Vatican says aliens could exist

[Jefe]

And it's not actually "fucking stupid", it's using the very logic you mentioned in your post to prove that god exists.

This is very true, most of you don't even understand the Argument.

[Mizango]

Typical blanket response, I should have known. Nu-uhhhh, He exists because we said he did. Give me a fucking break lol. Like I said, if believing makes you a better person then more power to you, but my opinion was spot on in my mind. It was fucking stupid. The argument I can respect, but the end result and using it as "proof" is pretty fucking dumb.

[Beckwin]

5. Because if God exists merely as an idea then God is not the greatest conceivable being.

5 assumes that the notion of God can't come from what isn't rather than what is, and that being and nothingness are independent of each other.

Sartre beat this argument :/

[Senoska]

^

^Pascal's wager, although interesting i.e. it's better to bet for him versus against, it does suffer from a bunch of weaknesses. I'd rather go w/ Anselm's Ontological Argument ;p

I'm familiar with this argument, in order to understand what Anselm is saying we have to know a few things first. We know that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. The whole basis of his argument is the "greatest being conceivable," also note that this is a-priory statement. So here's a summary from one of my thesis:

1. Everybody understands the idea of God, even atheists.

2 God exists as an idea in one's understanding.

3. Either God exists as an idea in one's understanding, or God exists exists both as an idea and reality.

4. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.

5. Because if God exists merely as an idea then God is not the greatest conceivable being.

6. God has to exists in as much as God is the greatest conceivable being.

His argument is logical, and not even Hume, Dostoevsky, Gaunilo, and Kant were able to "defeat" this argument. Also keep in mind Anselm wrote it between 1033-1109 AD.

Not true, if god had a handicap that would make him even better, a quadriplegic doing pole vaulting is greater then a normal person doing it. creating the universe is one thing but a truly great god would have the greatest handicap in existence, non existence.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing

edit: also, you're presuming that existing is greater then a thought, which is baseless.

[Day]

Well I don't know what you want Miz. I'm not here to prove god's existence to anyone. I'm just pointing out this pretty fucking famous argument for gods existence because I find it interesting, and it's a hard one to argue, once you get beyond the "Well that's fucking stupid" response. There are 3 more pretty popular arguments for his existence as well, I don't remember them all though, because this is the one I wrote my paper on :X

[Senoska]

And it's not actually "fucking stupid", it's using the very logic you mentioned in your post to prove that god exists.

This is very true, most of you don't even understand the Argument.

Guys, not agreeing with his point = not understanding it OMGAWD!

And no, it is fucking stupid, you make a huge leap of "logic" and it can be applied to anything, cue peanut butter point from earlier. It's not only fucking stupid its also fucking wrong.

[Jefe]

5. Because if God exists merely as an idea then God is not the greatest conceivable being.

5 assumes that the notion of God can't come from what isn't rather than what is, and that being and nothingness are independent of each other.

Sartre beat this argument :/

No he didn't, read more.

[Day]

Ok, I'll be sure to tell St Anselm and Descartes.

[Jefe]

And it's not actually "fucking stupid", it's using the very logic you mentioned in your post to prove that god exists.

This is very true, most of you don't even understand the Argument.

Guys, not agreeing with his point = not understanding it OMGAWD!

And no, it is fucking stupid, you make a huge leap of "logic" and it can be applied to anything, cue peanut butter point from earlier. It's not only fucking stupid its also fucking wrong.

It can't be applied to anything fool, did you even read the counter aguments? I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just answering questions. Btw, your tears are the sweetest ambrosia Q_Q moar.

[Mizango]

Obligatory: "Well thats fucking stupid".

Speaking of Papers, I listened to one about how some Christians actually believe Dinosaurs peacefully walked alongside biblical man some 1000-2000 years ago. That's neither here nor there, but it shows you what kind of mindless bullshit can be written on paper, I mean look at the bible. All I'm saying is that just because its Philosophy and "LOL my Teacher said it" that does not make it more right than everyone else. I mean the idea of a fucking Heliocentric universe was fucking blasphemous for quite a long while, ask Keppler about that. Popular thinking does not equate to being an absolute, history has shown us this a thousand-fold.

I will admit though, the Adam and Eve riding a T-Rex bareback thing was quite fascinating in all of it retarded glory, so who am I to point fingers or fault you for that. It was like that 80's cartoon "The Dino-Riders" was really just a clever play on actual biblical events! whodathunkit?

[Jefe]

Well this crapfest ain't going nowhere. The argument is there, see if you can debunk it using logic instead of "LAWL fucking stupid yo!"

There are 3 more pretty popular arguments for his existence as well, I don't remember them all though, because this is the one I wrote my paper on :X

I remember two, besides Anselm's; William Paley's Teleological Argument and St. Thomas Aquinas's Cosmological Argument.

Anyways, HAVE FUN GUISE.

[Beckwin]

Well, how about we expand upon our definition of God then? We'll agree that he's "perfect" and all-powerful- omniscient, omnipresent, power to do anything.

Now, how do we define his existence?

Can we safely say that he exists in reality, or exists in himself, given that he can manipulate said reality? For example, he can create planets, strike down thunder, make rain, etc. So based on what we know, we should be able to conclude he has some kind of mass or energy or whatever, because we know how these phenomenons work in terms of reality, the reality that God created, so it must be that he has some presence in it.

Shall we agree on that for now?

[Mizango]

Well this crapfest ain't going nowhere. The argument is there, see if you can debunk it using logic.

I am not here to debunk no more than you are to convert and show us all the proverbial light. Besides, who's to say I'm not here just to piss you slap the fuck off?

"LAWL fucking stupid yo!"

Nigga plz.

[Parshias]

We all know that God doesn't exist because he created the Babelfish.

If you don't know the reference, I hate you.

[quannum]

If i can replace the word god with the word batman in your argument, and your argument just proved the existence of batman, then your shit needs work. Anselm's argument can make anything a reality, like Gaunilo's island.

This argument argues for 1 god, without explicitly stating reasons against multiple or zero gods, which betrays a monotheistic bias.

Also, if you try this argument without the a priori crutch then your view is internally inconsistent. By that I mean that you can't posit knowable traits about something that exists outside of matter, energy, time and space ... something unknowable. This is by your definitions (your = the people in this thread, not anselm) something that can't be blackbox tested.

from the wiki:Existence as a property or predicate

As Kant says, there is no conceptual difference between the idea of 100 dollars (Kant used "Taler", a German currency of his time) on the one hand and 100 dollars in my pocket on the other. The difference is not conceptual: it is that I can actually perceive the 100 dollars in my pocket. In short, to think of a thing that exists and to think of that thing as not existing is to think of the same idea; existence does not do anything to change the idea in question.

[Beckwin]

By that I mean that you can't posit knowable traits about something that exists outside of matter, energy, time and space ... something unknowable.

haha, I was trying to push them in a direction similar to this.

[Jefe]

If i can replace the word god with the word batman in your argument, and your argument just proved the existence of batman, then your shit needs work. Anselm's argument can make anything a reality, like Gaunilo's island.

This argument argues for 1 god, without explicitly stating reasons against multiple or zero gods, which betrays a monotheistic bias.

Also, if you try this argument without the a priori crutch then your view is internally inconsistent. By that I mean that you can't posit knowable traits about something that exists outside of matter, energy, time and space ... something unknowable. This is by your definitions (your = the people in this thread, not anselm) something that can't be blackbox tested.

from the wiki:Existence as a property or predicate

As Kant says, there is no conceptual difference between the idea of 100 dollars (Kant used "Taler", a German currency of his time) on the one hand and 100 dollars in my pocket on the other. The difference is not conceptual: it is that I can actually perceive the 100 dollars in my pocket. In short, to think of a thing that exists and to think of that thing as not existing is to think of the same idea; existence does not do anything to change the idea in question.

Except Batman ain't the greatest being conceivable. G2g to brunch, laters~

[Day]

Before I go any further I just want to be clear, that I do see what you guys are saying, and I personally have very little opinion in the matter. Like I said I'm not a very religous person, and I wont really go into my actual beliefs unless prompted... I posted that argument to see what others thought, and because there seemed to be a similar thing going on wit Kaylia and Blarg, not to try to prove to BG that god exists... I'm not that stupid.

Now for the sake of argument, I will give you what the counter argument is to your batman, peanut butter and Gaunilo's island examples.

From da wiki:

Gaunilo's objection to the ontological argument was criticised on several grounds. One problem with it concerns the idea of a perfect island. A perfect island, presumably, is one with an abundance of lush palm trees and pristine beaches. The more of these an island has, the better it is. There is, however, no intrinsic maximum number of trees or beaches that an island could have; for any island that can be imagined, there is another, greater island, with one more palm tree and one more beach. There is, then, no island than which no greater island can be conceived. The concept of the perfect island is incoherent; there can be no such thing. St Anselm replied to Gaunilo's criticisms by arguing that the concept of 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived' cannot be applied to an island, or any other object, in the way in which he applied it to the definition of God. Anselm defends his proof by saying they only apply to God and not any other objects or beings. Also, a necessary being would be the greatest conceivable existence and qualify as the greatest of all possible beings. Only God exists necessarily

[Kaylia]

no, you get it. kaylia doesn't.

That's not a valid answer to a valid argument.

I think your over analyzing this Day, the confusion between Blarg and Kaylia is that Kaylia's argument is self contradicting nonsense.

Mind pointing where the contradiction is?

I can't see where the contradiction between "omniscient" and "free will" is when omniscient doesn't involve knowing the future. One has to assume there is no determinism when you include the concept of "soul" like Christhians do.

[Raineer]

and a God that exists is clearly better than a God that doesn’t.

I've never liked this argument. It is essentially stating "we have defined God in this way, so he must exist". We can define a lot of things, but that does not mean they exist.