Facebook Philosophy

This blog shouldn't be a monologue...so I'm trying my hand prose, and dialogue types of discussions. I'm also trying to explore a variety of topics. Here's a dialogue I set up on facebook yesterday (that's how Socrates would've done it) by stating a common argument and waiting for the responses to roll in. It's fair to say that only those interested in philosophy would even try to engage in this discussion, so I know that all those responses stated here are part of a genuine search for truth.

Steve (me):
God is the perfect being. As He is most perfect, He must have all perfections. If God lacked existence He would not be perfect, as He is perfect he must exist.

Dami: If God is perfect, shouldn't He be perfectly inexistent also?

Steve:
I think, it is not meant that God should be perfectly all things at once for a perfect thing cannot have contradictions. God cannot be partly one thing and partly another because to have two parts would cause contradictions (that they are not the same is implied in their being separated). God must be one and unchanging.

Dami: Therefore the existence of contradictions such as good and evil, light and darkness, matter and antimatter, etc.. disproves God's perfection and hence His existence?

Steve:
The existence of these things is not tied to God's perfection because God is the only being that exists for it's own existence. It is the prime mover, the only being that can move without being moved. These are necessary conditions for anything to be referred to as God. You could say that if God is the first being, then light, dark, good, and evil ... See More among other contradictions all originated from God. But these things are contradictions as far as they relate to each other and not to God. Since God is the first being, all things must "contain" God, but not the other way around.

Dami:
Dude..I see that you've been studying your Aquinas...I just argued to prove a point. You see, God is defined as a supernatural being that transcends human understanding. Once science or religion or philosophy can prove God's existence, God ceases to exist!

Steve:
This is true so I think it's safe to say that science and philosophy will never prove God's existence.

Dami:
Do not ignore RELIGION...Religion is a human creation to satisfy the yearn for a relationship with God. As a human creation, it CANNOT prove His existence.

Steve: Lol U caught me! I think it would be hard to disprove that humans do "yearn" for a relationship with divinity (whatever your conception of divinity is). Where this yearning comes from is a different issue but it's there. Hence does the yearning exist because God exists, or does God exist because humans yearn for a God?

Dan: wow

Amara:
I think the common philosopher would assert the latter, but I'd like to say the yearning exists because God exists...God showed himself to man before man could even formulate the existence of a god. Yeah?

Me: Dan wow is probably an understatement.

Amara, there are no common philosophers. lol

I think you would have a pretty hard time making that argument. Give it a spin!