Why Descartes' "Proof" of the Existence of God is Fallacious

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

In a nutshell Descartes' "proof" is derived from a definition of God! Simply, God must exist by definition. But that assumes his existence. If it were true, then "God" is the only thing proven to exist by definition.

There are various versions of the Ontological argument. Descartes' version differs from that of St Anselm which was, interestingly, referred to in one of the Indiana Jones movies. Descartes' latter version, indeed, proceeds from the definition of the word "God" and is, therefore, problematic from the outset! How, for example, can the existence of something not already known to exist become an argument for its existence?

For that matter, if the entity (God, in this case) is already KNOWN to exist the 'argument' is superfluous as well as fallacious. What if I imagined or conceived of a 'Big Blue Meanie' and attributed to it the property of existence? I could simply assert that 'big blue meanies' exist by my definition. Someone similarly conceived and defined 'God'. It was left to Descartes to provide the process with an imprimatur of legitimacy and 'logic'.

Descartes often compares the ontological argument to a geometric demonstration, arguing that necessary existence cannot be excluded from idea of God anymore than the fact that its angles equal two right angles, for example, can be excluded from the idea of a triangle. The analogy underscores once again the argument's supreme simplicity. God's existence is purported to be as obvious and self-evident as the most basic mathematical truth. It also attempts to show how the “logic” of the demonstration is rooted in our ordinary reasoning practices.

--Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Descartes believed the ontological argument to be a "proof" that followed from the "essence" of "God"! But that assumes the existence of 'God'; or --as lawyers would put it to a judge --it assumes 'facts not in evidence'. If God's existence is in doubt, if it is in "need" of proof, then how may we know that "God" possesses an essence?

It's a circular argument: God exists because God exists! There is much more that can be written about this but, alas, it will not dissuade those who want to believe and who will tolerate fallacies in order to do so. I write this short essay not because I am an 'atheist'. "Atheism" is as irrational as is religion. One cannot prove that God does not exist because nothing meaningful can be said of anything which does not exist. For example: "Blue Meanies do not exist" is meaningless.

---

---

Dissecting the Scrambled Brains of the GOP

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It was not so long ago that GOP Senators Chuck Hegal and Richard Lugar described the Bush administration as "incompetent"! And they were being polite. CONSERVATIVE commentator George Will referred to the Bush administration as "...the gang that couldn't shoot straight!" In Iraq, Bush's "puppet" Allawi said of WMD: "...they must be somewhere!"

WMD are where you find them! But that's not to say that WMD were ever in Iraq! It does not follow that because something is not 'here', it must be 'there'! It does not follow that because something is 'not' then something else 'is'.

The Bush regime was as utterly incompetent as it was evil. Otherwise, Dick Cheney, who supervised 911, would have just ordered his minions to 'plant' WMD in the areas his 'task force' had already targeted for theft! In retrospect, the Bush regime turns out to have been half-assed crooks, half-assed murderers, half-assed liars, a ludicrous gang that couldn't shoot straight.

It might have been Kant who said that there is a moral imperative to be intelligent. By that standard, the GOP grows more evil as it grows more stupid!

The cure that kills!

The GOP under Bush was determined to stay the course if it killed us. It killed many of us --those 'left behind' by Texas' 'dead last' educational system and millions more for whom murdering Iraqis and stealing oil was, perhaps, their career path of last resort!

It was Ronald Reagan who put a smiley face on "psychosis", i.e. the indulgence of delusion as long as it makes you feel good or, at least, better about yourself. Reagan did this for millions who returned his utterly failed administration to office. Thus, the GOP perfected the 'big lie' with research and focus groups. There was simply no way to get a GOPPER elected on fact or reason. Insanity became and remains the campaign strategy of choice for a party that could not, cannot think straight, a party that is either delusional or is dishonest and just pretends to be insane as a cover!

Wealth would trickle down, Dr Feelgood (Ronald Reagan) assured us, if we would but help him make the privileged elite even richer. Wealth didn't trickle down and never has ...but millions swooned as the aging actor made them feel better about themselves [GOP Convention, 1992, Houston]. The effect was as short-lived as are many 'feel good' remedies and sex toys. Come to think of it --every GOP administration is a circle jerk of old cronies, limited intelligences and the morally bankrupt.

'Let them eat cake and live in houses'

Ronald Reagan told us that those made homeless and forced to live in tent cities were "mentally ill". It was the middle class that had been made homeless during those Reagan nightmare years and while Carter occupied the White House, they had lived in houses. I suppose that as long as they were in a house, they were considered by the GOP to be sane. If you don't have a house, the GOP thinks you are nuts!

Official government statistics [Bureau of Labor Statistics, BEA, Census Bureau] prove that job creation and GDP were higher during the Carter years than in any GOP regime since WWII. As they would say in Texas: the GOP 'cain't carry Carter's shit!' Carter is --therefore --a GOP whipping boy not because he failed but because he succeeded.

Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents8

Johnson   3.8%
Carter    3.1
Clinton   2.4
Kennedy   2.3
Nixon     2.3
Reagan    2.1
Bush      0.6

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey

It must be pointed out that under Clinton, the recently insane went sane again and moved back into houses! The GOP never figured it out! I was surprised when the GOP failed to lambast the Democrats for the dramatic drop in tent sales during the Clinton years.

GOP thought processes are scrambled. GOP logic works backward from conclusions to premises. The late Barbara Olson said that Gary Condit was guilty of murder not because there was evidence against him but because there was none.

Similarly, it was during the 2000 election debacle that Robert Novak said Democrats were 'trying to steal this election by counting votes!' Antonin Scalia would not be outdone. He said that continuing the recount would be harmful to Bush! Indeed! Bush would have lost!

Scalia did not know when to shut the flock up, adding:

Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.

--Antonin Scalia, U. S. Supreme Court Justice

'Scuse me!

Anyone getting the fewer number of votes is supposed to lose. Scalia was just puking up something that sounded 'scholarly' but, in fact, meant: stop the count while Bush is still ahead!!

Bush v Gore majority opinions are pure bunkum, lousy law, worse legal scholarship. The BEST critique of Bush v Gore is found in the dissenting opinions, primarily Ruth Bader Ginsberg who laid bare Scalia's idiocy and hypocrisy.

I might join THE CHIEF JUSTICE were it my commission to interpret Florida law. But disagreement with the Florida court's interpretation of its own State' s law does not warrant the conclusion that the justices of that court have legislated. There is no cause here to believe that the dissenting members of Florida' s high court have done less than ''their mortal best to discharge their oath of office,'' Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539, 549 (1981), and no cause to upset their reasoned interpretation of Florida law.

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, and with whom JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE BREYER join as to Part I, dissenting. [emphasis mine, EC]

GOP brains should be dissected, studied, diagnosed and then quarantined! Scalia's condition should be written up by someone like Carl Jung who estimated that as much as thirty percent of any population is certifiably psychopathic and/or delusional. The GOP, meanwhile, consulted swamis or anyone who could justify ex post facto the conclusions already drawn, the results desired but not really ever achieved.

Scalia displays psychopathic symptoms which Dr. Gustav Gilbert identified among the Nazi war criminals he studied at Nuremberg.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently claimed that the Constitution does not prohibit the execution of an innocent man provided that he has had a fair trial. While this is astonishing enough coming from a man who holds himself out as a Catholic -- even more astonishing is how Justice Scalia substitutes his personal religious beliefs for the law and the Constitution.

This extraordinary tale of what we might call substitutionalism, begins with the case of Troy Davis who was sentenced to death by the State of Georgia in 1991 for the murder of a police officer. Davis has always maintained his innocence and sought a new new trial. "Seven key witnesses have since recanted," according to an editorial in The New York Times, "and several people have charged that the main prosecution witness was the shooter. Rather than arguing that there were procedural flaws in his trial, Mr. Davis is making the more basic claim that he is innocent and that new evidence proves it."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens declared "the substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification." The majority of his colleagues agreed and ordered a federal judge in Georgia to review the new evidence and rule whether it "clearly establishes" Davis' innocence.

But Scalia and fellow traditionalist Catholic, Clarence Thomas, didn't see it that way. "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial," Scalia opined, " but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."

--How Do You Solve a Problem Like Scalia?

Again --Scalia, typical of his ilk, thinks 'backward'. Certainly, a 'fair trial', however desirable, is not an ideal but, like 'justice' itself, a means by which the taking of an innocent life by the state is made less likely. The state murder of a provable innocent because all the 't's' are crossed and all the 'i's' dotted is not just Kafakaesque, it typifies the endemic evil of the state itself.

A paper will be written about the many lies that the GOP has told about Social Security. Unless they are stopped, the GOP will one day raid Social Security not because it's broke but because it's not! If SS were broke, the GOP would have nothing to covet, no booty to be divided up among their base of Wall St insiders! When they have seized SS, the GOP will argue that they had to kill it to save it! Social Security 'reform' will consist of transferring more wealth to the wealthy, putting those monies into the hands of the Wall St geniuses who brought you every recession/depression since the Great Depression of 1929 and its more recent reprise under Bushco.

Against Kerry, Bush and the GOP resorted to almost every lie and every GOP fallacy. Millions apparently believed Bush when he told them that because HE failed in Iraq, we should NOT elect Kerry! Perhaps the GOP believed that because the GOP left us record budget shortfalls, deficits, and the world's largest NEGATIVE current account balance, we should never elect Democrats who left instead the more nearly balanced budgets and, often, surpluses! Big Brother must be pleased to learn that all of his 'big lies' have been put to work by the US GOP.

Are we safe yet?

Millions believed Bush when he said that we were certain to get hit by terrorists again and, seemingly in the same paragraph, we were safer! It never occurred to the media to ask: which is it? Are we safer or not?

Obviously --the GOP strategists never figured this one out: did the GOP get more votes by saying we were safer or were more votes gained by saying we were less safe? The GOP consultants and focus group gurus let them down. They never resolved the issue! With any luck, the GOP's central processor will overheat and melt down before the party destroys the US as we knew it!

Elizabeth!

Published Articles on Buzzflash.net

---

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

Subscribe

Add to Google

Add Cowboy Videos to Google

A Genius, A Saint, and SCOTUS Agree: Conspiracies Exist!

The right wing spent the 1950s trying to convince the nation that it was threatened by a vast world wide communist conspiracy. Now the right wing is trying to convince the nation that conspiracies don't exist at all! Right wingers have targeted Tin Foil Hatters for ridicule when it was not so long ago that the term applied better to them! Nevertheless, a Catholic saint, the world`s greatest physicist, and hundreds, possibly thousands of SCOTUS decisions and scholarly, legal articles all say: conspiracies exist!

The right wing, in fact, loves "conspiracy theories": the world wide communist conspiracy, the world-wide conspiracy of secular humanists, the world wide conspiracy of evolutionists, darwinists, and materialists, the world-wide conspiracy of terrorists (al Qaeda), the world wide conspiracy of labor and trade unionists, the world wide conspiracy of abortionists, the world wide conspiracy of nattering nabobs of negativism. In the fifties, we were expected to believe that there was a world wide conspiracy to add fluoridation to municipal water supplies. It was about the same time that proto-Ron Paul types were warning of a world wide conspiracy of international bankers. There is still a dire threat to our "children" by those evil, secular humanists! Gasp!

We are expected to believe in al Qaeda but not to believe that there was a conspiracy of robber barons to seize monopoly control of railroads leading west. We are expected to believe that a rag tag conspiracy of failed, Arab pilots perped 911 but not that there was a conspiracy by J.P. Morgan et al to control US banking, or John D. Rockefeller to control US oil production, or a conspiracy by Andrew Carnegie to control US steel production. We are expected to believe that Saddam Hussein had conspiratorial connections to 911 terrorists, but we are not expected to believe that the GOP stole the elections of 2000 and 2003 or that the GOP had anything do with the gang of "brownshirts" who were, in fact, financed by the Bush campaign. Only the right wing gets to indulge conspiracy theories.

A "Saint" in death, St. Thomas More was in life Chancellor of England during the reign of Henry VIII. A lawyer and a scholar, More is read and analyzed today. If More were time warped to the present time, he would look around him and find in the Military/Industrial complex a familiar cabal of liars, graft-takers, and conspirators.

So God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.

-Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

The bolding is mine. More, some 400 years on, leaves us an accurate description of the Military/Industrial complex, most certainly, a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

The GOP must now think this brilliant genius, this Saint by Catholic reckoning, a "tin foil hatter". But it was not so long ago that rabid righters had a different view of More. It was in the late 90s that these wing-nuts, hell-bent on impeaching Bill Clinton, dragged out the corpse of St. Thomas More. It would give their witch hunt an imprimatur of legitimacy and scholarship, lipstick on a pig! Mssrs Henry Hyde and David Schippers, were fond of quoting More but only as he was portrayed in an admittedly great film, A Man for All Seasons by Sir Robert Bolt. Here's an example of how Kenneth Starr mangled More and, in the process, proved himself a mediocre intellect. The following excerpt from Starr's interview with Diane Sawyer:

Kenneth Starr:

Well, I love the letter and the spirit of the law, but it`s the letter of the law that protects us all. And, you know, St. Thomas Moore, Sir Thomas Moore put it so elegantly, you know, in A Man For All Seasons. He took the law very seriously and said, `That`s what protects us. It`s not the will of a human being. It`s not Henry VIII`s will. Henry VIII is under the law. We are all equal under the law.`

Sorry, Mr. Starr, no where in the play A Man For All Seasons did the character of Sir Thomas More say anything resembling that.

In fact, More defended the obedience to "...man`s law, not God`s" [that makes More a secular humanist] and never made reference to either Henry VIII's law by name or description. The actual exchange that both David Schippers and Starr are both so fond of misquoting is as follows:

Roper: So now you`d give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get at the Devil?

Roper: I`d cut down every law in England to do that.

More: Oh! (advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you --where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws --man's laws, not God's [emphasis mine]--and if you cut them down --and you’re just the man to do it --d`you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I`d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety`s sake.

And, in yet another memorable exchange:

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.

Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.

William Roper: There is: God's law.

Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.

Of course, the dialogue above was written by Robert Bolt. But if you want to read the original More you will find comments equally biting, equally witty that will most certainly curl the hair of modern right wing reactionaries and intellectual gnomes! More, they will charge, is a liberal, a socialist, and (gasp!!!!) ---a liberal!

But other brilliant folk, specifically, the greatest physicist since Newton, spoke eloquently and absolutely beyond the piss poor abilities of right wing idiots to refute:

The men who possess real power in this country have no intention of ending the cold war."

--Albert Einstein

Conspiracy theories are most vociferously denounced by conspirators. Conspirators exist if conspiracists do not. Conspirators have a lot riding on this issue --their very lives if they get caught! Traitors to this nation's Constitution, right-wing subversives who have, in fact, waged war on the citizens of this nation are subject to prosecution under the laws of this nation which recognize --as a matter of law --that conspiracies exist! High treason exists! War Crimes exist! Crimes against humanity exist! I have the laws of this nation, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles to prove it! Moreover, I know and have already named the culprits on this blog!

Now --let's put this issue to rest. Here is a specific example of how the topic of how the concept of "conspiracy" is handled by US Codes, in particular "conspiracy" in a political sense.

Section 2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

Section 2383. Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

US Codes

Who remembers the "Brooks Brothers Riot" that had the effect of stopping a court-ordered recount of votes in the state of Florida in the year 2000? That "riot" had been transported to Florida, all-expenses paid by the Bush campaign. It was the intention of this retinue to "attack" the recounters. The strategy was obvious: stop the recounts before Al Gore could pull ahead. This conspiracy of the Bush campaign was, in effect, a coup d'etat, a violation of US Codes, a conspiracy against the lawful, constitutional and orderly transfer of executive power. A case of Seditious Conspiracy? I believe that case should be made.

Conspiracies exist, OK? There is much more at: Findlaw: Cases and Codes> Supreme Court Opinions [if, for any reason, these links don't work, search: Cases and Codes, choose "supreme court opinions", search terms: conspiracy or conspiracies. Same below]

When you are done there, check Findlaw: Legal Articles re: Conspiracy

That’s a helluva lot of ink, time, and labor about something that does not exist.

A book pushed on the internet proposes to teach you how to "Outwit, outmock and outrage conservatives this election season!" I cannot recommend this book. Consider the following "don't" from the book:

It’s tempting to believe there are sinister conservative forces engaged in grand, diabolical schemes (e.g., the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11, bin Laden is a CIA operative, and Dick Cheney is an evil cyborg). Don’t bother going there. There are plenty of good arguments to make without bringing in the vast conspiracy of little green men on the grassy knoll. And besides, as anyone who has worked in government will tell you, the government isn’t competent enough to pull off a decent conspiracy.

Outwit, outmock and outrage conservatives this election season!

With "liberals" like this --who needs enemies? The quote misstates every charge made against Bush, Cheney or the "vast right wing conspiracy" in general. It trivializes real crimes for which there is evidence that would stand up in court. It diminishes the magnitude of real, specific and provable violations of US Codes --capital crimes --for which there is probable cause to try George W. Bush right now! It obscures real issues by misstating them, the strawman fallacy. Normally, I ignore crap of this sort, and if I had not been so sick of fuzzy, fallacious, stupid thinking on this point, I would not bother. Whoever wrote this drivel is trying to be cute --but isn't . For example, I have never, ever --in my life --heard anyone, at any time put forward the idea that there were "little green men on the grassy knoll".

Now --let's consider just one of the many holes in Bush's official conspiracy of 911, a failed theory because it violates Occam's Razor, raising more questions than it answers. Following is a story about how the government's own cover up raises more questions. If the Government's "official conspiracy" of 911 were true, the FBI would have no reason to cover up flight data from Flights 77, the Pentagon crash, and Flight 93, the flight said by Donald Rumsfeld to have been shot down by a missile.

FBI Conceals Flight Data Recorder Info That Could Confirm Registry ID's Of 2 9/11 Planes

via 911Blogger.com - Paying Attention to 9/11 Related Alternative News

by Aidan Monaghan on 1/29/08

A December 8, 2007 Freedom of Information Act request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, seeking the release of all data contained by the Solid State Flight Data Recorders recovered from the crash scenes of American Airlines flight 77 and United Airlines flight 93, has been denied. The data sought, would presumably confirm the commercial flight histories and thus the federal registry identifications of N644AA (AA 77) and N591UA (UA 93), already provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, obtained by a December 28, 2007 FOIA release. (See BTS release letter)

The FDR data requested of the FBI, was that which would presumably reveal the identity of flights occurring just before the final 9/11 flights (presumably matching flight history data provided by the BTS, for the said aircraft), carried out by N644AA (AA 77) and N591UA (UA 93), 2 of the 4 federally registered aircraft reportedly used to carry out the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. An appeal indicating that the requested records are unrelated to the events of September 11, 2001 and thus cannot interfere with 9/11 enforcement proceedings (indicated in refusal notice), is pending.

Addendum: several other cites have picked up this article. On at least one, the Findlaw searches above did not work. They work here for me. If, for any reason, they don't work for you, please leave a comment and I will try to track down the problem.

---