[Coach]

>Who said you have to proof that God exists.Does 'proof'
>itself exist? or does even 'exist' exist?

Do you 'exist' or is this a random message from the Matrix?

[reggie_woic]

Hmmmm....perhaps it should have been "I think I am" instead of "I think therefore I am".

Regina: LOL
Raymond: Nice one Reg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/wrxho/Stewie.jpg

[koumba]

>We know of a "God" because we were told about Him.
>No one actually feels God unless you've heard something about
>Him.
>
>In this case, we think because we've heard. Rene is wrong.
>I'll take my nobel peace prize now, thank you.
>
>http://www.zazzle.com/znews/archives/stewie.jpg


reggie:I'll take my nobel peace prize now, thank you.
reply:not so quick......lol


You are right.....most of us have simply been told of God...
We "heard" about Him.


BUT someone somewhere MUST have "thought" up the Original Idea....

[koumba]

>
>Who said you have to proof that God exists.Does 'proof'
>itself exist? or does even 'exist' exist?

well,Descartes showed that he himself has to exist.
Go read "discourse on method" ....the place where he came up with the "I think Therefore I am".

allow me to quote from the net....
"But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all] then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." (AT VII 25; CSM II 16–17) "

[koumba]

>Hmmmm....perhaps it should have been "I think I am" instead
>of "I think therefore I am".

Not really reggie......read the reply to safina...

[koumba]

>How about if one comes up with
> another statement like this..
>
> 'Either God wanted to let himself to be known to
>man or he didn't want to be.If he wanted man to
>know him and he didn't succeed this can only
>demostrate that he is impotent;an impotent God is
>inadmissible.If God didn't want to be known then all
>religions are false.If God didn't want either one,then
>we have to conclude that God does not exist.'

You are absolutely right in arguing like that,only that i want to point out one other possibility you havent thought about.

God might have wanted to confuse man about his existence.How do you answer that?

[reggie_woic]

>>BUT someone somewhere MUST have "thought" up the Original Idea....
Agreed.
But someone somewhere, like ATLian said somewhere above, also "thought" up the idea of elves, fairies and the likes.

Rene is popularly loved because of the complexity derived from his simple but true statement:
The fact that WE have the ability to think means that we exist. Its a one way statement BTW; it doesn't work backwards.

http://www.glpics.com/briansbar/StewieCKsm.gif

[koumba]

>all ontological arguments - those are arguments that claim
>that the existence of god can be proven by intuition and logic
>alone - are fundamentally flawed.
>
>That said, you can disprove this theory very easily by
>replacing God with something else:
>
>1.You think that (---) might or might not exist.
>2.If (---) did not exist,you would not be asking question
>(1).
>3.Therefore (---) exists.
>Q.E.D
>
>If that (---) is elves, fairies, unicorns, the Loch Ness
>monster, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc, does that mean that the
>named things exist? Of course not. This is a fallacious logic

Youre correct,and in fact,many pple have used the same logic to criticise the "proof".
However,you should also factor in the fact that God is the "Most Perfect Thing".If you "define" God as such,then elves,fairies etc cannot apply to the ontological argument..
Let me plagiarise from the net...


"The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th. century A.D. In his Proslogion, St. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being — namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists — can be conceived. But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived — i.e., God — exists.

In the seventeenth century, René Descartes defended a family of similar arguments. For instance, in the Fifth Meditation, Descartes claims to provide a proof demonstrating the existence of God from the idea of a supremely perfect being. Descartes argues that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being who lacks existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose interior angles do not sum to 180 degrees. Hence, he supposes, since we do conceive a supremely perfect being — we do have the idea of a supremely perfect being — we must conclude that a supremely perfect being exists."

By God being Perfect,the mere "Idea" of his existence,merely "conceiving" of Him is proof of his existence......thats Descartes....

Since we think of him being perfect,He cannot NOT exist...thats Anselm......

[koumba]

>>>BUT someone somewhere MUST have "thought" up the Original
>Idea....
>Agreed.
>But someone somewhere, like ATLian said somewhere above, also
>"thought" up the idea of elves, fairies and the likes.



like i have said to Atlian,the Perfectness of God brings about a difference between Him and the elves...

>Rene is popularly loved because of the complexity derived from
>his simple but true statement:
>The fact that WE have the ability to think means that we
>exist. Its a one way statement BTW; it doesn't work
>backwards.
>
>http://www.glpics.com/briansbar/StewieCKsm.gif


Actually some philosophers have worked the idea over backwards and said "I am therefore i think".
Am plagiarising from wikipedia here....

quote:

"I am, therefore I think"

Source: Atlas Shrugged
The axiom "Existence exists" affirms that there is something that exists. This is held to be axiomatic on the account that anyone who denies it has to accept it. For example, to deny that anything exists requires the acceptance that the denial itself exists (this is an analogous argument to Descartes Cogito ergo sum "I think, therefore I am"). That one is able to recognize that something exists leads to the axiom of Consciousness. The axiom of Consciousness affirms that consciousness exists, with consciousness "being the faculty of perceiving that which exists." If one is able to perceive that existence exists, then consciousness must exist. Important in the sequence of this reasoning is that existence is not contingent upon consciousness. Existence does not exist because one is conscious of existence, but rather, one becomes conscious of existence because something exists.

another plagiarism from the net........
"
However, as Bertrand Russell observed, it is much easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with them. This helps to explain why ontological arguments have fascinated philosophers for almost a thousand years"

I agree with this....ontological arguments do sound very fallacious,they sound wrong even before debating..but philosophers have always wondered where the error is....

[reggie_woic]

That may be right Koumba.
After all, the "am" part of it has to be there before the "think" part of it can come in.