Thomas Nagel's Review of Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies

Yup, regardless of where one stands. Plantinga is one of the most important Christian philosophical thinkers of our time. Given Nagel's positioning, I found that review to be extremely fair and charitable. Having said that, I also wouldn't be surprised if Nagel (given his trajectory viz. materialism) eventually embraces some kind of transcendent intelligent ground of reality.
 
Somebody else here, like Sciborg perhaps, may have posted this before, so I'm sorry if that's the case, but this really is essential reading.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defends-religion/

Sounds interesting indeed .
Science must be liberated from materialism, from all forms of scientism as well as from the naturalist philosophy ,since science is all about free inquiry ,all about free methodology and epistemology , so why should science be confined within the materialist world view or within that of any other ism for that matter , let alone that science has to be confined within nature .

Or as Alfred North Whitehead used to say or in similar words to the same effect at least :
The 2 major forces of civilization will be meeting each other : science and religion .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead
 
Yup, regardless of where one stands. Plantinga is one of the most important Christian philosophical thinkers of our time. Given Nagel's positioning, I found that review to be extremely fair and charitable. Having said that, I also wouldn't be surprised if Nagel (given his trajectory viz. materialism) eventually embraces some kind of transcendent intelligent ground of reality.

The only part of the review I don't like is where Nagel totally lets Plantinga off on the problem of evil and suffering in the world. I'm all for being as fair and charitable as possible, but when somebody uses the old "God works in mysterious ways" and "His ways our not our ways" excuse, and tries to argue that God does have a good reason but we're just too stupid to figure out what it is, you have to call them out on that.
 
The only part of the review I don't like is where Nagel totally lets Plantinga off on the problem of evil and suffering in the world. I'm all for being as fair and charitable as possible, but when somebody uses the old "God works in mysterious ways" and "His ways our not our ways" excuse, and tries to argue that God does have a good reason but we're just too stupid to figure out what it is, you have to call them out on that.

Who's Nagel anyway ? Human knowledge is limited ,so how can one pretend to be able to know what God "has in mind " or to know everything there is to know .One has to have full knowledge or full data of the ultimate nature of reality to pretend to be able to say what you said here above , ironically enough .Have you ?

.Even human science does deal only with the lowest level of reality so far , the physical one , while there are higher levels of reality that can be approached only by the corresponding levels of consciousness about which science cannot but remain silent ,which also means that the ultimate nature of reality is within as well as without , but the only way to get to know it is through knowing the self , by letting go of the false illusory ego ....

Look within then , if you wanna know about the ultimate nature of reality ...

Furthermore ,reminds me of what Nagel said once on the subject of God , or in similar words to the same effect at least :

I don't want there to be a God . I still remember the religious terror i suffered from when i was a kid ....

Nagel just doesn't want to face the obvious existence of God and the consequences attached to that in forms of responsibilities , duties ...

His ego is his God thus.He's not an atheist thus, nobody is . Everybdy does worship, so to speak, one kind of God or another , consciously or unconsciously .

Why not surrender to the real one and only God , to the ultimate nature of reality within and without , to the divine within ... unconditionally and with ...love ,that is ?
 
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Nagel does don't want to face the obvious existence of God and the consequences attached to that in forms of responsibilities , duties ...
What duties are those? Who defines them, how are we notified of them ...
 
I don't know much about God. But I know there isn't supposed to be a space between a comma and the word preceding it, or between a period and the word preceding it, and there should always be a space after a comma or a period.

Seriously, it's really annoying.
 
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I don't know much about God. But I know there isn't supposed to be a space between a comma and the word preceding it, or between a period and the word preceding it, and there should always be a space after a comma or a period.

Seriously, it's really annoying.

Get real .....,,,,,,....////,,,,
Who can pretend to know much about God anyway ?
That was the whole point of my previous post , if you haven't noticed just that yet .
 
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Nagel just doesn't want to face the obvious existence of God and the consequences attached to that in forms of responsibilities , duties ...
Obviously you don't consider those responsibilities and duties to include taking the necessary time (a matter of seconds?) to write in a way that manifests the tiniest amount of respect to your readers.
 
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Obviously you don't consider those responsibilities and duties to include taking the necessary time (a matter of seconds?) to write in a way that manifests the tiniest amount of respect to your readers.

Don't judge the book by its cover .See the content , not the form.we're not in a grammar or vocabulary class here .
Say something intelligent or just shut up then . Deal ?
 
When it is in your power to make the form beautiful, as beautiful as your content potentially is (thereby perhaps also imitating your Creator), with little to no effort required, why would you deliberately choose not to do that? (Nassim, you are obviously an intelligent, educated person with a sophisticated thought process.)
 
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When it is in your power to make the form beautiful, as beautiful as your content potentially is (thereby perhaps also imitating your Creator), with little to no effort required, why would you deliberately choose not to do that? (Nassim, you are obviously an intelligent, educated person with a sophisticated thought process.)

Thanks for your kind subtle words , self-control and patience , appreciate indeed .
My apologies for being rude to you . We have just buried our dead father today , so .That's no excuse though indeed .

P.S.: I really just type my thoughts quickly without thinking much about that . I will do my best , next time then .Sorry for the inconvenience. Just drop it . Thanks.Cheers.
 
Who's Nagel anyway ? Human knowledge is limited ,so how can one pretend to be able to know what God "has in mind " or to know everything there is to know .One has to have full knowledge or full data of the ultimate nature of reality to pretend to be able to say what you said here above , ironically enough .Have you ?

.Even human science does deal only with the lowest level of reality so far , the physical one , while there are higher levels of reality that can be approached only by the corresponding levels of consciousness about which science cannot but remain silent ,which also means that the ultimate nature of reality is within as well as without , but the only way to get to know it is through knowing the self , by letting go of the false illusory ego ....

Look within then , if you wanna know about the ultimate nature of reality ...

Furthermore ,reminds me of what Nagel said once on the subject of God , or in similar words to the same effect at least :

I don't want there to be a God . I still remember the religious terror i suffered from when i was a kid ....

Nagel just doesn't want to face the obvious existence of God and the consequences attached to that in forms of responsibilities , duties ...

His ego is his God thus.He's not an atheist thus, nobody is . Everybdy does worship, so to speak, one kind of God or another , consciously or unconsciously .

Why not surrender to the real one and only God , to the ultimate nature of reality within and without , to the divine within ... unconditionally and with ...love ,that is ?

Granted that it's logically possible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God is the creator and sustainer of this world, with all its pain, suffering, injustice and unfairness, but is it likely? The answer is surely no, and this is really all the atheists are saying. It seems far more likely that if there is a creator and sustainer of the universe, then it's something else entirely and doesn't deserve the name 'God'.
 
Granted that it's logically possible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God is the creator and sustainer of this world, with all its pain, suffering, injustice and unfairness, but is it likely? The answer is surely no, and this is really all the atheists are saying. It seems far more likely that if there is a creator and sustainer of the universe, then it's something else entirely and doesn't deserve the name 'God'.

I think the question of suffering is a serious one for theists. One possible answer is that pain is just the "price of admission" for being incarnated in the physical. Sort of like, if you ride a roller coaster you run the risk of getting an upset stomach.

Pat
 
Thanks for your kind subtle words , self-control and patience , appreciate indeed .
My apologies for being rude to you . We have just buried our dead father today , so .That's no excuse though indeed .

P.S.: I really just type my thoughts quickly without thinking much about that . I will do my best , next time then .Sorry for the inconvenience. Just drop it . Thanks.Cheers.
Sorry for riding you a bit hard with the punctuation ,Nassim . It's just that that stuff drives me bonkers , more than any content ,unfortunately .

Godspeed.
 
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