Alf

The argument is non-sense. It confuses the "idea of God" with "God".

I can have very specific ideas of fictional persons and creatures such as Gandalf, Gollum, Spiderman etc etc it does not in any way imply that any of them actually exist.

God is just one more fictional being described in the bible which is just another collection of fictional stories.

Nobody claims that there are no believers of god. That people believe there is a god and that those people believe this idea of god is real doesn't mean they are necessarily right.

Alf

Alf

Oh there are occationally theists who make the argument so the argument is real enough. However, as you see for yourself it is a particularly stupid argument that no reasonable person will buy under normal circumstances so its persuasive power is nil.

Alf

Alf

This line of argumentation stems from a platonic view. It is odd that there are people who still do that given that Aristotle put Plato properly in place in his attack on Platonic forms.

According to Plato we call a horse a horse because we existed in some ideal world prior to being born. In this ideal world there were the ideal horse, the ideal dog etc and when we see things in the world that resemble these ideas we recognize the idea and call the thing "horse" because it resembles the "ideal horse" we remember from this pre-existence.

Pure and utter bullshit but if you were to buy this explanation then the reason why we can think of "God" must be because God exist in some "ideal world" and because "God" is by definition perfect it must be the same "God" and not just some thing that resemble the "ideal God".

Aristotle already debunked it and came up with the following explanation why get the concept of "horse" or "ideal horse" if you like.

We see one animal that resemble a horse and we call it "horse". Ancient philosophers didn't really bother to study how children learn language but in modern times we could have told Aristotle that parents typically tell the children that "this is a horse" and this is how the child gets the idea that it is a "horse".

Later, if the child see another horse it will again hear the parents say "this is a horse" and being the pattern recognition machine our brains our it quickly find that "horse" is not the specific name to that first horse but is a label we use to reference any horse, past, present and future animals that are encountered that matches this pattern is therefore "horse". Thus, the concept of "horse" is created.

Later, when the child see another animal it might call it "horse" but parents will quickly correct the child and tell it that "this is a cow". Thus, the child learn that some things are "horse" and other things are "not horse" or specifically "cow". Thus, it learns to accurately look for what characteristics are important when calling something horse and not.

Based on this, the "concept of horse" is something that comes from observing several individual "horse" objects and several individual "not horse" objects and thus gradually learn what constitute a "horse" and not.

From this it is unproblematic to see that this "ideal world" is not necessary to explain how we can recognize multiple objects to belong to the same category.
It is also unproblematic to see how we can make up things that have no real referent such as a unicorn or pegasi. We can simply combine the idea of "horse" with the idea of "horn" on the nose or "wing" respectively. We have seen horses and we have seen species with wings and combing them gives us pegasi.

Thus, attempting to claim that "God must exist because we have the idea of God and this idea can only exist if God exist" is utter bunk.

Alf

exile

True. However metaphysics is full of duff arguments like this so I'm not surprised few people bother with it any more.

ThorsHammer

I don't believe in the invisible pink unicorn, so that proves it exists.

EnterTheBowser

I think this argument is a version of the Argument from Stupidity:
1) No one could have made up something this stupid
2) Therefore it has divine origin
3) Therefore God exists!

Alf

I believe because it is absurd comes to mind here.

Alf

His Noodly Appendage

Do you believe in Invisible Pus People who sneak into your bedroom every night and lick your feet while you're asleep?

No?

Well, then it's obvious that they must exist, then, in order for you to not believe in them.