Arguments About God? Alvin Plantinga, Templeton Prize 2017
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- čas přidán 24. 04. 2017
- The 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate, philosopher Alvin Plantinga speaks on the Big Question, “Arguments About God?” Concerning reasons and arguments about rational belief in God. From Closer To Truth, the PBS/public television series and web archive on Cosmos, Consciousness and Meaning/God. Recorded on May 1, 2007. www.closertotruth.com
Professor Plantinga is one of the most brilliant men I've ever heard speak.
If there is no such thing as "proper function" for human beings, then also, there could be no moral wrong or right for human beings.
What does 'proper function' mean to you?
Surely God subsists rather than exists ? Truth is ever expressed in Paradox as the Perennial Philosophy observes. Charles Mugleston Omar Khayyam Theatre Company
Charles Mugleston God. Infinite pure consciousness.
Not infinite pure science or he'll never die.
@@kathryncarter6143 he never will
Why do all believers in atheist Dogma claim to be "scientists?"
Because they are running from the God who loves them very much.
@@RedefineLiving sorry, god fearing = good christian. We are not running from god, we don't believe in god(s), therefore we are not scared of god(s). If you believe in god and know about god of the bible, you should expect that creature to be evil, jealous and petty.
@@nimbuto What nonsense have you written to me? Tell me, it’s it more then incredulity you suffer from?
@@RedefineLiving I suffer from knowledge. Your god does not exists.
I stopped believing in Santa and later god while I was a kid. I did study the Bible and it is utterly nonsense about an evil god punishing every generation because someone ate an apple. This petty gods wrath lasted until he sacrificed his son to himself in order to forgive human kind for something they never did.
Read about scientology, then maybe you understand how I feel about your religion
(I don't believe in scientology)
@@nimbuto A parrot can say “there is no God”, but I was looking for more then a bird brain answer. I asked if you have more then incredulity, but that’s all you gave me. God is in the category of ultimate, so you have made the categorical error by attempting to put God in the same category as Santa Claus. That’s just a cliché. It does not follow that because one does not understand what took place in the garden in regards to the fall of man, that there is no God. Can you do better?
I'm a collector therefore I am......
Listening to this guy is like listening to Ted Kaczynski.
how?
Plantinga is wrong when he says God is our moral law giver, otherwise we would not be moral. Humans live in groups, and like all social animals we've evolved a system cooperation that makes group-living possible. We call our system morality.
Nazi Germany had an evolved system of cooperation that made group living quite possible. The social priority in Nazism is found in its very name, National Socialism. Yet we would still say that the moral character of this ideology was evil. On what basis could we say that? Certainly not within your framing of moral law.
In my opinion the idea is this. If there is no God, sustaining life is no objectively good or bad, therefore morality that lets flourish or causes decay of life is no good or bad. It's just is. Richard Dawkins recognizes it in one of his books "Rivers out of Eden". Pure materialistic view of reality gives no basis for thinking that life is something better and desirable than no-life. It contradicts our whole experience as human beings and this is where conflict between materialistic belief and human intuition (even in people declaring materialistic belief) is happening.
Just thinking...
All the best!
@@markrutledge5855 Hitler and SS were creationists. Members of the SS could be of any religion except Judaism, but atheists were not allowed according to Himmler
@@nimbuto What does "creationists" mean? I am not sure what your point is. Hitler and Himmler were certainly not Christian Theists.
@@markrutledge5855 Creationist is a religious person who believes in the pseudoscience intelligent design.
This is from Wikipedia:
in Mein Kampf, Hitler speaks of the "creator of the universe" and "eternal Providence".
He also states that the Aryan race was created by God, and that it would be a sin to dilute it through racial intermixing.
The more I listen to Plantinga the more I recognize the vacuity of his ideas. If you believe as Plantinga believes in the Christian God then one may easily overlook the fallacies in his arguments. In this particular video he claims with an air of certainty that he doesn't need arguments for god and that one can be perfectly justified rationally in believing a god exists without any justification or arguments to support that belief. Further he says one is rationally justified in believing in a god "even if there are no good arguments for god." Then after stating that he doesn't need good arguments he then says "of course there are some good arguments, some weak and some stronger." Plantinga covers all bases. God exists whether there are no reasons, bad reasons, or good reasons. When he attempts to offer some reasons he engages in arguments from incredulity and ignorance with circular reasoning. Example, god is needed to have moral obligation; since we have moral obligation, then god must exist. Astonishing. So Plantinga begins with an a presumption that god exists and fashions all arguments to conclude that god exists. And that presumption of his doesn't need any rational justification. It is so because he believes so.
I think you might be misunderstanding what his point was. From my understanding he was pointing out that one can be sensible and rational and justified in believing in God without arguments. He says, “the fact that you can believe in something properly without arguments, doesn’t mean there are some.” So I think what he saying is, you can believe in God, without using arguments to believe in God. The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that a Christian can experience God for himself, so therefore not having any arguments for God’s existence is not the basis in which he believes in God. If an atheist claimed he didn’t need arguments to rationally believe in God, then he would be false because atheism is held up by arguments. But of course there are arguments for the existence of God, you don’t need these to believe in him because one can personally know him as a being. A Christian isn’t converted because of an argument, but because a personal experience with God. If I pick up a pencil, see it and feel it, I don’t need to believe that I am holding a pencil on the basis of an argument of the pencils existence, but on the fact that I hold it and see it. But if need be, there are plenty of arguments for the pencils existence, but you don’t need to base your belief on those arguments every time you pick up a pencil. You’re squishing Plantiga’s argument into your atheist worldview.
@@michaelengstrom3733 thank you for your thoughtful reply. I fully agree that one can believe in the god hypothesis without having any rational argument to support that belief. I do not say that the god hypothesis can be proved wrong. I have nothing to refute if someone wants to believe that some concept of a god exists even if they have no rational reason to do so.
However, I do think that there is much to refute when a person identifies that god with a particular religion such as Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, Hinduism, etc. So more than refuting the idea of god, I refute the religions that have developed around the god concept. I take it that you would deny the truth of god as conceptualized by muslims, mormons, and hindus. I simply add the Hebrew and Christian god as conceptualized in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament.
The god Plantinga imagines is not simply a Platonic abstraction. He believes in the god of the Hebrew and Christian Bible. A god that commanded animal sacrifice, slavery, dietary restrictions, and ultimately that his son be sacrificed for a weekend. So my argument is not with the abstract idea that a god may exist. It is the institutionalized religions that have grown up around the concept of god that interests me. Many of the religious ideas that come from these institutions are simply bad and others cause great harm to individuals and societies today. Again, I thank you for your comment.
@@mylord9340
You have been deceived.
Most of the agnostic or atheist complaints that I hear about christianity are all based on misinformation, misunderstandings, or ignorance.
When you try to explain things, one of the following things usually happens....
- Not enough patience to hear a Christian's full answer on a specific topic.
- Changing the subject so often that nothing ever gets resolved.
- Refusing to accept any evidence that a Christian presents (Dismissing any evidence that doesn't prove things 100%)
- Never conceding any valid points a Christian makes because they are distracted by the 100 other things they think are wrong about Christianity.
@@stevenrivard9246 hmmm! I don't know what you think I am deceived about. All you should conclude from my comment about Plantinga's argument in this video is that I do not find his thoughts convincing. Steven, how do you know if you are not the one who has been deceived?
@@mylord9340
I can tell you are deceived by the examples you give against God.
Let me demonstrate what I mean about misinformation, misunderstandings, etc.
Tell me quickly in one paragraph what comes to mind when you think about hell. Tell me briefly in your own words what you think hell is according to Christianity.
Don't look it up or anything... just humor me for a moment and lets see if you have an accurate representation in your mind.
He's the most arrogant and dismissive of any of the scores of others I've heard on this channel. That doesn't make him wrong, but it makes it more likely that he is.
Plantinga is the sort of philosopher that gives philosophy a bad name - maker of pointless word salads.
The fact that you don't understand something doesn't make it a "pointless word salads".