Terrible Atheist Argument #1

[Esquilax]

This assumes that the definition of God is just made up by people. To be fair, this is true, but if you start off by affirming such a position, you're begging the question against theism to begin with, aren't you?

The alternative is that the god described in the MGB concept exists outside of human intervention and imagining, at which point he ceases to actually be the MGB in the first place, since we can always imagine something greater than it.

It might be strange to say, but by definition, the MGB can't be what it is.

[pocaracas]

This assumes that the definition of God is just made up by people. To be fair, this is true, but if you start off by affirming such a position, you're begging the question against theism to begin with, aren't you?

The alternative is that the god described in the MGB concept exists outside of human intervention and imagining, at which point he ceases to actually be the MGB in the first place, since we can always imagine something greater than it.

It might be strange to say, but by definition, the MGB can't be what it is.

The set of conceivable beings is an open ended one...
It's like the maximum of all the integer numbers...
For any extremely large number that I can conceive of, there is a larger one still.

The exercise of the MGB is then futile.

[Ryantology]

Ryantology, your post was refreshing to read.

But what does "has not been established" mean? Do you expect scientists to get photographic evidence of the finitude of the past? Perform experiments to prove it? Show that a past-finite regress is logically necessary? Have atoms rearrange themselves to say "Past-finite-regress?"

I don't know, but it's not up to me to establish whether there is an ultimate beginning or not, because I'm not making the claim of a first cause.

The vagueness of your criteria makes me skeptical. It also raises the question of whether it is even relevant- perhaps one does not need to "establish" a past-finite chain at all, but merely to show that it's more rational to believe in finitude than infinitude. So why must finitude be established?

The vagueness of my criteria is an unfortunate consequence of the vagueness of the concept we're discussing. I can't help that.

I'm not particularly interested in whether someone can rationalize the concepts necessary for this idea to work, because there's virtually no solid ground upon which to build a rational argument. Those who want to believe in God will simply invent out of whole cloth whatever they require to make an argument that convinces themselves.

[Mister Agenda]

Behind every stupid atheist argument is the even stupider theist argument it refutes.

[CapnAwesome]

Okay, so there are smart atheists and there are dumb atheists.

Some dumb atheists make some piss poor arguments. Here I'll deal with one that comes up a lot.

1) "If God created everything then who created God?"

This is one facepalmtastic objection. Typically the atheist is some 12 year old who thinks he's "refuted religion". If he is, it's no use trying to reason. But if there are smart atheists, they ought to know why this is a terrible argument:

a) There are various beings that are called "God", and they all have different features. But philosophically, the most rigorous concept of God is called the "Maximally Great Being", or a being that possesses all the categories of greatness to such a degree that nothing greater can be conceived. Such a being is almost always thought to be personal rather than impersonal.

b) One of the features of this maximally great being is it's role as the "First cause" or "uncaused cause". To understand what this is, you have to look at everything in the world in terms of cause-effect relations. Everything contingent has a cause that leads backwards in a causal chain. Does the causal chain go on infinitely, or is it finite? Theists argue that the causal chain is finite, and it begins at an uncaused cause, or first cause which was not itself caused by anything. This is God.

If you disagree with this idea, you can either:
i) Challenge the claim that the causal chain is finite, arguing that it is infinite in the past.
ii) Challenge the claim that the first cause must be God.

What you cannot do is imply that God needs to be caused by something.

While I agree that it's not really a great argument but the context that I've normally seen that argument in is as a reply to a Christian saying something truly stupid in a creationist context. God creating species as is. I think most of the time it's used more as a mockery of the person than an actual argument. Way to take it super serious though.

[Lemonvariable72]

I don't have much problems with the OP.

"Some atheists make bad arguments?"

Quite.

To quote one of my favorite authors. "There is no cause so great that one can not find a fool following it."

- Larry Niven

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Okay, so there are smart atheists and there are dumb atheists.

Some dumb atheists make some piss poor arguments. Here I'll deal with one that comes up a lot.

1) "If God created everything then who created God?"

This is one facepalmtastic objection. Typically the atheist is some 12 year old who thinks he's "refuted religion". If he is, it's no use trying to reason. But if there are smart atheists, they ought to know why this is a terrible argument:

a) There are various beings that are called "God", and they all have different features. But philosophically, the most rigorous concept of God is called the "Maximally Great Being", or a being that possesses all the categories of greatness to such a degree that nothing greater can be conceived. Such a being is almost always thought to be personal rather than impersonal.

b) One of the features of this maximally great being is it's role as the "First cause" or "uncaused cause". To understand what this is, you have to look at everything in the world in terms of cause-effect relations. Everything contingent has a cause that leads backwards in a causal chain. Does the causal chain go on infinitely, or is it finite? Theists argue that the causal chain is finite, and it begins at an uncaused cause, or first cause which was not itself caused by anything. This is God.

If you disagree with this idea, you can either:
i) Challenge the claim that the causal chain is finite, arguing that it is infinite in the past.
ii) Challenge the claim that the first cause must be God.

What you cannot do is imply that God needs to be caused by something.

While I agree that it's not really a great argument but the context that I've normally seen that argument in is as a reply to a Christian saying something truly stupid in a creationist context. God creating species as is. I think most of the time it's used more as a mockery of the person than an actual argument. Way to take it super serious though.

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[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

We can use the MGB to prove god doesn't exist.

If an MGB is the greatest entity that can be conceived then I present to you Eric the god eating aardvark.

If your god exists then by your definition Eric also exists since being capable of eating gods he is greater than your god.

If Eric exists then your god has been eaten by him and he therefore does not exist.

Whose god are you referring to exactly?

And why, if this god exists, must your Eric exist? I don't see why.

This assumes that the definition of God is just made up by people. To be fair, this is true, but if you start off by affirming such a position, you're begging the question against theism to begin with, aren't you?

The alternative is that the god described in the MGB concept exists outside of human intervention and imagining, at which point he ceases to actually be the MGB in the first place, since we can always imagine something greater than it.

It might be strange to say, but by definition, the MGB can't be what it is.

That doesn't make sense, because if there cannot be anything greater than an MGB, than either you cannot imagine anything greater, or nothing you imagine greater will be logical.

Are you making the mistake of conceiving great-making properties as if they were mathematical quantities?

Ryantology, your post was refreshing to read.

But what does "has not been established" mean? Do you expect scientists to get photographic evidence of the finitude of the past? Perform experiments to prove it? Show that a past-finite regress is logically necessary? Have atoms rearrange themselves to say "Past-finite-regress?"

I don't know, but it's not up to me to establish whether there is an ultimate beginning or not, because I'm not making the claim of a first cause.

The vagueness of your criteria makes me skeptical. It also raises the question of whether it is even relevant- perhaps one does not need to "establish" a past-finite chain at all, but merely to show that it's more rational to believe in finitude than infinitude. So why must finitude be established?

The vagueness of my criteria is an unfortunate consequence of the vagueness of the concept we're discussing. I can't help that.

I'm not particularly interested in whether someone can rationalize the concepts necessary for this idea to work, because there's virtually no solid ground upon which to build a rational argument. Those who want to believe in God will simply invent out of whole cloth whatever they require to make an argument that convinces themselves.

But you are arguing that we haven't established that we need a first cause. So you do need to give us something here- do you think there is an actually infinite set of past events or causes? Do you even think it's possible?

You can't just dismiss a view because it is theistic. You have to have some reasons for it.

[MindForgedManacle]

That was my response. Only I use the word anthropomorphism, because I think it's a human-centric notion of greatness.

Human created, but not human-centric. A Maximally Excellent Being is a being unexcelled in all possible worlds. But what attributes one thinks the MEG must have in order to be such is up to one's own choosing. Is a personal being "greater" or is one whom is not?

But what if you make a substitution, replacing the word "great", which refers to a subjective concept, with something else? Like "taerg", where taerg represents nothing antropocentric or subjective, but only a set of properties (like omnipotence, omniscience, etc)?

I'm not actually sure what that accomplishes. If "taerg" can be used as a subsitution to avoid subjectivity, then I can use "tihsllub" as a subsitution for any subjectivity with the Worst Imaginable Being and establish its existence just the same.

My main point is that theists will not accept the metaphysical consequences of accepting this a valid operating procedure. I can create a valid ontological argument for the existence of the Weakest Conceivable Being[u], otherwise known as the [u]Maximally Excelled Being, a being who's greatness (knowledge, power and goodness) is excelled by all others in all possible worlds.

I can make one for the Worst Imaginable Being, who is a Maximally Evil Being and to exist in all possible worlds (and thus the actual one) is worse than to not exist in all of them.

Or how about the Most Excellent Customer Service? It must exist in the actual world because for customer service to be available in all possible worlds is greater than to be possible in only some. Thus it must be actual.


This argument style is just frankly ridiculous.

Further, I don't think omnipotence or omniscience are coherent attributes.

That seems to escape the subjectivity, right?

That remains to be seen I guess.

[Esquilax]

That doesn't make sense, because if there cannot be anything greater than an MGB, than either you cannot imagine anything greater, or nothing you imagine greater will be logical.

Are you making the mistake of conceiving great-making properties as if they were mathematical quantities?

How could anything I imagine that's greater than the MGB be more illogical than the concept of the MGB in the first place? Let's be honest, here; the kind of being you're positing doesn't conform to logic to begin with. Logic dictates that actions happen temporally, yet by definition the MGB you're positing acts outside of time. The entire basis for this claim is illogical, so why must my imaginings be constrained to logic when I attempt to top it?

Now, you can argue that it's not that the MGB is illogical, but that the bounds of its logic are greater than human conception, and that's fine; that just means that we're detaching our definitions from earthbound logic and hitching them to an undefined set of properties that are logical yet unknown to us. That being the case, what basis would any of us have to restrict those properties to only those that enable the MGB concept?

That being said, the properties of greatness are subjective and contradictory to begin with; the greatest possible being couldn't just be supernatural, it'd have to be physical too, since being both is greater than being one. Being tall is great, but to be tall beyond conception would mean it would have to be infinitely tall, but that's ungainly because the greatest possible being would also have to be able to interact personally with every sapient being, which would require shrinking and growing, which would make it no longer infinite, but variable...

Once we begin talking details we run ourselves in circles. The only way one can functionally discuss the MGB is to keep to generalities: "Great, infinite, yada yada," rather than the specifics.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

That was my response. Only I use the word anthropomorphism, because I think it's a human-centric notion of greatness.

Human created, but not human-centric. A Maximally Excellent Being is a being unexcelled in all possible worlds. But what attributes one thinks the MEG must have in order to be such is up to one's own choosing. Is a personal being "greater" or is one whom is not?

But what if you make a substitution, replacing the word "great", which refers to a subjective concept, with something else? Like "taerg", where taerg represents nothing antropocentric or subjective, but only a set of properties (like omnipotence, omniscience, etc)?

I'm not actually sure what that accomplishes. If "taerg" can be used as a subsitution to avoid subjectivity, then I can use "tihsllub" as a subsitution for any subjectivity with the Worst Imaginable Being and establish its existence just the same.

My main point is that theists will not accept the metaphysical consequences of accepting this a valid operating procedure. I can create a valid ontological argument for the existence of the Weakest Conceivable Being[u], otherwise known as the [u]Maximally Excelled Being, a being who's greatness (knowledge, power and goodness) is excelled by all others in all possible worlds.

I can make one for the Worst Imaginable Being, who is a Maximally Evil Being and to exist in all possible worlds (and thus the actual one) is worse than to not exist in all of them.

Or how about the Most Excellent Customer Service? It must exist in the actual world because for customer service to be available in all possible worlds is greater than to be possible in only some. Thus it must be actual.

This argument style is just frankly ridiculous.

Further, I don't think omnipotence or omniscience are coherent attributes.

That seems to escape the subjectivity, right?

That remains to be seen I guess.

Are you familiar with S5 modal logic?

How does your critique fare in light of S5?

That doesn't make sense, because if there cannot be anything greater than an MGB, than either you cannot imagine anything greater, or nothing you imagine greater will be logical.

Are you making the mistake of conceiving great-making properties as if they were mathematical quantities?

How could anything I imagine that's greater than the MGB be more illogical than the concept of the MGB in the first place? Let's be honest, here; the kind of being you're positing doesn't conform to logic to begin with. Logic dictates that actions happen temporally, yet by definition the MGB you're positing acts outside of time. The entire basis for this claim is illogical, so why must my imaginings be constrained to logic when I attempt to top it?

Now, you can argue that it's not that the MGB is illogical, but that the bounds of its logic are greater than human conception, and that's fine; that just means that we're detaching our definitions from earthbound logic and hitching them to an undefined set of properties that are logical yet unknown to us. That being the case, what basis would any of us have to restrict those properties to only those that enable the MGB concept?

That being said, the properties of greatness are subjective and contradictory to begin with; the greatest possible being couldn't just be supernatural, it'd have to be physical too, since being both is greater than being one. Being tall is great, but to be tall beyond conception would mean it would have to be infinitely tall, but that's ungainly because the greatest possible being would also have to be able to interact personally with every sapient being, which would require shrinking and growing, which would make it no longer infinite, but variable...

Once we begin talking details we run ourselves in circles. The only way one can functionally discuss the MGB is to keep to generalities: "Great, infinite, yada yada," rather than the specifics.

Okay first of all, I'm not positing this being. It's a number of others.

Secondly, logic doesn't dictate that actions happen temporally. The laws of physics that govern our universe do that.

In order to hold that such a being is possible, all that one needs to do is hold that the universe is contingent, and does not represent all of reality. Certainly not an illogical position to hold, given the Big Bang.

At best you can say science neither affirms nor denies it, given how little (or nothing) we know about the multiverse.

On the subjectivity of greatness, I tend to agree with you, as I did with MFM.