Pascal's Wager and Anslem's theory of God
Pascals Wager describes that either God exists, or he does not. By believing he does exist, you do not lose anything if its true that he does not truely exist. And if you believe that he exists and he DOES exist, you gain much from it. As the wager describes, happiness and eternal life.
Anslem thinks to have proven the existence of God by stating that God is meant as "the greatest being conceivable" or "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived." So Anslem states that the only way you could not believe in God is because you do not understand God and all that he is. He establishes that it is self-contradictory to deny that God exists because there could not be any being greater concieved and believing anything else is completely absurd and concludes to not being able to grasp the concept of God. Anslem argued that the proposition "God exists" is self-evident and can no more be denied than something as obvious as "a square has four sides" or "2 plus 2 equals 4." I think that Anslem believes he has proven the existence of God, but i do not agree. If this were true, then why hasn't anybody seen or scientifically proven the existence of God, this may be a theory of the fact that nothing could ever be greater than god, but what if God is not the greatest being ever concieved? It is not known and will probably never be known. God's existence solely exists in our minds as of now and to believe or not to believe is a matter of opinion and just like "the painting is beautiful" it is only an opinion that exists only in our minds and everyone has a different one. You have to believe that God is the greatest being ever concieved, most people have religious views of denying Gods existence and that does not mean they do not understand the concept of God, It just means they have different ideas and opinions of who God is and if he does or does not exist.
Anslem thinks to have proven the existence of God by stating that God is meant as "the greatest being conceivable" or "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived." So Anslem states that the only way you could not believe in God is because you do not understand God and all that he is. He establishes that it is self-contradictory to deny that God exists because there could not be any being greater concieved and believing anything else is completely absurd and concludes to not being able to grasp the concept of God. Anslem argued that the proposition "God exists" is self-evident and can no more be denied than something as obvious as "a square has four sides" or "2 plus 2 equals 4." I think that Anslem believes he has proven the existence of God, but i do not agree. If this were true, then why hasn't anybody seen or scientifically proven the existence of God, this may be a theory of the fact that nothing could ever be greater than god, but what if God is not the greatest being ever concieved? It is not known and will probably never be known. God's existence solely exists in our minds as of now and to believe or not to believe is a matter of opinion and just like "the painting is beautiful" it is only an opinion that exists only in our minds and everyone has a different one. You have to believe that God is the greatest being ever concieved, most people have religious views of denying Gods existence and that does not mean they do not understand the concept of God, It just means they have different ideas and opinions of who God is and if he does or does not exist.