I'm wary that my assessment may be biased, but having heard him in several debates, I think Craig offers nothing but snake oil.

• He repeatedly hides behind semantics to shirk his burden of proof.  He insists on defining atheism as the claim that god does not exist (rather than the default position of lack of belief), then challenges his opponent to prove his "claim".  
• One of his pet "proofs" is the kalam argument.  In the past, he has quote-mined scientists like Hawking and Guth in support of the 2nd premise, "The universe began to exist".  He's never bothered to justify how he derives a different conclusion about the existence of god than his sources -- particularly Hawking, who with his recent statement that god was not necessary for the universe to come into being.
• Another of his "proofs" is the empty tomb and resurrection story.  Again, he drops scholarly names in support of the "historical fact" of the empty tomb, and again neglects to account for why some of those scholars (such as Gerd Lüdemann) don't share his conclusion regarding the resurrection.  He insists that a supernatural explanation trumps any natural explanation for the empty tomb.  In his debate with Richard Carrier, he unabashedly presupposed the existence of god to prove that the resurrection occurred.
• His objective morals argument runs afoul of the Euthyphro Dilemma, although I'm not sure any of his opponents have directly taken him to task on this.   

All in all, I think Craig missed out on a promising career in the used car industry.  What exactly in the Harris & Hitchens debates did you observe that gave Craig the edge?

He probably is the 'best' guy. But he's all style and little substance. He's very good at 'projecting', and he's a 'rapid fire' verbal gymnast. In a live debate setting of 'In one ear, and out the other' he appears to string together a flurry of 'knock down' blows, with his endless smirking and mocking tone, but when you break down the arguments, they're mostly circular reasoning, equivocations, strawmen, arguments from authority, incredulity, verbosity, etc, etc...

If you're not sharp, or do not have a recording of the debate, he might seem like he packs a wallop, but no, he's nothing but a tacky used car salesman that grandstands.

I've watched dozens of his debates, which is a pity, because he rehashes the exact same script, on a number of different topics. He cannot think on the fly. Watch his debate with Bart Erhman. Towards the end, Craig practically breaks into song, with preaching, when he doesn't have anything to counter Erhman with. It's actually embarrassing to watch...

You'll notice that every time he starts off the debate, he does his 20 minutes, going through his prepared intro on the topic of the debate, and levels a number of challenges at his opponent. Then after his opponent reads their prepared 20 minute script, he'll come back for his 15 minute rebuttal, and start off with "You'll notice my opponent didn't answer any of my challenges..."

Well fuckin' duhhhh.... of course not, you fucking tool, he's doing his 'prepared' intro on the 'topic' of the debate. The 20 minute intros are monologues, not dialogues.

He tries to get his opponent to fall into this rabbit hole. Harris is too clever, and just moves right past the trap.

Under no circumstances does he beat Sam Harris in their debate earlier this year. All Craig can do is offer a special pleading fallacy for the 'objective' bad (the worse possible suffering, for as long as possible) and the objective 'good' (which is avoiding the 'worse possible suffering, for as long as possible), that Sam Harris outlines.

Craig is arguing (his worn out routine/agenda/ad hominem) that 'atheism' (= naturalist/nihilist) 'worldview' cannot possibly arrive at an 'objective' way to determine 'right/wrong'.

Sam Harris demonstrates that what Craig alleges is a complete fallacy. Period. And he does it in the first few minutes. He wins.

The rest of the debate is merely filler, and posturing for Craig.

He's a clown.

He always starts off with "We must use logic", but his 5th 'argument' for the existence of God, is always a 'personal' experience of Jesus.

The whole apologetics thing would be so much easier for them if any of it were actually true. They use conjecture and try to play on sympathy and "personal experience". I haven't seena debate where I thought Hitchens or Harris were even close to losing. When these apologetics can come up with more facts my opinion might change. 

To make that kind of claim over the Kalam argument is a classic case of his total lack of any logical understanding.

Kalam, at best, 'proves' that 'something' must have started things. It says absolutely nothing about what that 'something' must necessarily be, it just ends with the naked assertion/assumption that it can only be 'God'. It is NOT logically an argument for God, just a first cause.

The very example of conception shows that whatever 'causes' something may be far smaller and less complex that what it causes, which means that the posited 'first cause' need be logically no greater than the smallest possible quantum 'twitch'. For him to fail to see how his own example actually refutes his argument is typical.

In a strict logical and mathematical sense, even an infinite sequence of 'causes' that are proportionally smaller in time and energy than their effect uses a finite amount of energy and takes a finite time, so Kalam is totally dependent on the fallacious assumption that a cause must be greater than its effect.

The fact that WLC embraces Kalam proves he has no understanding of his subject.

To answer the OP, if all they want is personal reassurance that they are 'right', then he is a good choice for anyone who is a believer.

If they would like their position actually honestly tested against the 'other side', then no.

I think of TAG as confusing the 'map' with the 'territory'.

Logic is how we formally describe what appears to be the minimum requirement for coherent discussion - the Law of Identity and the Law of Non-Contradiction.

TAG asserts that since 'reality' fits our conscious description of it, ie "logic", that proves that a consciousness must exist to define it...  Huh!?

IOW, maps are the products of conscious minds to describe our environment, so since reality conforms with our maps, that means that reality must be the product of a cosmic consciousness.... D'oh.

I think in dealing with all of these folks after a recent bout with mr. metaPhysics again is that they believe that the structure and meaning of existence is derived from logic whereas we believe that we derive logic from the structure and meaning of the world. I have been crossing swords with Victor Reppert who firmed up the Argument from Reason that was espoused by C. S. Lewis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

Again to defend theism he must state that a physically derived thought can have no reason about it and defends  reason as transcendent to existence.  These issues are only gonna be resolved in the study of consciousness, externalism vs internalism and newer theories like David Chalmers which allow for both wide and narrow rationalities as two dimensional structures of the internalist and extermist problems.

 Well, I like the map analogy Bob. Except that I think it could go a bit farther.

Nobody seriously expects that maps are capable of describing an area to the extent that a map user might actually want or need. For example, I live in the most heavy traffic part of the country. Now there are probably five ways to get into Manhattan and a visitor to the area could be forgiven for not knowing that the apparently shortest way there is locally joked about as the longest and narrowest parking lot in America. Unless you have a pocket homunculus of the entire planet, you will take an hour longer getting there than if you picked a route that is twice as long.

However, with the so called logical proofs of god, one must start with the assumption that logic is itself good enough as to be all that is needed. Basically, those types of argument require the usually unspoken assumption of “Hear my words, they are automatically so good that they are all that is needed”. How about no, not really?

Personally, I have watched a few of those debates on youtube and they always seem to carry that implication. If memory serves, I think it was a debate with WLCraig where he opened with the assertion that the gospels are actual eyewitness accounts.

Well, if the logic is all that sufficient, then why go down that other road? It does not make the logical case any stronger. Well except that the logical case will also automatically have the Pascal's wager failure in that it does not inform us as to which flavor of god one is on about. You need to make a separate pleading for that. Um if that gospel based pleading is sufficient then the TAG or OA pleading would not be needed.

Pretty much in order to accept the whole package, you have to accept the parts of the package but the parts are never sufficient as individual entities so the whole package can never be sufficient.

Hey Bob,

I need a couple of real world examples of smaller simplier things causing larger more complex things that every reasonable person, religious or not, could agree to.  As Curly of the three stooges said "I am trying to think but nothing is happening".

The only thing that has come to mind is an atomic bomb, but I don't think it is a good example.

 EDIT: thought of another perhaps better example after reading some of other posts. Computers are binary 1 or 0 and yet something so simple has produced some amazing stuff.

A biological example might be better still.

 Well, the video is showing fine for me.

To answer your question, I think that being prepared in general and being able to size up the competition is rather important. And no, I will not bother with the professional debaters because they just move the goal posts around and then claim a technical win anyway.

For example, I find that young men who are obviously not fully educated tend to be easy pickings. Older more educated men less so.

How about just dropping the temperature of a saturated solution of something that forms pretty crystals, like copper sulphate?

The starting solution is a disordered collection of molecules jostling around bumping into each other.

From that you can get, without any intervention, a set of perfectly ordered precisely geometric shapes of solid crystals.

It is amusing that one of the best of examples of simpler structures giving rise to a MUCH more complex being, which even has powers of conscious thought, is our own conception. The sperm and ova are single cells, and they can ultimately form us. That is a massive increase in complexity, and it happens all the time.

The standard abstract example is the Mandelbrot Set, where repeated application of very simple mathematical expressions can define a literally infinitely complex structured pattern.

How about a warm ocean below a humid atmosphere, which with a minor provocation will generate a hurricane?

Damn you AiG, I was going to mention avalanches...

 Thanks Bob & AIG. Some of those I need to investigate.

I have been mulling over some thoughts about grand scale evolution. I can comprehend so called micro-evolution. I can see small steps from one characteristic to the other like I can envision a trip to the grocery store. I can see myself getting in the car and can track the things I would see before I get there (change over time ).  I can see myself in the store and my return. I have done it enough times and it doesn't require much memory.

However, to track a long distance trip even after I have gone to the destination is difficult  using my imagination and seeing all the points of my trip. I can only see bits and pieces. This happens when I try to imagine all the necessary steps from say Pakicetus to the modern whale, even using youtube videos. So much of the trip just has to drop away. I think even if it would be possible to have every fossil in line I would just weary of the trip. Part of me because of the length of the trip says it is impossible and how could they know. How can they say this is truly the ancestor? (any help there would be appreciated). But when I go back to my trip example, I see that my human imagination is simply limited and that alone is not reason to say it did not happen. I see why the argument from incredulity is so tempting. 

I have been using my imagination lately for this. Even when I look at human I just imagine their primate qualities. 

EDIT: After reading your examples I think the explosion of an atomic bomb is legit now.

 I did buy the book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters by Donald R. Prothero and probably from a reference by you along the way. Will put it on top of my stack of books. So much to learn so little time.

Thanks

 First let me say that I debated in the state championship my senior year in high school for Lincoln-Douglas Debate and went on to debate at Missouri Southern for 4 more years. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn or brag, so please do not take it that way. The reason I say this is because I live and breathe debate, it is my passion. With that said, having studied Craig's debates multiple times, I can say with ease that he is one of the better debaters I've ever seen on the topic of religion. While I have realized that his opening arguments have become pretty redundant in terms of "is there a God?", I do not blame him at all. During some months of debating in high school and college, we were encouraged to use the same recycled material because in the end it answered the same question as it did the previous tournament. From a pure forensics standpoint, Craig defeated both Hitchens and Harris. His contentions are always perfectly stated, and his style of debating is very hard to counter. I'm not saying he's right, that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't win in the eyes of those watching. There were times where I had to debate that slavery was completely moral, and even though I was dead wrong, I still won the debate. 

on what winning means in this context. If you just blab away without any basis for your arguments then perhaps Craig looks better or more confident in terms of his position but obviously belief does not make for certainty in terms of truth and most of WLC's points are either banal, from complexity or unprovable. It would be very difficult to debate some one on say, the truth of evolution, given the complexity of the subject matter.

Christianity definitely lends itself to the debate format, given it asserts that all we cannot know somehow forms positive proof for the existence of a being the nature and mechanism of which we can never know. I find this diverting given the theist insistence on viable empirical proofs in this universe for things like evolution and the ignition of life.

The alternative viewpoint relying on testable explanation is complex and always remains unfinished. When your opponent simply asserts an incomplete scientific proof is a fail and claims creation or first cause happened by magic, then your struggles to express the biochemical fundamentals of the first RNA threads which may have led to abiogenesis within a few-minute debate time frame are going to come off looking very poor indeed. 

Actually, you are saying it to brag.

Unfortunately, none of that will make you the Mike Tyson of debate. Not on this forum, at least.

I debated in high school and college as well, albeit with some differences in that elementary school and high school I took in were in my second language, and simply as a challenge I made a point to take college in a third language.

I could bore you with more personal details, but I'll stop there just to make the point that I'm just 1 of many people on this forum who are not impressed in the slightest with your background...

Any time you want to test your mettle, let me be the first to know.

That's like saying McDonald's is one of the biggest restaurant chains in the world...

I already stated that Harris succeeded in proving Craig wrong, in the first few minutes.

lol...no.

Afraid not.

You're welcome to try and be William Lane Craig for a day, here, and defend his positions.

The you concede that debates are often a lot like wine tasting competitions to the general public...

What cj has written shows the sad state of affairs in politics and why we can feel so slimmed post-election.

I feel I am different than those who go with the most confident. I do doubt and check what I say and write. That is why I had to leave the ministry and church. I am not good at keeping up a facade. I did feel there was something very wrong with me. Now I am happy because I realize the game I played is done by fundies. I see their cracks and know that they have no more knowledge than I do.

I don't mind being wrong anymore. I like to see new ways of looking at life. When you are like that eventually you have to leave religion.

"I am not closed-minded. I am a christian" lol

Good assessment rednef, I agree 100% thought I haven't watched as many debates, the few I had make me feel like I'm overpaying for a lemon.  He is a good public speaker, and don't forget, this is his job to refute atheism, he lives, breathes and shits this day in day out.  The guys he debates are rationalists, with dayjobs.  If they had the time to break down his arguments the fallacies are obvious, but in a live debate it is difficult to cut through the BS that Lain Craig and others like him spin out. 

I wonder though, this reminds me of the Implicate order theory formulated by David Bohm. Both are very similar to what esotericists call the Seventh ray. 

This got me thinking, is it possible to suggest a single natural force or aspect of a force, that can produce this order out of chaos, on all levels regardless of size? I don't mean a god, but something like electro-magnetism, etc. Or is the fractal structure of everything in the universe just a coincidence, created by interplay of various unrelated factors? That would be a big coincidence. Is there an unified cause of why organized structure of matter and galactic clusters is so similar?

Perhaps the simpliest (but my least favorite) guess is, that all the basic forces are attractive and that any reasonable combination of attraction and repulsion will somehow organize the matter.

 I'm sorry you see it that way good sir, and I hope to prove otherwise. As for "testing my mettle", bring it on my friend. I always love a good debate! I'm studying for my teaching degree at the moment to hopefully teach it at a high school level, I never turn down a good discussion. 

-RS

well I'm glad you have such strong hope in today's teaching and education! I'm not doing it because I can't, but because it's what I want to do. If you would like a debate, as I said before, I will be more than happy to do so. I'm not sure why you are being so sinister to me, disagreeing doesn't always have to come off as snarky and rude. I very much admire William Lane Craig, and if you would like me to play the role as him for a day as you say, then I would be honored.

Good luck with your degree.  We've had a recent encounter with a certain Mr. Metaphysical what kept taunting us to call Matt Slick and debate him live.  Supposedly this individual eats atheist for lunch in a live debate, which aside from it being not true, it doesn't have any relevance.  When pondering deep philosophical questions a simple shoot from the hip debate can only confuse the matter further.  Winning or losing depends on how informed the audience is, and how many logical fallacies you can get away with.  The problem with arguments such as TAG and to some extent certain versions of OA, is that they are designed to be confusing and the logical fallacies are difficult to spot.  If one were to encounter TAG for the first time during a live debate, it would be extremely difficult to counter.  

The point is, it is completely intellectually dishonest.  The fact that you win the debate is completely irrelevant.  An audience with knowledge of the argument may admire your style of sophistry, but really, if that's all you care to accomplish during a debate, convince someone that you're correct, even when you are not, you should be a defense lawyer or a preacher instead.  If you care about the truth and facts, you should have the ability to admit that you are wrong, rather then polish a turd and try and pass it off as fact.  Playing devil's advocate is a good exercise for honing your skills, so that when it really matters you may have the ability to spot the BS.  It is not an exercise so that you have the ability to sell BS.  I'm surprised you see nothing wrong with that.

Debating is not my strong suit, but if you care to give it a roll, I will do a 1 on 1 with you, if anything perhaps I can learn a thing or two.

Name your topic and position, we should also genuinely disagree, I have no desire for trivial exercises. 

absolutely, is it alright with you if we give it a few days? I've got a lot on my plate this week but would be honored to get the ball rolling before the week is over. Let me know!

-RS

Here's a pro religion article that gives an overview of some of the tactics by WLC to 'set the stage'...lol

They understand the game he's playing.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/4486/debating_god:_atheist_and_evangelical_face_off_at_notre_dame

 So when you say that WLC going first meant something was fair, were you thinking that theists should always be in a position to set the tone and direction to a debate? How about a coin flip for that? That seems fair too. Both people can take whatever they need to prepare for the debate but they have to wait for the actual moment when the moderator flips the coin to see who goes first. Hey! That works for the NFL.

Also, you get a theist tag. I don't much care that you are a huge Buckethead fan. I wish that I could play like him.