Good exists - a Catholic comments

[Bucky Ball]

There's a term for it.  Mechanically exclusive rhetorical avenue (alley?).  I read a great summary with dozens of suprisingly hilarious examples years ago - IDK if I'll be able to find it, but I'll look.

And where exactly did Plantigna justify his use of modal logic, (at all) 
and how did he know it applied to the gods, whose environment he knew nothing about ?

[The Grand Nudger]

You're doubting the applicability or accuracy of modal logic here, not Plantinga or his argument in particular. A legitimate concern, but one that falls under the "non obvious". Do you really want to try to justify your use of logic? Go ahead. Justify your use of logic to call into question someone else's use of logic. That might actually be sound, but it certainly won't be valid.

[Bucky Ball]

Premise #1: If god exists, he exists necessarily. 

Wrong, If a being exists "necessarily" it's not a god, and it would be subject to the laws of Reality ... ad that's not a god. 
Plantigna destroyed in the first premise. No justification, nothing but an assertion. The end.

-disagreeing with a premise is generally disagreeing with the soundness of an argument, not it's validity.  As I said before, I also disagree.  As it so happens I disagree that the argument is sound.  Still...do you want the faithful to keep bombarding us with "If we came from apes, why are there still apes?" bullshit?  Let them make valid arguments and we can..at least...have an intelligent discussion, and intelligent disagreements.

If premise 1 is false, there's no point in going any further. 
The rest is a waste of time. And the entire argument is unsound. 
If you want to listen to the rest, go ahead. I know the whole thing is false at #1, as is Plantigna and Anselm.

[The Grand Nudger]

Garbage in, garbage out, right? -but at least it's a valid argument. It's just a personal thing, you know. I like to argue, I like to play with ideas. I can't stand it when people shoot salad at me. It might be a personal failing. The universe might be salad shaped.....but I prefer to discuss things rationally.

[Bucky Ball]

You're doubting the applicability or accuracy of modal logic here, not Plantinga or his argument in particular.  A legitimate concern, but one that falls under the "non obvious".  Do you really want to try to justify your use of logic?  Go ahead.  Justify your use of logic to call into question someone else's use of logic.  That might actually be sound, but it certainly won't be valid.

I don't have to justify anything. HE USED modal logic, I used no logic. He has to justify what he did. 
I did nothing. I have to justify nothing. Without his justifying his particular use of logic, (there are many logics) I can dismiss his bs with no further explanation.

[Bucky Ball]

Garbage in, garbage out, right?  -but at least it's a valid argument.  It's just a personal thing, you know.  I like to argue, I like to play with ideas.  I can't stand it when people shoot salad at me.  It might be a personal failing.  The universe might be salad shaped.....but I prefer to discuss things rationally.

 No. It's not a valid argument. BTW, what you may perceive as "rational" may not be true. The universe is not intuitive.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's step back and wonder whether we really want to claim that we've made an a-rational objection to a rational argument. If there's no logic to your objection, then there's nothing to respond to. It's just something you say.

I strongly suspect that he used modal logic because it's generally recognized as valid and he realized that with the right premises he could engineer a godly conclusion? It's motivated reasoning, for sure...but if that's a fallacy it's an informal one. I mean, he's an academic theologian...it's expected....that's what they (try) to do.

[Astreja]

Hi Astreja,
You are missing what caused the quantum fluctuation. You are not God! But I was almost convinced.

That's the thing, Barry:  I'm a particularly lazy goddess.  Specifically, I'm the goddess of various things that don't actually *need* divine intervention:

• The vernal equinox, but only in the Northern hemisphere;
  
• Chocolate;
  
• Random Equipment Malfunctions;
  
• And punctuation.  You really missed the ball on this one:
  

On a more serious note, you are clearly not God because you use an apostrophe for a non possessive plural. “1’s”.

"1's" and "1s" are both valid:

Single-digit numbers are usually spelled out, but when they aren’t, you are just as likely to see 2s and 3s as 2’s and 3’s.

(Source:  https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/apostro...ossessive/)

As for quantum fluctuations, they happen naturally.  Divine influence, Mine or Yahweh's or otherwise, is simply not required.

[The Grand Nudger]

The best goddesses are all lazy. That's just them swinging their lady god dongs, showing how they don't have to do shit, if they don't wanna, and it'll all still come out right.

[Bucky Ball]

Let's step back and wonder whether we really want to claim that we've made an a-rational objection to a rational argument.  If there's no logic to your objection, then there's nothing to respond to.  It's just something you say.

I strongly suspect that he used modal logic because it's generally recognized as valid and he realized that with the right premises he could engineer a godly conclusion?  It's motivated reasoning, for sure...but if that's a fallacy it's an informal one.  I mean, he's an academic theologian...it's expected....that's what they (try) to do.

Maybe modal logic used to be recognized years ago, Sean Carroll asked WL Craig the same question I'm asking at least 10 years ago, and never got an answer. 
The opponents of Einstein (Relativity), Heisenberg (Uncertainty) and Dirac (some of his matrixes) said they were wrong and a-rational. 
They turned out to be true.