The best opposition comes from Pete Suber, to whose arguments I have linked many times in the past. He is an atheist of the mold of Voyager or SentientMeat in that he understands exactly what is going on, and he concedes readily that the argument is valid. But he doubts whether it is sound because he rejects, of all things, Becker’s postulate (at least as it is applied here). He thinks it is too adverbial.
No, let’s talk about how god defines morality. In simple terms, if you would.
When I first ran across the argument many years ago, I don’t think you were in the habit of linking to opposition :). I had to go dig up the links myself. And I found that there were several broad attacks against the argument, including whether it said anything meaningful and whether such a meta-necessity would fly in modal logic, inasmuch as it artificially constricted the nature of possible worlds.
Daniel
And Liberal, if I may add on, is morality objective in your view? Can it be proven so or is that a premise?
As I said, Liberal makes it sound as if everything is hunky dory because computer science uses modal logic, so who are the rest of us to object! Of course, what he doesn’t say is that the use of fundamental necessary existence in the way he employs it is pretty controversial, confusing, and not in fact employed in computer science.
Furthermore, pointing out that one thinks that Becker’s postulate is being misused is not quite the same thing as agreeing that an argument is valid, and as I’ve already pointed out, something is clearly fishy when we start treating existence in other worlds as if it were a property like any other in a given possible world.
I don’t know about a habit, but I linked to Suber in the very first thread I ever opened on the topic. It might appear to you that I minimize opposition simply because I insist (as Suber does) that the proof is valid. A lot — and I mean a lot — of time is wasted in most of these discussions going over and over the rules of inference, listening to complaints about the definitions, and even rejection of the conclusion without any noted error. The argument is valid, period. Sound? That’s up to you. But I’ve said many times that the proper way to oppose the argument is to deny one of the premises or the application of a rule. I’m not afraid of opposition. There are great contemporary philosophers, like Hartshorne and Plantinga, who think the argument is sound. I mean, I’m not a lone wolf or anything, and I’m not afraid of the truth in any case. Here, by the way, is the Suber paper that I’ve linked before. It uses a slight variation of Tisthammer’s arrangement (the one I usually use), but it’s a pretty easy read.
Together 1 and 2 say that God is possible, and if God is actual, then God necessarily exists. Together with the conclusion, it is almost as if Anselm had argued that possibility implies actuality, and actuality implies necessity. But while such an argument would be invalid, the argument above is valid.Peter Suber
There’s no possible way I can dig up the thread in which I first argued the issue with you, but that thread went back and forth several pages, and as I recall, it was not the case that you admitted the opposition had a leg to stand on. Perhaps I’m recalling incorrectly, but I remember being pretty irritated when I spent a couple hours digging through online philosophical discussions and discovered that my arguments, which you’d dismissed as ignorant and specious, were layman’s versions of the arguments that professional philosophers have raised against the proof.
Anyway, ancient history :). Although I agree that if you accept the first three aspects of the proof, the conclusion follows, I think the first three steps of the proof sneak the conclusion in the front door in a way that doesn’t correlate to the real world.
Daniel
Morality is completely subjective in my view because I look at it as an aesthetic, rather than as an ethic. It is not a matter of good and evil, but of value and worthlessness. So morality is the aesthetical expression of a free moral agent. This is a definition that I take from the teachings of Jesus.
This is one of the biggest flaws in the whole morality debate (not to single out Lib: it happens a lot.)
It is similar to a lot of the other flaws in Lib’s definitional game in that he wants to use a commonly-understood word in a totally different context and then equivocate to a different context (namely, the MOPotEoG proves G’ exists; I have felt that G’’ exists and is aesthetically good; therefore, G’ has been proven to exist and be good.)
But plenty of people the whole world over play this semantic game of goodness. The problem is, their supposed gods (or God) do things that to any mortal human would put them firmly in the category of Evil.
For instance, depending on which you believe in:
– Not helping people when they had the power to
– Smiting people when they had the power to make them believe and be good
– Play a belief game, casting people into the pit of Hell due to a reluctance to reveal oneself.
If any one of us were to have Godlike powers and use them in the way those that believe in an Omnibenevolent God do, we’d be rightly lambasted as one evil Mofo.
You don’t get to change the meaning of words just because it’s supposedly a deity doing the actions. Unless of course you support genocide and pettiness.
Those who claim “but you just don’t UNDERSTAND!” Who cares? I’m not the one who made up the word “good”. If you want to create another word for whatever screwed-up morality your god supports feel free to do so.
The arguments you found were pre-modal. The modal proof is quite new in the almost geologic timescale of philosophy. Mid 20th century. The old arguments mostly attacked Anselm’s definition, saying things like the supreme being could be an island or a slime mold. Gaunilo’s was the most famous, and probably the one you found. Modality gives us the ability to characterize the ontological nature of God precisely. See Tisthammer’s responses to those types of arguments.
In any case, while we’re going down nostalgia lane here, I wonder whether you remember that I got Tisthammer to participate in that fist discussion, which resulted in a reformulation of the argument on his site. (He moved Becker’s postulate to the premises section.) 
No, they weren’t: they were specifically arguments against the modal version.
I don’t remember that; your first discussion of it may not have been mine.
Daniel
Just for the record (though I think I’ve said it many times before) I agree with you, which is why (1) I don’t worship the Bible or hold it to be infallible, and (2) I see the teachings of Jesus so much differently than people who worship the god of destruction that you describe.
Using this definition allows each person so much leeway with regard to morality that it could never be agreed upon, which again, supports my theory that god resides ONLY in a person’s head; it denies the existence of a supreme being that has any influence or effect on man in the collective sense.
The modal arguments are valid (there are several versions). There are only a few steps. Compare that to Russell and Whitehead’s 800 page proof that 1+1=2. If an error had been spotted in a MOP, the whole world would know about it. It would take up a whole section in Stanford University’s philosophy reference. There would be books about it. And Plantinga et al would have abandoned it. The only reasonable argument against any of the MOPs is denial of the premise(s).
Again, I’m not denying that. I may have been confusing when I said it was the first three steps to which I objected; I referred to the combination of the premises and that axiom.
ETA: actually, there’s another reasonable argument against the MOP, which is to deny that it says anything significant.
Daniel
With respect, people keep merging things together that are not the same. Belief is not the same as existence. Definitions are not the same as propositions. Scientific experiments are not the same as proof. And morality is not the same as God. Just because morality is subjective has no bearing on whether God is in a person’s head. What it bears upon is simply whether a person does or does not share the same aesthetical taste as God. If you value goodness above all else, then you and He are into the same thing. Otherwise, you are not. This leaves us to make moral judgments about ourselves. God doesn’t have to, because we choose what we value and what we don’t. And it turns out that this is exactly what Jesus teaches — that neither He nor His Father judge anyone. We all judge ourselves by His standard. I cannot for the life of me fathom why this would bother atheists. You don’t like God? No problem. Whatever it is you value is what you get. It’s like y’all are saying “Damn God for giving me what I want.” It’s just… bizarre to me. 
I think there’s a possibility that you’re merging what I believe with what you hear from mainstream Christians. God will not throw you in hell. What is heaven for me would be hell for you. God will give you exactly what you value the most.
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.
Well, I have only read the first and last pages of this thread, but please forgive me for jumping in. I had a revelation on the first page, and it looks like the wheels came off before the last page, but I do have something to add to the OP…
I agree with everyone who says that the OP leaves out a lot of gods, perfectly respectable gods, gods who would turn you into a small brass bollard [li] as soon as look at you; gods in which, as an Atheist, I do not believe. An example would be Old Man Coyote; He created the heavens and the earth; He created Human Beings, and also white people, which may have been a mistake, but hey, Coyote is not known for overthinking. He is not omni-anything, but is certainly a god.[/li]
The following definition for god occured to me: A god is an entity
(1) that is self-aware, and
(2) can violate the laws of nature.
Some implications of this definition:
Liberal’s famous G is not a god, because it is not self-aware.
Mahasamatman, whatever his followers say, is not a god, because he cannot violate the laws of nature.
The Archangel Michael and Satan are, according to the beliefs of most Christians, gods. Sorry about that, Christians, but you are polytheists after all.
When you are a god, you don’t have to have reasons.
You have yet to tell me what god’s morals are and how you found that out. What is his standard? How do you know that?
You’re personifying him again. Lib, I’m sorry, but you’ve been avoiding giving me straight answers here. Let’s forget about the existence thing. We will have to disagree because your theory will always contain those “if” statements which do little in the way of answering the question of existence. Let’s assume you’re right. How do you know what god’s standard for morality is?
Wow, a quote that doesn’t mention his objection to Becker’s postulate at all. Niiiice.