> Alex Furgeson
There seems to be a plot to misspell my name these days. Have I been forgetting to turn on my full "From:" line again? Or are there people out there from the Swedish and Old High German branches of the family with whom I'm being confused?
Mike Cule looks some of my gift-helpful-suggestions in the figurately
equine mouth:
> my Even More Reformed Malkioni
> [...] dwelt in the area to the north-west of Oral-Ta marked as
> 'still under the ban' on the map of Western Fronela in the Genertela
> book.
Not a promising area, in my view, given the last known occupants. (Uncolings and Third Eye Blue types.)
> All the stuff about their having been created by contamination from the
> Loskalmi you can forget, because you see, I believe in the reality of
> Revalations.
I take it you mean in Glorantha, as opposed to in "RL". As someone said about Standards, the wonderful thing about Revelations is that they're all different. Unless you're going to say that Julianism is Utterly Correct in a sense meaningful to Glorantha (and not just meritocratic sensibilities), that New Idealism is Nearly Correct, and Rokarism is Complete Rubbish, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to argue that quite separate, parallel Revelations would produce such similar results. And if it is Utterly Correct, it's going to take some of the frisson out of playing all those other, misguided worldviews, I feel.
> It isn't the fact that any proofs of the existence of God known to me
> or anyone are 'a load of dingo's kidneys'. They are but it isn't that.
> It is that Logic can't give you anything you don't already assume.
A system of logic tells you the "truth" of its axioms, and all that follows from them by its deduction rules. What this can, and can't "give you" is a pretty tricky question, to that point where David Hilbert had realistic (he thought) expectations of being able to logicly axiomatise Everything, until being Gubbed by Goedel. The details of this are not only pretty irrelevant to the Daily, they're also a bit beyond the likely Gloranthan level of "can we shove this form of words past the Oecumenical conference?"
Given that the Kingom of Logic is such an important part of Malkioni mythology, it seems rash to declare (alleged) logic can't possibly play a part, and an important part, in their theology. Obviously, most modern Malkioni don't believe in Logic alone (before I'm accused of suggesting such), as they have a hatful of prophets, saints, and mystics. But this doesn't rule out earlier Malkioni (such as the pre-GL lot Nick nominates) or the odd modern sect believing such stuff.
> (Oh, and the proof you quote is in fact not original to Aquinas but
> came from St Anselm.
Maybe that one was, but at any rate, Thomas had a truckload. That they aren't logically correct was a) stated by me in the original article and b) not relalent to the question of whether they could be produced and believed.
As to the logical flaw in the referenced proof, if this is still worrying anyone, try "That existence is not an attribute of the same category as sentience, wisdom, puissance, etc. Hence the implied juxtaposition of the comparisons "an existent god is greater than an nonexistent god" and "an omnipotent god is greater than an non-omnipotent god" is fallacious". Which is very wordy, but pretty evidently true if one tries to write Aquinas' Anselm's proof in any even semi-formal symbolic logic.
Alex.
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