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Permalink Reply by Sathish Thota on February 17, 2011 at 1:17pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof

 

can any one explain me clearly... what shit is this?? my friend is clinging on this and quantum mechanics, probability for the proof of God's existense...

 

I'm not a physics student... so can some one help me out???

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Permalink Reply by Greg Gorey on February 17, 2011 at 2:13pm

As stated above, Graham Oppy wrote a whole book hosing this nonsense. Like Kant, I am not convinced that existence is a predicate so I think the argument fails right there. You could also show that the concept of god is inherently contradictory through incompatible properties arguments, which undermines the whole thing. Sobel also wrote a great section on Godel's, Anselm's, Plantinga's and everyone else and shows that they are bunk. The irony is that Plantinga gave up on this argument in the 70's and he is by far the most famous living proponent of it.

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on February 17, 2011 at 2:59pm

Yes the problem is some people confuse "in their understanding" with "in their imagination"

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Permalink Reply by Radu Andreiu on February 17, 2011 at 2:29pm

God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived.

1. Whose definition is that?

2. Why call something for which no greater can be conceived "God"?

3. What does greater mean? By which standards and in what aspects does this greater apply?

4. Giving the meaning of "great" this would apply to many things.

5. There are things that cannot be conceived. Does this mean God is limited by what we can conceive?

6. This says nothing about this "God". It doesn't say it's a person, creator, healer, or killer. It doesn't say it's Yahweh, Zeus, Thor, or an unimagined personal god.

7. So basically, this says that there is something that is extremely great (again, what does great mean?) out there and that is God. What's the point to this and why not call it The Greatest Thing, or The Greatest Thing Imaginable?

8. Why am I still asking questions?

9. Isn't it obvious it's a meaningless rhetoric?

10. Did I subconsciously want to stop asking questions at the tenth one because I actually believe in the 10 commandments?

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 17, 2011 at 7:01pm

10. Did I subconsciously want to stop asking questions at the tenth one because I actually believe in the 10 commandments?

 

Relax, your 4th and 6th weren't really questions, so you actually stopped at the 8th one - more likely because of an obsession with tentacled critters than with the Decalogue.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Raymond on February 17, 2011 at 10:46pm

If god is real, he/she/it is one dumb ass!  Instead of getting ancients to write 66 stories of nonsense, he/she/it could have just told all humans of his existence by word of mouth.  Then we could all worship in unison, everyday, to the great one!  As a parent I would never treat my kids the way god treats his so-called flock! You don't need to be an Einstein to figure that one out.  KISS ( Keep it simple, stupid)

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