The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

[athrock]

Alternatively, it may be that theists deploy a cluster of arguments (Kalam, Teleological, Moral, Ontological, etc.) knowing that the net effect is to persuade that the existence of a supreme being is more likely than not to be true.

*sigh*

That's what we always get told. Theists seem to mistake quantity as being the key component here, as if they just need to round up lots and lots of arguments for god, and then suddenly they'll be able to logic him into existence. Not only is that not how it works, as you need evidence to demonstrate a thing, not just arguments about how it must totally exist, but the success or failure of a "cluster of arguments," is predicated on those arguments being successful, which none of the ones for god are. You don't build a cumulative case out of sheer numbers, each one of the arguments within it must actually be cogent in some respect for the case to accumulate, which is where theistic rambling falls down every time.

*sigh*

That's the same old argument that skeptics always make. The assumption being that none of the arguments ARE quality arguments. Which sort of begs the question, "Why do philosophy professors spend so much time arguing about this stuff at a high academic level if the arguments suck?"

Maybe the problem is that most people (I include myself, btw), don't fully understand or appreciate the nuances, implications and potency of the arguments.

I mean, seriously, Equislax, somebody in this very thread was going on about how he's stopped caring about "big words" as he's gotten older. Now, THERE's a brilliant retort from the skeptical camp: "You theists must be wrong because you've used a lot of fancy words that I can't be bothered with."

Really? This passes for atheist argumentation?

You can have a million bad arguments and still not have a case that the focus of those arguments is probabilistically likely.

There it is again...the "bad" arguments argument. So, you can have one bad argument made a million times and till not have a case.

IOW, Cato, theists have quite a few arrows in their quiver, and it only takes one to strike the target. Atheists, on the other hand, must successfully dodge them all as they rain down...

Are you kidding me? You're going to ramble on about argumentation and then, at the very end, completely fuck it up by committing one of the most obvious logical fallacies of them all, in shifting the burden of proof? No, we don't actually need to refute every single argument or else you're right, you need to demonstrate the accuracy of your argument's claims, which no theist ever actually does. Instead of just getting simple evidence that god does exist, we instead get all these vague, philosophical, poorly defined weasel arguments about how he must exist, because the actual burden of proof is one theists can't shoulder, and so they seek to swap it out with a different criterion more amenable to allowing their predrawn conclusion.

Gee, I didn't realize I had waited to the end. According to you, I fucked it up from the beginning.  

And your demand for "simple evidence"...what's that about, E? What is "simple evidence" that would convince you?

A believer could simply say, "The Lord spoke to me in prayer last night", and you would reject such "simple" testimony as evidence. So, no, you don't want "simple" evidence...you want something that is so overwhelmingly intense that NO ONE (not even you) could possibly deny it.

Arguments are not evidence. For an argument to be rationally justified, it must rely on evidence that is demonstrably accurate, and nothing in these hand wringing, pathetic little wheedling pleas about how god is logically possible do that. It's all just heavily curated rhetoric, delivered in a vacuum, with no regard to the idea that the real world is what demonstrates what's real, not how far you can twist logic to come to a conclusion you had before you even started thinking about it.

Is your handle derived from the fact that you are an attorney in Los Angeles? (ESQUIre + LAX)

If so, perhaps you can expound upon the types, nature and legal definition of "evidence" - I cannot. However, it seems to me that there are many things about which we make logical arguments, but the ONLY thing for which we refuse to consider such arguments as evidence is the existence of god.

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It would be nice if, instead of 100 people making 200 feeble objections to the ontological argument, there could be one, singular, comprehensive refutation that would convince people the ontological argument was fallacious.

Can someone come up with something like that? That would help.

It's an argument that doesn't demonstrate any of its premises, nor even that they're possible. It requires no refutation at all; empty assertions never do.

However, I've already given a refutation: a "maximally great being," is logically impossible, given that greatness has no upper bound and any purported maximally great being can be overshadowed simply by positing an identical being that has all the properties of the first, only more of them. The moment you define a maximally great being- which you'd need to do- it becomes possible to posit a greater one.

Sort of an infinite progression thing, eh?

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It would be nice if, instead of 100 people making 200 feeble objections to the ontological argument, there could be one, singular, comprehensive refutation that would convince people the ontological argument was fallacious.

Can someone come up with something like that? That would help.

It would be nice if, instead of 40,000 Christian denominations making a myriad of different unsupported claims based on a single source, there could be one, singular, comprehensive display of evidence that would convince people that god was real.

Can someone come up with something like that? That would help.

So, you're not sold on Christianity. Fine. 

But we aren't specifically discussing Christianity, and that doesn't really explain how you justify not believing in ANY supreme being.

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The premises must be accepted as sound or you don't have a successful argument.  That sword cuts both ways.

Which premise(s) do you not accept as sound, J.

Let's take these one at a time.

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

Do you accept or reject that possibility? Why?