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Anonymous
argumentum ornithologicum 2016-01-22 21:02:00 Post No. 591454
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argumentum ornithologicum 2016-01-22 21:02:00 Post No. 591454
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I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second or perhaps less; I don’t know how many birds I saw. Were they a definite or an indefinite number? This problem involves the question of the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because how many birds I saw is known to God. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because nobody was able to take count. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let’s say) and more than one; but I did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, but not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That number, as a whole number, is inconceivable; ergo, God exists.
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>I close my eyes and see a flock of birds
No, you see birds when your eyes are open. That's how vision works.
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Existence precedes essence, and basing an argument on a subjective "mental image" visible only to you is pretty piss poor evidence. I also don't believe a lot of your conclusions are logically inferred from your premises, which can be rejected outright without much trouble anyway. It's telling that theists have to resort to these sort of ontological mind games.
>If God exists, the number is definite, because how many birds I saw is known to God.
Clearly you didn't see any. You vaguely imagined some of the properties a flock of birds has. God could also care and not choose to watch; the idea that God has to be omnipotent and omniscient is a Christian concept that historically didn't apply to deities as a whole.
>That number, as a whole number, is inconceivable; ergo, God exists.
There's no logical reason inconceivable things couldn't exist in an atheistic universe. All it requires is that all the workings of the unconscious mind do not occupy our immediate conscious experience, or that our sensory organs are unable to detect something.
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What if there was a half of a bird among them?
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>>591454
>If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because nobody was able to take count.
Are you telling me that the number of cookies in my cookie jar is indefinite, because no one has taken count of them yet?
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>>591454
No, there was a particular number of birds, just an unknown quantity. If you had been more accurate in your count, you would know. Just because a given set of facts is unknown to you, indeed unknown to anyone, does not imply they're unknowable or that there is some sort of watchful deity keeping track of it all.
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>>591454
The number is definite and is independent of your perception of the birds.
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>>591454
somebody get this guy a university chair and some penitents
today OP was a pretty cool guy
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>>591515
Well he didn't really make the context clear did he?
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