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I've read about modal ontological arguments for the existence of God, and it seems some atheists think that the same sort of argument can be used to argue the non-existence of God:
1. If God exists, God is necessary.
2. It is possibly the case that God doesn't exist.
3. Therefore God is not necessary.
4. Therefore God doesn't exist (modus tollens, from 1)
So /lit/, what's wrong with this argument?
>>470001
fug, not >/lit/, but /his/ Copypasted this from there, but they said I should post it here.
>>470001
Define God, and list all its attributes, and we can maybe quantify the possibility of its existence.
>modal logic
Complete trash. Next
2 and 3 don't seem mutually exclusive.
>thinking HUMAN logic can prove or disprove a DEITY
>conclude a two definites based from a "possibility"
Christfags BTFO yet again, m'comrade? How is your Logic 101 tutor reacting to your assignments?
>>470001
Why do you assume that God is subject to Human paradoxes ?
These are just words.
Faulty observers. We BELIEVE that it is possibly the case that God doesn't exist. That does not mean that God is not necessary in some way that we cannot sufficiently observe.
>>470096
>That does not mean that God is not necessary in some way that we cannot sufficiently observe.
Nor that he is necessary, because this assessment is based on ignorance
>>470121
i do it all the time
>>470121
I don't care at all about metaphysics. This had precisely zero consequences in my life.
What does that tell you?
>>470363
Could any of you anons help a brother out?
>>470001
This is all I've got:
1. People could spend less time arguing about something they can never prove, on either side.
2. Science tells us about the Big Bang creation, but not a clue of what was there before that, why it happened on that day, so on.
3. Religion seems to be a comfort mechanism for people to deal with friends/family passing away, and the fact that they will too.
4. Religion seems to keep people in line in ways that laws don't. Example: I would have killed a couple people for reasons, and got away with it by planning well ahead (most fools are caught by doing shit on the spur of the moment). But even not being religious, I still wonder about my soul and the afterlife. So two asshole still live. Good? Fuck if I know.
>>470001
>>470422
To go just a bit deeper, there is an unknown quantity that we don't have even a remote handle on.
In the same way that scientists use the terms "dark matter/dark energy" as a placeholder for forces they have no clue about, we might need God for a long time to come. Or He's real and you meet Him someday.
>>470001
>1. If God exists, God is necessary.
why?
>>470001
TayTay isn't god, Alanis Morissette is
Source: Dogma
>>470444
So theres this argument in contemporary natural theology called the modal ontological argument. The main meat of this argument is that one can prove from fairly weak axioms in S5 modal logic that if God (defned as a 'maximally exellant being', whatever that means) exists in any possible world, He exists in all possible worlds. So the entire argument goes like this:
1. If it is possible for there to be God, then God necesserily exist. (From the modal ontological argument).
2. It is possible for there to be a God.
3. So God necesserily exists.
OP is asking about the possiblity of turning this argument on its head. So, lets say that we admit to (1), we could formulate an atheistic argument like so:
1. If it is possible for there to be God, then God necesserily exists. (From the modal ontological argument).
2. It is possible that God does not exist.
3. God does not necesserily exist (from 2)
4. Therefore, it is not possible for there to be a God.
>>470001
Nothing wrong with the argument to me. Honestly, I think that the modal ontological argument simply results in a repositioned stalemate between theists and atheists. But whereas before the two groups were arguming for and against the *actual* existence of God, they now mist argue for and against the *possible* existence of God. Now, perhaps this is progress, but honestly I don't see how either group has more a priori justification for their respecive premises (i.e. "God does/not possibly exist").
Basically, the fact that the argument can be reversed so easily shows it to be something of a failure. Though, perhaps the argument could be interpreted as a sucessful proof that God either necesserily exists or necesserily does not exist, and in that sense the argument is very important for natural theology, and in some sense marks some definate progress within the field.
>>471424
It's a little more nuanced than this thread would suggest. The original modal argument seems to rely on the notion of formal possibility (i.e. if possibly, then necessarily/actually) in that the existence of God could only be denied on account of its logical impossibility. Given the attributes conventionally ascribed to him, God couldn't have fallen out of existence, nor could he not yet have come into existence; ergo if he does not exist, it must be justified by a contradiction in terms/logical impossibility, as the non-existence of a square circle would. If, however, his existence is logically possible, he must exist.
That's more or less the starting point for medieval ontological argumentation, and demonstrates that the whole schema is not as simple as 'well, we can't know for certain whether God's out there, therefore it's a possibility that he is/isn't, therefore he's not necessary.'
>>470001
>1. If God exists, God is necessary.
What makes you think this?
