Real0ne
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quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
quote:
ORIGINAL: Real0ne
quote:
So, for Meynell there must be a Mind analogous to the human mind to account for the existence of nature that lies beyond direct encounter with our physical senses. In other words, since an atom is too small to be seen by the naked eye there must be a deity. Huh!?
the irony! thanks for making my point that today people cant distinguish the story from the moral of the story.
In the above you simply run to arguing the story rather than comprehending the message he intended for you to conclude from the story. He is making the point that the same methodology that we use for determining the existence of things we cant see [like the atom] can also be used to determine the existence of God. at least you read it or read it that far which is more than can be said for most people posting their opinions.
Firstly, the only point that Meynell makes that resembles the inferences we make from scientific investigation is his leap to a Mind greater than the human mind because the Universe is intelligible. So, he is inferring from some VERY broad empiricism whereas science infers from much more tiny empirical steps. To paraphrase Meynell: Behold the universe. It is intelligible to man's inadequate mind. The thing is there before humankind could perceive it so it was created by a greater Mind. Explain to me how I have that wrong.
But, the more salient contradiction I find in Meynell's apologia is the following:
1. Early on Meynell accepts the propositions that: Nor is it any part of the meaning of the concept "event," that every event must have a cause
2. In his contradictory conclusion he says: the world shows signs of mental creativity, but (following common sense and materialist objections to idealism) that it is absurd to say that this mental creativity is human. The creativity is consequently to be attributed to a Mind (or minds)[35] other than the human.
My take away is that the beginning of time and the explosion of the singularity are events that need not have causes. But then, Meynell comes back and with no evidentiary support whatsoever declares the world (universe) shows mental creativity beyond the scope of the human mind. So, it was created by the Mind of God!
Perhaps you can reconcile those contradictory positions for me.
But that's not true and again you run off on a tangent.
I didn't see anywhere maynell accepted the proposition as you quoted it.
For your #1 He was explaining causal relationship.
changing the quotes and or context is low brow debate tactics. see red
Early in that work, the rigidly orthodox Demea and the sceptic Philo agree that there is no "analogy or likeness" between the mental properties of human beings and those attributable to the deity as cause of the world [30] (and a fortiori, it is implied, between divine attributes and those of material things); much later, Philo concludes, to Demea's consternation, that at that rate the theist might as well admit that there is no difference between him and the atheist.[31] However, the argument which I have set forward certainly does ascribe to the supposed cause of the universe some "analogy or likeness" with what is available to our "experience," at least if this last term is understood in a fairly broad sense. Each of us knows in our own small way what it is intelligently to conceive a state of affairs among a range of possibilities and to will to bring it into effect. Similarly, on this account, the divine cause of the world intelligently conceives all possible worlds and brings this one into being. To put it in Hume's way, [32] our "idea" of God is firmly based on "impressions" of our own activities as "spirits" or conscious subjects. The rational theist as I have presented him can thus cheerfully at this point concede to Hume, once suitable qualifications have been made, the latter's famous or notorious principle that one cannot have an "idea" of anything of which one has not previously had an "impression."[33]
The upshot of all this is that, in the interest of their very worthy cause, atheists would be well advised to abandon the rather routine gestures towards the arguments of Hume and Kant against rational theism which have become fashionable. Here as elsewhere, it is as well to be on one's guard against uncritical traditionalism.
I conclude by summing up the argument which I have put forward in this article. Plato discovered the real intelligible world which lies behind the merely sensible world, and which (as Aristotle emphasized after him) is to be found by inquiry into the sensible world. The whole subsequent development of science is a massive vindication of this discovery. Plato's Christian successors soon caught on to the fact that one intelligent will, which conceives and intends it rather as human beings conceive and intend their own actions and products, is ultimately the only satisfactory explanation for the existence and nature of such an intelligible world. Hume, as a consistent empiricist, in effect denied the world's intelligibility, and his account of knowledge, which has proved a fruitful source of atheism, leads just as ineluctably to scepticism. Kant, who was impressed by the sceptical conclusions which followed from Hume's premisses, strongly reasserted the intelligibility of the world as apprehended both by common sense and by science; but wrongly inferred that, since such apprehension plainly involves mental creativity, the world thus apprehended must be a merely seeming world of appearances dependent on human minds, and not, as would be held by all who are not subjective idealists, existing and being as it is largely prior to and independently of those minds.[34] The right conclusion is (following the idealists, and Kant's objections to Hume) that the world shows signs of mental creativity, but (following common sense and materialist objections to idealism) that it is absurd to say that this mental creativity is human. The creativity is consequently to be attributed to a Mind (or minds)[35] other than the human.
There was no contradiction.
The only problem I see is your quote mining.
Even my long version (the above quote) does not pain a completely clear picture.
Does that help make it a bit more clear what he is actually saying?
< Message edited by Real0ne -- 12/26/2015 10:16:38 AM >
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