Atheists: Descartes' Ontological Argument, a tougher shot of booze than Pascal's Wager???

Question

(For starters, next round's on me)

1. I exist.

2. I have an idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e. a being having all perfections.

3. As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept through my own thoughts.

4. The concept must have come from God.

5. To be a perfect being God must exist.

6. God exists.

Who can take more than two shots of that???? FFS!!

My liver cries freedom.

Answer 1

The most impressive form of God in regards to his creation (i.e, the entire universe and all contents) is not existing because that is the greatest disability of all, thus makes God more impressive.

7. God doesn't exist.

Answer 2

Items #3, #4, #5, and #6 make my liver cry out in pain.

Item #2 is not much better. At least Descartes is slightly better than Anselm, but all such attempts at a priori proofs fail. Kant was smarter than Descartes and Anselm put together.

One at a time, now:

2. This stage uses "perfection" as a weasel word, assuming there is some singular notion of a perfect being that could be conceived. This is, of course, baloney. Even Gaunilo's Island fares better here than Descartes. At least there could be some agreement as to what a perfect island would be like. How do we know that we're not defining a pefect being as, say, a delicious pizza (or even an island)?

3. Why is this? There is no justification for this. Assume, for instance, that a being nearly as great as a god had the power to think of a more powerful god but lacked the more powerful god's perfection. Why, then, would the more powerful god have to exist? Maybe the second tier god was just smart enough to think of the better god.

Now, who is to say that a human isn't essentially like that second tier god?

4. Ties in with 3, but here he is begging the question that an even niftier being must exist to hand out nifty ideas. In reality, a non-nifty person can think of nifty ideas.

5. Existence as a property (and a positive property at that) fails. Douglas Gasking even turns this around by making an equally compelling argument that a non-existent God would be more perfect.

6. No.

Answer 3

That's actually Decartes cosmological argument for God. His ontological argument was much more simple. It goes something like this:

1. The idea of God is that he posseses every perfection.
2. Necessary existence is a perfection.
3. Therefore, God exists necessarily.

Answer 4

Actually I think it breaks down at number 2, since no one has really been able to define or describe this being, and there are differing definitions of 'perfect' and what a 'perfection' is.

AND

If you are really getting down to all the supremely perfect perfections, you're thinking of something beyond human comprehension (trying to define the undefinable) and therefore have a flawed perception of the idea; therefore you cannot proceed to number 3. And the rest is just garbage.

you're right, this isn't shots, it's the hard stuff.

Answer 5

Point 3 -- sez who?

Have you SEEN some of the stuff artists can come up with? (Look up Hieronymus Bosch, for starters.) What makes you think there are limits to the human imagination? And if there were, how would you propose to define them?

Point 4 -- Why "must"? And who's this god person anyway, I thought you were asking ME.

Point 5 & 6 -- Uh-uh. You don't get away with that until you've dealt with 3 and 4.

Answer 6

Yeah, if you were to do one ounce of liquor for every non-sequitur in this one, you would be drunk off just one question...

How very irresponsible of Descartes.

Answer 7

Substitute the word 'Infinity', for 'perfection', and you have a good arguement...bottoms up...

Answer 8

Premise 3 fails.

MISERABLY.

Since it is falsifiable, all that follows is false.

.