I think I have come up with two "proofs" of God's existence.

[Hare_Geist]

Edited.

[jackketch]

You mean 'idea' in the 'en arche ho logos' sense?

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

"God only knows." If God is an all-knowing being, can we really say he doesn't exist?

"If omniscient unicorns are all knowing, can we really say they don't exist?"

Well, we can't be 100% sure anything doesn't exist. But we can use a little common sense and come to the conclusion that an incredible idea with no evidence to back it up probably does not reflect reality.

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

If you don't know X

We can't know anything 100%. Does that mean that everything the imagination can fathom (and can't) exists?

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

, then how can your idea know X?

Ideas don't know things.

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

It can't, and therefore in order to be all knowing, an all knowing being has to exist.

Of course "in order to be all knowing, an all knowing being has to exist." But where did you get "in order to be all knowing" from? Why is this a necessity?

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

God, by definition, can't not be all knowing. Therefore, by definition, God has exist.

Omniscient unicorns by definition, can't not be all knowing. Therefore, by definition, omniscient unicorns have to exist.

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

God, by definition, is an all-knowing being and therefore he has to exist independently of your mind.

Now you're talking a whole different ballgame. Santa exists in the mind of children, but this does not make Santa exist in reality.

Originally Posted by Hare_Geist

One of my own problems is with the statement "in order for your idea to know something, you have to know it too". Do you? Perhaps this could be a healthy place for the discussion to start.

You think your own ideas can know things that you don't?

Ideas are conceptions of the mind that can be true or false, right or wrong. They don't know anything.

I know we've rejected this argument already; I just felt like commenting.

in order to be all knowing, an all knowing being has to exist.

I think you make the same mistake that Anselm did. In order for God to be all-knowing, he has to exist; but this is the same as with any other quality. In order to be made of something, a chair has to exist. Otherwise it's not actually made of anything, but non-existent; however, you are perfectly free to attribute any quality to your idea within the realm-of-ideas. Like the concept of a "smallest Martian"; in order to be the quality "smallest", a Martian has to exist.

You are merely stating "in order to have a quality, x has to exist." I would modify it, though, to "in order to have a quality in reality, x has to exist in reality." It can still have qualities when considered as an idea, as the idea of x existing already has "encoded" within it the idea that it exists.

If that makes sense.

If you do not know something, then your idea cannot either. If your idea cannot know something, then it cannot be said to be omniscient. - If your idea knows everything, then you know everything. - Either your idea knows everything, therefore you know everything, and therefore an omniscient being exists, or else your ideas is not all knowing and therefore in order for it to be all-knowing, it has to exist outside your mind. God, by definition, is an all-knowing being and therefore he has to exist independently of your mind.

Same thing here; your idea doesn't know everything, but rather the thing that would exist were your idea true would know everything.

[Rizzo in a box]

you're so mixed up in words you don't know front from back.

Originally Posted by Rizzo in a box

you're so mixed up in words you don't know front from back.

nigga that honky on crack