HRG

xian,

we are still waiting for your definition of the relationship "greater than" so we can check

1) whether it is well-defined;
2) whether it is a linear ordering (i.e. for any two A and B, either A>B or B>A);
3) whether the set of all conceivable entities has a greatest element under this ordering (Cantor's Theorem indicates otherwise).

Only after these steps we can deal with

4) whether the attributes you claim for the GPB (whose existence depends on 2) and 3) ) are actually implied by your definition of "greater than". Right now, all we have is your bare assertion.

My personal bet is that 3) will turn out to be false, which makes the GPB as inconsistent as the GNN (greatest natural number).

regards,
HRG.

Grumpy

I can buy the idea of there being no-more-than one Greatest Possible Being. To me, this is the consequence of the godly quality of "perfection" - read: completeness - rather than "infinitude." Two similar great beings would necessarily be separate, lacking the other.

Yet I can also imagine that these beings could interleave, like the infinite sets of odd and even numbers. They could cooperate, simultaneously absorbing one into the other. Basically, the magnitude of a great being is not necessarily nullified by the existence of other beings of equal stature.

And, in the end, this ontological argument has the same flaws as all the others. Simply conceiving of a GPB does not automatically entail that it actually exist (as the Greatest Actual Being might tell you).

Aside: here's how I stumped Anselm's Ontological Argument in philosophy class: Who is more powerful, Superman or Woody Allen?

To be fair, Yahweh or whoever should be in that same list, rather than assuming that only the alternatives are "all a deception." Why should anyone assume that the object of monotheistic worship is the default possessor of the GPB's properties? Because people have believed so for centuries? Not good enough.

Valmorian

This isn't the definition of the Judeo Christian God from what >I< have read of the Bible. He certainly seems limited to many degrees in there, and displays an alarming level of incompetence for a supposedly 'omniscient' being.


Even if we disregard the Bible, you are assuming the GPB will have the quality 'infinite' and 'omnipotent'. While that would be the Greatest Being, what makes you think that such a being is POSSIBLE?

Unless, of course, you mean 'logically possible', which says absolutely nothing about the actual existence of such a being. Hell, people who can explode planets by concentrating hard on them is LOGICALLY possible, but that doesn't mean they exist, or are even likely to.

Dr Rick

That is no more true than if the Judeo Christian God has the attributes of the GPB, then you no longer have the Judeo Christian God, but you have the GPB. Giving the GPB a "name" is simply assigning characters to the summation of the attributes.

...or the Judeo Christian God. Since they don't exist in nature, you can call whatever deity you make-up whatever you want and ascribe it whatever attributes you want.

You're still just arguing a Strawman, xian. The IPU argument is not that gods can't or don't exist, nor is it about what you call them. It's just that whatever god I can dream up and name can exist as readily as the Judeo Christian God you invented. The IPU is no less possible than the Judeo Christian God. It can be the GBP if that is how I define it just as the Judeo Christian God can be the GBP if that is how you define it.




You need to include the Judeo Christian God in that list, and the deception comes from anyone insisting that the Judeo Christian God and not the IPU must be the GBP.

If you claim that the Judeo Christian God is the GPB, an IPU believer may point-out that you are wrong and that the IPU is the GRP, because that is how he defines it, if he wants to.

...and you can call that GPB the IPU.

Rick

Oxymoron

Greatest? What metric are we using here?

a-infinite or c-infinite?

With respect to what, exactly? I thought God was meant to be the standard for morality. Now you are implying that its morality can be measured against something else. I wonder what that something else could be? Meta-God? Argh! An infinite regress of deities! You don't believe in one God, you believe in an a-infinite number of them!

Prayer must be very wearing.

Mageth

I've made this point before, but if the GPB/God has no external moral standard by which to act, then it is by definition amoral, not moral.

xian

glad to hear that you see the difference between a deity you "dream up" and the GPB. Your point in this latest reply is that the J/C God is different from the GPB similar to the IPU being different from the GPB.

However, I define the J/C God as the GPB. The Bible defines God as the GPB. Since you are defining the IPU with the logically necessary attributes of the GPB, then I have no problem with you, except that the ASCII characters you ascribed to the GPB are a bit bizzarre. And furthermore, defining the IPU as the GPB is simply defining the IPU as the J/C God of the Bible (GPB). All you are doing is taking the pre-existing logical attributes of the GPB (J/C God) and assigning a new ASCII character sequence to the pre-existing defintion of God. The pre-existing definition of God that existed prior to the 3 characters "I", "P", "U" remains fully intact after the assignment of those charracters to that pre-existing definition of God.
i see we indeed have little to dispute.

Mageth

The Bible defines God as the GPB.

Just for clarity, could you post some scriptures to back this up?

(Obviously, there's not a verse in the bible that explicitly says "The Judeo-Christian God is the Greatest Possible Being as defined by xian," so that's not what I'm asking for; merely some scripture references that back up this claim.)

xian

naaa. as you rightly say, there is no one single verse that states "God is the GPB". This is a holistic understanding of God based on a holistic understanding of the Bible. There would literally be hundreds of scriptures to cite, of which I know would be a waste of time.

In the modern atheist/theist debate world, holistic arguments and holistic proofs are nearly impossible to demonstrate in a forum where arguments are piece-mealed and diced apart one sentence...or fragment...at a time. In general, when someone makes a holistic case for something, it is not taken holistically, but piece-mealed. You can see this even at a basic level. When I make a post, people will respond to each sentence....or even a part of a sentence, rather than the post as a whole.

In short, I believe it is virtually impossible to make a holistic argument with an atheist because they simply will not grant you that kind of methodology. Therefore, an attempt to do such is futile. The case for the J/C God = GPB is completely a holistic one.

Hawkingfan

xian,

Please explain why the Islamic GPB (Allah) sends followers of the J/C GPB to hell and vice versa. The GPB's are defined the same.