Terrible Atheist Argument #1

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

That was my response. Only I use the word anthropomorphism, because I think it's a human-centric notion of greatness.

Human created, but not human-centric. A Maximally Excellent Being is a being unexcelled in all possible worlds. But what attributes one thinks the MEG must have in order to be such is up to one's own choosing. Is a personal being "greater" or is one whom is not?

But what if you make a substitution, replacing the word "great", which refers to a subjective concept, with something else? Like "taerg", where taerg represents nothing antropocentric or subjective, but only a set of properties (like omnipotence, omniscience, etc)?

I'm not actually sure what that accomplishes. If "taerg" can be used as a subsitution to avoid subjectivity, then I can use "tihsllub" as a subsitution for any subjectivity with the Worst Imaginable Being and establish its existence just the same.

My main point is that theists will not accept the metaphysical consequences of accepting this a valid operating procedure. I can create a valid ontological argument for the existence of the Weakest Conceivable Being[u], otherwise known as the [u]Maximally Excelled Being, a being who's greatness (knowledge, power and goodness) is excelled by all others in all possible worlds.

I can make one for the Worst Imaginable Being, who is a Maximally Evil Being and to exist in all possible worlds (and thus the actual one) is worse than to not exist in all of them.

Or how about the Most Excellent Customer Service? It must exist in the actual world because for customer service to be available in all possible worlds is greater than to be possible in only some. Thus it must be actual.

This argument style is just frankly ridiculous.

Further, I don't think omnipotence or omniscience are coherent attributes.

That seems to escape the subjectivity, right?

That remains to be seen I guess.

Are you familiar with S5 modal logic?

How does your critique fare in light of S5?

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?

How could anything I imagine that's greater than the MGB be more illogical than the concept of the MGB in the first place? Let's be honest, here; the kind of being you're positing doesn't conform to logic to begin with. Logic dictates that actions happen temporally, yet by definition the MGB you're positing acts outside of time. The entire basis for this claim is illogical, so why must my imaginings be constrained to logic when I attempt to top it?

Now, you can argue that it's not that the MGB is illogical, but that the bounds of its logic are greater than human conception, and that's fine; that just means that we're detaching our definitions from earthbound logic and hitching them to an undefined set of properties that are logical yet unknown to us. That being the case, what basis would any of us have to restrict those properties to only those that enable the MGB concept?

That being said, the properties of greatness are subjective and contradictory to begin with; the greatest possible being couldn't just be supernatural, it'd have to be physical too, since being both is greater than being one. Being tall is great, but to be tall beyond conception would mean it would have to be infinitely tall, but that's ungainly because the greatest possible being would also have to be able to interact personally with every sapient being, which would require shrinking and growing, which would make it no longer infinite, but variable...

Once we begin talking details we run ourselves in circles. The only way one can functionally discuss the MGB is to keep to generalities: "Great, infinite, yada yada," rather than the specifics.

Okay first of all, I'm not positing this being. It's a number of others.

Secondly, logic doesn't dictate that actions happen temporally. The laws of physics that govern our universe do that.

In order to hold that such a being is possible, all that one needs to do is hold that the universe is contingent, and does not represent all of reality. Certainly not an illogical position to hold, given the Big Bang.

At best you can say science neither affirms nor denies it, given how little (or nothing) we know about the multiverse.

On the subjectivity of greatness, I tend to agree with you, as I did with MFM.