MB:
-He exists because it would be impossible for my limited
-imagination to understand a universe _without_ God.
 >God's existence or non-existence does not hinge on the strength or
 >weakness of your imagination.  He is either there or he isn't,
 >independent of you.
BE:
-Isn't Bloss rather suggesting that God DOES exist independent of
-him?
-
-His formulation above reminds me of Bishop Berkeley, who argued
-that God, as the all-perceiver, was necessary to maintain objects
-in between human perceptions of them, by perceiving them when
-humans didn't.  Otherwise, they would cease to exist, since we are
-directly aware only of human perceptions.  This is how Berkeley
-explained the continuity of material things in time.
>I don't see the correlation between what Bloss said and Berkley's
>philosophy, so I'd have to guess no.  Maybe he'll clarify his
>position.
Bloss says it's impossible to understand a universe without
God.  By that, he could mean, as did Berkeley, that he could not
perceive the universe unless God caused the universe for him to
perceive.
>Either notion--that God's existence depends on the strength of
>Mark's imagination, or Berkley's philosophy that God has to
>constantly expend energy and/or attention perceiving everything in
>the universe to keep it all in existence--is completely ludicrous
>to me.
The main error in Berkeley's philosophy arose from the dilemma
inherent in his point of view.  On the one hand, he wanted to say
that there are no external things at all, that everything which
exists is nothing but sense perceptions.  (Berkeley's slogan "Esse
est percipi" means 'to be is to be perceived'.) On the other hand,
he wanted to account for the continuity of things which are
perceived.  So he was led to say that God caused these things to
exist, so that we would perceive them.
But the notion of 'cause' cannot be legitimately applied except
to things of which we have independent evidence.  Since our
perceptions provide no such independent evidence of God's
actions, the inference from sensation to God is illegitimate.
Moreover, applying Berkeley's slogan strictly, we would have to
conclude that God did NOT exist, since we have no perceptions of
God.
Bob
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