Terrible Atheist Argument #1

[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.