But the "necessary" existence is another "therefore..." that doesn't follow from the previous statement.
The best way to kill the argument I think is to decide on moral interventionism. Seems reasonable to me that god would have a strong moral sense, stronger than mine even, and that he wouldn't like to see people suffer. If I see two yobs attacking an old lady I will intervene. Therefore (proper one this time) our perfect god who is bound to exist will not be able to help himself if he sees suffering. As he clearly does not intervene in his creation in this way we can conclude on of two things: That this logic is flawed and he doesn't exist or that he doesn't care, in which case he isn't the perfect being the logic claims he must be. There is of course a third option and it seems to me that it's as correct as my first one: Theology is a bunch of true believers sitting around trying to think up long winded arguments to defend something that patently doesn't exist in the way that all the old scriptures claim it does. It clearly takes a lot of work to wind your way to the conclusion you have decided upon. It's an odd way to go about things and this is why science has proved such a vastly superior explanatory system, there's no way a scientist would let the first assumption (or axiom) go past without it being tested against the evidence. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote: Re "I don't get the final "therefore..." I can conceive of fabulous things but nature is under no obligation to create them.": Because only "that than which no greater can be conceived" has *necessary* existence. Everything else has accidental existence (you, for example). The "necessary existence" is God's unique selling point. An atheist is claiming that it's possible that God doesn't exist. Therefore, said atheist is claiming God doesn't necessarily exist. Therefore, said atheist is claiming God doesn't exist necessarily. But "necessary existence" is part of our definition of God so said atheist is caught in a logical contradiction. Ouch!
