"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dianelos@tecapro.com> wrote in message
news:1149666931.966173.210220@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Milan wrote:

"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dianelos@tecapro.com> wrote in message

[snip]

Plantinga's proof fell like a bombshell in the circles of atheist
philosophy (easily 90% of academic philosophy) when he published it in
his book "God and Other Minds" in 1967. Significantly no errors
were found in his proof since then, even though some improvements were
suggested. So, as Gandalf pointed out, Plantinga single-handedly
managed a very impressive intellectual feat: to transform atheism's
centuries old and well established "logical proof from evil"
(widely considered to be the best argument for atheism by far) into

the

conceptually much weaker "evidential argument from evil" which only
claims that the existence of evil makes the existence of God
improbable. In fact, some consider Plantinga to be one of the greatest
philosophers of the second half of 20th century.

Plantinga's "proof" reminds me of an article I read some time ago

explaining

how it is possible for Superman to be able to fly at twice the speed of
light -which is something widely regarded to violate the theory of
relativity. I cannot remember the argument but the article was rather
persuasive. Such article might convince those of a Plantingan bend of

mind

that the arguments against the existence of Superman have been weakened.
Those of a non-Plantingan bend of mind realize that to refute the

argument

that a certain entity can or cannot do something is irrelevant if no
evidence for such entity exists.

It's a matter of objective fact that after Plantinga published his
defense in 1967 atheist philosophers stopped speaking of the "logical
proof from evil" of the non-existence of God and started speaking of
the much weaker "evidential argument from evil", in this way
backtracking on the best argument they had against the existence of God
as understood by monotheism. So, contrary to what you claim above,
Plantinga's arguments did convince and change the claims of many a
serious thinker who is not of a "Plantingan bend of mind".

It might be very entertaining in some circles that dont see theology as a
branch of ignorance to discuss about what the tribal god of the israelites
can or cannot do.

But it should be rather obvious that such activities are
but masturbatory exercises that would have been more appreciated in the
middle ages.

As Dennett jocularly defines "Planting" in his hilarious
Philosophical Lexicon: planting, v. To use twentieth-century fertilizer to
encourage new shoots from eleventh -century ideas which everyone thought had
gone to seed; hence, plantinger, n. one who plantings. Plantinga deserves
another entry in the Lexicon: alvinize, v. To stimulate protracted
discussion by making a bizarre claim. "His contention that natural evil is
due to Satanic agency alvinized his listeners."

In general it is a fact is that much of what is happening in academic
circles of philosophy and of science takes several decades to filter
down into the popular mindset. For example Einstein was a scientific
realist who thought it is self-evident that the physical universe has
some basic properties (e.g. locality) but this has recently been proven
wrong experimentally. In fact, scientific realists cannot agree even on
the most basic descriptive properties of physical reality, and some
propose descriptions that are far more fantastic than, say, John's
Apocalypse. Still according to the popular mindset the
realist/materialist understanding of reality is as reasonable and as
solid as ever with few remaining problems left which are being ironed
out; well in fact it isn't so and maybe one is justified to interpret
the continuation of these beliefs contrary to evidence as mass delusion
and wishful thinking. Most people feel sure that science requires the
assumption that there is a real physical universe out there, when in
fact it isn't so either. The latest claim is very easy to prove: If
there isn't in fact a physical universe at all but only God directly
feeding us conscious experience science and technology would have
advanced exactly the same and would have no means to notice something
being amiss - therefore the assumption that there is a physical
universe out there is not necessary for science and technology. In
short most strongly felt beliefs about materialism in the popular
mindscape are in fact mythological beliefs because they are factually
wrong.

Your anti naturalist tirade is sort of interesting but rather off topic.

It
is indeed possible that there is not a physical universe but "God" (whatever
you might mean by that word), or Chtulhu, are feeding us our perceptions,
and in fact we are inmaterial (whatever that might mean) minds floating in a
vacuum made of nothingness. Maybe we are the dream of the green ants. Maybe
somebody in a village outside Birmingham is dreaming everything else. Maybe
there is a physical universe but it is completely different from what we see
and I think that I'm typing on my keyboard but in fact I am fingering the
***** of some horrific monster with three heads. Maybe the universe was
created by "God" or Chtulhu last Thursday with everything in it including
fossils and our memories. All these scenarios are possible and we cannot
really falsify such claims. We then choose the simplest and most
parsimonious hypothesis (which by the way has the advantage of not requiring
the inclusion of the gratuitous hypothesis "God"): that in fact there is a
physical world.

As Simon Blackburn put it: realism is the position of all
philophers when they are off-duty.