(August 25, 2018 at 1:48 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:If God is like a Unicorn, and a unicorn does not exist, then I must construct a bullet-proof theory that God, like a Unicorn, does NOT exist.(August 25, 2018 at 12:48 pm)robvalue Wrote: This seems to me to be a massive amount of effort to try to disprove what amount to literary characters which are no more convincing than Darth Vader to begin with. In fact, the latter requires a lot less assumptions to consider plausible.
If instead we're talking about some generic "creator", then I don't think such a thing is (yet) open to being disproven; certainly not through logical argumentation, anyway.
Well that's essentially what ontology is - to argue something into (or in this case, out of) existence. To an ontological philosopher, it makes no difference as to whether God exists in any sense of what we think of as 'reality', just as long as a non-refutable argument can be constructed either for or against God (noting that 'non-refutable' doesn't necessarily mean 'true').
In that sense, God is very much like a unicorn. Never mind that there aren't unicorns, or that there are no fossil unicorns, or that there isn't an ecological niche which can only be filled by unicorns. As long as I can construct an argument that, on strictly logical grounds, cannot be refuted, unicorns must exist.
Boru
However, I am being careful not to construct a theory which obviates the possibility that a Deity who somehow
might have created us somehow somewhere is. Reference the fragment in my OP which speaks about me cast in the image of deity, just not a Christ pseudo-deity, but a Deity who knew what made me tick, or, how I ticked, and, therefore, would not attempt to reign over me by law...that is a deity I could possibly gladly attempt to sketch-out the outlines of by looking at my consciousness, I do enjoy thinking is a consciousness made in the image of a viable Deity. 5. If I entertain the possibility that my created consciousness is made in the image and likeness of Deity, then, to gain core familiarity with Deity, I simply need study the ontological structure of my Deity- reflecting consciousness.
Here I leave myself open to the possibility of describing, in future, what a viable Deity is ! That might be cool..