faustus (01/19/83)
While we're on the subject of religous beliefs, how about the following
proof for the existence of God? It was originally formulated by St.
Amselm of the 11th century (I think) and later used by Descartes,
among others.
First, we will define God as that entity which is the most perfect
in all respects possible. We further assume that to exist is more
perfect than not to exist: this may be disputed by some, but it is
not an unreasonable postulate. Therefore, by definition God exists,
as if he is to be perfect in all ways he must be perfect in the
degree of his existence (i.e. he must have it).
To put it another way, if something we call God does not exist, then
by our reasoning this is not God we are talking about, but something
less perfect. Therefore, again God must exist.
What do you think of this?
-Wayne Christopher
faustus@berkeley
decvax!ucbvax!faustussaf (01/19/83)
You have your postulates and I have mine. You can prove anything with the right set of postulates. This makes me wonder if Religion isn't simply low grade Philosophy - purely a product of ones (misguided) assumptions. Not that this has anything to do with your right to Religious freedom. Although perhaps it should have something to do with ammending the tax structure of this country wrt churches... Steve Falco
plw (01/20/83)
Read "Refutation of the Ontological Proof of the Existance of God" by Kant (I think, it's been awhile since Intro to Philosophy). Proof by definition is a tautology - a=b doesn't prove that either a or b exist, it just establishes a relationship. Their are better proofs for the existance of God than St. Anselm's, and I think that all have been refuted as having some logical or philosophical flaw.
iasia (01/20/83)
WARNING: author submits this as sarcasm with no respect for your attitudes towards spelling and/or good manners. Reguarding the recent wonderful argument for the existence of a GOD A question/challenge was made at the end of the article. What do I think of that? A=B; B=A; commonly reffered to as a circular definition. B. Taylor INDIAN HILL
tim (01/21/83)
To rephrase the recent rephrasal of Kant, all that the argument says is "If there is a God, then It must exist." Saying things like this in a misleading way is the essence of most "proofs" of the existence of God. My favorite has always been Aquinas' Primum Mobile (First Mover, First Cause) argument. Cause and effect is the nature of events in this universe; every effect must have a cause. Taking this back, we get either an infinite regress (which he dismissed as obvious absurdity) or a first cause. Therefore, there is a God who was this first cause. This was one of the most popular arguments, and remains one of the easiest to debunk. It is no harder to imagine a Universe without a cause than to imagine a God without a cause. Tim Maroney
iy47ab (01/21/83)
This much I will say; being Jewish, I am obviously biased. But still; All religions are composed of at least two parts: (1) belief in an overbeing and (2) an ethical/moral system. Judaism focuses itself upon the second of the two parts. You do not have to believe in God to have a place in modern Judaism. However, the emphasis IS on living your life in a certain way, supposedly designed to make you a better person and to allow you and others to live a better life. Judaism holds no concept of the afterlife; you are supposed to not dwell upon the idea, so that you are forced to make every day count. Christianity, with its focus on the first part, is based primarily on faith. I know not much else...any comments?? Lady Arwen of U.C.S.D.
mark (01/22/83)
this is in reply to a recently submitted (old) god-existance proof. paraphrased: god is perfect. non-existance is an imperfection. therefore god exists. OK. now all you have to do is demonstrate that all the other things you want in a god are the acme of perfection. also, you must assume not only that existance is a sign of perfection, but that something "which is perfect in all respects possible" does, in fact, exist. the universe suffers many other imperfections; why not this too? not afraid to maim my sign: mARK bLOORE univ. of toronto
welsch (01/22/83)
Existence is easy to prove. Lack of existence is difficult. For example to prove that Unicorns exist all one has to do is get a unicorn. To prove Unicorns don't exist one has to check the entire universe, and even then one might argue unicorns exist in peoples minds. Replace the word unicorn with God and the same argument holds.
gh (01/22/83)
There is a flaw in L. Welsch's argument that proving the non-existence of God
is like proving it for unicorns. This God entity has, it is alleged, certain
properties that would make it easy to find if it existed. For example, it is
ubiquitous, and if you ask it nicely for something reasonable (to use the
technical term, "pray"), you get what you want.
Since the world is in quite a mess, a lot of people have recently been asking
God, quite reasonably, to help fix matters up. Since they have been quite
unsuccessful, it is fair to conclude that our search for God has been complete
and unsuccessful.
Not afraid to fan the flames
Graeme Hirst, Brown University, Computer Science
...!{decvax, vax135, yale-comix, cornell}!brunix!ghdag (01/24/83)
A science fiction short story that went to the effect of:
A great computer was built, given all of the knowelage of the
combined civilizations in the known universe and full sensory input. The
first question asked of it was "Is there a god?", It's answer - "There is now."
I don't know who wrote it.
Someone who I won't name so that he/she will not be haunted by this
belief if his/her spouse (a born-again type) runs accross this (possible)
note used to point out that he/she did not believe in a god that existed
before intellegence, but that god came into existance at the same time
intellegence did, ie: intellegence created god.
No flames to me, please
{Though I don't believe in the Devil or
Hell... Those are (In their current form)
Christian paranoia, I don't like being
turned into a Course-Writer-Crispie every
time I use my "f" key.}
...!decvax!sultan!dagurban (01/24/83)
Pretty neat trick, but definition doesn't work that way. By defining God as "the most perfect entity" where "perfection" implies existence, you've defined God into existence. "Oh, that was easy", said Man, and defined a Hyper-Unicorn as a creature whose single horn can purify poison, etc... and also has the property of existence. In an infinitely improbable flash, one existed! Foo. Mike
hutch (01/24/83)
(I ought to know better than to try to say anything on the net, but . . .) Graeme Hirst at Brown University posted a possible refutation to L Welsch's argument. M. Welsch claims that it is easier to prove existence and quite hard to prove non-exitstence. M. Hurst did not actually answer the argument, but instead advanced the notion that, by applying the argument, God has been proven not to exist. I will now proceed to pick at this assertion. First, I agree (as should we all, Pangloss aside) that the world is indeed in quite a mess. People have been praying for help in resolving this mess for much longer than "recently" and have indeed been unsuccessful in completely repairing the mess. Since God answers prayer, by the assertion that He is ubiquitous, we must then deduce something from this lack of success. (By the way, I say He out of tradition, and I have no gripes with anyone who says that God has nurturing qualities, but I deny that such qualities are the exclusive province of females of any kind.) The most obvious deduction is that God does not exist. This is too simple. God has other qualities than ubiquitousness. He is also wise in a way that confounds the more limited human wisdom. I believe that He created us in His image, that is, that we have many of the qualities that He has. We have at least the illusion of free will, although circumstances may limit our choices at all times. We can choose whether or not we want to add to or correct the "mess". Most of us choose to add to it. Another of the qualities of God is mercy. If God were to simply fix things up for us, He would have done so by directly eliminating that free will, and destroyed or purified the things that make us create this mess. This would NOT be merciful. It would be an elimination of the aspect of Himself which can choose. Therefore He answered the prayers that the world be fixed up, by giving us a way to choose to be purified and to stop being part of the mess. (watch out, here comes the pitch) This was done by first giving us His guidance and a Law to live by that would get us out of the mess-engendering and into the mess-fixing ways of life. However, we managed to make a mess of His Law by adding to it and ignoring the essential Spirit of it. He then provided a way for us to have that Law become a part of our inner selves, by coming among us, as one of us, and taking on Himself the suffering that the purification and destruction (required to "fix the mess") that we deserved. He still did not eliminate our capacity to choose, but gave us a valid choice that would have an effect, rather than a set of moot choices that could not help us. The world is still here, still largely in a mess, but it is possible for individuals to stop being part of the problem. There is no reason to assume that this will go on forever. After everyone has had the chance to make their choice, it is likely that the world will then be "fixed" as drastically and dramatically as M. Graeme Hirst would like to see. Stephen Hutchison Tektronix, Beaverton, Or My opinions are my own and in no way reflect the official policy of Tektronix.
jfw (01/25/83)
As far as God's lack of response to prayers to straighten out the world hinting at his non-existance, consider: If It/She/He exists, perhaps God cannot hear these prayers because God is laughing far too loudly... Yours from the Campus Crusade for Cthulu, John Woods, ...!mitccc!jfw
davido (01/26/83)
The whole basis of Judaism is the belief in one God. Remember the Shema?: "Shema Yisrael: Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod" (Hear O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is One.) If you don't believe in one God, you are *not* Jewish. To suggest otherwise is to totally destroy the meaning of the term. My name for what you are calling a Judaism without God is secular humanism. One can be Jewish and a secular humanist, but to reiterate, one can't be Jewish without believing in one God. (Parenthetically to you Christians, this is also the nub of the difference between our two religions. It is not the disbelief in the existence of Jesus (although there are some historical anomalies that have never been fully explained to my satisfaction), but the concept of the Trilogy. For God to be one, he cannot be three; therefore Jesus can not be God or part of God. The above should not be taken as a sermon; rather it is my attempt at an exposition of the salient difference between the religions.)
iy47ab (01/28/83)
re: the comment that was made that to be Jewish, one must believe in God. I am Jewish. I also happen to be a deist. But my religious education (extensive) has always taught that one does not have to believe in God to be a Jew. Of course, this is a modernistic viewpoint and it is definitely a conservative, not an orthodox viewpoint. Outsiders should realize that Judaism is not clearly defined. Even when the rabbis make a legal decision on some aspect of Jewish law, if it is NOT unanimous, BOTH sides are accepted as religiously legal and binding; they are differentiated only by one being the 'majority' decision and one the 'minority'. You pick the one you agree with... Lady Arwen of U.C. San Diego
steve (02/02/83)
#R:ucbvax:-62900:zinfandel:8200015:000:2316 zinfandel!steve Feb 2 08:46:00 1983 Both Descartes and St. Anselm proposed such "ontological" arguments to prove God's existence. The proof that Wayne summarized was that of Descartes: "...whenever I choose to think of the First and Supreme Being, and as it were bring out the idea of him from the treasury of my mind, I must necessarily ascribe to him all perfections, even if I do not at the moment enumerate them all, or attend to each. This necessity clearly assures that, when later on I observe that existence is a perfection, I am justified in concluding that the First and Supreme Being exists" -Descartes, Philosophical Writings St. Anselm, on the other hand, took a slightly different tack. Rather than depending on the notion that existence is perfection, St. Anselm starts with the fact that we understand the idea of a supreme being. "And whatever is understood exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived..." -St. Anselm, Basic Writings To paraphrase: 1. If the greatest possible being does not exist, then there is a possibility that some being does exist which is greater than the greatest possible being. 2. It is impossible that some being exists which is greater than the greatest possible being Therefore: 3. The greatest possible being exists. Of course, both arguments have been well refuted throughout the ages. The best-known refutation of the Descartes argument was made by Kant, on the grounds that "existence" is not a real predicate. Others argue that existence is not a perfection. St. Anselm is refuted by Gaunilo on the grounds that St. Anselm's argument can be used to prove too much, such as that a greatest island possible exists, or a greatest anything possible exists. I think that I think, therefore I think that I am, Steve Nelson