Sunday, May 24, 2009

Ontological Argument

V requested that I write about
"Anything, everything, something.
Just not nothing."
So I've decided to be facetious and write about exactly that, mixed in with some philosophy, because I guess that's interesting to read about.  Mike Campochiaro, a YouTube theist, once used something called the "Ontological Argument."  I swear, he must be a satirist, because this is the best argument I've heard from him, and it's a pretty pathetic argument.  It goes something (but not necessarily) like this.

Premises
1. You can imagine god
2. God is a perfect being
3. Existing is more perfect than non-existing
Conclusion
4. God must exist

Okay, I probably shouldn't have to explain why this is a preposterous argument that deserves no merit, but I will anyways.  Premise 1 and 2 are a bit shaky by themselves.  How do you define a perfect being? Can the human brain imagine perfection? But beyond all that, premise 3 is an incredibly pompous assumption.  How do you know existing is more perfect? In fact, I would think that non-existence is more perfect! Logically speaking, perfection cannot exist.  Since the universe is subjective, you can't explain anything in non-relative terms, therefore, perfection is an illogical concept.  For example, saying that god is a perfect being is really just saying that he's the most powerful thing you can imagine.  There could always be something better than him, your imagination is just too feeble to conceive of it.  Subjectivity.

1 comment:

Eddie O'Reilly said...

Brilliant! I love the way your mind works. It's such a pleasure to read your posts.