# Define God **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222 "2007-03-31T17:43:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/321 "2007-04-05T21:23:09Z")
I’ve brought up a couple of points before, which Lib has either ignored or answered with non sequiters, so I won’t hope for a answer this time. (Lib apparently thinks I hate him, which I don’t, although he won’t tell me why he feels that way.) First: supposing a god exists, and it is the YHWH of the Xian Bible, as several billion Xians have believed for a long time. This god is demonstrably not omniscient, not omnipotent, and definitely not omnibenevolent. Does this mean that, according to modal logic, there is another god over the Xian/Jewish God? Or are all the Bible-believing Xians wrong? Second: Lib is forever saying “Whatever it is you value is what you get.” or words to that effect. So: If- Whatever it is you value is what you get. And- What the Cherokee got was the Trail of Tears Then- Doesn’t that indicate that the entire Cherokee Nation “asked for” their fate, and isn’t that pretty much what Andrew Jackson would have said, had anyone asked him? ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/322 "2007-04-05T21:41:29Z")
Excellent point. I have a difficult time understanding why **Lib** would make such a silly statement when it’s obviously untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/323 "2007-04-05T22:41:36Z")
[QUOTE=Reno Nevada] **Liberal** ’s famous **G** is not a god, because it is not self-aware. [/QUOTE] […sigh…] G is not my God. G is the nature of my God’s existence. It is an ontological proof. O-n-t-o-l-o-g-i-c-a-l. > [@Kalhoun](#): > > You have yet to tell me what god’s morals are and how you found that out. That’s not true. I’ve told you thoroughly. His morality is to value goodness above all else, and I found that out from Jesus. Maybe we should have just left everything at your pretending to understand. > [@Mapache](#): > > Lib apparently thinks I hate him, which I don’t, although he won’t tell me why he feels that way Because so many of your posts to me begin with an observation similar to that along with “Lib has either ignored or answered with non sequiters” and such. You always wait until the pile-on is twelve-to-one, and then dump stuff like that. At least Apos is courteous enough to attack right out of the gate. > [@](#): > > What the Cherokee got was the Trail of Tears. And stuff like that, too. The Indian Hater killed only bones, which were dead anyway. The spirits of those people live on, fully enjoying what they value most, and spirit is all that is real. > [@Apos](#): > > Wow, a quote that doesn’t mention his objection to Becker’s postulate at all. Niiiice. Click the link, sir or madam. And speaking of giving people what they want… ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/324 "2007-04-05T22:59:58Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] That’s not true. I’ve told you thoroughly. His morality is to value goodness above all else, and I found that out from Jesus. Maybe we should have just left everything at your pretending to understand. [/QUOTE] I never pretended to understand. In fact, I pretty much said that your style was obfuscating, as far as people untrained in philosophy or logic are concerned. Although you say you got the information from Jesus, you didn’t define goodness in a way that would indicate a standard for mankind to agree on, and we have no reason to think that Jesus got his moral message from god. You made a thoroughly nonsensical statement about god giving us what we value, which is an observably false statement. So we’re back to square one. You’ve compiled some philosophical ideas that may or may not indicate the possibility of the existence of a god, but you failed to apply concrete attributes that can be observed by anyone. Without a god that cares or controls or even wants us to be aware of his existence, without a god who can communicate his wishes to man, I can only surmise that god is an internal construct. I don’t doubt you believe it; I just don’t see why you do. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/325 "2007-04-05T23:00:22Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] Let me rephrase that - how do you jump from “necessary in all possible worlds” to “God” without assigning any other attributes to this universal necessecity? [/QUOTE] The assignment made is supremacy of existence. Since it is an ontological proof, attributes of existence are the only kind that can be assigned. The MOP speaks to only one aspect of God. It is a mistake to think of it as describing God in every detail. It does not, and I’ve always said it does not. It describes only the nature of His existence. But that’s an important thing to describe because it predicates other discussion. About the supernatural, for example, and why it is real while the natural world is not. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/326 "2007-04-05T23:03:24Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] You are free, of course, to reject either premise. But let me make it plain just exactly what it is that you are rejecting. \ Now, with respect to the definition itself, it corresponds directly to the traditional notion of God as supreme being. Supremacy is a superlative concept — like most, or best, or X-est — implying uniqueness and greatest magnitude; otherwise, it would just be superior — more, better, or X-er. Since there can be no existence greater in magnitude than existence in every possible world (impossible worlds don’t exist), and since “being” is itself an ontological statement, it seems reasonable to characterize the supreme being as having ontological supremacy. And that’s exactly what necessary existence is. And so, supreme being maps perfectly to necessary existence. Supreme -\> necessary / being -\> existence. So when you reject the first premise — it is possible that God exists — you are rejecting something quite specific. Now, it depends on what you negate with your rejection, whether it be the possibility (a negation of the modal) or the God (a negation of the term). In other words, these are two different statements: (1) it is not possible that God exists; and (2) it is possible that God does not exist. But either way, substituting the definition for the term (which obviously is reasonable) reveals that rejection of the premise is basically nonsense. Either (1) it is not possible that that which exists in every possible world exists; or (2) it is possible that that which exists in every possible world does not exist. It is tantamount to rejecting the existence of the actual world. There is nothing unreasonable about allowing for the possibility that God exists. And when you reject the second premise — if God does exist, then He exists necessarily — you are invoking a contradiction. Again, by substitution, you are saying that if that which exists in every possible world does exist, then that which exists in every possible world does not exist in every possible world. I do not envy the person who must defend either of those counter-premises. [/QUOTE] Sorry to be so long in replying; I am unfortunately required to work occasionally while at work. First I will open with the comment that I have taken several classes focussing on formal and symbolic logic, bringing me up to the level that I grok the concepts of There Exists and For All. (Never seen this modal stuff before, but it seems to make sense about 70% of the time, not so much in symbolic form though.) I therefore do understand premises and their role in proofs, and am amazed by this bizarre notion that you seem to be proposing that I have to _accept the negation_ of a premise to refute a premise. That’s ridiculous. I am allowed to reject the premise based sheerly on the fact I think it’s unproven. Typically the deletion of this premise collapses the argument, and rightly so. If’n you don’t like it, you have to defend your premises. I don’t have to prove their opposite. So, let’s look at your defenses of these premises. Your second premise is a definition. You are defining a potential thing called God such that if it exists, then it exists necessarily. You support this with the classic argument based on semantic wordplay. It boils down to “I imagine that my God is necessary, because that’s cooler than a god that isn’t.” It’s **very** important to note that this premise 2, this definition of God, is a conditional. If it weren’t, of course, you’d be explicitly assuming the conclusion. So you definitely can’t refer to the necessariness of God without referencing the requirement of his existence, until you somehow prove it. I really have no reason to reject the second premise, since it’s merely your definition of the God you choose to believe in, and more power to you, and it doesn’t assert that God exists. (If you combine it with a Premise asserting that God does not exist, it is impossible to reach a proof by contradiction. Try it!) (If I did reject it, though, I certainly wouldn’t substitute it into its own negation, because using a statement and its negation in the same argument is by definition a contradition. What kind of pseudologic are ayou trying to pull here?) The first premise is your entire argument, mostly because it assumes the conclusion. This premise boils down to “assume God exists (somewhere, which means everywhere by the definition of God aka Premise 2)”. And it’s easily refuted. Your substitution trying to demonstrate otherwise is incorrect, though, since it forgets that Premise 2 is a conditional. The correct substitution is (2b) “it is possible that God, which, **if it exists** then it exists in every possible world, does not exist”. By premise 2, If God doesn’t exist, then it’s unproven as being necessary, and therefore its non-existence causes no contradictions. In fact, I will gladly assert 2b, and its unsubstited version “it is possible that God does not exist” as being true until this God thing is externally shown to exist. (You’ll need premises you don’t have here.) In concusion, your first premise does not stand on its own, and neither of them cause inherent contradictions upon rejection. The rest of your argument, as you know, collapses when I reject premise 1, so fortunately we don’t have to carry on and understand modal logic. (Phew!) I do admit being curious as to why you don’t use a reformed version of the semantic argument behind premise 2 that would say “I imagine that God is the most supreme being, and a god that doesn’t exist is less supreme than one that does exist, so [I imagine that] God must exist!” You can get as much mileage out of it as you can from the original premise 2, and you don’t need to bother with the logic stuff at all to reach your conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/327 "2007-04-05T23:09:25Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] Although you say you got the information from Jesus, you didn’t define goodness in a way that would indicate a standard for mankind to agree on, and we have no reason to think that Jesus got his moral message from god. You made a thoroughly nonsensical statement about god giving us what we value, which is an observably false statement. [/quote] First, it is not false. You are your spirit, not your body. You’ve forgotten my most basic axiom of all. Second, you wrote: “So no, I don’t understand what you’re saying, but let’s say I do.” That sounds to me like pretending to understand. Third, I defined goodness very early on in this discussion, and more than once, as that which edifies, creates, builds up, makes better. Edification is the opposite of destruction. And finally, since goodness is an aesthetic, it too is open to subjective interpretation. I may think you would be edified by believing in God, but you might disagree. Ought you not to have the moral freedom to decide for yourself what you value? > [@](#): > > So we’re back to square one. You’ve compiled some philosophical ideas that may or may not indicate the possibility of the existence of a god, but you failed to apply concrete attributes that can be observed by anyone. Without a god that cares or controls or even wants us to be aware of his existence, without a god who can communicate his wishes to man, I can only surmise that god is an internal construct. I don’t doubt you believe it; I just don’t see why you do. I’m not back to square one, other than having to repeat what I’ve said many times. At some point, if you value understanding me, you’ll stop and give a heartfelt read toward that attempt. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/328 "2007-04-05T23:14:52Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] That’s not true. I’ve told you thoroughly. His morality is to value goodness above all else, and I found that out from Jesus. [/QUOTE] Not to derail or anything, but one thing’s been bothering me for a while now. You say that God values goodness above all else… but what’s your definition of goodness? It seems to me that one man’s good is another man’s evil. For example, say I rob a bank to feed my kids: Good, from the viewpoint of the kids; Evil, from the viewpoint of the bank manager. You, and a few other posters have tossed around such terms as Goodness and Love as if they were absolutes (and always spelled with capital letters). How can such concepts possibly be absolute? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/329 "2007-04-05T23:21:10Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] I therefore do understand premises and their role in proofs, and am amazed by this bizarre notion that you seem to be proposing that I have to _accept the negation_ of a premise to refute a premise. That’s ridiculous. [/quote] No, it’s standard. Most modal logics (including this one, S5) are bivalent. And so a premise is either true or false, but not both and not neither. > [@](#): > > I am allowed to reject the premise based sheerly on the fact I think it’s unproven. By that standard, you reject every premise, because a premise is unproven by definition. That’s why premises come first, and don’t follow from anything else. > [@](#): > > Your second premise is a definition. You are defining a potential thing called God such that if it exists, then it exists necessarily. You support this with the classic argument based on semantic wordplay. It boils down to “I imagine that my God is necessary, because that’s cooler than a god that isn’t.” No, you’re misreading the premise. (I wrote it out in plain English, so I don’t know how you did that.) I’ll put it another way: G -\> G means that if God does exist, then he must exist in all possible worlds. Or as Suber puts it: “if God is actual, then God necessarily exists”. > [@](#): > > It’s **very** important to note that this premise 2, this definition of God, is a conditional. Definitions aren’t conditional. The fact that it is a conditional means that it is an implication. > [@](#): > > The first premise is your entire argument, mostly because it assumes the conclusion. That’s demonstrably false. That premise is ~~G, and the conclusion is G. They are not the same. > [@](#): > > This premise boils down to “assume God exists (somewhere, which means everywhere by the definition of God aka Premise 2)”. The definition of God is G. Premise 2 is G -\> G. You keep talking about semantic word games and, with respect, you’re playing them to a fare-thee-well. Premise 2 holds even if premise 1 is changed. If you start with the premise ~G (it is possible that God does not exist) but still use premise 2 as is, then you prove ~G (God does not exist). So this business about an implication being a definition and assuming the conclusion is patently ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/330 "2007-04-05T23:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=Lightnin’] Not to derail or anything, but one thing’s been bothering me for a while now. You say that God values goodness above all else… but what’s your definition of goodness? [/quote] The definition I’ve given in this thread several times is still the one. Goodness is that which edifies. > [@](#): > > It seems to me that one man’s good is another man’s evil. For example, say I rob a bank to feed my kids: Good, from the viewpoint of the kids; Evil, from the viewpoint of the bank manager. Yes, exactly. That’s why I’ve said things like “one man’s heaven is another man’s hell” and “morality is entirely subjective”. > [@](#): > > You, and a few other posters have tossed around such terms as Goodness and Love as if they were absolutes (and always spelled with capital letters). How can such concepts possibly be absolute? How indeed? I think you may have me confused with someone else. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/331 "2007-04-05T23:48:34Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] First, it is not false. You are your spirit, not your body. You’ve forgotten my most basic axiom of all. Second, you wrote: “So no, I don’t understand what you’re saying, but let’s say I do.” That sounds to me like pretending to understand. Third, I defined goodness very early on in this discussion, and more than once, as that which edifies, creates, builds up, makes better. Edification is the opposite of destruction. And finally, since goodness is an aesthetic, it too is open to subjective interpretation. I may think you would be edified by believing in God, but you might disagree. Ought you not to have the moral freedom to decide for yourself what you value? [/quote] 1. I am the sum of my body and my mind and my emotions. 2. I specifically said that I didn’t understand most of what you were saying, but that for purposes of getting past how you got to your conclusion that god exists, I would say that I did. I don’t know how you could read that any other way. 3. The fact that you believe that goodness is only positive things or that destruction is necessarily a bad thing, does not make it so for everyone. I agree that it is subject to interpretation, but in being so, it loses its value as a godly attribute. It’s just plain ol’ human nature, subject to mistakes, misinterpretation and change. I agree that it’s great to be able to value things as I see fit, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with the existence or worthiness of god. > [@](#): > > I’m not back to square one, other than having to repeat what I’ve said many times. At some point, if you value understanding me, you’ll stop and give a heartfelt read toward that attempt. 🙂 Regardless of whether or not I will be able to understand your philo-logical reasoning without a helluva lot more background than I currently have, it doesn’t change the basic claim you’re making (that Jesus told you that god said something). If there is a god (and for purposes of this discussion only, let’s say there is 😉 ) we have only your word to go by with regard to a supreme being. Existence is not omnipotence. Existence is not caring, loving, giving, or guiding. It just is. I cannot apply attributes to something I don’t know is there. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/332 "2007-04-06T00:03:27Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Goodness is that which edifies. [/QUOTE] And evil is bad. I can make content-free definitions too, you know. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/333 "2007-04-06T00:36:07Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] No, it’s standard. Most modal logics (including this one, S5) are bivalent. And so a premise is either true or false, but not both and not neither. By that standard, you reject every premise, because a premise is unproven by definition. That’s why premises come first, and don’t follow from anything else. [/QUOTE] In all forms of logic, though, you are not required to specify truth values for all possible premises. You are allowed to simply fail to mention any that you don’t know the truth value about. And I am allowed to protest claims on your part that we KNOW a given premise is true; if this protest is not adequately rebutted then this removes the premise from the argument. This is what I call ‘refuting the premise’. To put the negated premise in its place I have to KNOW it is false, which is not necessary. You’re the one bringing the argument to the table; I don’t have to prove you’re wrong, you have to prove you’re right. [QUOTE=Liberal] No, you’re misreading the premise. (I wrote it out in plain English, so I don’t know how you did that.) (\<-ad hominem) I’ll put it another way: G -\> G means that if God does exist, then he must exist in all possible worlds. Or as Suber puts it: “if God is actual, then God necessarily exists”. [/QUOTE] I am not misreading it; that’s exactly the statement I use while dismantling your defense of your premises. The ‘translation’ I gave is just a kind reminder to you and the audience that this definition that you’re basing the premise off of is indeed imagined, and not based off of real-world observation or anything defensible like that. Thus, we don’t _have_ to accept it. I don’t mind doing so for the sake of argument, though. [QUOTE=Liberal] Definitions aren’t conditional. The fact that it is a conditional means that it is an implication. [/QUOTE] Your premise G -\> G (which embodies the ‘interesting’ part of your definition of God) is a conditional. I treat it as such. There’s no other thing resembling a definition in your proof; when I refer to a definition, that implication there is what I’m referring to. (Glad to have cleared that up.) [QUOTE=Liberal] That’s demonstrably false. That premise is ~~G, and the conclusion is G. They are not the same. [/QUOTE] Tomato, tomahto. The remaining steps fall under “can be left as an exersize for the reader”. The _meat_ of your argument is in the assumption of God(defined as necessary)'s existence in some possible universe, from which you bootstrap up. [QUOTE=Liberal] The definition of God is G. Premise 2 is G -\> G. You keep talking about semantic word games and, with respect, you’re playing them to a fare-thee-well. [/QUOTE] No, I’m not. Stop ad-homineming. I will occasionally phrase things in an informal way, but I certianly don’t introduce the informal phrasing into the proof refutations. And actually your definiton of God includes being good as well, and presumably a whole pile of other things (whatever ‘supreme’ means). Logical arguments for god always come with a slew of extra baggage; nobody is interested in proving the existence of a neccessary rock or slime mold. As for G or any other ‘definition’ other than Premise 2, your notion what the term definition means is not part of the argument, so it doesn’t matter. So you might as well stop worrying about such other ‘definitions’; you can’t use them in the defense of your argument anyway. (Especially trick ones like G. That’s not a defeinition of god, that’s an assertion ABOUT god, which also by definition convenently implies that he exists. Definitions as a rule can be introduced in arguments as premises, but you can’t just define God to exist like that, not and expect your premise to be accepted.) [QUOTE=Liberal] Premise 2 holds even if premise 1 is changed. If you start with the premise ~G (it is possible that God does not exist) but still use premise 2 as is, then you prove ~G (God does not exist). [/QUOTE] I should certainly hope that your premises will stand alone; otherwise they’re not premises. And I don’t mind accepting premise 2. It talks about something that hasn’t been shown not to be a figment of the imagination, anyway. And I admit being fooled by the confusing word ‘possible’, probably just like everyone here but you is most of the time. (Whatever genius decided to redefine the terms ‘possible’ and ‘necessary’ within a frame for logical argument should be beaten with a whifflebat.) Suffice to say I meant the english definition, which is: we don’t _know_. It is possible that God exists in some possible universe. It is possible that he does not exist in some possible universe. We don’t know either way. The way to write this in logical forms is of course to not state a truth assertion at all, and by removing your first premise from the argument entirely, that’s exactly what I’m doing. In terms of statements that I think you can reasonably support as being true, you have: Premise 2: G -\> G And that’s it. The argument is finished, long live the argument. Unless you have a better defense? [QUOTE=Liberal] So this business about an implication being a definition and assuming the conclusion is patently ridiculous. [/QUOTE] Wow, you’re on the defensive, aren’t you? Just because some of your substitutions were wrong. As has been noted, the implication is the logical statement of the interesting aspect of the definition of God, and when I refer to the ‘definition’ of God, I refer to premise 2. So should you, since no other definition has been introduced as a premise into the argument. And, with your demonstrated willingness to substitute “the definition of God” into the other premise, I don’t see why I can’t do the same: Premise 1 reads to me as “I assume that that a being named God that exists everywhere if it exists anywhere exists somewhere”, and if we accept that, aren’t we done? Conclusion. Assumed. (Informal fallacy variant, of course. My refutation wasn’t written in symbols after all.) ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/334 "2007-04-06T01:03:33Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Click the link, sir or madam. And speaking of giving people what they want… [/QUOTE] I’ve clicked that link several times: it’s at the best incomplete, a short note on something the start students thinking on a subject he intends to discuss more later… and yet that’s all we get. Second of all, it’s still _not_ what you quoted, as a supposed rebuttal of the idea that Suber has no question about the validity of the particular argument . Third of all, the link suggests, in fact, that he does, and you yourself said that he does have problems with the application of the postulate in such a situation. Given that ontological arguments have traditionally been under strong suspicion of being tricks (given that they start with no information other than a definition and somehow end up proving the existence of something… though of course, something with no qualities other than necessary existence, which itself is utterly bizarre) you’d think you’d be a little more careful about being seen to give people the runaround, misleading folks about common applications of modal logic, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/335 "2007-04-06T01:59:37Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] It says something significance about ontology, and nothing more. That’s another point I’ve made many times. I’ve never suggested that the argument implies anything else about God’s nature. Its value is that it gives us something to talk about in the context of a predicate. [/QUOTE] Well, I’m glad you’re no longer suggesting it says anything about God’s nature. My last encounter with you on this idea involved an insistence that God must be boundless in all forms, and therefore boundlessly good, boundlessly loving, etc. Removing these traits from the proof’s conclusion is, from my perspective, wise. However, saying it shows something significant about ontology and nothing more is one of the commonly cited problems with this category of proof. Saying something about ontology alone is a predicate with no subject, a pronoun with no antecedent. I may prove that “It exists.” Someone might ask, “What is it?” If I answer, “That existy thing,” I’ve given them information that is literally useless. I don’t think we even get that far with the proof: the meta-necessity flaw (in which a premise is allowed to limit the conditions of possible worlds by postulating something in one world that places conditions on other worlds) ruins the premise, and so we can’t proceed. But even if we could, our conclusion contains no information. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Mapache](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@Mapache](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mapache)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/336 "2007-04-06T02:09:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Liberal: Because so many of your posts to me begin with an observation similar to that along with “Lib has either ignored or answered with non sequiters” and such. You always wait until the pile-on is twelve-to-one, and then dump stuff like that. At least Apos is courteous enough to attack right out of the gate. If I wait until the pile on is on, it’s because I work for a living and can’t post whenever I feel like it, and also because I prefer to think about things for a while before I say anything. And the reason I said you think I hate you is because you told me so, here:[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405969&page=3&pp=50](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405969&page=3&pp=50), post 135 The reason I used the terms “ignore” and “non sequiter” should be obvious from your reply; you ignored my first point and answered the second, which was "Did the Cherokee “treasure” the Trail of Tears, which would seem to follow from your statement quoted in my last post, with another non seq. You like to use abstruse logic to defend your various ideas; this is just plain Logic 101. Yes or No: if your god gives what is treasured, did the Cherokee treasure the trail of tears? Yes. Or. No. Jeeze, man, other people call you nasty names, pit you regularly, sneer at your ideas. I ask what seem to be reasonable questions, try to be polite, and you come at me like this. Hurts my feelings, to tell you the truth. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/337 "2007-04-06T02:55:35Z")
**Liberal** , I hope you won’t mind a slight hijack back to premises again. Is a moral agent who values goodness above all else truly free? This sounds like the free will problem. How similar is your concept of being a free moral agent to having a free will? I’m not wanting to start any debate down the free will path. That’s been done enough. I’m just curious if they are similar premises. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/338 "2007-04-06T11:14:08Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] Well, I’m glad you’re no longer suggesting it says anything about God’s nature. My last encounter with you on this idea involved an insistence that God must be boundless in all forms, and therefore boundlessly good, boundlessly loving, etc. Removing these traits from the proof’s conclusion is, from my perspective, wise. However, saying it shows something significant about ontology and nothing more is one of the commonly cited problems with this category of proof. Saying something about ontology alone is a predicate with no subject, a pronoun with no antecedent. I may prove that “It exists.” Someone might ask, “What is it?” If I answer, “That existy thing,” I’ve given them information that is literally useless. [/QUOTE] This sums up what I was trying to say pretty well. Proving that god simply exists (as opposed to _possibly_ exists) and then arbitrarily assigning a christian significance to that existence sounds like \*you chose \* those attributes simply because you like what Jesus taught. Personifying that god by giving it the ability to give people what they value strikes me as a “you made your bed; now you have to sleep in it” mindset. There are myriad situations in life that we neither want nor control. To say that god only cares about “spirit” (another piece of the puzzle that has not been proven) unfairly excludes the human aspect of man, and that’s the only aspect of our existence any of us has to work with. Forgive me, but I do not recall if your god provides you with an afterlife. Can you refresh me on that? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/339 "2007-04-06T14:12:17Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] The fact that you believe that goodness is only positive things or that destruction is necessarily a bad thing, does not make it so for everyone. [/quote] And it doesn’t make it so for me either, since that isn’t my position. I said specifically, in fact,that morality is not about good and evil, but about value and worthlessness. I haven’t said that destruction is a bad thing; only that destruction is something that God does not value above edification; rather, it is the other way around. To say that God values goodness as an aesthetic is not to say that God is good ethically. Nor does it say the opposite. It says nothing about ethics at all. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > And evil is bad. I can make content-free definitions too, you know. I wouldn’t say that tautologies are “content-free”. They merely give no new information (they are not predicative). Evil is that which destroys; obviously the opposite of that which edifies. > [@Apos](#): > > Second of all, it’s still _not_ what you quoted, as a supposed rebuttal of the idea that Suber has no question about the validity of the particular argument. When he said the argument “above”, it was the modal argument that he was referencing. > [@](#): > > …you’d think you’d be a little more careful about being seen to give people the runaround, misleading folks about common applications of modal logic, and so on. I do realize that a couple of people pay little or no attention but snip anyway; however, you are in the minority. SentientMeat is the other side of the coin: a thoughtful, studious, and brilliant young man who bothered to take the time to actually learn what he was reading about. On my behalf, he said upon his careful examinations of modal logic, “And so, even if I were not the physicalist I avowedly am, I would still find the MOAPGE unconvincing. But the only reason I studied the subject at all was, when I arrived here some time ago, I found some guy proposing a Proof of God. Expecting a fool or a crackpot, I engaged him and asked him to explain his proof. Never had I encountered a more articulate, kind and good mentor in a subject I had little experience of but which I immediately found fascinating. Libertarian is the best advertisement for philosophy I have ever seen.” I’m sure you will twist what he said into something sinister and unrecognizable, as you did with Suber, but there it is all the same. I honestly believe that you should take all your opinions of me personally to the Pit. There, you and others of like mind may engage in bashing me. Here, your jabs and punches and deliberate lies just stand out as monumentally infantile, pointless, and stupid. There, they’ll fit right in, and you can have a jolly good time. 🙂 > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Well, I’m glad you’re no longer suggesting it says anything about God’s nature. I never have. It says something about the nature of His existence. As I said years ago, “Alethic logic deals with necessity and possibility. Ontology deals with existence. A modal ontological argument is expected to deal with necessary and possible existence.” > [@](#): > > But even if we could, our conclusion contains no information. It contains the information that we have to have in order to go on and discuss other things. It is the most fundamental information. There is no point in discussing attributes like omnipotence of a being that does not exist in the actual world — such a being that might be more topical in Cafe Society. ======================= Note to all tag-teamers ;): I want to formulate responses to the rest of the posts, which are meatier, so if you simply wish to jab, go ahead and post. But if you’d like actual information, wait. Because it might become available in the responses that follow. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222/340 "2007-04-06T14:43:57Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] And it doesn’t make it so for me either, since that isn’t my position. I said specifically, in fact,that morality is not about good and evil, but about value and worthlessness. I haven’t said that destruction is a bad thing; only that destruction is something that God does not value above edification; rather, it is the other way around. To say that God values goodness as an aesthetic is not to say that God is good ethically. Nor does it say the opposite. It says nothing about ethics at all. [/QUOTE] I’m not talking about ethics, either. I’m talking about value and how you determine that god values edification over destruction. Or that destruction isn’t itself a form of edification. _How do you know what god’s opinion is on either subject?_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-god/398222.md?page=18)