The ontological argument is used by many logicians and scholars to argue for the existence of a Supreme Being - in this case God. It goes as follows...
Premise 1: God is the being than which none greater can be conceived; one understands that God is perfect. [UGP]
Premise 2: If God is merely an idea in the mind, then He is not perfect; anything that can be conceived by man is not perfect. [MO then ~UGP] {I cannot symbolize "then" so I will type the word, and the "~" symbol means "not."}
Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist only in the mind, He exists in the real world. [~MO]
Symbolized, the argument looks like this (although there is a more complicated version I will leave off for now):
1. UGP
2. MO then ~UGP
Conc. ~MO
Bertrand Russel, prominent theorist and atheist, once said that he could not see anything logically wrong with the ontological argument, but that it could not be valid because of the empirical evidence in the world around us (i.e. too many bad things existing in the world). Herein lies the difference between scholarship and faith, and it ultimately takes faith to believe in a Supreme Being greater than anything we can conceive.
Try thinking of something greater, even on a metaphysical plane, than God - you always compare it to something that materially exists.
Interesting, huh? But you still "gotta have faith, the faith, the faith, the faith... you gotta have faith!"
8 comments:
That's cool
thanks... =P
sorry can't read it right now. I've been reading shakespeare since 7. And my eyes are dead!
that time is wrong...it's actually 12:55 pm.....makes my reading time look a lot more impressive!
ooops 12:55 am
NEW POST NEW POST NEW POST NEW POST....I think there is a shout out for a new post from the peanut gallery.
Who is the peanut gallery?
wouldn't you like to know.
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