The Greatest Conceivable being???

Putting aside Anselm's argument (which I think is flawed anyway - merely by a few trivial substitutions) Some theists (I suspect many) hold that their formulation of "God" is the greatest conceivable being. Now If we suppose hypothetically, that such a god exists (and say it's your god Reveal Hidden Content for argument sake), then it should be true we cannot conceive of a better world or state of events than that which we live in/ experience respectively.[1] Thus if your "God" is the greatest conceivable being then a world in which bodies succumb to cancer, babies are drowned, people are slowly burnt to death, and so on... is the greatest conceivable world! 😕



-----------------------------------------------------------
1) Since otherwise the "God" we're supposing is maximally great did not bring about a world that was within a creator of the universe's potential to improve - and so would be bettered by one that did.

Originally posted by Agerg
Putting aside Anselm's argument (which I think is flawed anyway - merely by a few trivial substitutions) Some theists (I suspect many) hold that their formulation of "God" is the greatest conceivable being. Now If we suppose hypothetically, that such a god exists (and say it's your god [hidden](assuming you, the reader of this post, believe in \"God\" and agre ...[text shortened]... t was within it's potential to improve - and so would be bettered by one that did.

Are you confused or something?

Take the whole, not just the part if you're going to try to put God in your little box.

The earth is God's torture chamber. 🙄

Originally posted by josephw
Are you confused or something?

Take the whole, not just the part if you're going to try to put God in your little box.

The earth is God's torture chamber. 🙄

No I'm not confused josephw; I'm merely assuming (for arguments sake) what you hold to be true and then taking it to it's logical conclusion. I have no problems whatsoever with the supposition "God is the greatest conceivable being" is false. You however, I assume, think the statement is true - and so I can challenge this by searching for as many counter examples as I choose until the cows come home; those suggested in the OP are just my opening offerings - much more to come if pressed.

Originally posted by Agerg
No I'm not confused josephw; I'm merely assuming (for arguments sake) what you hold to be true and then taking it to it's logical conclusion.

If you knew what I knew to be true about God you would realize that you haven't taken anything to its' logical conclusion.

But it is complicated, and I don't have all the answers. The Bible tells a long and complex story about God.

Maybe we could analyze some things in greater detail, but that may prove to be difficult given the fact that you don't believe God exists.

Originally posted by josephw
If you knew what I knew to be true about God you would realize that you haven't taken anything to its' logical conclusion.

But it is complicated, and I don't have all the answers. The Bible tells a long and complex story about God.

Maybe we could analyze some things in greater detail, but that may prove to be difficult given the fact that you don't believe God exists.

Given that you "don't have all the answers" I'm not so sure I trust your first paragraph. But anyway let's go slowly...

Is a worldReveal Hidden Contentwhere Hitler didn't get struck by lightning before his rise to power better than a world where millions of jews were not tortured/killed, and millions of people did not die painful deaths trying to help put an end to a madman's evil schemes?

Originally posted by Agerg
Given that you "don't have all the answers" I'm not so sure I trust your first paragraph. But anyway let's go slowly...

Is a world[hidden](that has no shortage of a-holes presently to partly preempt your next response)[/hidden]where Hitler didn't get struck by lightning before his rise to power better than a world where millions of jews were not tortured, a ...[text shortened]... ons of people did not die painful deaths trying to put an end to a madman's evil schemes?

Excuse me Agerg. I have to go now. I will return and answer. It may be a few days.

Originally posted by Agerg
Putting aside Anselm's argument (which I think is flawed anyway - merely by a few trivial substitutions) Some theists (I suspect many) hold that their formulation of "God" is the greatest conceivable being. Now If we suppose hypothetically, that such a god exists (and say it's your god [hidden](assuming you, the reader of this post, believe in \"God\" and agre ...[text shortened]... of the universe's potential to improve - and so would be bettered by one that did.

First of all there has never been one single person who has drowned, been burnt, or given cancer.....for the body is dust and not the real person.

Originally posted by Agerg
Putting aside Anselm's argument (which I think is flawed anyway - merely by a few trivial substitutions) Some theists (I suspect many) hold that their formulation of "God" is the greatest conceivable being. Now If we suppose hypothetically, that such a god exists (and say it's your god [hidden](assuming you, the reader of this post, believe in \"God\" and agre of the universe's potential to improve - and so would be bettered by one that did.

I think the believers would say their god is king of the universe, but if there is in fact a multiverse, which I tend to believe in, if said god is king only of this universe, we can in fact conceive of a god greater than the usual christian affair. They of course would counter that saying if there is a multiverse, it would be king of all of it, multi's included, all of them, even if that turns out to be infinite, and also the failed universes also, say where the speed of light is one meter per year and no matter formed, only photons. It would presumably be king of that one also, why I don't know.

Before the concept of multiverses came about, our universe was thought of as THE universe when in fact it might just be a pimple squirting out of a much larger previous one and others squirting out of ours so christians would have to have taken that concept over and basically remade their god in the light of new information, so we would have in that case an extreme expansion of godhoodness that didn't exist before, only taken over by christians to artificially say their god covers all those other universes as well, just so they can claim the entire thing where this jealous, vengeful, insane, THING that they claim would be able to rule over ALL of whatever science can conceive of, of course not them till it was pointed out there may be many more universes than what we seem to be living in.

If we later theorized even the multiverse we hypothesize now is not complete but only a subset of an even larger entity, they would never claim their god is ruler of that too, till a scientist made the conjecture about it, THEN they would say, oh, he is king over that as well, get the pattern?

Remember, before Galileo came around and really pissed off the pope, they thought the universe consisted of a big bowl in the sky with light bulbs shining through and the earth stood still and the whole universe they saw revolved around US, so their god was king of that rather small universe.

Then when planets were found, actual mountains seen on the moon, showing it was in fact one humungus body, a small planet, now it no longer was just some kind of display on a solar system sized monitor so the christian sect all of a sudden has that covered as well, even though there was no mention of such a thing before Galileo.

Originally posted by Dasa
First of all there has never been one single person who has drowned, been burnt, or given cancer.....for the body is dust and not the real person.

Ok, for your benefit, and for the sake of argument...lemme rephrase that part:

Thus if your "God" is the greatest conceivable being then a world in which people's bodies which serve as a means of interacting with this world and register to the 'person' pain induced by cancer, the material husks of babies are drowned (such that the 'person' inside does not grow to appreciate Vedanta), material shells which surround 'people' are slowly burnt to destruction - again transmitting great pain that the 'person' experiences, and so on... is the greatest conceivable world!

A somewhat clumsy statement now though! 😞

Originally posted by sonhouse
I think the believers would say their god is king of the universe, but if there is in fact a multiverse, which I tend to believe in, if said god is king only of this universe, we can in fact conceive of a god greater than the usual christian affair. They of course would counter that saying if there is a multiverse, it would be king of all of it, multi's inc en has that covered as well, even though there was no mention of such a thing before Galileo.

I too lean towards the idea of a multiverse - and that our universe is just one little bubble amidst a frothing soap of alternate universes, and I agree pretty much with what you have posted here.

The funny thing is - "God" only gets the credit for all the nice stuff:
a contented baby laughing at some human's silly antics? - praise be to God!
a baby crushed to death in an earthquake? - shame upon those foolish humans who abused their free-will and built homes on fault lines! Reveal Hidden Content

Originally posted by Agerg
Ok, for your benefit, and for the sake of argument...lemme rephrase that part:

Thus if your "God" is the greatest conceivable being then a world in which people's bodies which serve as a means of interacting with this world and register to the 'person' pain induced by cancer, the material husks of babies are drowned (such that the 'person' inside does not g ...[text shortened]... n... is the greatest conceivable world!

A somewhat clumsy statement now though! 😞

This world is a place of suffering and we are here because we want to be.

This perfect world that you are looking for..... does exist, and there is no birth, disease old age and death, but to go there we must be qualified.

If some commits a crime and finds themselves in jail then they really cannot complain about the conditions.

Anyway we all create our own personal reality by our thoughts, words and deeds and if we create a reality where we get burnt or drown then we have created it

The baby that drowns is receiving their very own personal karma....but then a moment later they are re-born again.

Originally posted by Dasa
This world is a place of suffering and we are here because we want to be.

This perfect world that you are looking for..... does exist, and there is no birth, disease old age and death, but to go there we must be qualified.

If some commits a crime and finds themselves in jail then they really cannot complain about the conditions.

Anyway we all create ou ...[text shortened]... ns is receiving their very own personal karma....but then a moment later they are re-born again.

You confuse my intentions here - I'm not looking for a perfect world; I'm merely arguing that the world we currently reside in is inconsistent with the claim, made by certain theists, that:
"God is the greatest conceivable being"
Moreover I'm not so sure you're addressing the point made in the OP - perhaps you don't subscribe to the notion "God is the greatest conceivable being" and if so that's fine and fair enough; this thread, and my argument here does not undermine the nature of your god in this case - indeed I see no reason why it should logically follow that if our universe was created by some god, then this god should be the best god there could possibly be.

Originally posted by Agerg
You confuse my intentions here - I'm not looking for a perfect world; I'm merely arguing that the world we currently reside in is inconsistent with the claim, made by certain theists, that:
"God is the greatest conceivable being"
Moreover I'm not so sure you're addressing the point made in the OP - perhaps you don't subscribe to the notion "God is the greatest conceivable being" and if so that's fine and fair enough.

God being the greatest conceivable Being doesn't have to mean that this world will be padded with cotton wool so our material bodies cant be damaged and then suffer because of it.

This world is an illusion and in an illusion just like a dream many unpleasant things take place....but the soul is completely protected from it all.

We have created this dream like world....and if you want it to be better, then we all have to dream another dream........a better one, but really the best thing to do is to live the spiritual life and go back home to Godhead.

Originally posted by Agerg
Putting aside Anselm's argument (which I think is flawed anyway - merely by a few trivial substitutions) Some theists (I suspect many) hold that their formulation of "God" is the greatest conceivable being. Now If we suppose hypothetically, that such a god exists (and say it's your god [hidden](assuming you, the reader of this post, believe in \"God\" and agre ...[text shortened]... of the universe's potential to improve - and so would be bettered by one that did.

I reject the entire premis of your statement/question.

Human beings are finite, we are limited in what we are able to "concieve" A supreme being has no such limits placed on it, thus we cannot know the reasons for many of the tragedies that befall our species.

Originally posted by Dasa
God being the greatest conceivable Being doesn't have to mean that this world will be padded with cotton wool so our material bodies cant be damaged and then suffer because of it.

This world is an illusion and in an illusion just like a dream many unpleasant things take place....but the soul is completely protected from it all.

We have created this dream ...[text shortened]... one, but really the best thing to do is to live the spiritual life and go back home to Godhead.

I disagree - me ending up with terminal cancer at some point, wracked with pain and causing emotional suffering to those who have to witness such an ordeal is not so good as me finding out I have terminal cancer then being killed by some mysterious bolt of lightning immediately afterwards (circumventing the pain and suffering). In this sense I can conceive of a better being than the one who would let me live out the rest of my life (in this scenario) in misery.