl :D |
|
|
| diffusion |
Simply ask an atheist the following, and he's got the most ignorant answers for you:
What happens when you die?
Why is there good and evil in this world?
And yes... 42 |
|
|
| speedracer_mec |
| quote: | Originally posted by diffusion
Simply ask an atheist the following, and he's got the most ignorant answers for you:
What happens when you die?
Why is there good and evil in this world?
And yes... 42 |
:clown: |
|
|
| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Pheobius
didn't the philosopher Aquinas provewithout doubt there was a god? |
Um, no.
He was one of the better philosophers of his time, but that's not saying much. His ideas are quite easily debunked logically (see here to start with) although most of them are rehashed and are still used in religious apologetics centuries later.
If you're looking to philosophy to support the existence of God, you're best looking at Spinoza or Kierkegaard who make much more convincing cases.
| quote: | | Simply ask an atheist the following, and he's got the most ignorant answers for you |
:eyespop:
| quote: | | What happens when you die? |
What happens when any living thing dies? Why do you suspect that the fate of a dead human would be any different to that of a dead tree, worm or albatross?
| quote: | | Why is there good and evil in this world? |
It's a subjective, human creation. It is part of human nature to create values and while debate continues about the scientific origin of this "moral imperitive", it is most likely our social structures (and the need to have solid, co-operative social structures to survive) that allowed it to evolve. If you want to see what our morality would have looked like several 100,000 to a couple of million years ago, just look at the behaviour of higher primates.
Nonetheless, it needs to be said that good and evil don't really exist. They're merely anthropic contructs necessitated by our evolutionary development. |
|
|
| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Rhythm
Anselm's indirect argument for the existence of God is a "reductio ad absurdum" argument reducing the atheist's claim that God doesn't exist to absurditity.
...
|
Good lord, this is the worst straw-man argument for God that I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
Let's take it one step at a time:
| quote: | The argument is as follows:
1) Assume: God exists in thought only, not in reality (assuming the atheist is right) |
An atheist believes that God does not exist, period. Furthermore, the implication that "existence in thought" is actually existence at all is about as easy to swallow as a basketball.
| quote: | | 2) A being is God if and only if it's the greatest conceivable being. |
False, again. This IS, in fact, the theist's belief, not the atheist's! Accepting that there is such a thing as the "greatest conceivable being" is exactly the same as accepting that there is a God. Atheists do not make this assumption at all! An atheist concludes that there cannot be any such being, rendering this "if" statement completely invalid.
| quote: | | 3) Existence in thought AND reality is greater than existence in thought alone. |
This is playing semantics - at what point does it make sense to assume that there are varying degrees of "greatness" in existence? And even if we were to accept that (and also accept that "existence in thought" actually has concrete meaning), can anyone prove that conjecture #3 is actually true?
| quote: | | 4) We can conceive of God existing in reality. |
Really! I find that interesting. I didn't mention this in my response to #2, but isn't the definition of God a being that is in fact inconceivable? Be you theist or atheist, you must believe that you can't conceive of God - if you are theist, conception by mere humans would mean that God ceases to be God, and if you are atheist, there is nothing to conceive of.
| quote: | | Therefore, 5) So, we can conceive of a being greater than God (this follows from premises 1,3,4) |
Needless to say, we can conceive of no such thing.
| quote: | Given the concept of God specified in premise 1, it follows from premise 5 that:
6) We can conceive of a being greater than the greatest conceivable being (this follows from premises 2,5... this is a contradiction in the atheist's line of thought... so the assumed premise 2 must be false.) |
This is why atheists do not assume that there is a greatest conceivable being, as theists do - because no matter whether or not you assume that God exists "in reality" or "in thought alone", you can always conceive of a "greater" being, which is a self-defeating philosophy. Could God create a rock so heavy that he could not lift it? If there is a God, then who created God? And who created the thing that created God?
Barring that obvious oversight, if the atheist believes that God exists in thought alone, he must also believe that a "greater God" can only exist in thought alone. A god existing in thought AND reality is a physical impossibility to an atheist - therefore, it is NOT something he/she can conceive of at all.
| quote: | So, 7) The assumption is false: God doesn't exist in thought alone - God exists in reality as well as in understanding.
(The greatest conceivable being exists in reality because existence in reality is a perfection. Therefore, it is only rational to be a theist) |
If by "rational" you mean "unbearably stubborn and ignorant", then yes. |
|
|
|
|
