Parrish v Objectivists II

seddon's picture
Submitted by seddon on Thu, 2007-09-27 17:44.

On p. 174 of the current issue of JARS, Parrish writes as follows:

“The Objectivists may have refuted one ‘concept’ of God (if the idea that God is completely unknowable can be considered a concept), but not all concepts of God.”

I would like to dub this the “Whack a mole” (or “whack-a-God) problem. Refute one concept of God and the theist can simply say, “irrelevant—that’s not what I mean by God at all.” Parrish, for one, is totally in agreement with Rand that the concept of an unknowable God sucks. Just think of how different Descartes’ concept of God is from Spinoza's. It’s akin to the problem one encounters when someone tells you they can refute Objectivism and when you hear what they mean by “Objectivism” you shriek and say, that’s not Objectivism.

So we just have to keep working in good Millian fashion. We must say to the theists “Hit me with your best shot.”

Fred


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Linz,

seddon's picture

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Fred


Best shot

Lindsay Perigo's picture

Fred - did you follow Father Bill's thread, The God Who Isn't? I've just re-stickied it for you - scroll up and you'll see it.


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