- Anything Else -

Bored

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on April 11, 1999 at 18:06:57:

In Reply to: Challenge- Someone offer a reasonable, non-subjective proof of god posted by Copenhagen on March 30, 1999 at 15:48:51:


Bob! I must be soooo bored to be doing this...
: a) logical
: b) not based purely on a subjective appeal to oneself
: c) not contingent upon dubious historical texts

1:The Ontological Argument
1:God is perfect and has all the features it is good to have.
2:Existence is a good feature.
3:tehrefore God must exist.
(I'm a bit ropey, that might be a bad rendition of the argument, there is anotehr way of expressing it, to do with imagining perfection, but I can't remember how it goes.).

The usual philosophical response to this is to question whether existence is a great giving feature, or even if it is a constant, personally, I prefer to note that the argument is circular, because it defines God in its first term, and that efinition is not falsifiable.

God above is taken to be teh Judeochristian god, or any transcendant and eprfect Deity.

2: The Teloelogical Argument
1:The universe is a regular system.
2:All regular systems we have enountered up till now, usually have a designer/creator.
3:therefore the universe probably has a designer/creator.

This is an inductive argument, and is thus prone to fallibility, and can only state that God probably exists. It is also flawed because it extends a condition of creation within our uuniverse (the laws of thermodynamics, etc.) and extends them back beyond our universe, and applies them to God.

All we are left with is:
3: Pascal's Wager
Despised by theologians.
1:God either exists or doesn't exist, so there are only two equally likely outcomes.
2:If God doesn't exist then we have only this life-time to live, and thus a finite sum of pleasure.
3:If God does exist then we have the opportunity of an after-life, and thus an infinite sum of pleasure.
4:Thus if we assume that he doesn't exist, then we are gambling on 50% x a finite some, against beliving he does exist, 50% x infinity. Thus the latter option offers infinite reward, versus finite returns, any reasonable person seeking to maximise their return must thus gamble on God existing, and belive in him.

You can see why Theologians hate it, its utterly unreligious, and doesn't so much as proove God, as proove why its a smart gamble to believe in him.

Thats basically it, really.



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