+Rodney Mulraney sorry I'm late, but as promised here is a subtle critique of the Ontological argument. I'm sticking to just the classic form of the argument from Anselm (1078) because I have a life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument. Anselm argues:
1.Our understanding of God is a being than which no greater can be conceived.
2.The idea of God exists in the mind.
3.A being which exists both in the mind and in reality is greater than a being that exists only in the mind.
4.If God only exists in the mind, then we can conceive of a greater being—that which exists in reality.
5.We cannot be imagining something that is greater than God.
6.Therefore, God exists.
Specific critiques (watch closely for #5 & 6):
1 - nil
2 - agree completely - God exists [only] in the mind.
3 - nil
4 - agree - a real god would be greater than any imagined god (IF any god were real)
5 - this point assumes that God exists
6 - god exists, because we've assumed god exists (refer #5)
General critiques:
Imagining something - does not make it real
Imagining it is real - does not make it real.
Defining something so imagined as the greatest example of something that could exist, then imagining it would be greater if it were real and imagining that - does not make it real.
This.is.circular.logic!
Nothing more than philosophical sleight of hand/parlour tricks.
(And, if I may add a little personal commentary, seeing such contrived, circular and flawed logic being used to 'prove' the existence of a god, leads me to even more strongly suspect that there is no valid, logical proof of god's existence - and that those who seek to so justify their belief are vainly and desperately clutching at straws to try to deceive their own cognitive dissonance and/or to trick and deceive others into following them.)
The Ontological argument could be used to assert absolutely anything For example (as I've stated before):
"I can think of no greater con than religion
<ontological logic>
therefore there is no greater con than religion"
This sets up a neat Morton's Fork http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton's_fork where either religion is the greatest con of all OR the ontological argument is flawed. An even more elegant/self-defeating application would be:
"I can think of nothing more logically flawed than the ontological argument <ontological logic> therefore there is nothing more logically flawed than the ontological argument"
I think I'll wrap up there, for now. Because I'm not sure if anyone seriously believes this argument anyway.
original post here:
