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[Flying Dice]

It was a lot of work mangling and obscurifying (shh) that reference.


Incidentally...


*Spend whole class listening to an echochamber lead by the professor accepting Anselm's Ontological Argument without question.*

Professor: "Hey, [Dice], want to join the academic debate team for your dorm?"


I swear, it's like the world is conspiring to force me to become some sort of desk-destroying monster.

[The Darkling Wolf]

I quite like Comic Sans.

Are you a duck?

Not last time I checked.

[Reelya]

It was a lot of work mangling and obscurifying (shh) that reference.


Incidentally...


*Spend whole class listening to an echochamber lead by the professor accepting Anselm's Ontological Argument without question.*

Professor: "Hey, [Dice], want to join the academic debate team for your dorm?"


I swear, it's like the world is conspiring to force me to become some sort of desk-destroying monster.

"And assuredly, a penis longer than any which can be conceived cannot exist in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality, which is greater."

I just slightly paraphrased Anselm's Ontological Argument to prove the existence of inconceivably giant dongs. I can actually conceive of planet-sized dongs. How big is the real "space dong"?

[SealyStar]

My calculus teacher seems to love Comic Sans, and every paper she gives us seems to be typed in it.

I personally don't like it, but I'll accept it.

[Flying Dice]

It was a lot of work mangling and obscurifying (shh) that reference.


Incidentally...


*Spend whole class listening to an echochamber lead by the professor accepting Anselm's Ontological Argument without question.*

Professor: "Hey, [Dice], want to join the academic debate team for your dorm?"


I swear, it's like the world is conspiring to force me to become some sort of desk-destroying monster.

"And assuredly, a penis longer than any which can be conceived cannot exist in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality, which is greater."

I just slightly paraphrased Anselm's Ontological Argument to prove the existence of inconceivably giant dongs. I can actually conceive of planet-sized dongs. How big is the real "space dong"?

I've been working on a way to counter it on two fronts as succinctly as possible, in order to prevent interjections:

One of the most basic ways to test an argument is by preserving the form but removing the subject. In this case, remove all instances of 'God' and replace them with '[whatever]'. [yadda yadda] as you can see, the form of the argument is invalid in this case, therefore it is invalid in every case.

In Anselm's reply to Gaunilo he essentially states that the argument is not invalidated because God is special. For the sake of the discussion, I'll assume in this instance that God, if he existed, would indeed have a special ability which makes invalid arguments into valid ones if they are being used to prove that He exists. Anselm assumes that this special ability of God's is in effect (otherwise he would be forced to admit that his argument is invalid), therefore he is also assuming that God exists, as the special ability would not take effect if God did not exist in reality.

In other words, Anselm has an unstated 0th premise in his Ontological Argument: "God exists in reality." This 0th premise makes the rest of the argument irrelevant, as it can effectively be shortened to this:

"God exists in reality.

Therefore, God exists in reality."

So then, if we do not accept as a matter of faith that God exists, then Anselm's argument is invalid. If we do accept that God exists, then it is circular reasoning.
___

Any fat to trim there? More importantly, how much will I piss off the fundies, on a scale of One to Lynch Mob?

[bombzero]

It was a lot of work mangling and obscurifying (shh) that reference.


Incidentally...


*Spend whole class listening to an echochamber lead by the professor accepting Anselm's Ontological Argument without question.*

Professor: "Hey, [Dice], want to join the academic debate team for your dorm?"


I swear, it's like the world is conspiring to force me to become some sort of desk-destroying monster.

"And assuredly, a penis longer than any which can be conceived cannot exist in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality, which is greater."

I just slightly paraphrased Anselm's Ontological Argument to prove the existence of inconceivably giant dongs. I can actually conceive of planet-sized dongs. How big is the real "space dong"?

I've been working on a way to counter it on two fronts as succinctly as possible, in order to prevent interjections:

One of the most basic ways to test an argument is by preserving the form but removing the subject. In this case, remove all instances of 'God' and replace them with '[whatever]'. [yadda yadda] as you can see, the form of the argument is invalid in this case, therefore it is invalid in every case.

In Anselm's reply to Gaunilo he essentially states that the argument is not invalidated because God is special. For the sake of the discussion, I'll assume in this instance that God, if he existed, would indeed have a special ability which makes invalid arguments into valid ones if they are being used to prove that He exists. Anselm assumes that this special ability of God's is in effect (otherwise he would be forced to admit that his argument is invalid), therefore he is also assuming that God exists, as the special ability would not take effect if God did not exist in reality.

In other words, Anselm has an unstated 0th premise in his Ontological Argument: "God exists in reality." This 0th premise makes the rest of the argument irrelevant, as it can effectively be shortened to this:

"God exists in reality.

Therefore, God exists in reality."

So then, if we do not accept as a matter of faith that God exists, then Anselm's argument is invalid. If we do accept that God exists, then it is circular reasoning.
___

Any fat to trim there? More importantly, how much will I piss off the fundies, on a scale of One to Lynch Mob?

Sounds good so far. I like it, nice and succinct while getting the point across hard.

Oh, "Lynch Mob" btw, fundamentalists don't like people using rational thought, at all.

[Reelya]

Yeah i facepalmed a while ago while reading about Gaunilo and Anselm. Anselm claimed the flaws in the Ontological Argument didn't matter because it only applied for beings with a "necessary existence". That's the biggest cop-out and circular logic ever, since that's the specific thing the argument is claiming to prove.

There are really two extra axioms used in this extension:

"God has a necessary existence"
"This rest of the argument only applies for things with a necessary existence"

[Oliolli]

* Oliolli grabs The God Delusion.

It was somewhere in here...

AH! Here it is!

p. 107-108
Douglas Gasking's ontological argument about god's non-existance.

1. The creation of the world is the most marvellous achievment imagunable.

2. The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, an (b) the ability of its creator.

3. The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.

4. The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existance.

5. Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can convince a greater being - namely, one who created everything while not existing.

6. An existing God therefore would not be a being of which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which does not exist.

Ergo:

7. God does not exist.

[Loud Whispers]

And that's why I worship the God of non-existence. You can never go wrong!

[miauw62]

Ancient Roman/Greek gods were far better than gods today. I dont think i know a myth where noone got laid.
Today's god is all boring and restrictive.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Ancient Greek gods either spent their entire time going around raping things, or screwing over mortals for funsies.

[Loud Whispers]

Not really. A lot of the Gods were really practical. For example Zeus, averter of flies.

We stopped sacrificing to him. Guess what we have a lot of today?

Atheists: 0
Monotheists: 0
Pagans: 1

[MaximumZero]

Not really. A lot of the Gods were really practical. For example Zeus, averter of flies.

We stopped sacrificing to him. Guess what we have a lot of today?

Atheists: 0
Monotheists: 0
Pagans: 1

I don't really buy that. We stopped sacrificing stuff to Thor a long time ago, and yet there's still no frost giants.

[Loud Whispers]

Not really. A lot of the Gods were really practical. For example Zeus, averter of flies.

We stopped sacrificing to him. Guess what we have a lot of today?

Atheists: 0
Monotheists: 0
Pagans: 1

I don't really buy that. We stopped sacrificing stuff to Thor a long time ago, and yet there's still no frost giants.

You don't worship the Norse Gods by sacrificing though. You do it by fighting.

Last I checked humanity's always been at war somewhere, and there are no frost giants.

PAAAAGAAAAAAANS: 2

[Loud Whispers]

surely sacrifice would attract more flies to the corpses?

/fire