RE: What has convinced you that your beliefs are correct? How do you know the pantheon which you worship is real?

*An Ontological Argument for Polytheism: *

Proof A:

We can think of a being greater than which nothing can be conceived.

It is greater to exist in reality than solely in thought.

Therefore the being greater than which nothing can be conceived must exist in reality (otherwise a greater being could be conceived which contradicts 1).

Proof B:

There exists a being greater than which nothing can be conceived.

It is greater to exist in multiple forms than in one form.

Therefore the being greater than which nothing can be conceived exists in multiple forms (if it existed only in one form, a greater being could be conceived which contradicts 1).

Let the "greatest being" demonstrated to be Proof A be called Godhood (the ousia of a god). Let any particular form which that Godhood exists in be called "God".

It follows from Proof B, 2, that an infinite number of forms would be greater than a finite number.

I am not sure I entirely follow. We can concieve of a being which hypothetically exists in reality, in which case it would be the greatest being that we can concieve, without it actually existing, no?

The argument is that basically if it doesn’t exist in reality it would contradict its definition as “a being greater than which nothing can be conceived”. Because we could think of something greater that does exist.

Because it is the “greatest being” it necessarily exists.

The idea here is to show that existence is of the essence of Godhood, that if something partakes in Godhood it could not be thought of as not existing logically.

But why should we expect the universe to care about the word games we think up?

Because the kosmos is ordered and we can come to know things about it.

We can demonstrate that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, factually. That corresponds to ever triangle that exists in the real world. I am only asserting we can have similar knowledge about theology (this comparison to mathematics being a common one by Ancient Greek sages such as Pythagoras.