Thursday, September 24, 2009

RE: Alvin Plantinga (AKA modern day Plato)

A true philosopher. He plays with words without any sort of scientific backup. I can respect a good philosopher, but truly he is a modern day Plato. He could make a good case but when it came to legitimate scientific evidence, he refused to back up his claims, even admitting he knew nothing about the actual subject, that he was only a philosopher. The stalactite/stalagmite mixup was questionable to me but even if I let that slide, the one stumper of a question that (and godblessit I wish I knew his name) the kid with the Japanese Nikes on had (I think) everybody (including me) in the FSEM grinning:

(And I paraphrase...): "So, are we the end of evolution? God guided evolution to us since we are in his image, I mean, are we going to sprout wings or something? If not, why would God send his only son to die for us if we're only going to evolve to something greater?"

To which Plantinga replied something along the lines of, I don't know, "I don't have an opinion on that."

What good is a philosopher if you only want to give valid arguments that aren't necessarily sound? (For those non philosophers out there, a valid argument works within itself, that is Premise A and B do add up to the conclusion, but a valid argument requires true statements.) Isn't philosophy more than word play? It's about reality, existence, knowledge. You can't just make shit up, it doesn't work that way. (Excuse me, that was rude.)

No comments:

Post a Comment