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"God doesn't exist", grammatically incorrect?

OK so I was thinking...

Doesn't something have to exist in order to not exist?

"to not exist" is a verb... albeit a negative verb. But how can something that doesn't exist perform an action?

Like "Gary did not run". Gary has to exist in able to "not run".

I know it applies to anything, but I just thought it was interesting in a religious context.

If anyone can explain to me why I am horribly wrong I would be glad to accept it!

Cheers.

Update:

Unicorns, Monsters, Purple hairy Leprechauns with orange spots. I could have replaced God with any of those things. They do exist. In stories. Define exist, if you would? If there is an illustration of something in a kids book, does it not exist? It may not exist as an animal which lives and breathes, but it does exist, right?

Update 2:

I like what you're saying Nerdlinger.

So to say that "God doesn't exist" IS wrong. However, "God doesn't exist in reality" is correct. (Grammatically speaking of course)

Update 3:

grayure - Your answer sounded very interesting, but alas, I'm just a 16 year old who happened to be thinking about things in the shower this morning!

Didn't understand much of your answer, but I will Google things and try to crack it!

16 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    It's interesting that you've noticed that because it's similar to a common objection to the ontological argument for God's existence.

    God is an object of the imagination even if God does not exist. It's difficult to account for that in conceptual terms, but a common description of the situation is that existence is not in itself a property of something. If you say "some stones are brown", that can be negated as "some stones are not brown", and both of them mean something, even if they were false. However, if you say "some brown stones don't exist", it sounds peculiar. This is because existence is not a predicate. In a way, the word "exists" is just a fancy "is".

    There are ways round this, though. One is to describe existence in a different way, for example "be real" or "have an instance". So, these are apparently properties and also shared by all things which actually do exist.

  • neil s
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

    Unicorns don't exist. That should clear up the question.

    Also note, there is no "proper" English grammar. (source below) While prescribing a specific formulation of grammar is useful to students just learning how to use the language, ultimately only usage can say what is "proper". Usage based grammar is called "descriptive" (as opposed to prescriptive). The grammar police on this very forum could stand to recognize this point, and let things that are clear enough to understand go without comment.

  • 1 decade ago

    The 'concept' of a God exists, this however does not mean that God is an actual reality.

    If no concept of God existed, then we wouldn't have a religious forum, then of course we have different 'concepts' of God/s.

    We can say a leprechaun doesn't exist.

    We have a 'concept' of a leprechaun, but if you want to explain to me that a leprechaun does exist then be my guest.

  • 1 decade ago

    "Doesn't something have to exist in order to not exist?"

    The kind of "incorrectness" you should be referring to is logical incorrectness (or invalidity), not grammatical incorrectness. The statement uses perfectly acceptable english grammar for the formulation of a proposition.

    Secondly, Gary did not run does not require that Gary exists, because if Gary does not exist, then the proposition "Gary did not run" is still true, infact, it's tautologically true if Gary simply does not exist, since Gary did not and never will run, thus the proposition is true for all time, making it tautological.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    "Doesn't something have to exist in order to not exist?"

    My god.

    You've just proven the existence of not only God, but leprechauns, UFOs, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the Tooth Fairy - anything you can invent a word for must exist!

    You must alert the press immediately!

  • 1 decade ago

    Something can exist as a concept without existing in reality. So your statement would be that the concept of god, which exists, does not exist in reality.

    The point is that there are two different types of existence here.

    "Doesn't something have to exist in order not to exist?"

    Answer: Something has to exist conceptually in order to say it doesn't exist in reality.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Purple hairy leprechauns with orange spots do not exist. I don't think that they need to have existed at one point to not exist now. They just never have and never will. Ergo your argument falls apart.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    Almost everything on Y/A is grammatically incorrect.

  • 1 decade ago

    In that case, unicorns and ogres also exist.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    "

    "Doesn't something have to exist in order to not exist?"

    What?

    You are negating your own statement.

    If God existed, he would exist.

    But God does not, therefore he doesn't exist.

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