The Ontological Argument proves that God exists!

Wishful Thinking - The Poverty of a priori ThinkingThomas Aquinas did not misunderstand the argument any more than Plantinga. He simply wasn’t as semantically clever in his intentions. My section in R2 regarding a priori thinking was to set up my forthcoming argument supporting a lack of reason and the qualitative abundance of assumptions in any Ontological Argument and how a priori reasoning is not pragmatically valid for knowing the nature of God (as Aquinas would say) let alone knowing the nature of reality.Changing God’s propertiesTo bolster his argument Pro has decided to manipulate(a common theological practice) God’s properties to better fit his interpretation of the Ontological Argument which itself has undergone it’s own numerous manipulations, which incidentally has over a seemingly never ending loop of changes for once again, bolstering intentions. Pro softens God’s mercy by removing the debt of responsibility that is endorsed and that the religiously faithful are coerced into aspiring. It’s not particularly nonsensical to make changes to an experiment if one were to have ambitions to use a scientific method to support a shaky theory; but doing so with un-empirical/a priori data to support a semantic word game that alters the original hypothesis is hardly scientific or reasonable.and regarding foreknowledge...[1] If an omniscient entity could always "know" how to create new information it doesn't already know, it's never "omniscient", and never will be or could be. This becomes a problem of infinite regress that invalidates the premise of being "omniscient". It even invalidates "omnipotence" because it could never make itself "omniscient" if it could infinitely create new information it doesn't already know. Thus the premises by their nature self collapse, and are regarded in such a paradox as impossible concepts.1. goo.gl/ijMUSThe Irony of ParodyPro is confused about the purpose of including Kant’s objection to Anselm’s deceptive card and Gasking’s parody of the Ontological Argument. It’s presentation is obviously not meant to validate Plantinga’s argument when Gasking displayed it’s compatibility with non-existence, it is meant to trivialize its premise by emphasizing its tautology. Pro clearly quantifies his opinions by rebutting that existence is greater than non-existence (another instance of a priori reasoning, only further tainted by opinionative intention). For whatever intention I cannot practically fathom how Pro could be seduced by a priori’s charm rather than that of empirical data.The problem with modal logicPlantinga uses modal logic to bolster the Ontological Argument. I could do no better than to quote Chris Hallquist:[1] “Now Plantinga is not so crazy as to claim that his argument actually proves the existence of God, or to insist people must grant his assumption that God is possible. Instead, he says that it’s reasonable to believe that it’s possible that God exists, and therefore it’s reasonable to think that God exists. But again, by analogy with mathematics, we can see that this is a silly way to argue.Imagine two mathematicians, Alice and Bob, arguing over whether it’s reasonable to believe the Goldbach conjecture. Alice argues that the Goldbach conjecture is unproven, and we should not believe unproven mathematical claims. Bob concedes that it is unproven, but says the Goldbach conjecture seems true to him, and it’s reasonable for him to believe it on that basis.Now, you may agree with Alice here, or you may agree with Bob, but imagine Bob tried to strengthen his position by saying, “Well, surely you agree that it’s at least reasonable for me to believe that the Goldbach conjecture is possibly true. But if I believe the Goldbach conjecture is possibly true, S5 allows me to infer that it is true. So it’s reasonable for me to believe the Goldbach conjecture.” This is a silly argument. Even if you think Bob is reasonable to believe the Goldbach conjecture, this can’t be the reason why.So, not only does Plantinga’s argument fail to prove the existence of God, it fails even in Plantinga’s stated goal of showing that belief in God is reasonable. Both of those points are totally obvious once you realize that you could give a Plantinga-style argument for any purported necessary truth, in particular truths of mathematics. If Plantinga’s argument had been something tacked to a bulletin board on a graduate student lounge as a joke, it wouldn’t have been bad as academic in-jokes go. But as a serious argument it’s worthless.”What he seems to be arguing is “hey look, if you take modal logic seriously, you could prove anything in mathematics this way, but that’s absurd.” Chris responds to this by adding:“Well, no. No absurdities result from merely “taking modal logic seriously.” To get to the point where you can prove anything with modal logic, you have to do a combination of two things: (1) accept S5 and (2) think you can just assume things are possible. I’m okay with (1) and think the problem is with (2). You could also avoid the absurdities by rejecting S5. Either way, it undermines Plantinga’s argument.”[1] goo.gl/fsmx3All Minds are Pragmatic Solipsistic Minds“P3: If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.”What a conclusion for Pro to make! Assumptions about any connection between your own mind and others are only valid in a pragmatic sense. Making assertions about the absolute is no more than hypothesis. The term "exists" is used for those things which adequately exhibit things which offer brute physical resistance to our movements but absolute existence is impenetrable from attempts to crack its nature by a being with mere sensory data.Even after all of life’s empirical pragmatism, the only absolute exists in the mind. A lonely solipsistic mind. [1] Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure.This is not to say that we don’t participate in life pragmatically. We follow the seemingly empirical rules of life like any other seeminly existent mind. Pants, food, walking... all basic actions (traditions?) that we seem to learn instinctively with no problem due to a seeming compatibility with empirical surroundings. We accept these basic truths pragmatically but there’s no reason other than faith to succomb to their fallacies philosophically.With limited sensory data, the misconnection of minds is most easily understood using an old [2] philosophical question as to whether you see the same red as I do. Maybe your red is my green, or some other color that I cannot imagine. Philosophers cite this question as one that can never be answered and fits into Dawkins realm of Permanent Agnosticism in Practice (PAP) which is something unknown that is permanently inescapable.However historically astonished pragmatists are when mocking the lonely solipsists cries of the unknown in expounding the social character of consciousness, they remain baffled and can only absolutely accept in good faith any assertions of social consciousness. This view of consciousness (like the PAP color red) is settled forever in the realm of hypothetical subjection as it is unknowable as to whether absolute outer realities ever come within one’s own stream of private consciousness.1. goo.gl/JWAEz2. goo.gl/AXGbyWhat this truly illustrates is not that we are really all solipsistic and not presented with a real version of reality. Rather, it shows the irrationality of concluding that you know any better for non-pragmatic purposes. Between atheists and theologians it is impossible to know which argument is more valid. Furthermore, the coherence of asserting that an external God exists is no more plausible than any other externally fictitious or real thing unless you rely on practical empirical data for pragmatic purposes, which theologians fail to do in the search for God.