Why COSMICSKEPTIC is WRONG about the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

CosmicSkeptic's Video:

Reasonable Faith's Video:

Bibliography:
Hartshorne, C., 1961. The Logic of the Ontological Argument. The Journal of Philosophy, 58(17), pp.471-473.

Malcolm, N., 1960. Anselm's Ontological Arguments. The Philosophical Review, 69(1), p.41.

Nagasawa, Y., 2017. Maximal God: A New Defence of Perfect Being Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Plantinga, A., 1967. God and Other Minds. New York: Ithaca

Plantinga, A., 1974. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Savage, C., 1967. The Paradox of the Stone. The Philosophical Review, 76(1), p.74.

[CosmicSkeptic]

1:55 of all the pictures you had at your disposal

[littleartimes]

Good video, well thought out and thought provoking. However, that cabinet in the background doesn't hold a candle to Alex's dresser lol. Looking forward to your future content.

[CarlosRodriguez-dhmm]

Would love to see you and Alex collaborate. I love a good debate, but even more, I appreciate a good chat among friends who disagree. Same substance without the toxicity of needing to win.

[JoelKorytko]

More like what a maximally great physique.

[MaximallyGreatPhilosophy]

Another big thank you to CosmicSkeptic for the shout out! This video would never have got the views it has without it. So thanks again and again! :)

[MartialNico]

General feedback, I would've started the video by restating what the argument exactly is. Just as a reminder, so everyone's on the same page.

[BraxtonHunter]

I look forward to seeing what happens with this channel. Glad you’re in this space!

[Deflate]

Great stuff! Lovely to see two friends with different views interacting this way! Launched my own channel just over a month ago as well.

[morbidgirl]

Alex's agnostic fan here but I knew he wasn't entirely correct about his arguments against ontological arguments. I was looking for a video that debunked him for a while. I found one from someone but he did a poor job to defend ontological arguments. I found you and you did a good job! Subscribed to you.

[lmartinez]

Am no philosopher and never will be. But here I am enjoying your talk and Alex's. (I like your POV more☺)

[nickwoo]

For me at least I don't like these arguments because they seem to use language to define god into existence. The phrase "maximally great" annoys me.

[ChrisHawk]

I'm not a theist but I would enjoy seeing more counter arguments such as this.

[NoFeckingNamesLeft]

This guy looks like he could beat Alex in a fight, ergo his argument is the greater one

[plasmaballin]

At the end, I would note that, even though Alex's version of the ontological argument is not identical to Anselm's version, the flaw he points out in it is also present in Anselm's version. Anselm's first premise assumes that God exists by stating that God is the greatest conceivable being. In reality, Anselm's first premise should be, "If God exists, then God is the greatest conceivable being." Moreover, the word "exists" would have to refer to existence in reality, not just the mind (otherwise, the argument would commit the equivocation fallacy, since the premise, "If God exists, then God is the greatest conceivable being, " is only true when "exists" is used to mean "exists in reality", since the concept of a thing doesn't have all the same properties as the thing itself.) But then, the conclusion would become, "If God exists in reality, then God exists in reality."
So Alex has correctly diagnosed the problem with Anselm's argument and refuted it. However, I agree that he didn't refute Plantinga's argument with this objection, since it is a straw man of Plantinga's argument.

[McGrath]

Absolutely loved this, I was thoroughly enjoying @CosmicSkeptic's videos - as a theist I found them challenging but enjoyable, it's pretty epic to have someone responding in kind. Keep it up :)!

[Andrew-sgsm]

Thanks for providing a few different views on how to answer the stone paradox. Very informative :)

[alexlarsen]

Honestly I think Anselm's and Plantiga's ontological arguments are even weaker than Descartes'.

Anselm's boils down to: If we can conceive of God, God exists. It's a non sequitur.
The explanation according to him is nonsensical because he first says that if we conceive of God as a perfect being, he exists ONLY in the mind. Then he says; existing in reality is greater than existing in the mind, and therefore if we conceive of God as existing in reality, we would be conceiving of a more perfect being than the perfect being.
This is easily shut down since we can imagine a perfect being existing in reality from the get go. In fact, that is what we do when we imagine God. So, Anselm's first step is unnecessary.
And imagining a perfect being existing in reality doesn't mean it really exists. It can still exist only in the mind and therefore - not exist.

Plantinga on the other hand makes a mistake by asserting that if a perfect being is possible, it therefore must exist. Of course he goes through all the worlds BS. What does that even mean - all worlds?
All hypothetical worlds aren't the same as all actual worlds and as far as we know, there's just one world.
This one. The one that looks awfully GodLESS.
In conclusion: God being possible =/= God existing.

[kingspud]

I'm here from Alex's channel. I will give your arguments serious consideration.

[bigol]

Why do I want to be this guys friend just by watching this response.. great video haha!
Maybe add some low fi next time or smth :)

[lettyboelte]

A little over my head but I wish you would make more videos. I would be especially helpful for viewers of CosmicSkeptic to see more rebuttals and counter arguments with theists like you who are as knowledgable and intelligent as this atheist is. I am a theist but really respect Alex. I see he has a lot of intellectual and moral integrity! Id love to see more debates between the two of you, especially because of the mutual respect you have for each other!