Curry
2005-11-02, 02:00
descartes 'cogito ergo sum' is the only thing in his book i agree with. its when he goes on to attempt to prove god that his argument is very flawed and imo worthless.
descartes arguments for god that i can remember are as follows:
-humans are incapable of dreaming up the concept of god without divine intervention.
This argument is stupid. it wouldnt have taken much more than some guy with an imagination watching the destructive power of a volcano or some other natural disaster, thinking that the very earth must be angry with them, and then dreaming up the idea of a guy using the powers of the earth to punish the people. The concept could easily grow from there.
-god is perfect in every way, existance is a perfection, therefore god must have it, so he must exist.
this is a cartesian circle if i ever saw one. in order for this argument to work in the first place it has to be assumed that god exists.
god exists-hes perfect-existance is perfection-god exists
so it doesnt work. besides that, you can hardly call existance a perfection. if i have a real apple and an imaginary apple, its stupid to say that the real apple has all the properties of the imaginary one, plus the property of existing. its better to say that the imaginary apple has no properties.
-some things are 'more real' than others. this wouldnt be possible unless there were a being that possessed perfect goodness and truth. That being is God.
this just assumes that his theory about subjective reality actually exists. If it doesnt exist, which is quite likely, then his whole argument becomes irrelevant. another cartesian circle.
-the universe is orderly, but orderly activity is the result of intelligent direction. The order of the universe is due to the intelligence of God.
this is the best argument he has, imo. unfortunately there are natural laws that govern the entire universe (physics, logic), that do the job whether god exists or not.
think about a triangle. a triangle would still have three sides whether it existed or not. even if triangles didnt exist, a triangle would still have inside angles adding up to 180, pythagoras' theorum would still apply.
Therefore god doesnt have to have an influence on the universe in order for it to progress logically.
in my opinion, descartes himself didnt believe in god. he just 'proved' it in order to stop negative throwbacks from the church and a very god fearing society.
descartes arguments for god that i can remember are as follows:
-humans are incapable of dreaming up the concept of god without divine intervention.
This argument is stupid. it wouldnt have taken much more than some guy with an imagination watching the destructive power of a volcano or some other natural disaster, thinking that the very earth must be angry with them, and then dreaming up the idea of a guy using the powers of the earth to punish the people. The concept could easily grow from there.
-god is perfect in every way, existance is a perfection, therefore god must have it, so he must exist.
this is a cartesian circle if i ever saw one. in order for this argument to work in the first place it has to be assumed that god exists.
god exists-hes perfect-existance is perfection-god exists
so it doesnt work. besides that, you can hardly call existance a perfection. if i have a real apple and an imaginary apple, its stupid to say that the real apple has all the properties of the imaginary one, plus the property of existing. its better to say that the imaginary apple has no properties.
-some things are 'more real' than others. this wouldnt be possible unless there were a being that possessed perfect goodness and truth. That being is God.
this just assumes that his theory about subjective reality actually exists. If it doesnt exist, which is quite likely, then his whole argument becomes irrelevant. another cartesian circle.
-the universe is orderly, but orderly activity is the result of intelligent direction. The order of the universe is due to the intelligence of God.
this is the best argument he has, imo. unfortunately there are natural laws that govern the entire universe (physics, logic), that do the job whether god exists or not.
think about a triangle. a triangle would still have three sides whether it existed or not. even if triangles didnt exist, a triangle would still have inside angles adding up to 180, pythagoras' theorum would still apply.
Therefore god doesnt have to have an influence on the universe in order for it to progress logically.
in my opinion, descartes himself didnt believe in god. he just 'proved' it in order to stop negative throwbacks from the church and a very god fearing society.