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> There has been a discussion going on for a short while concerning God and
> rationally proving / disproving Its existance.
Descartes gives a proof. It goes something like:
" God is a perfect being. One of the criteria for perfection is
existence,i.e, something is said to be perfect only if it exists.
Since the idea of a perfect being who doesn't exist is contradictory, we
must assume that it is possible. Hence God, who is a perfect being, exists."
I think he gives another proof too,"I doubt, and my doubt is due
to imperfect understanding. Since the imperfect can only be understood
in relation to the perfect, the perfect exists, which is called "God"."
There are in all five proofs for the existence of God that he puts forth,
and he was quite pleased with himself about it, I believe :-)
Leibnitz too provides proofs. He argues something like,"The initial cause
must exist, since it is not possible to blah blah, and the initial cause
is God."
Kant says,"Since we can will a lie, but not will that lying should become
a law....therefore moral rules such as "do not lie" exist a priori in the
mind...(so on and so forth) therefore we must believe in God."
But most western philosophers believe in the inviolability of logic. i.e.,
there may exist a God, but even that God must obey the rules of logic.
Most western philosophers pull a rabbit out of the hat to "prove" the
existence of God.
-Kartik
