Ontological Arguments (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, September 26, 2010, 22:18 (5171 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt is wrestling with "Ontological Arguments", and asks why we should accept them. I started ploughing through the list and got bored. Here is my definitive ontological proof that God exists:-All that is, is. God is all that is. Therefore God is. -As I see it, all these discussions revolve around language, and since language cannot grasp even known realities, let alone those areas of life we can't explain, we can play around with it ad infinitum and ad nauseam and make it mean whatever we want it to mean. Analyse my "proof" and you can argue that it's meaningless or crammed with meaning. -Far more important in my eyes is your final question: "I'm trying to find a chink in the armor of materialism here...why is materialism wrong?"-Forget ontological arguments, and ask yourself what are the most important realities in your life. I can't speak for anyone else, so I'll speak for myself, although B-M has already hinted at an answer by referring to consciousness. I just want to go a bit deeper. Far and away the most real and important thing for me is the love I feel for my family. The word "love" is totally inadequate ... as I said, language can't grasp realities ... and I have no idea how this extraordinary emotion can even exist, but it does, and if you think you can explain it in material terms, I'm afraid you don't know what love is. Here are a couple more inexplicable, non-material, personal realities: shelves full of books and plays that came out of my mind, though I have no idea how. I do not understand what force it is in me that creates these things, and if you say it's cells and chemicals inside my head, I'll ask you how and you won't be able to tell me. The same applies to the impact of music by Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Berlioz, Sibelius...something stirs very deep inside me, and it's not material. The list goes on, but I'm sure you've got the picture. I'll guarantee that every one of us has such essential realities in his/her life that are not explicable in material terms. You can't test them, so they fail to fulfil your scientific criteria, but they are your evidence that materialism is...well, not wrong, but hopelessly incomplete. It's good for some things and not for others, but since the others are what make my own life worth living, I'm damned if I'm going to close the door on the concept of the "spirit", or whatever is the opposite of the material body. You've argued that in this context you're more comfortable saying you haven't "the foggiest" and you stay away from such topics because you can't study them. I agree that you can't study them as you can study the material world, but that's your personal Catch 22: you can't see a chink in the armour of materialism because you stay away from anything that creates chinks in the armour of materialism!