(April 2, 2016 at 12:26 pm)smfortune Wrote:(April 2, 2016 at 10:59 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: I have to wonder if the OP, having been stopped by a policeman for a blatant traffic violation but let off with a stern warning, would respond by insulting the policeman.
Intelligent, that.
Ummm, the police have real authority. You're kind of getting off on mall cop authority. Why are you making this an issue anyway?
(April 2, 2016 at 9:35 am)MysticKnight Wrote: Oh ok, but that doesn't have to be necessarily true. This is assuming first that there is only one greatest explanation of the universe, while an Atheist can argue, from all we know perspective, there maybe many possible greatest explanations. Some that we theory about and some that we don't. 2nd the greatest explanation may the true one or it maybe a false one from a logical stand point.Greatest is necessarily singular. St. Anslem in the 11th century first presented the ontological argument with the rationale that if anything greater could be conceived then it was not the greatest. The greatest belongs to only God. For 10 centuries this hasn't (to my knowledge) been contentious. It is definitionally true. Recall that even Bertrand Russell conceded that the ontological argument was sound and only later retract by saying it may be unsound (because it felt fallacious) without being able to precisely identify the fallacy.
You are using "greatest explanation" in a different sense of the word though. If you mean the explanation has to be the greatest being, then this is circular, it's asserting the conclusion. If you assert that greatest explanation is most great in term of explanatory power, then again, there can be more then one greatest explanation or even if there is one, you haven't proved that it must be God. Or even one explain things best, it not necessarily the truth, it maybe the truth it may not be.