Anselm is right not because inconceivability is itself a great-making property, but because, in any possible world, excellence that surpasses our comprehension is surely greater than any excellence merely within it, and God is supposed to be “that than which no greater can be conceived.”

Lord, not only are You that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but You are also something greater than can be conceived. For since it is possible to think that there is such a one, then, if You are not this same being something greater than You could be conceived.

#Anselm

Since miracle reports are spread across many religions, with no single tradition exceeding all others in miracle reports, it follows that most religious miracle testimonies are false. Hence, the false positive rate for religious miracle testimony is not low but middling to high.

“Is the world considered in general, and as it appears to us in this life, different from what a man or such a limited being would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity? It must be strange prejudice to assert the contrary.” (DNR, 11.4)

The question is not whether or not you love your wife. You surely do. Nor is the question whether or not you are limited in power. You surely are. Rather, the question is one best articulated by David Hume:

A mighty God could stop it, could ease their agony, yet it moves on in blood and silence without end, swallowed by the indifferent sky. And so, the truth settles in, as cold and unyielding as stone: there is no God. There never was.

#RealAtheology

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