(August 2, 2012 at 7:47 pm)liam Wrote: But what I really wanted to throw in here is the idea of any ontological argument, namely that they always make some assumption on the ontological existence of God, this is completely circular as this is tantamount to saying:
'God exists and is perfect', yet this requires existence in the first place and so demonstrates circular logic as it attempts to prove God exists by first stating that God exists. Derp.
The quickest way to get a god-botherer to advance a circular argument in the manner you suggest is to require a definition of perfect. What is perfect? The usual example invokes god, as the only being capable of perfection.
This reminds of something I read of Eastern origin where a teacher had a student ladle out pancakes. Each of the dozen was not a circle and each time the teacher looked with satisfaction and exclaimed 'perfect'. After the last, the student was extremely agitated. He asked the teacher why he considered each pancake to be perfect when none were circular and all were different. The teacher then said something to the effect that there is no demand that a pancake be circular to be perfect and that similar entities can be perfect without being identical.