The Ontological Argument - valid or debunked?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Alasdair, please explain to me why, without any provocation, you called me fuckface. How can I not take this as an indication that you will automatically dispute everything I say without consideration?

Contradicted yourself already. As we just agreed, that a thing is is a different question to what a thing is. Now you're already suggesting that that it is is related to what it is. That its thatness can be part of its whatness and that the binary approach you just agreed to in the above quote somehow is a problem now. And why do you take issue with it and contradict yourself?

I was setting up the problem. There is a paradox that needs to be resolved. Your objection is similar to Kant’s when he said that “a hundred actual thalers do not contain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers”. Meaning that if you list all the properties of a thing then saying a thing exists adds nothing to the description that wasn’t already there. That sounds true when we talk about things in isolation, but it doesn’t seem to work when comparing very different objects like scissors and stories or numbers and bridges. Some say that these types of comparisons are category mistakes. That objection begs the question; what is the ontological status of categories as categories? My point is that a proper consideration of existence takes into account the degree to which something participates in what is essential to its quiddity.

Sorry Chad. Hope you're having at least a little fun here.

I could accept it as a playful jab from you. For more than three years I never had more than 3 people on my ignore list. That has changed recently. I am starting to get tired of people like Ham acting like assholes for no good reason. I’ve crossed the line a few times myself and publicly apologized for doing so, an act of graciousness that has never been extended to me despite the vicious gratuitous attacks I have received. It’s gotten worse with time, Whateverist. It makes me very sad. I enjoy the back and forth, but I post less frequently because it seems that more and more people are going out of their way to twist and misconstrue what believers say, including one staff member in particular.