• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

[MEGA] God

Status
Not open for further replies.
Properties can either exist or not exist, but existence isn't a property. Any attempt at deriving existence a priori from definition alone is a categorical error and assumes the conclusion. The ontological arguments are interesting but are all completely invalid.
 
Sorry i haven't responded back, been on vacation. will read up on the info bel shared and get back if I have any more questions. So far, I am still in shock that this drivel has actually been entertained by scholars and philosophers across the world in our universities. It just seems to be so obviously NOT an obvious conclusion.
 
^^ Yeah pretty astonishing isn't it? Medieval theologians and philosophers came up with tons of astonishingly bad, inane arguments... in fact they've become sort of a byword for terribly silly arguments. :)
 
When reading very old literature whether it be philosophy or otherwise it is important to put oneself in the context it was written and take it on its own terms. Sure, looking at St. Anselm's "Ontological Proof of God" as if it were a text designed to hold up against the countless skeptical attacks that can be made on the existence of "god" does make it seem like a ridiculous argument written by, as DarthMom put it, "St. Moron."

However, St. Anselm wasn't trying to prove the existence of God to non-believers. He was trying to make an ontological proof, or rather "layout" of God for people to better understand a God (as given in scripture) that they already believe in. In fact, his first move in the proof is to establish that their can be no understanding of God without belief in God first. So everything he lays out in the proof is contingent on belief in God as laid out in the scriptures.

I think if one understands that going into St. Anselm, it becomes clear that he isn't a "moron" at all but actually a rather intelligent (and famously humble) man giving a detailed analysis/proof of something that he readily admits to holding as a matter of faith. Any Christian who's most famous quote is that he was "headed for God but stumbled over myself" can't be all that bad. :p
 
David said:
Spinoza has a good argument on what God really is.

I don't know what sort of position you are in to make claims about "what God really is" but I will add that yes, Spinoza's system of metaphysics and "God" is one of the most logically consistent philosophical texts ever written. And that I am really enjoying reading about it at the moment. :D
 
Belisarius, you might be interested in Antonio Damasio's Looking For Spinoza (New York, Harcourt, 2003). It's a very readable account of Spinoza's life and philosophy as applied to contemporary neuroscience.

Thanks, DarthMom, for the apology. I agree that Anselm is wrong, I just don't think he was a moron. I mentioned this discussion to a friend and he had a laugh at folks dismissing the thought of Anselm being dismissed as a light weight. The dude was heavy. Mistaken, sure. Stupid, no.

Spinoza has a good argument on what God really is.
Oui, oui.

But isn't Spinoza's pantheism a monist or totalitarian (in the philosophical, not political, sense) version of Anselm? Or, perhaps better said, Anselm is the dualist vision of Spinoza's God? And isn't that the basic division between Anselm's neo-Platonism and Spinoza's materialism?
 
Well I wasn't really apologizing, I was just being tongue in cheek, not insinuating he really was an idiot. I write like I speak, you just didn't hear the intonations to realize that.

stupid internet =D
 
That's OK -- I didn't think you'd really start a thread on Anselm just to put the guy down. He has been dead for a while.

I'd agree with the "stupid internet". Irony fails. Always. Almost. I would like to know your other thoughts on Anselm's proof and using Anselm against Anselm argument that you mentioned in the initial post.

For what it's worth, this thread made me re-examine medieval philosophy -- I do find most of it boring, just hate Aquinas, and love Maimonides.
 
Everybody hates Aquinas. I know a prof who passed up a lucrative position in the Northeast because the particular university (the name escapes me...) had a heavy emphasis on his philosophy with respect to medieval studies.
 
I need to go finish a paper, so I didn't read the rest of the thread to say if anyone figured it out, but I was taught this here it is.

1.Being real is a perfection

2.If you think of that-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived than it must be perfect.

3.If it didn't exist it wouldn't be perfect

4.Thus it must exist.

I personally find the "matter can't come from nothing" argument added to the fact that science is based on casue and effect and every effect is a cause and every cause is an effect to mean that some super-natural had to have been the first cause, and its super-natural because it isn't an effect.
 
slyvan wanderer said:
I need to go finish a paper, so I didn't read the rest of the thread to say if anyone figured it out, but I was taught this here it is.

1.Being real is a perfection
Prove it. And please give me a solid definiton of this ontological perfection.
2.If you think of that-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived than it must be perfect.

3.If it didn't exist it wouldn't be perfect
The fact of existence is the fact of actualised properties. You are getting mixed up between the fact and the properties themselves. The two are not, and never have been interchangable or equatable. This is an outright category error, and since it is definitional existence, is always assuming the conclusion and thus proving nothing.
Also, please outline the methodology you used to first discover the mysterious ontological scale of "greater and lesser things" and then rank your particular conception of God at the very top. If this whole "perfection" thing makes sense, please elaborate how there couldn't be a (plausibly infinite) multitude of perfect possible beings that sprang into existence simply because us humans couldn't conceive of them not existing.
4.Thus it must exist.
Only if you accept highly fallacious reasoning and suspect, ambiguous definitions. :)
I personally find the "matter can't come from nothing" argument
Well clearly something must exist uncaused, but no argument exists that successfully proves it was God.
added to the fact that science is based on casue and effect and every effect is a cause and every cause is an effect to mean that some super-natural had to have been the first cause, and its super-natural because it isn't an effect.
Even if this argument makes sense (how do quantum vacuum fluctuations fit in with this simplistic idea of causality?), "supernatural" is in the terms of this argument, simply a form of cause that does not conform to that observed in our universe. It's a very long stretch to go from that to a loving, personal God.
 
slyvan wanderer said:
Also for atheists, look into Pascal's Wager. Its a good one, helped me, and requires no faith what so ever in the begining.
It is a ridiculously bad argument. You can just as easily conceive similar bets that are in the atheist's favour, and the possibilities are actually infinite in terms of the odds being stacked against you anyway, as it is quite easy to conceive of gods that will damn you to hell over something trivial and arbitrary (like rational non-belief ;)), ad infinitum. There are many other reasons why this fails but I can't be bothered going into them right now.
 
skywise said:
I don't know what sort of position you are in to make claims about "what God really is" but I will add that yes, Spinoza's system of metaphysics and "God" is one of the most logically consistent philosophical texts ever written. And that I am really enjoying reading about it at the moment. :D

Interesting, You'll like it even more when you read Einstein's thoughts on it.

God is a the pattern that is the universe, and all that.

Very good stuff, made me think about how we are all a part of God, and how we can all influence things with the right amount of push. I sort of combined that line with Neitzsche on extentialism, and got where I am today in thoughts on what is god, is there a god thoughts.

Not really too deep, but then again nothing in the universe should be. "If you can't explain it in simple terms, then you don't really understand it."

Yes, I understand this is all opinion, I thought that would be given, since it not being one would be an outrageous claim. I don't make those without confidence in what I think, or know.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top