# Of course God exists--And I can prove it. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762 "2012-09-05T17:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/61 "2012-09-05T22:18:03Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > That’s because he doesn’t exist. Well from MY point of [del]the Jedi are evil[/del] **you all don’t exist**! ---
**Author:** ![Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Che_G.Anonymous_Capitalist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/62 "2012-09-05T22:22:22Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > That’s because he doesn’t exist. But I do, just like God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/63 "2012-09-05T22:23:03Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Nonono, the ontological argument says that a perfect being must exist because it is more perfect to exist than not exist. That’s one major flaw of the ontological proof. The ontological proof: 1. God is perfect. 2. Existence is better than non-existence. 3. Therefore, God must exist because a perfect being would have the better state, which is existence. Now compare it to the manulogical proof: 1. God is perfect. 2. Being right-handed is better than being left-handed. 3. Therefore, God is right-handed because a perfect being would have the better state, which is being right-handed. The flaw is obvious. In both proofs, you have an unproven assumption as a second step. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/64 "2012-09-05T22:23:47Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > ”[T]he visible, tangible unicorn present in this reality that’s in front of me I just referred to” has to exist, at least a concept, and existence as a concept is existence, for you to draw relations to it. That’s a really disappointing (although not very surprising) climbdown. For breakfast tomorrow, why not feast on _the concept of a bacon sandwich_, or maybe a slice of toast topped with a paper label that says ‘jam’? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/65 "2012-09-05T22:27:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 1. Therefore, God must exist because a perfect being would have the better state, which is existence. But is existence the perfect? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 1. Therefore, God is right-handed because a perfect being would have the better state, which is being right-handed. God would be ambidextrous. ---
**Author:** ![Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Che_G.Anonymous_Capitalist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/66 "2012-09-05T22:36:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > That’s a really disappointing (although not very surprising) climbdown. For breakfast tomorrow, why not feast on _the concept of a bacon sandwich_, or maybe a slice of toast topped with a paper label that says ‘jam’? All I did is prove that God exists. Sorry that that doesn’t satisfy you. I mean, I guess I could’ve done more than solve one of humanity’s most intractable problems, but it’s just my first day. I’ll try to do more to satisfy you tomorrow–maybe by posting an awesome jam recipe. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/67 "2012-09-05T22:46:23Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > All I did is prove that God exists. Except, well, you didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/68 "2012-09-05T22:46:44Z")
[Quine’s example was Pegasus](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_What_There_Is), not God, but the logic is the same: by saying ‘Pegasus does not exist’ I am making a meaningful assertion not contingent on Pegasus’ existence. It’s all in how you analyze the sentence. Take (another of Quine’s examples) the significantly less challenging case: ‘The author of Waverley was a poet’. The part ‘the author of Waverley’ does not necessitate any objective reference in order to be meaningful; thus, in attributing existence to said being – saying ‘the author of Waverley exists’, or similarly, ‘…does not exist’, we do not establish any ontological commitment to the author of Waverley that goes beyond the assertion of his existence (or nonexistence). Let’s analyze the sentence à la Russel, following Quine: ‘The author of Waverley exists’ becomes the assertion ‘there is something that wrote Waverley and nothing else wrote Waverley’. This can be easily negated: ‘Either each thing failed to write Waverley or more than one thing wrote Waverley’. Thus analyzed, the mystery disappears: the assertion that the author of Waverley doesn’t exist now merely says that among all the existing things, there is none such that it wrote Waverley. The same analysis can be applied to the assertion ‘Pegasus does not exist’, or in fact ‘God does not exist’. The only hitch is that neither Pegasus nor God is descriptive, as ‘the author of Waverley’ is. But this is easily remedied: Pegasus can be uniquely identified as ‘the winged horse that was captured by Bellerophon’. Similarly, God can be described as ‘the entity that dictated the ten commandments to Moses’. Even more simply, we can just turn their names into descriptors: Pegasus is ‘the thing that is-Pegasus’, or that ‘pegasizes’; God is ‘the thing that is-God’ or perhaps that ‘gods’. So, ‘there is no thing that is-God’ (or strictly speaking, since you deny the existence of an unique being, ‘either each thing fails to god or two or more things god’) captures the meaning of ‘God does not exist’ without running into confusions such as the OP’s. ---
**Author:** ![Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Che_G.Anonymous_Capitalist)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/69 "2012-09-05T22:47:11Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > All I did is prove that God exists. Sorry that that doesn’t satisfy you. I mean, I guess I could’ve done more than solve one of humanity’s most intractable problems, but it’s just my first day. I’ll try to do more to satisfy you tomorrow–maybe by posting an awesome jam recipe. Has anyone else solved a previously intractable problem on this board–much less on his first day. Maybe I should be your master, not this previously-mentioned Cecil, joker. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/70 "2012-09-05T23:08:22Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > Has anyone else solved a previously intractable problem on this board–much less on his first day. I thought I was wrong once, but I was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![getitrite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@getitrite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/getitrite)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/71 "2012-09-05T23:24:07Z")
Prehaps the concept mite be proven easier if we say Beauty exists, this a concept, that is only proven in the eye of the beholder. Does beauty exchange as a subistution for God ? Subistution is used in Algebra proofs, would this make the concept easier to solve. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/72 "2012-09-05T23:37:48Z")
I’d like to speak about the “non-existence of God.” Since anything I can speak of truly exists, the non-existence of God exists, and thus God non-exists. I think this is the way my uncle handles his credit card debts. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/73 "2012-09-06T00:35:33Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > Has anyone else solved a previously intractable problem on this board–much less on his first day. Well, see, as soon as you ask whether there’s someone who made a more impressive debut hereabouts, you’ve proven that such a person exists. (We can even demonstrate that someone managed it just last week, after someone else pulled it off a month ago.) Heck, another poster who made his debut by solving a previously intractable problem promptly followed up with a word-for-word prediction of exactly what you’d post in this very thread; you can deny his existence, but doing so establishes that you’re incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/74 "2012-09-06T00:41:35Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anti-God perfectly cancels out all the actions of God. > > And Anti-God exists, because I just described it. Damn you! Now when God and anti-God make contact, they’re going to blow up the universe and mess things up for all of us. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/75 "2012-09-06T00:54:19Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > The ”the visible, tangible unicorn present in this reality that’s in front of me I just referred to that” has to exist for you to determine that what is actually on front of you is not ” the visible, tangible unicorn present in this reality that’s in front of me I just referred to that.” When you refer to something, you are referring something, not a non-existence. Even ”a non-existence” exists. So I can clearly not choose the unicorn in front of me. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/76 "2012-09-06T00:55:57Z")
Che, it might help a little if you would clarify what it is you’re trying to say, because it isn’t clear if you’re presenting an ontological argument for the existence of God (and Spider-Man) or parodying it. In this particular forum it’s expected that you’ll be clear in what your thesis is. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/77 "2012-09-06T00:58:01Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Damn you! Now when God and anti-God make contact, they’re going to blow up the universe and mess things up for all of us. Yeah, it’s not like there’s a prepared Batman who’ll somehow manage to save us all. Well, not until I finished that sentence, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/78 "2012-09-06T01:38:27Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > So I can clearly not choose the unicorn in front of me. You’re stalling. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/79 "2012-09-06T02:02:47Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > X is Y > X is not Y > > Therefore, you should worship and follow God. > > Note: I am only asserting the argument is valid. So: Premise 1: Socrates is a man Premise 2: Socrates is not a man Conclusion?: Therefore Socrates has balls? Conclusion?: No balls? Conclusion?: Might have them? Tell me more! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/80 "2012-09-06T02:55:00Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > So: > > Premise 1: Socrates is a man > Premise 2: Socrates is not a man > Conclusion?: Therefore Socrates has balls? > Conclusion?: No balls? > Conclusion?: Might have them? > > Tell me more! Well, there is the interpretation of symbolic logic that a contradiction can lead to any statement. So, if A and not-A, therefore Abraham Lincoln was a unicorn. (It’s also fun to note that any property may be attributed to members of the empty set. Since there are no unicorns…all unicorns are lesbians.) Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762.md?page=5)