Plantingas Modal Ontological Argument Quotes

For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau. ~ Bertrand Russell

the law of gravity's a friend of mine -
it's sensible law, i think it's fine.
if a thing goes up, it certainly must come back -
that's a BONA-FIDE, CERTIFIED, NATURAL FACT ~ The Holy Modal Rounders

Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons. ~ Peter Kreeft

I shall not make an argument ad hominem. My argument is ad bullshitem. ~ Richard Dawkins

The only driver stronger than an economic argument to do something is the war argument, the I-don't-want-to-die argument. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The claim that there cannot be an infinite regress of contingent ontological causes raises a truly difficult challenge to pure materialism; but to imagine that it can be extended to undermine the claim that there must be an absolute ontological cause is to fall prey to an obvious category error. ~ David Bentley Hart

You can't win an argument with an argument. ~ Sukant Ratnakar

If you can't reduce your argument to a few crisp words and phrases,
there's something wrong with your argument. ~ Maurice Saatchi

To every argument an equal argument is opposed, ~ Sextus Empiricus

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change. ~ John Major

Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight. ~ Deborah Tannen

The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If you have a very commanding argument that you cannot refute, not to accept the argument is to act irrationally. ~ Robert F. Almeder

Never Get Into An Argument With A Customer. If You Win The Argument You Will Almost Invariably Lose The Sale. And I Don't Like Your Chances For A Sale If You Lose The Argument Either. ~ David Foreman

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas. ~ Carl Sagan

I've never won an argument with my wife; and the only time I thought I had I found out the argument wasn't over yet. ~ Jimmy Carter

Follow the argument wherever it leads. ~ Socrates

Why do people argue? Even the wisest of men have not found God through argument! Is God a subject for argument? ~ Sarada Devi

What's more, I believe in argument and I even love it. Argument is our most steadfast pathway toward truth, for it is the only proven arbalest against superstitious thinking, or lackadaisical axioms. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present, an argument between what actually happened, and what is going to happen next. Arguments are important; they create the possibility of changing things. ~ John H. Arnold

I'm used to politics at an international level: people put together an argument and, even if you vehemently disagree with them, well, you can recognise it's an argument and respond. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

The argument for getting our own house in order is not an argument for turning our back on the world. We cannot and should not do that. ~ Chris Christie

Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formatted, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God. ~ Antony Flew

I don't like your tone, was Violet's standard answer when one of her children was winning an argument. ~ Julia Quinn

Rational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally. ~ Steven Weinberg

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it. ~ Noam Chomsky

Exhausting someone in argument is not the same as convincing him ~ Tim Kreider

...one lives convinced his friends are there, that contact does exist, that agreements or disagreements are profound and lasting. How we all hate each other, without being aware that endearment is the current form of that hatred, and how the reason behind profound hatred is this excentration, the unbridgeable space between me and you, between this and that. All endearment is an ontological clawing, yes, an attempt to seize the unseizable... ~ Julio Cortazar

Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief ~ Petrarch

God's Word is its own best argument. ~ Vance Havner

What I should have said is that he thinks that there is a conflict between evolutionary biology and theism. Dennett thinks that evolutionary theory shows that it is irrational to believe that God exists; he thinks that the theory has this consequence because he thinks that the Design Argument was the only remotely plausible argument for God's existence and evolutionary theory destroyed that argument. ~ Elliott Sober

A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow. ~ John Dryden

The argument is at an end. ~ Saint Augustine

The idea of a voyage was something crucial for Guy', Alice told me. He'd seen it the way Gypsies do: not so much experiential as ontological. It's not that Gypsies necessarily voyage from place to place as they are voyagers; the voyage is immanent in who they are, in what they do, irrespective of whether they travel or not. Guy had similarly understood life as an ontological voyage. Time moves on, ineluctably, and people are consumed by fire. ~ Andy Merrifield

People say there are no atheists in foxholes. A lot of people think this is a good argument against atheism. Personally, I think it's a much better argument against foxholes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What I like about music is its ability to be convincing, to carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the terms of the argument remain unknown quantities. ~ John Ashbery

If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak. ~ William Godwin

George W. Bush bought the election - period. End of story. There is no argument. You can try to come up with any argument you can, but there is none. ~ Gary Coleman

The bestway to diffuse an argument is to listen first, second, and last. ~ Anabel Jensen

In a heated argument we are apt to lose sight of the truth. ~ Publilius Syrus

You never win an argument until they attack your person. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument. ~ Edward St. Aubyn

Bigot: A person who wins an argument with a liberal. ~ Rush Limbaugh

In argument with men a woman ever Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. ~ John Milton

Never get into an argument with a schizophrenic person and say, 'Who do you think you are?' ~ Ray Combs

The argument holds no water at all, not even a thimbleful. ~ Allan Lichtman

Argument does not soften, but rather hardens, the obdurate heart. ~ Orville Dewey

This one god could be of the deistic or pantheistic sort. Deism might be superior in explaining why God has seemingly left us to our own devices and pantheism could be the more logical option as it fits well with the ontological argument's 'maximally-great entity' and doesn't rely on unproven concepts about 'nothing' (as in 'creation out of nothing'). A mixture of the two, pandeism, could be the most likely God-concept of all. ~ Raphael Lataster

Heated argument: when you try to convince someone of what you don't believe yourself. ~ Marty Rubin

The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist. ~ Richard Dawkins

To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Truth is always the strongest argument. ~ Sophocles

From now on, I'm opting for ontological terrorism. ~ Grant Morrison

People rid the room of argument until they have no one left - except people who agree with them. It is understandable. But I like a good argument. ~ Bono

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it. ~ John Galsworthy

Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

I have won every argument I ever had with myself. ~ William Feather

You are the strongest argument, yet, against cloning. ~ Patricia Richardson

One can never win an argument with ignorance. ~ Wes Fesler

We sometimes hear the argument, 'All the world' thinks this, or does that, given as a reason for our doing likewise; but that is an argument that should have no weight with the Christian, who is commanded not to be conformed to the world. ~ Hudson Taylor

Winning an argument is losing it as it makes the loser feel bad. ~ Deepak Chopra

Winning an argument with your wife is like winning the war with Iraq. Once you win, you're in even more trouble. ~ James Carville

The utterly fallacious idea at the heart of the pro-war argument is that it is the duty of the anti-war argument to provide an alternative to war. The onus is on them to explain just cause. ~ Zadie Smith

Win through your actions, never through argument. ~ Robert Greene

Argument is the worst sort of conversation. ~ Jonathan Swift

A good action is preferable to an argument. ~ Voltaire

Realism: A post dadaist yearning for the ontological validation of domestic miseries and bygone centuries. ~ Carol Novack

It is possible for you to be the wrong one in an argument about you. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Every discussion with a girl is an argument, and when you think you are right suddenly you realize that your trapped. ~ Bharat

I'm a fanatic about Irish music. I love its moody, modal and timeless quality. I'm different from some other composers, because I don't look at this as just a job. I think of music as art. ~ James Horner

He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument ~ Thomas Paine

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable. ~ George Eliot

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument. ~ Samuel Johnson

We argue with our biology, and the result of that argument is civilization. ~ Charles Siebert

We are afraid. But fear confirms life and identifies the source of every successful argument - ourselves. ~ Gerry Spence

Clary: What are you doing here, anyway?
Jace: 'Here' as in your bedroom or 'here' as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you're asking whether it's all just a cosmic coincidence or there's a greater metaethical purpose to life, well, that's a puzzler for the ages. I mean, simple ontological reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but-
Clary: I'm going to bed. ~ Cassandra Clare

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good. ~ Thomas Sowell

For anybody who suspects that we need to reform the drug laws, there is an easier argument to make, and a harder argument to make. The easier argument is to say that we all agree drugs are bad - it's just that drug prohibition is even worse. ~ Johann Hari

Repetition of an argument proves your determination, not truth. ~ Raheel Farooq

That something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it. ~ Paul Bloom

An argument is always about what has been made more important than the relationship. ~ Hugh Prather

I'd rather lose an argument than get into a long discussion in order to win it. ~ Rafael Nadal

Children key off their parents' reaction more than the argument or physical discipline itself. ~ Po Bronson

A plot is a thousand times more unsettling than an argument, which may be answered. ~ Eudora Welty

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding. ~ James Boswell

An argument can be made - a rigorous, persuasive argument - that every good new thing results from a teeming complexity. ~ Joshua Wolf Shenk

Body', 'soul', and 'spirit' may designate phenomenal domains which can be detached as themes for definite investigations; within certain limits their ontological indefiniteness may not be important. When, however, we come to the question of man's Being, this is not something we can simply compute by adding together those kinds of Being which body, soul, and spirit respectively possess
kinds of being whose nature has not as yet been determined. And even if we should attempt such an ontological procedure, some idea of the Being of the whole must be presupposed. ~ Martin Heidegger

History is an argument without end. ~ Pieter Geyl

If you can win an argument by stretching your lips for a smile, why open your mouth and lose it. ~ Sukant Ratnakar

I don't want to get into an argument at the bar with some old racist homophobic person. ~ Lissie

For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words. ~ Larry Wall

Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop. ~ William Shakespeare

A keen wit stabs harder than a finely honed argument. ~ Rachel Hartman

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one. ~ George Savile

The Banh Mi sandwich is really the only good argument for colonialism. ~ Calvin Trillin

Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions. ~ Booth Tarkington

Reducing every issue to an argument can become stale but it's often a very good way of clarifying issues. ~ Evan Davis

When a person begins to yell during an argument, it is a tip-off that he is unsure of himself. ~ Ann Landers

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.
[Address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 November 2004] ~ Desmond Tutu