(May 10, 2014 at 1:17 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote:(May 9, 2014 at 1:34 am)Esquilax Wrote: The latter is the subtext though, as the logical reasons they state ultimately fail, and yet are never retracted. As I've said many times, you can't logic something into existence, and if your whole position attempts to do an end run around demonstrability by just arguing why it's impossible for something to not exist, well then you're probably hiding a more personal reason for why you think this thing should exist.
Well you've shown that Chad is right in that you're applying a psychological evaluation to all believers, and unjustifiably so, I think. And I think it's hyperbole to say no believer has ever retracted theit claim that God is a necessary being.
(May 9, 2014 at 12:32 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Maybe =/= Necessity.
A lot of people historically believed Thor was a logical necessity due to the existence of lightening and thunder, but were mistaken.
The necessity involved in discussions of the supposed necessarity of God's existence are nothing like that. They involve things like saying God, by virtue of his nature, must exist in all possible worlds. And to exist in all possible worlds means that one's existence is necessary, because there is no state of affairs in which that being's existence does not obtain.
The above is nothing like your Thor comparison. At best people thought Thor existed because lightning or whatever provided otherwise inexplicable evidence for Thor.
Yes it is. It simply uses more floral descriptors, but relies on the same appeal to ignorance.
It is no more logical to confabulate an entity, then state that entity must necessarily exist by virtue of the properties of the description, than it is to confabulate an entity around some natural process, then insist that entity must exist because it explains a natural process you've included in the entity's description.
(May 10, 2014 at 1:17 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote:(May 9, 2014 at 12:56 pm)Chuck Wrote: For example. Plate tectonics is true. It is necesssarily true in both the sense that there is no other competitve alternatives to explaining the evidence from geology, fauna, and flora on earth, and in that plate tectonics is necessary for earth to remain habitable to higher animal life such as yourself. Yet I bet most people don't perceive a need for it.
Plate tectonics isn't true by necessity, plate tectonics just happens to be (most likely) true, or contingently true, in other words.
(May 9, 2014 at 2:11 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: So Chad, which of these definitions do you mean when you say "necessary"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_necessity
That Wikipedia article is actually wrong here. Platinga's modal version of the ontological argument states that God must exist in all possible worlds, so Plantinga does believe God is a logically necessary being: that's the whole point of his argument. :p
That's really great; Plantinga is profoundly intellectually dishonest, especially considering his field, and his modal argument is presumptive and circular, just like the KCA.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ne...y-being/#1
