There is no logical proof for the existance of God.

Hey Marsupial -- thanks for challenging me to the debate. I'm going to respond to your arguments one by one, starting with Anselm's proofs. To summarize Anselm's 1st proof: 1) God is the "Greatest Possible Being" that can be imagined. 2) Existance in reality is greater than existance in the imagination ---------- 3) Therefore, God must exist in reality. If God did not exist in reality, then God would not be the 'Greatest Possible Being' because existance in reality is greater than existance in the imagination. My main problem with this argument is Part #2. How is something less great because it does not exist in reality? How is greatness measured? Let's imagine a ruthless serial murderer and rapist. Would it be more great to have this person exist in reality instead of only existing in my imagination? In order for this proof to work, you will have to prove that existance in reality is greater than existance in the imagination. And even then, how is "greatness" defined? (going back to Part #1)I would disagree if you said that the Judeo-Christian God is the "greatest possible being" that can be imagined. In the Old Testament, God commands genocide, war, and rape. He condones the stoning of adulterers and the killing of those who lie to their parents. To me, this is not the greatest possible being I can imagine, because any God who didn't authorize killing and raping would be far better (in my opinion). So this would seem to invalidate the first point as well. Now to the necessity argument. You say "If it can't exist, you can't imagine it." Right now, I am imagining that giant squirrels are juggling the Earth, Mars, and Venus like a clown would juggle tennis balls. And I can imagine this, so according to your argument, it must be possible that these giant squirrels exist and are juggling the planets! Now I can't disprove anything 100%, but I think we can agree that this is as close to impossible as it gets. Then the proof goes, "Being a necessary being is greater than being an unnecessary being". Similar to the "Greatest possible being" argument...how can you define what is greater? How can you define whether a being is necessary or unnecessary? Moving on...you say "as to why the earth sucks: (poverty, violence,etc.)" First, let me make one thing clear. I am an atheist and I do not think the world sucks. I know, many Christians out there are dropping their jaws right now. Everyone seems to think that atheists don't believe in God because they say "earth sucks so bad that there just cant be a god." Most of the atheists I have met don't feel that way, and neither do I. You say "this world is the greatest of all possible outcomes". I think that's bullshit -- there are an infinite number of possible outcomes, and how do you know this is the greatest? you have nothing to compare it to! On to the complexity argument: We agree on one point - being in favor of the "if there is a simple solution available, there's no reason to posit a more complex solution." So we both seem to agree that, between God and evolution, the more simple beginning is the one that more likely occurred. But now let me argue that God would be more complex than biological evolution. Evolution suggests that all living organisms evolved from a common ancestor. Through mutations and the invisible forces of natural selection, that common ancestors children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, etc. etc.) become more complex. Wouldn't you agree that all of the plants and animals we see today are more complex than a single-celled organism? And evolution suggests that we all came from this single-cell organism, so it would suggest a very simple beginning. God, on the other hand, would have to be extremely complex. If there were a God who created everything, he would have to possess the knowledge of how to create the Universe, which in itself would require that he was more complex than the Universe he was creating. Therefore, since part of that Universe includes single-cell organisms, God would have to be more complex than that single-cell organism he is creating. In addition, if God were all-powerful and all-knowing, and if he could simultaneously listen/respond to billions of prayers, and if he could know the future for ETERNITY, then he would surely have to be more complex than the single-cell organism which evolution would require. So in conclusion, it seems that evolution would suggest a much more simple beginning to life than the explanation of God. (I should point out that evolution does not explain the origin of the Universe, just the evolution of living organisms on Earth. So we can't say that the universe was created by either God or evolution. But since you brought it up in your argument I thought it would be appropriate to reply to.) Looking forward to the next post.