UPDATED BY VCG ON 8/13/2026 @ 23:23 EST#

Anyone can do this, but they won't.#

I’ll treat the thread as a set of discrete claims, not as a monolith: first preserve what each post actually says, then separate factual claims, inference, rhetoric/psychology, and theological claims. For Scripture, I’ll distinguish the KJV text from interpretation and correct proof-texting by immediate context and cross-references.

/x/ - I read The God Delusion when I was 11 and became a - Paranormal - 4chan

A major correction is already clear from the thread itself: OP has misattributed the ontological argument to Aquinas. Aquinas did not offer it as one of his Five Ways; in Summa Theologiae I.2.1 he rejects the move from a concept/definition of God to God’s existence. That changes the whole debate: the thread is mostly wrestling with Anselm and a later parody, not with Aquinas.

The thread’s “cognitive dissonance” diagnosis also needs correction before we get theological: dissonance is not a lie detector. Psychological research describes pressure to reduce inconsistency, while motivated reasoning and confirmation bias can affect believers and skeptics alike. So neither “this bothers you, therefore Christianity is false” nor “this bothers you, therefore Satan is attacking” follows scientifically from the discomfort itself.

Soli Deo Gloria. I pulled the live thread itself, checked the philosophical sources behind the dispute, checked Dawkins’s actual wording, compared the theological claims against the uploaded Pure Cambridge KJV, and checked the psychological/scientific side claims where they become testable. The snapshot I reviewed runs from OP No. 42814089 on August 12 through No. 42819462 on August 13. (4chan)

There is one correction so important that it changes the entire thread:

The OP's central problem is based on a historical misidentification. The ontological argument is not one of Aquinas's arguments for God's existence. Aquinas explicitly considers an Anselm-style version—and rejects that inference.

That means a Christian does not have to save Anselm's ontological argument in order to save Aquinas, classical Christian theism, or the biblical doctrine of God.

1. Methodology#

I'm using essentially the evidence-first framework preserved in the VCG research material: original statement → intended meaning → historical analysis → KJV biblical analysis → language/scientific/psychological/logical analysis where relevant → missing context → alternative interpretations → conclusion. The same document explicitly calls for separating fact, interpretation, speculation, and rhetoric, putting context before commentary, and stating uncertainty rather than manufacturing certainty.

For this thread I add four controls:

1. Argument ≠ conclusion. A bad argument for God does not prove atheism; a bad argument against God does not prove Christianity.
2. Experience ≠ interpretation. A person's religious or mystical experience may be completely sincere while their explanation of it remains disputable.
3. Psychology ≠ truth-value. Explaining why somebody believes something does not determine whether the belief is true.
4. Scripture ≠ later esoteric systems. Kabbalah, Hermetic Qabalah, Taoism, psychedelia, modern occultism, and anonymous internet cosmologies cannot simply be called "biblical Christianity."

That distinction is where much of the thread collapses.

2. Executive verdict on the central question#

The central 4chan question is:

Does Douglas Gasking's parody of Anselm prove that God does not exist, or create a contradiction fatal to Christianity?

No.

And there are several independent reasons.

First, Dawkins himself does not claim that Gasking actually proved God's nonexistence. Immediately after reproducing the parody, Dawkins says Gasking did not really prove that God does not exist and adds that Gasking was deliberately being funny. His target is the form of ontological reasoning, not a demonstration of atheism. (Mozammel HQ)

Second, the parody depends on treating nonexistence as though it were a disability possessed by a causal agent. But an agent who literally does not exist does not possess disabilities, powers, achievements, causal relations, greatness, or anything else. Calling nonexistence the creator's "greatest handicap" quietly turns a nonexistent object back into an object possessing a property.

Third, it equivocates between:

• the impressiveness of an achievement, and
• the greatness of the being performing it.

Suppose performing a piano concerto blindfolded is more impressive than performing it normally. It does not follow that blindness itself makes the pianist a greater being. Gasking's parody magnifies that equivocation to nonexistence.

Fourth, "x created the universe while x did not exist" is not an extraordinary achievement under ordinary causal language. It is a contradiction in the description: the sentence predicates causal activity of something while denying there is anything to perform that activity.

Fifth—and this is devastating to the OP's worry—Aquinas basically agrees that you cannot move from a definition in the mind to real existence this way. He says that even if someone understands "God" as that than which nothing greater can be thought, it follows only that the concept exists mentally; actual existence does not follow unless actual existence has already been admitted. (New Advent)

So the clean answer is:

Gasking is a parody exposing problems in one formulation of Anselm's argument. It is not a proof of atheism. And abandoning Anselm's proof would not mean abandoning Aquinas, much less Christianity.

3. What Anselm actually argued#

The OP reduces the ontological argument to:

imagine the perfect thing → that's God → existing is better → therefore God exists.

That is an understandable popularization, but Anselm's actual Proslogion is more precise.

Anselm defines God as a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. He then distinguishes existing merely in understanding from existing in reality, and argues that if the greatest conceivable being existed only mentally, a greater one—existing actually—could be conceived. He later strengthens this into necessary existence. (Internet History Sourcebooks)

Whether that succeeds is a separate question.

What matters for the thread is that OP is not wrestling with Aquinas's Five Ways.

Aquinas actually places essentially this reasoning into an objection. His reply says:

• we do not know God's essence sufficiently for God's existence to be self-evident to us;
• a definition being understood gives mental existence of the concept;
• actual existence does not follow just from that;
• God's existence should instead be argued from effects known to us. (New Advent)

And Aquinas immediately goes on to say that God's existence and similar truths can be approached by natural reason as preambles to faith. (New Advent)

So OP's instinct—

"there is a solid way to reach Him through reason"

—is actually much closer to Aquinas than several of the mystical replies telling him to abandon reasoning altogether. (4chan)

4. What Gasking actually argued#

The parody is attributed to Australian philosopher Douglas Gasking. Philosopher William Grey published a short paper titled Gasking's proof in Analysis in 2000; Dawkins later reproduced the parody in The God Delusion. (OUP Academic)

Its backbone is:

• creation is an extraordinary achievement;
• overcoming a greater handicap supposedly makes an achievement greater;
• nonexistence would supposedly be the greatest possible handicap;
• therefore a nonexistent creator creating everything would be greater than an existent creator;
• therefore an existent God cannot be maximally great.

Dawkins then immediately warns the reader that this did not establish God's nonexistence.

Exactly where it breaks#

Let:

• (C(x)) = x created the universe.
• (E(x)) = x exists.

Ordinarily,

[
C(x) \rightarrow E(x)
]

because creation is an action attributable to an agent.

Gasking's pivotal creature must satisfy:

[
C(x)\land \neg E(x)
]

But that conflicts with the first relation.

The parody only looks possible because normal language permits us to string together the words "a nonexistent creator created..." Grammatically well-formed descriptions need not designate coherent possibilities.

Compare:

• a square circle drew a picture;
• a married bachelor wrote a book;
• a nonexistent carpenter constructed my table.

Imagining the sentence is not the same as exhibiting a possible entity.

And notice what happened: once somebody asks how great, capable, handicapped, or creative the nonexistent God is, they are already treating "nonexistent God" as a subject bearing predicates.

That is precisely the category mistake.

5. Biblical baseline before entering the replies#

The Bible does not present God's existence as the conclusion of an imagination game.

It begins:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Genesis 1:1

At the burning bush:

"I AM THAT I AM" — Exodus 3:14.

Psalm 90 says:

"from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." — Psalm 90:2.

John says:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

and:

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." — John 1:1,3.

Paul describes Christ:

"For by him were all things created..."

and:

"he is before all things, and by him all things consist." — Colossians 1:16–17.

So within biblical theology, God is not something who comes into existence, nor a portion of the created order, nor a nonexistent causal agent.

That will become important when the thread moves into Kabbalah and internet cosmology.

6. Line-by-line / post-by-post examination#

OP — No. 42814089#

"I read The God Delusion when I was 11..."#

Biographical claim; impossible for us to verify from an anonymous post. It should therefore be treated as reported personal history, not established fact. (4chan)

"I have since invited God into my life and am on the path to salvation."#

This is theological self-description.

Biblically, salvation is not defined merely as "inviting God into one's life." The New Testament centers salvation on Christ, repentance, faith, grace, the gospel, and Christ's death and resurrection. Hebrews calls faith necessary, but its object matters:

"he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." — Hebrews 11:6.

The thread never really explores the gospel itself.

"This argument causes cognitive dissonance."#

Plausible use of the term if OP means that two cognitions he holds appear inconsistent.

But cognitive dissonance does not tell us which cognition is false. Psychological literature describes motivated reasoning as the tendency for desired conclusions to influence how beliefs are retrieved, constructed, and evaluated. That mechanism operates independently of which side of a religious dispute somebody occupies. (PubMed)

So:

• dissonance ≠ secret knowledge Christianity is false;
• dissonance ≠ evidence Christianity is true;
• dissonance = a reason to investigate carefully.

"Imagine the best/perfect thing..."#

Already weakens Anselm.

A "perfect person I can imagine" is not identical with "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." The argument depends on a carefully specified maximal concept, not somebody's psychologically vivid image. Anselm's primary text makes this distinction more sophisticated than OP's summary. (Internet History Sourcebooks)

"Therefore God exists."#

This is exactly the inferential gap Aquinas highlights.

Mental conception does not automatically become extramental existence. (New Advent)

"The refutation ... retold by Dawkins..."#

Partly accurate, but incorrectly framed.

Dawkins reproduces Gasking's ironic parody. He explicitly says afterward it does not actually prove God's nonexistence. (Mozammel HQ)

"Most of Aquinas' arguments ... except this one—the ontological argument."#

Historically false.

Aquinas's Five Ways are different arguments. He explicitly rejects the move OP attributes to him. (New Advent)

That alone should remove much of OP's supposed theological crisis.

No. 42814187 — points at "consider that it exists → therefore it exists"#

This poster does not give a complete critique, but notices a genuine problem: the transition from conceivability to actuality needs justification. (4chan)

That is not quite a refutation of every sophisticated ontological argument, but against OP's simplified version it is a fair objection.

Verdict: substantially right about the weak point.

No. 42814194 — "Any argument beginning with imagine is stupid"; Dawkins/teapot/FSM attacks#

Several things are mixed together. (4chan)

Good instinct: imagining an object does not ordinarily cause or establish its real existence.

Bad generalization: thought experiments routinely begin with imagined scenarios. What matters is whether the premises entail a conclusion, not whether the word "imagine" occurs.

Ad hominem: whether Dawkins is funny or unpleasant tells us nothing about the validity of Gasking or Anselm.

Whataboutism: the genital-mutilation remark is logically irrelevant to the ontological argument.

And one historical cleanup: Russell's teapot belongs to Bertrand Russell, while the Flying Spaghetti Monster originated in Bobby Henderson's 2005 satire; Dawkins later used such comparisons, but he did not invent either one. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

No. 42814229 — Islam is "more internally consistent"#

This confuses several categories: internal consistency, moral submission, ritual reinforcement, and truth. (4chan)

A religious system could be internally consistent and false. It could be behaviorally demanding and false. A believer could be extremely committed and wrong.

The five-daily-prayer observation concerns religious practice; it does not show that repetition establishes truth.

The poster also caricatures Christianity as though Christianity teaches that God must conform to modern human values. Biblical Christianity says virtually the opposite where God's authority is concerned. The real debate is whether the acts attributed to God are consistent with the character Scripture itself attributes to Him—not whether man gets to rewrite God.

So the claimed Christian/Islamic contrast is overstated.

No. 42814233 — "Abrahamic religion is poison."#

This is a slogan, not an argument. (4chan)

To evaluate it one would need definitions, historical scope, causal evidence, comparison classes, and distinctions between Judaism, Christianity, Islam, denominations, political institutions, cultures, and abuses committed under religious language.

It contributes heat rather than evidence.

Nos. 42814241 / 42814246 — logic from physical experience cannot reach transcendence; "math explaining colour"#

There is a legitimate epistemological caution here: finite human cognition should not be assumed capable of exhaustive knowledge of an infinite God. (4chan)

But the conclusion "therefore logic cannot tell us anything about God" does not follow.

It is self-defeating, because that conclusion itself is an alleged logical truth about God's relationship to human cognition.

Aquinas explicitly holds that effects can give genuine though non-exhaustive knowledge of their cause. (New Advent)

Scripture presents a similar combination of knowledge plus limitation. Romans 1:19–20 says things about God are understood through things made:

"the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made..."

Yet Scripture never says human beings thereby comprehend God exhaustively.

So the biblical position is neither:

• "human reason knows everything," nor
• "human reason tells us nothing."

Nos. 42814247 / 42814285#

One is a quip; the other is simply abuse directed at OP. (4chan)

Neither contains an argument requiring rebuttal.

This matters methodologically: insults are not evidence. A line-by-line analysis should not award an insult the epistemic dignity of a premise merely because it is rhetorically forceful.

No. 42814294 — nonexistent things cannot interact; creation reveals God; human imagination falls short#

The opening idea is one of the thread's strongest direct answers to Gasking:

If something literally does not exist, attributing causal interaction to it is already incoherent. (4chan)

The second idea—that God is known through what He has made—is directly biblical in Romans 1:20.

The statement that God's reality exceeds human imagination can also be defended in a limited sense.

But one should not turn "God exceeds our imagination" into "therefore any proposition about God is immune to reason." Scripture itself makes propositions about God.

Verdict: mostly strong, with an important caveat about anti-rationalism.

No. 42814314 — "I cannot imagine perfectly good God"; "99% DNA with gorillas and chimps"#

The humility point is reasonable: inability to imagine perfect goodness does not prove goodness nonexistent. (4chan)

The genetics number is roughly in the neighborhood for particular measures, but is too loose as stated. Published genomic comparisons have estimated average human–chimp sequence differences around 1.2%, while human–gorilla divergence is somewhat larger; the percentage depends on what parts of the genomes and what kinds of differences are being counted. (PubMed Central (PMC))

But none of that establishes the philosophical conclusion.

Genetic similarity to other primates does not entail:

• moral skepticism,
• atheism,
• theism,
• inability to reason,
• or impossibility of objective morality.

That inference would need its own argument.

No. 42814360 — "cognitive dissonance means he knows Christianity is a lie"#

Psychologically unjustified. (4chan)

This poster commits something close to the genetic/psychological fallacy: explaining a belief in terms of psychological motives and then pretending the explanation establishes falsity.

Ironically, the reply itself displays a fixed desired conclusion: any Christian answer is declared deceptive in advance.

Research on motivated reasoning specifically warns that motivation can shape the strategies by which people reach preferred conclusions. (PubMed)

A better method is symmetry:

• Could OP be looking for rationalization? Yes.
• Could an atheist responder be looking for rationalization? Yes.
• How do we decide? Examine the argument independently.

That is the epistemically clean path.

No. 42814404#

The observation that "11-year-old fedora atheist debater" is an odd self-description carries no substantive philosophical content. (4chan)

No theological correction necessary.

No. 42814413 — faith as accumulating "energy," divine experiences, church "communal energies"#

This is one of the thread's most important pseudo-Christian substitutions. (4chan)

Some elements resemble Christianity:

• belief in God,
• prayer,
• obedience,
• proclaiming the resurrection,
• Christian fellowship.

But defining faith as the "progressive increase of energy" and churches as mechanisms for "channeling communal energies" is not the New Testament's definition of faith.

Hebrews says:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Hebrews 11:1.

And Christian faith is repeatedly faith in someone / something, especially God, Christ, His promises, and the gospel. It is not an occult substance whose quantity mechanically produces revelations.

There is another major problem:

"it's actually not about creating a self-consistent belief system"

That opens the door to epistemic insulation.

Biblically, Christians are not told to celebrate contradiction. The Bereans are praised because they:

"searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." — Acts 17:11.

And:

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — 1 Thessalonians 5:21.

Faith is not biblical permission to abandon truth-testing.

No. 42814416 — "tell me your truth so I can dismantle it regardless"#

Psychologically, this is one of the clearest posts in the thread.

The writer announces the desired conclusion before hearing the evidence. (4chan)

That is almost a textbook illustration of directionally motivated reasoning: rather than asking, "What conclusion does the evidence support?", the person asks, "How do I reach the conclusion I already want?" Kunda's review specifically distinguishes accuracy motivation from motivation toward a preferred conclusion. (PubMed)

Whether the target is Christianity or atheism is irrelevant. The method is epistemically bad.

No. 42814470 — political/religious bundles, tribal switching, rationalization#

There is a potentially useful sociological intuition buried underneath a pile of sweeping generalizations: people can inherit identity bundles and rationalize them after the fact. (4chan)

But phrases such as beliefs being "randomly" chosen at population level and assertions about entire political camps are not established by the examples offered.

More importantly, even if every person acquired Christianity culturally, that would not prove Christianity false. Likewise, culturally acquired atheism would not prove atheism false.

Origin of belief ≠ truth of belief.

The right question remains: what are the reasons and evidence?

No. 42814507#

Almost entirely insult and character judgment. (4chan)

No substantive rebuttal required.

No. 42814524 — "I am [the OP] ... gotta play both sides"#

Important methodological wrinkle. (4chan)

Because the board is anonymous, we cannot independently verify that this really is OP.

If it is OP, then the original post may involve adversarial role-playing, self-debate, trolling, or deliberately soliciting competing arguments.

Therefore we should not psychologically diagnose the original author from the original post with high confidence.

That reinforces the importance of analyzing claims rather than anonymous personalities.

No. 42814554 — OT law drew the line between good and evil#

Partially biblical, but too broad. (4chan)

The Mosaic law certainly identifies righteous and sinful conduct. But according to Scripture, moral reality does not begin with Sinai. Murder is condemned in Genesis 4; Noah receives moral commands before Moses; Abraham is judged morally long before the Sinai covenant.

So:

better formulation: Mosaic law formally revealed and codified many dimensions of God's requirements for covenant Israel; it did not create the existence of good and evil.

7. The anti-reason / mystical section#

No. 42815342 — God cannot be reached through reason; realm eternally existed; "you are eternal"; everything is part of God#

This is not biblical Christianity. (4chan)

The claims are:

• created realm actually eternally existed;
• human beings are eternal;
• humans and the universe are parts of God.

Those statements conflict directly with the biblical Creator/creation distinction.

Genesis:

"In the beginning God created..."

Psalm 90 distinguishes God's eternal existence from the formed earth:

"Before the mountains were brought forth ... from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

John distinguishes the Word from what was made:

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."

Colossians likewise distinguishes Christ, who is before all things, from things created by Him.

Acts 17:28—"in him we live, and move, and have our being"—does not erase this distinction. The immediately surrounding passage calls God the maker and Lord of heaven and earth.

So this reply is closer to a pantheistic/panentheistic metaphysics than biblical Christianity.

No. 42815599 — nonexistent creator cannot be measured as greater#

Strong answer. (4chan)

This identifies one of the fatal equivocations in Gasking: nonexistence isn't an extra attribute carried by an entity.

I would sharpen it:

It is not merely that a nonexistent God has greatness = 0. There is no bearer to which a greatness-value can be assigned.

That prevents someone from replying, "But perhaps zero greatness is a handicap." The problem occurs before measurement.

No. 42815601 — intellect is inferior, intuition sees truth directly, cannot be criticized, drugs, Radin/Sheldrake#

This post begins with a fair observation and ends in epistemological disaster. (4chan)

Fair point#

Human reasoning is finite, and not every human experience is reducible to a deductive syllogism.

Problem 1: self-refutation#

The poster uses several paragraphs of arguments to establish that argument is inadequate.

Problem 2: "cannot be criticized"#

Anything declared "not subject to criticism" has been removed from truth-testing.

That doesn't make it profound; it makes it epistemically insulated.

Problem 3: intuition#

Intuition can generate hypotheses and insights. It does not guarantee truth. Two people can report mutually incompatible "direct intuitions."

Problem 4: altered states#

Psychedelic substances can indeed occasion intense experiences that participants characterize as mystical. That makes subjective intensity a poor standalone test for the metaphysical truth of the interpretation: a psychologically profound experience and a correct ontology are different propositions. (PubMed)

Biblical problem#

Scripture never tells believers to bypass testing because an experience feels direct.

Instead:

"searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

The biblical answer to fallible reason is not unfalsifiable intuition.

Nos. 42815727 / 42815733 — perfect eternal world, reality-gods, Satan, tortured reality, reality incarnating#

There is no evidence supplied for any of this. (4chan)

The posts simply announce an elaborate cosmology as "the truth."

Methodologically it fails immediately:

• no source;
• no textual derivation;
• no independent observation;
• no predictive test;
• no chain of inference.

Biblically, the story also diverges dramatically.

Satan is not presented as an omnipotent former human "reality" who acquired universe-level powers after infinite paradises. Humanity is not presented as previously consisting of autonomous reality-gods.

This is private mythology, not exegesis.

8. Islam subthread#

No. 42815916 — Qur'an tells Christians to judge by the Gospel; Qur'an contradicts Christianity; apostles succeeded#

This post touches a real Christian-Muslim apologetic tension, but overstates it. (4chan)

Qur'an 5:47 does say that the people of the Gospel should judge according to what God revealed therein. (Quran.com)

The Qur'an also differs sharply from canonical New Testament Christianity on central claims. For example, Qur'an 4:157 denies that Jesus was killed/crucified in the ordinary Christian account, while Qur'an 5:72 rejects identifying the Messiah with God. (Quran.com)

And Qur'an 61:14 portrays Jesus' believing disciples as receiving divine support and prevailing. (Quran.com)

So there genuinely is an apologetic question about:

• what "Gospel" the Qur'an means;
• how much authority it attributes to Christian scripture existing in Muhammad's period;
• what kind of tahrif—distortion/corruption—Muslim interpreters believe occurred;
• and how the Qur'anic account relates to the historical Christian texts.

But "the Qur'an simply orders Christians to test the Qur'an against our present Bible and therefore automatically self-refutes" is too compressed. Muslim interpretive traditions have developed more nuanced theories of corruption, interpretation, and prior revelation.

Verdict: raises a legitimate contradiction problem from a Christian apologetic standpoint, but states the Muslim position too simply.

No. 42818101 — "Peter, Jones, Jack ... 300 years after Jesus"#

This is mostly mocking confusion rather than historical analysis. (4chan)

The named apostle Peter is a first-century figure within the New Testament narrative; "apostles came 300 years later" is not an accurate description of what the canonical Christian texts claim.

The post does not clearly specify what people or sources it is actually attacking, so anything more would risk refuting a position it never coherently states.

9. The "Bozrah planet" section#

Nos. 42816169 / 42816178#

Claims include:

• this planet is not Earth;
• it is a planet called Bozrah;
• a day here is 16 Earth hours;
• time runs 50% faster;
• Earth is ~75,000 light-years away;
• Bozrah contains Edomite bloodlines;
• the millennium happens on another Earth. (4chan)

These claims fail both science and biblical context.

Scientific check: 16-hour day#

NASA gives Earth's rotation period as approximately 23.9 hours, not 16 hours. (NASA Science)

This isn't a vague theoretical inference. Earth rotation is independently measured through astronomy, navigation, geodesy, timekeeping, satellite operations, and celestial observation.

The claim that "time here runs 50% faster" is given no operational definition or measurement methodology.

Biblical check: Bozrah#

Biblical Bozrah is associated with Edom, not another planet.

Archaeological literature identifies Buseirah/Buseirah in southern Jordan with biblical Bozrah; Oxford's archaeological overview likewise refers to Buseirah as Bozrah in Edom. (PagePlace)

And Jeremiah 49 explicitly frames the oracle:

"Concerning Edom..."

before discussing Bozrah.

Therefore turning Bozrah into the name of a replica planet 75,000 light-years from Earth requires importing an enormous cosmology into the text that the text itself never states.

Methodological verdict: extreme overconfidence + unfalsifiable reinterpretation + detached proof-texting.

The repeated "100.00 percent certainty" is particularly revealing epistemically—not because certainty itself disproves something, but because the confidence vastly exceeds the evidence presented. (4chan)

10. Hebrew, Kabbalah and anti-reason#

No. 42816849 — "return to Hebrew"; Kabbalah/Islam say whatever you understand isn't God; reasoning never valid#

The first sentence contains excellent advice in principle: inspect the underlying biblical languages rather than invent doctrines. (4chan)

But then the poster commits the very thing warned against: substitutes a generalized mystical proposition for biblical exegesis.

"God exceeds complete human comprehension" does not entail "every human understanding of God is false."

If that were true, then the statement:

"God is beyond human understanding"

would itself be an invalid human understanding of God.

Scripture instead distinguishes:

• things revealed,
• things not revealed,
• true knowledge,
• exhaustive knowledge.

And Scripture expects reasoning. Acts 17 even depicts Paul reasoning from the Scriptures, while the Bereans evaluate what they hear.

11. Kabbalah/Qabalah replies#

No. 42817420 — Tree of Life, Kether, God as canvas and painting#

First, the useful point:

God is not simply "the most perfect man I can picture." (4chan)

That is a legitimate correction of OP's caricature of Anselm.

After that, however, the reply enters a Kabbalistic/Qabalistic cosmology and treats it as though it answers Christian doctrine.

Historical Kabbalah does contain doctrines of Ein Sof and the sefirot, but there have been different Kabbalistic models of their relation to God. Jewish Encyclopedia explicitly notes varying understandings—some identifying the sefirot closely with divine manifestation, others viewing them more as instruments/powers. Keter is traditionally the "crown"; Hod is associated with glory/splendor, Netzach with triumph/endurance, Yesod with foundation, and Malkhut with dominion/kingship. (Jewish Encyclopedia)

So the thread's tidy chart—

• Hod = logic,
• Netzach = emotion,
• Yesod = astral,
• Malkuth = physical,

—is an interpretive occult correspondence system, not simply the lexical meanings of the traditional Hebrew names.

No. 42817446 — "In the beginning there was nothing. Then God came into existence"#

This is the single most serious biblical error in the Kabbalah section. (4chan)

It says:

1. first there was nothing;
2. then God came into existence;
3. God effectively creates Himself from nothing.

That is directly incompatible with biblical theology.

Psalm 90:

"from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

Exodus:

"I AM THAT I AM."

John:

"In the beginning was the Word..."

Colossians:

"he is before all things..."

Furthermore, representing "God came into existence" as simply the Kabbalistic teaching is historically misleading. Classical descriptions of Ein Sof speak of the Infinite, and some Kabbalistic systems explicitly regard change in Ein Sof as unthinkable. Jewish Encyclopedia discusses Ein Sof as the absolutely infinite and describes various emanation models; it does not reduce Kabbalah to "first nothing existed, then God appeared." (Jewish Encyclopedia)

So even on its own historical terms, the 4chan explanation is much too confident.

No. 42817459 — "I heal all the time"#

Personal claim without evidence or enough detail to evaluate. (4chan)

Correct classification: unverified anecdote.

Not evidence for Kabbalah, Christianity, or any metaphysics without further documentation.

No. 42817511 — Hod/logic below Netzach/feeling; experience outranks logic#

Again, this gives a particular esoteric hierarchy the status of epistemological law. (4chan)

Even if one accepts that mystical framework, "feeling is higher on the diagram" does not prove "feelings are more truth-tracking than logical inference."

That is a non sequitur.

Two mystics can experience incompatible gods.

Two people can experience incompatible revelations.

An experience can be:

• sincere,
• powerful,
• transformative,

while the interpretation remains mistaken.

Biblically, experiences are not given an automatic exemption from testing.

No. 42817606#

"Stop thinking" plus insult. (4chan)

From a biblical perspective, particularly bad advice.

Paul's preaching involves reasoning; the Bereans test teaching; Thessalonians are told to prove things.

No. 42817651 — "he would have to exist to do that"#

Crude delivery; correct central point. (4chan)

This may be the shortest sound rebuttal in the whole thread.

A creator who actually performs an act cannot simultaneously be literally nonexistent in the same respect.

Nos. 42817657 / 42817667#

One calls it a chicken-and-egg puzzle; the other is merely a joke about "methinks." (4chan)

The first underestimates the issue: Gasking is not a chicken-and-egg regress problem. It's a parody built around predicate/property confusion.

12. Faith dispute#

No. 42817769 — "Faith can be a vice if directed toward a lie"#

This objection contains an important truth. (4chan)

Faith is not virtuous merely because it is faith. Its object matters.

A person who confidently trusts a fraud has not made the fraud true by trusting harder.

Christian Scripture itself does not teach generic credulity as a virtue.

Hebrews 11:6 specifies belief in God.

Acts 17 praises checking claims against Scripture.

1 Thessalonians 5 says "Prove all things."

So the Christian response should not be:

"Faith means believing harder regardless of objections."

The response should be:

Biblical faith is trust directed toward the God Scripture identifies; therefore whether the claims about God, Christ, and the gospel are true still matters.

The atheist poster is therefore right against fideism, but has not thereby refuted biblical faith.

Nos. 42817769–42817784 — "Bible cannot be divine unless God is imperfect / both good and evil"#

This is an assertion of the problem of evil/morality of Scripture, but no actual biblical case is developed. (4chan)

To assess it seriously we'd need individual texts:

• conquest,
• judgment,
• slavery legislation,
• hell,
• divine wrath,
• suffering,
• etc.

Merely saying "the Bible contains evil, therefore God must be evil" assumes the moral verdict that needs defending.

At the same time, a Christian shouldn't answer by suppressing difficult texts. Each alleged example should be examined in its genre, covenantal setting, historical context, wording, and canonical context.

That requires its own study rather than a slogan.

No. 42817784 — "religion/God caused division and wars"#

Historically, religion has plainly been implicated in conflict, but the thread makes a totalizing causal claim without evidence or comparison. (4chan)

Human conflicts also arise around:

• territory,
• ethnicity,
• state power,
• class,
• ideology,
• resources,
• nationalism,
• personal ambition.

Even if religious belief sometimes contributes causally to violence, "therefore God does not exist" would still not follow.

That's another genetic fallacy.

13. Experience and subjective "God"#

No. 42818614 — "As faith increases, experiences of divinity increase; if you haven't had them, you won't understand"#

This is a dangerous epistemic loop. (4chan)

The structure is:

1. believe more;
2. interpret more experiences as divine;
3. take those experiences as confirming belief;
4. dismiss outsiders because they haven't believed enough to experience confirmation.

That can become self-sealing.

It doesn't prove the experience is unreal. It means the method cannot distinguish very well between:

• genuine revelation,
• expectation,
• reinterpretation,
• suggestion,
• altered-state phenomena,
• another religion's mystical experience.

Again, Scripture's answer is testing, not "outsiders just cannot understand."

No. 42818642 — God = "root of intelligibility"; therefore definitionally real#

This does not prove the God of Christianity. (4chan)

It stipulates that the phrase "God" will refer to "the root of intelligibility."

Suppose such a root exists. We would still need arguments establishing that it is:

• personal,
• one,
• creator,
• morally good,
• omniscient,
• related to Israel,
• Father of Jesus Christ,
• resurrected Christ,
• etc.

The poster explicitly admits all further properties are speculative.

So this is not Christian theism proved by definition. It is a naming convention.

No. 42818647 — formal "root of intelligibility" proof#

More sophisticated, but same problem. (4chan)

Even granting:

there must be some ultimate enabling condition of intelligibility,

the statement:

"I call it God"

does not derive classical theism.

It establishes at most:

[
\exists x,(x=\text{ultimate condition for intelligibility})
]

Then one stipulates:

[
God := x
]

But nothing follows yet about Yahweh, Christ, creation, goodness, providence, resurrection, or salvation.

This is semantic relabeling, not an argument from transcendental conditions to biblical theology.

No. 42818653 — ethnic blame toward Ashkenazi Jews#

This is unsupported scapegoating. (4chan)

The argument basically becomes:

social contradictions exist → an ethnic group built them → therefore opponent is a shill.

No evidence is given for the causal attribution, and the ethnicity of an interlocutor has no bearing on the truth of an argument.

Biblically, ethnic boasting is especially incongruous for someone invoking Jesus. Christianity originates within Israel's story; Jesus and the apostles are Jewish, and Paul explicitly warns Gentile believers not to boast against the Jewish branches in Romans 11.

So this line is neither logically sound nor a faithful Christian rebuttal.

14. Who is Jesus? — No. 42818861#

The reply offers:

• Cain = matter,
• Abel = soul,
• Seth = symbolic mediation,
• Christ = a collective symbolic representation of God/Spirit,
• Christ analogous to Tao. (4chan)

This is eisegesis.

Nothing in Genesis tells us:

[
Cain = matter,\quad Abel = soul,\quad Seth = symbolic mediation.
]

Those equations are supplied by the interpreter.

More importantly, the New Testament does not present Jesus merely as humanity's symbolic representation of an inaccessible God.

John says:

"the Word was God"

and:

"the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."

Colossians says:

"Who is the image of the invisible God..."

and says all things were created by Him and for Him.

John 14:6 therefore cannot responsibly be reduced to "Christ is symbolic mediation like the Tao."

The verse makes an exclusive personal claim:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Whatever theological debates arise around that verse, its grammatical subject is Jesus, not an abstract Jungian/Sethian symbol.

15. No. 42819187 — subjective definitions prove nothing#

This is a good objection to No. 42818642. (4chan)

If person A can define:

God = root of intelligibility

and person B can define:

God = nonexistence,

neither definition by itself tells us which corresponding thing exists.

Definitions determine usage, not external reality.

This is, ironically, close to the problem Aquinas identified centuries earlier: understanding what a word signifies mentally is not enough to establish that the thing exists actually. (New Advent)

16. No. 42819411 — "just be a good person; worry about death later; it's called faith"#

This is not the biblical gospel. (4chan)

Christian salvation is not:

be morally decent + ignore the God question + deal with death when it happens.

The New Testament makes God's existence, Christ, sin, judgment, resurrection, repentance, and faith central.

Hebrews 11:6:

"he that cometh to God must believe that he is..."

And biblical Christianity does not teach that one earns salvation simply by being "a good person."

So this reply sounds religious but is doctrinally very thin.

17. No. 42819431 — "all words have personal meaning"; ineffable divine name; Tao#

There is a legitimate philosophical observation here: words are not identical with the realities to which they refer. (4chan)

But "all words have personal meaning" becomes self-defeating if taken strongly.

If "red," "God," "truth," "existence," and "personal" had only private meanings, this poster could not expect other users to understand his sentences.

Language requires enough shared convention for communication.

Likewise, Jewish reverence concerning the divine name does not establish that language about God is meaningless. The Hebrew Bible contains enormous amounts of propositional language about God.

So:

words are not the essence of things — fair.

therefore definitions are purely subjective and truth about God cannot be communicated — does not follow.

18. No. 42819448 — "both arguments are nonsense; imagination doesn't establish real dogs; you cannot imagine divine perfection"#

This is one of the better late replies. (4chan)

The dog analogy correctly establishes:

[
conceivable(x)\not\Rightarrow actual(x)
]

But it doesn't by itself refute every sophisticated ontological argument, because defenders claim much more than "I pictured X, therefore X exists."

Still, against OP's popularized formulation, it is effective.

The second observation—that a finite mental representation of God is not identical to God—is also reasonable.

Aquinas makes a related epistemic point: we do not know God's essence in the way necessary to make God's existence self-evident from the definition alone. (New Advent)

So this poster arrives surprisingly close to the Thomistic objection.

19. No. 42819462 — Dawkins is stupid/narcissistic; religious ≠ unintelligent#

The second proposition is correct logically: neither atheism nor religious belief by itself determines intelligence.

The rest is personal insult and an anecdote about the poster's father. (4chan)

Calling Dawkins unintelligent does not refute him.

Calling Christians unintelligent does not refute Christianity.

A rigorous response should evaluate Dawkins where he is right and where he is wrong.

And in this particular case, Dawkins is actually more careful than OP remembered: he explicitly says Gasking did not prove that God does not exist.

20. Psychological map of the entire thread#

Several recurring patterns are worth identifying without diagnosing anonymous strangers.

Motivated reasoning#

Both sides display it.

The most blatant example is:

"tell me the truth ... so I can dismantle it regardless."

That is almost an explicit announcement that the conclusion precedes the evaluation. (4chan)

OP may also be at risk when asking specifically for an argument that will preserve a preferred belief. But seeking a counterargument isn't itself dishonest; good adversarial reasoning deliberately seeks the best response to an objection.

The correct safeguard is:

Ask what evidence would make you change your mind on either side.

Cognitive dissonance#

The atheist poster abuses the concept by treating discomfort as proof that OP secretly knows Christianity is false. Psychology does not warrant that conclusion. (4chan)

Confirmation loops#

"Believe more → experience more divinity → experience confirms belief" can generate a self-reinforcing loop. (4chan)

Again, that does not prove every experience false. It means experience needs independent evaluation.

Epistemic immunization#

Watch for phrases like:

• logic cannot touch this;
• direct seeing cannot be criticized;
• if you disagree you have not experienced it;
• critics are shills;
• science can never reach truth;
• God sent me, so debunkers are deceived.

These moves protect claims from conceivable correction rather than supporting them. Several appear explicitly in the thread. (4chan)

Status aggression#

A striking proportion of the thread substitutes insults, identity labels, ethnic attacks, and intelligence claims for premises.

Psychologically they may serve social/status functions; logically their value is zero.

21. A biblical theology of reason versus the thread's mysticism#

The thread repeatedly offers a false dichotomy:

either trust logic and become a rationalist atheist,
or transcend logic and encounter God directly.

Scripture gives neither.

It says creation can reveal genuine truths:

"the invisible things of him ... are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." — Romans 1:20.

It portrays Paul reasoning:

"reasoned with them out of the scriptures." — Acts 17:2.

It praises verification:

"searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." — Acts 17:11.

It commands testing:

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — 1 Thessalonians 5:21.

Yet it also acknowledges unseen reality:

"faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Hebrews 11:1.

Those do not describe blind irrationalism.

The pattern is:

reason is real but finite; revelation is authoritative within the biblical framework; faith concerns realities not presently seen; claims are nevertheless tested rather than protected from examination.

22. The direct rebuttal OP actually needed#

If I were answering only the original philosophical problem, I would reduce several thousand words of 4chan noise to this:

Objection#

Wouldn't God be greater if He created the universe despite not existing?

Reply#

No, because nonexistence is not a handicap possessed by a creator.

A handicap presupposes a subject that has the handicap.

An actual creator can have:

• limited strength;
• blindness;
• lack of tools;
• opposition;
• difficult circumstances.

But "not existing" is not the most extreme item on that continuum. It removes the subject from the continuum altogether.

Therefore:

1. If (x) creates something, (x) acts causally.
2. If (x) acts causally, (x) exists.
3. Therefore, if (x) creates something, (x) exists.
4. "A nonexistent x created everything" contradicts 3.
5. Contradictions do not describe greater possible beings.
6. Therefore Gasking's nonexistent creator is not a greater candidate for God.

And independently:

7. Greater difficulty can make an achievement more impressive.
8. That does not mean every handicap makes the agent ontologically greater.
9. Gasking equivocates between those senses of "greater."

So Gasking has not discovered a being greater than God.

He has deliberately constructed a parody by breaking the conceptual machinery used in the ontological argument.

Which is essentially why Dawkins himself tells the reader not to mistake it for a genuine proof of God's nonexistence.

23. And what if Anselm's argument really does fail?#

Then it fails.

That is all.

You do not get:

[
\neg(\text{successful proof of }G)
\therefore
\text{proof of }\neg G
]

That inference is invalid.

If my attempted proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers were invalid, it would not follow that there are finitely many primes. It would mean my proof failed.

Likewise:

Anselm's proof fails

does not entail:

God does not exist.

And here the historical irony is wonderful: Aquinas himself did not need this proof.

He tells us to proceed from effects to cause, and then offers the Five Ways. (New Advent)

So OP has been suffering cognitive dissonance over an argument that:

• he misremembered as Aquinas's;
• Dawkins explicitly says does not prove atheism;
• Aquinas himself already rejected in essentially the form bothering him.

That is the central factual resolution.

24. Final classification of the thread#

The strongest contributions are:

42814187: notices the mental-to-real inference problem.

42814294: sees that nonexistence cannot perform interaction.

42815599: correctly challenges treating a nonexistent being as a measurable competitor.

42817651: brutally concise but logically right—creation presupposes an existing creator.

42817769: correctly warns that generic faith in a false proposition is not automatically virtuous.

42819187: correctly exposes the problem with proving reality through private definitions.

42819448: correctly distinguishes mental representation from external reality. (4chan)

The weakest or most misleading material is:

42814360: misuses cognitive dissonance as a truth detector.

42814413: replaces biblical faith with an energy/experience system and downplays consistency.

42815601: immunizes intuition against criticism.

42815727/33: unsupported private cosmology.

42816169/78: demonstrably false "planet Bozrah/16-hour day" claims.

42817446: "God came into existence"—contrary to biblical theology and an oversimplification of Kabbalah.

42817511: treats occult correspondences as epistemological proof.

42818642/47: obtains "God" mainly by stipulative definition.

42818653: ethnic scapegoating.

42818861: replaces the New Testament Christ with an unsupported symbolic Cain-Abel-Seth schema.

42819411: substitutes "be a good person" for the biblical gospel. (4chan)

Bottom line#

There is no logical reason in this thread for a Christian to panic over Gasking.

But there is also no reason to pretend Anselm's ontological argument must be accepted.

Truth does not need us to rescue every argument ever made in its favor.

The intellectually cleaner Christian position is:

If an argument fails, say it fails. If an objection succeeds, concede it. If a doctrine is biblical, establish it from Scripture in context. If an historical claim is made, check the source. If an experience is reported, distinguish the experience from the interpretation.

That is much closer to the biblical posture of "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" than either the thread's militant skepticism or its "stop thinking and trust mystical experience" alternative.

And on the original problem specifically, Aquinas gives OP something far more useful than an internet counter-meme: the concept of God in the intellect does not by itself establish God's actual existence; begin from what is known through God's effects instead. (New Advent)

That leaves Anselm open for philosophical debate without making Christianity stand or fall with him—and it removes Gasking's parody from the role OP accidentally gave it.

4CHAN THREAD & POST BREAKDOWNS – Library of Rickandria

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Prove All Things: A Biblical, Philosophical & Psychological Examination of the 4chan Debate over God, Reason & the Ontological Argument

Prove All Things: A Biblical, Philosophical & Psychological Examination of the 4chan Debate over God, Reason & the Ontological Argument – Library of Rickandria