Existence of God?

[sincranize]

A problem pondered by many philosophers throughout time, is that of the existence of God. I feel that there is an obvious problem in proving the existence of God. I myself I’m an atheist and will try hard to put forth a non bias account of the argumentation for the existence of God. Through my reading I have found that there are two arguments for the existence of God, the first very famous one developed by St Anselm has worldwide recognition and I will look at the reason for this. The second is built on similar grounds by Descartes, who also goes about proving the existence of God. The argument developed by St Anselm is known as the Ontological Argument. I find it a major problem in any acquisition of knowledge that only exists in a definition, which you will see later.
The Ontological Argument originated in Anselm’s Proslogian. This is what Anselm has said about our position before the argument. Sin has so darkened our minds that we cannot hope to reach the truth unless God graciously leads us to it. He does so by offering us the truth through revelation and by inspiring us to accept that revelation in faith. Once we accept the truth on that basis, however, we can hope to reason out proofs for what we have already accepted through faith. God is rational, and what he does is rational, and we ourselves are blessed with reason. Thus we should be able to discover the rationality of God’s actions, at least to some extent. We are like students who, unable to solve a mathematical problem, are given the answer to it and then discover they can reason out why that answer is correct . Straight away I see a problem in this statement, Anselm seems to believe that the only way going about proving God’s existence is by letting faith guide us, he clearly states above that “Once we accept the truth on that basis, however, we can hope to reason out proofs for what we have already accepted through faith.” I do not believe that we should have to believe in God to be able to prove his existence, whether what he means is that it will drive us to excel is not the point, this statement is faulty. I personally find it a weakness, that your belief will cloud your judgement and in that way hinder you from a conclusion. This is however not his ontological argument so I will move on. These are the premises of the ontological argument:

Premise 1: God is perfect in a sense which implies that no greater being is imaginable. This is taken true by the definition.
Premise 2: A merely imaginable being is not as great as a real one. This is also true by definition.
Premise 3: If God did not exist, then he would not be the greatest thing imaginable.
Conclusion: It becomes probably that “since by definition he is the greatest being imaginable, it follows that the fact that he exists” is true.

The first premise states that God is the extreme; this I suppose is to stop arguments from philosophers like Gaunilo (who stated that one can say the same out a perfect island ), that he is all knowing and a force of Good. So the first premise has correct a priori reasoning. The second premise is quite like the first, the definition is taken to be true, that a picture of God for example is not a great as the supposed reality of God. The next premise is the most controversial, saying that if God did not exist then he would not be the greatest thing, the conclusion being that we have just stated that God by definition (a truth?) is the greatest thing imaginable. Technically this can be seen as a truth, for its premises are proven by definition in the beginning, and the conclusion analytically states that God exists in the definition of God, therefore he exists outside the mind as well.  I feel that the problem is the distinction between the features of God and his existence. How can one prove his existence by describing his might? If I say that a unicorn has a horn on its forehead, that by definition is true, I can still not say that it exists. There is the major flaw in proving the existence of God. One can not possibly confuse the predicates of God, and claim that existence is a predicate. Basically what I’m trying to say is that when you are listing certain features of God, that he is all knowing, brilliant, good and then stating in the premises his existence must be wrong, for a statement of existence is stating that it is true or false, this is to be a conclusion not a premises, therefore the whole argument is incorrect and uncertain. This is also said by Immanuel Kant through ‘existence adds nothing to the essence of a thing’ . Furthermore my source concluded that “a real £50 note adds noting to the essence of a £50 note.” Although I believe that we are talking about God and that the reality of God does in fact add to the essence. Also I find this to be a matter a spirituality, the fact that Anselm is saying that God exists in the definition of God, this is utterly spiritual, and also shows no sense of reality, is God real if all that exists of him is in a definition? I say no, this is where the belief in God clearly clouds reason. The Ontological argument is just going around in circles, as stated to me by a friend, which I fin is true, the argument brings forth incorrect use of deduction, including existence as a predicate, also if the conclusion is that God exists, because of its place in a definition, then its existence has not been proven. So we can clearly see a problem in proving the existence of God.

Btw, Twolegswalking; you my firend are an idiot, you put forth claims but give no evidence, why do you bother?

[Uccisore]

I’m going to comment on the “God was invented for psychological reasons” argument.
Basically, it occurs to me that that has very little impact on modern religious belief. No one living today, as far as I know, would claim to have invented or discovered the concept of God, we all have gotten the idea from people that came before us. So, even if the first cavemen who believed in supernatural stuff did it to make them feel better about the scary world, people nowadays certainly didn’t come up with God for that reason. Now, we may adopt a pre-existing religion for that reason, but it can’t be properly said that that’s where religious belief comes from anymore.
Also, most people who believe in God, if asked why, will not say, “I believe in God because I am, at heart, scared of my own mortality, and project a father-figure that rules over it so that I can feel safe”. They will give some other explanation, perhaps about personal experience, or prayer, or maybe even a rational argument. So, do we tell these people. “Nuh-uh, you don’t believe because of that, you believe because of this theory I have”. That seems absurd, that we can know better why a person believes something than the person themselves. That would be at least as hard to prove as the existence of God Himself, I would think. So it seems this theory can only be applied to ‘the masses’- the body of religious believers about whom we can say anything we like because we’ll never have to look them in the eye.
A serious look at where religious belief comes from has to begin with where the believers themselves say it comes from, not from theories we invent about what goes on in other people’s minds. Many religious believers have theories about the ‘real’ reasons atheists fail to see the Truth of God, and we’ve no trouble seeing in that situation that it’s silly for them to pretend they know what’s in someone else’s heart. It goes both ways.

[Yossarian]

I really like the complexity argument. First let me say “Relativity” and second lets just think about this for one second. The existence of a supreme being is reflected by the fact that maple leaves are complex? I am not trying to bring anyone down to reality. What other maple leaves are you comparing them to? They are the way they are because that is how they have developed to cope with their local interactions. Many simple leaves have developed also. “natural selection” If we think about this clearly enough to create is a very anthropomorphic word itself since we tend to only create, I think this is very shady though, and everything else seems to be a result or product of some interaction. Just dabbling.

[Matt]

The design argument (what you guys sem to be calling the complexity) is perhaps the most utterly trashed, dismissed and sneered at view available to the creationist. Any creationist adopting such a position knows nothing about evolution at all. The easiest rebuttal is, why do we have an appendix? There are actually thousands of “useless” bits in our body, as well as animal responses that any half intelligent designer would have got rid of. So if one relies on the design argument you’re actually accusing God of being thick! Nice and ironic huh

Man I could reel out about 20 anti-design argumnet examples, but they’re so easy to find on the web so if you’ve actually shown any real interest in finding out about the subject that I’m not going to post them here. Oh, and avoid virtually every pro-creationist’s writings on the subject as unfortunatly they’re all quacks. The set up there own unaccredited universities, award themselves professorships and then make up evidence, I spent a long long time ooking for an argumnet against evolution and the only ones that even had a chance of standing up were three I thought of myself and all of them were tenuous and have since fallen from further investigation.

If you even hope to believe in such an argment I would suggest you read some Dawkins, one of the top zoologists around at the moment. Then you won’t believe in it anymore.

[Uccisore]

I don’t think any argument can prove the existence of God. I’ve never seen an argument that could prove the existence of any concrete thing outside of empirical evidence of the thing. Could someone construct an unrefutable logical argument for the existence of Joan of Arc, Mt. Rushmore, or beans without referring to some physical proof? Theists should probably stick to arguments that show that God is possible, or that some version of atheism is impossible, or to refuting arguments against the existence of God. Whatever proof for the existence of God that an individual has, it is merely anecdotal to anyone else.

[system]

For any christian it is really very unnessecary (and impossible) to proof the existence of God by some rationalist argument, because God’s existence ain’t knowledge, but belief. And belief is, as Paul defined it, knowing for sure that what you can’t see. Or, to put it another way: Credo quia absurdum (I believe it because it is absurd). You might also think of Kierkegaard, who said that faith is something like jumping into the depths if God asks you to, trusting his decision more than your own reason.

I don’t say I believe in God, but I don’t think the problem is solved by just denying the ‘proofs of God’s existence’. And I definitely want to KNOW if God exists or not. Any reactions?