definitions and descriptions of gods tend to be quite varied and even sometimes fluid, so it is usually silly to treat broad declarative statements about their possibility or actuality-- as entities that are basically undefined-- as possibly being known or unknown or even well-formulated. What is more interesting is examining the serious flaws in popular and mainstream theological reasoning and working out precisely how they go wrong and therefore what precisely the arguments they propose actually prove-- which is usually some definitional matter about something that absolutely does not have to exist in any meaningful way or may not even be possible. Oftentimes these arguments demonstrate problems with thinking about concepts in certain ways (looking at you, Descartes) or the limits of what you can do with logical reasoning (and you, Anselm).
On Descartes, briefly: he proposes in his fifth Meditation an argument that depends on the concept of perfection. He arbitrarily decides both that 'perfect' is a thing that something can be without any sort of reference to what it is being perfect as, and that existence itself is a perfection (it is supposed to be "more perfect" than nonexistence which, if we're going to entertain the idea at all, seems backward to me given that perfection is supposed to be an ideal: it is vastly easier for things that don't exist to be 'perfect' in some way than those that do-- consider geometric shapes). An intelligible concept of perfection is contained in ideas like 'a perfect cube' or 'a perfect sine wave' or 'a perfect replica of the Ship of Theseus' or 'a perfectly optimized build order for delivering three zealots to your opponent's ramp at the earliest time possible in a game of Starcraft™ on Lost Temple'. But what could it possibly mean for something to just be perfect-- not with respect to any other idea or thing, but just perfect in itself. And what if that concept of perfection could necessitate certain things about the real world?
Descartes, who was very intelligent and also very important in the history of philosophy, proposed a shockingly stupid argument that rests on that premise: we can conceive of a 'supremely perfect being'. That being would be yet more perfect if it existed-- existence is a perfection. So therefore that supremely perfect being must exist, since if it didn't that would be a contradiction-- we would not actually be conceiving of the supremely perfect being unless it existed. And that's God! This should strike any reasonable person as obvious chicanery, though it may not at first glance be obvious why. But I think I've adequately exposed the (or at least one of the) mistake(s) being made. But what might be even more important than the peculiar mistake being made is the simple intuition that we cannot come to firm conclusions about whether particular things exist based only on what we can conceive-- at least not in the way Descartes intended.
Anselm, earlier, did more or less the same thing that Descartes did with 'perfection' but with the idea of 'greater than', the crucial premise being that 'existence is greater than non-existence'. Both of these ontological arguments have a very similar logical short-circuit. An interesting one, no doubt. But also a shockingly stupid one. In fact I think I'm prepared to propose that the stupidest argument exists: it's one of these two. And therefore it is quite plausible that existence is a stupidity.
On Descartes, briefly: he proposes in his fifth Meditation an argument that depends on the concept of perfection. He arbitrarily decides both that 'perfect' is a thing that something can be without any sort of reference to what it is being perfect as, and that existence itself is a perfection (it is supposed to be "more perfect" than nonexistence which, if we're going to entertain the idea at all, seems backward to me given that perfection is supposed to be an ideal: it is vastly easier for things that don't exist to be 'perfect' in some way than those that do-- consider geometric shapes). An intelligible concept of perfection is contained in ideas like 'a perfect cube' or 'a perfect sine wave' or 'a perfect replica of the Ship of Theseus' or 'a perfectly optimized build order for delivering three zealots to your opponent's ramp at the earliest time possible in a game of Starcraft™ on Lost Temple'. But what could it possibly mean for something to just be perfect-- not with respect to any other idea or thing, but just perfect in itself. And what if that concept of perfection could necessitate certain things about the real world?
Descartes, who was very intelligent and also very important in the history of philosophy, proposed a shockingly stupid argument that rests on that premise: we can conceive of a 'supremely perfect being'. That being would be yet more perfect if it existed-- existence is a perfection. So therefore that supremely perfect being must exist, since if it didn't that would be a contradiction-- we would not actually be conceiving of the supremely perfect being unless it existed. And that's God! This should strike any reasonable person as obvious chicanery, though it may not at first glance be obvious why. But I think I've adequately exposed the (or at least one of the) mistake(s) being made. But what might be even more important than the peculiar mistake being made is the simple intuition that we cannot come to firm conclusions about whether particular things exist based only on what we can conceive-- at least not in the way Descartes intended.
Anselm, earlier, did more or less the same thing that Descartes did with 'perfection' but with the idea of 'greater than', the crucial premise being that 'existence is greater than non-existence'. Both of these ontological arguments have a very similar logical short-circuit. An interesting one, no doubt. But also a shockingly stupid one. In fact I think I'm prepared to propose that the stupidest argument exists: it's one of these two. And therefore it is quite plausible that existence is a stupidity.
I admire the effort, but there's no lack of clarity in the word 'Or'. It means it can be one thing, or it can be the other. It categorically does not mean that it must involve one of them. That's not ambiguous.