What's your opinion on William Lane Craig?
Posted on: July 3, 2011 - 11:56pm
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What's your opinion on William Lane Craig?
After watching him debate live, is it safe to say that he's the theist's best choice for apologetics? My biased views aside, I think he defeated both Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.
"Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women."
-~William Lane Craig~-
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Coin toss will always favor the theist regardless, god does indeed work in mysterious ways.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I agree that a coin flip is the most fair way of doing it (that was half the fun in high school debating), but I don't think I've ever seen it done in the recent God debates. If it isn't, I always think pro going first makes it the most interesting.
As for the theist tag, I'll take it! I do indeed love Buckethead. Him, Andy McKee, and Jason Becker are usually all my playlist ever sees (no contemporary Christian for me, I'd rather listen to a Korn and Nickelback collaboration). Do you play any?
"Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women."
-~William Lane Craig~-
OK, so let's do a Schrodinger's baby model.
If the kid is alive, the pro-lifer get to go first.
=
1. Besides debating one of the most powerful apologists today? I know that doesn't mean much at all on here, but why not even a written response to Craig's criticisms? I understand his reasoning on Ray Comfort, he's an insult and showed that during his debate against Sapient and Kelly (the eye has over 137 billion light sensitive cells, therefore God exists, or a coke can is similar to the creation of man lol).
2. The same can be said about Lennox and McGrath, Lennox even more so in my opinion because he's been the closest to endorsing intelligent design. McGrath is a theistic evolutionist and Craig is "agnostic" on the issue. McGrath and Lennox both being from Oxford has a huge part in it I think, I guess Talbot isn't good enough for Dawkins. In his speech about the issue, he said he would be more than happy to debate a Deacon or a Bishop, but he does not debate creationists. Craig is certainly not a creationist in the same way that John Lennox isn't a deacon (mathemetician) and Alister McGrath isn't a bishop (molecular biophysics).I'm certainly not going to judge Dawkins for who he decides to debate and not to debate, but his reasons don't add up IMO.
"Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women."
-~William Lane Craig~-
Then you have selective hearing. They're not scientists. They're clowns.
Win or lose, that'll raise the profile of either of them.
He's already debated Bill O'Reilly more than once, and that's only to take advantage of his television audience, which is more mainstream.
It's a brilliant strategy to slowly begin taking the stigma out of 'non believers' in the eyes of as many theists as possible.
It's obviously working. America loves to see a scrap involving an underdog.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Such debates are ultimately pointless at getting at any sort of 'truth'.
The are basically the intellectual equivalent of Boxing matches, Prize fights, and obviously a number of people follow them just as avidly. If you like that sort of verbal sparring, fine.
I don't find them generally interesting, unless someone on 'my side' really does score a knockout. That's also how I regard actual sporting events - only the most spectacular or dramatic victories register with me, like watching, in the flesh, a fellow countryman/woman (Australian) win an Olympic or Commonwealth Games Gold Medal. I also remember the moment Australia was the first to take the America's Cup in yacht-racing from the US.
The emotional appeal when either 'side' in the audience perceives their guy scoring a point or a major victory is much the same, and typically in such debates, such as one Dawkins had with McGrath, both sides will typically judge their guy as having trumped the other guy.
The other main problem with Theist vs. Atheist is that the two sides have such utterly different standards and criteria for establishing and confirming 'truth', that they are largely talking past each other.
OTOH, true and honest discussions aimed at trying to actually resolve these issues to any extent should start with establishing some kind of consensus at to how we approach and rate knowledge claims, and just what each side means by 'knowledge' and 'truth'. Until that can be settled to some useful level, going into the actual issues around belief in God is futile.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
who is "they"? Many Christian apologists that have faced off with Dawkins are indeed scientists. Francis Collins, the brilliant scientist who led the human genome project and who has written eloquently about being both a believer and a scientist, is one example. McGrath, whom I've already mentioned, traveled down a near identical path as Professor Dawkins. Regardless, I don't think it requires a scientist to take down some of Dawkins's points in the God Delusion. While science is a magnificent thing, it cannot answer a lot of things that deal with the discussion of whether or not there is a God. The biggest question in my opinion is "what meaning does my life have?" You simply cannot answer that in a laboratory, it requires something else. Many things that are beyond the sense realm require a little bit more than 'science'.
As for Bill O'Reilly, that was the exact opposite of a debate to me. Bill-O hardly making any form of argument by merely saying that "the sun coming up and down conveniently" is enough proof of God. If you get a big enough idiot to argue theism (ie: O'Reilly, Kirk Kameron, Ray Comfort), then of course you're taking advantage of mainstream television by arguing with them. I'm all for debating the other side, just not conservative talk show hosts with minimal knowledge on the subject against Oxford professors who know a bit more.
"Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women."
-~William Lane Craig~-
I could have been clearer. When I said 'they', I meant WLC and Ray Ray "The Banana Man".
While WLC is a gold medalist in the sport of argumentum ad verbosium and equivocation, compared to Ray Ray, it's just a more highly polished bunch of turds.
That's patently false. We are talking about what IS reality, and what is NOT.
The claim that a god exists, is unequivocally a scientific claim. You cannot move the goalposts like that. Sorry.
If there are 'miracles' that defy physics, that would mean that there is some kind of 'burp' in the universal constants for that to occur.
That would be the intersection between the natural and supernatural world, and would make it entirely only something that science could quantify and measure.
That question has always been a non sequitur to me. It's always been extremely dissonant to my ears. It's like asking "What's the meaning of a peanut butter sandwich?"
It also sounds like complete despair. Like "Why should I be alive?"
Bullshit.
My life means everything to me.
Apparently, yours seems to only mean something when you're a slave to a master.
I'm sorry for you that you are wired that way. I can't imagine feeling that way.
But, I'm sure many of the ex-theists here can relate to that, and describe to you the contrasting way they feel now. They're very open about talking about it. Maybe you might want to open some dialogue with them about it, if your presence here is more about learning about people, than if it is about the 'sport' of arguing.
Don't get me wrong, if you're here for the sport, that's fine as well. There's few of us who don't get a kick out of going 'toe to toe'.
Maybe you're missing the whole point. Dawkins isn't doing it for sport. He is very concerned (as well as the other 3 Horsemen) that humanity is headed for a cataclysmic calamity between opposing cultures (that have their underpinnings deeply rooted in incompatible religious beliefs, dogmas, and divine commands,) if we don't start (at the very least) turning people into moderates, if we can't immediately turn them into agnostics, atheists or deists.
He would debate Ray Ray, if he had a TV Network, and millions of viewers watching. But Ray Ray, is a nobody trying to get himself on the map, and in the media, to make a buck. Don't kid yourself.
WLC is not much different, except that he hangs in different circles, and also wants to become a modern legend alongside the so called 'greats', like Anselm and St. Augustine.
If you can't see that WLC is all 'ego' then you're not a very good judge of people.
John Atkins is hardly compelling, and a total fraud. He's a mathematician, who probably knows and understands Probability Density and the different types of Dynamic systems. He knows that it's not only possible that the physics of the universe being only 'natural' is not only possible, but that it's completely probable.
I have seen numerous debates with McGrath, but I honestly don't remember them, so I won't comment.
As far as Craig, and his Kalam, it was completely foolish of him that he even attempted to rework that argument, in order to sell books. But seeing that it was written so long ago, I don't think he could have forseen YouTube and Google, and that it would bring his KCA into a realm of public broadcast, where any decently educated person, with a good vocabulary, and command of english grammar, could shred it to pieces, while making a sandwich and talking on the phone...lol
Your mistake was trying to defend it with me. That spoke volumes to me...
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Is the biggest question really what meaning does my life have? This is utterly anthropocentric. Nor is there a need to answer this in a laboratory. Personal observation of reality shows the universe did fine before we arrived, does not require us to give it meaning and will go on cheerfully without us when we are extinct. We and all life are a superfluous byproduct of natural processes.
I certainly find the 'where are we and why' questions profoundly vertiginous but this idea we can simply invent an answer to life's biggest questions is wrong. If you're going to go outside testable explanations then you are in a realm of assertions. When it comes to god you are simply reifying human imagination. If you want to prove this is not so, you'll need to show me some evidence.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
God is simply an idea, a belief, a conception in the mind of man, and can be, and has been investigated in those terms. Or more strictly, it is a category, a set of ideas with much variation in detail within a broad range.
There is no logical place for a God as a 'creator' of what IS, which would require God to either be his own creator, or to simply 'be', without justification, reason or explanation. In addition, the actual thoughts and motives of a being remotely of that sort would be utterly beyond our comprehension. This means 'he' cannot serve as some standard of behaviour for us, since his interests and values could hardly intersect with ours in any meaningful way.
God is something whose actual existence needs to be demonstrated and explained by objective, empirical means of some sort, otherwise there is absolutely no justification for any assertion that 'he' has any reality outside our own imagination. Intuition, Instinct, 'Faith', and 'Revelation' have zero warrant to establish actual knowledge of external reality. At best they can point to ideas we may wish to actually investigate. Such modes of thought have a long history of error wherever they have been applied to assertions about things that were, or have later become, subject to empirical observation, from the way objects fall under gravity, to the nature of the heavenly bodies.
If some claim is not currently testable by even some relaxed version of scientific method, the only honest position is to say 'we don't know' its cause or nature. All else is speculation.
WLC basically appeals to emotion and intuition, and so has no actual validatable position on matters of truth, but of course that gives him a great appeal to people whose position is also held on a similar basis.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I never said that a God isn't scientific, but that science cannot answer ALL of the questions dealing with a God. The meaning of life was just one example that I used. IF the Judeo-Christian God is real, then life has meaning; this to me seems pretty straightforward. If atheism is true, then life is, in the final analysis, absurd and meaningless. It seems to me that there are two pre-requisites to an ultimately meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life, namely, God and immortality, and if God does not exist, then we have neither.
Why does it have to sound despairing? The question of meaning the way I see it is how you interpret it. To me it doesn't sound like complete despair because it adds hope to my life. Whether it's true or not, the belief of atheism is undeniably a pessimistic one. So in essence, despair comes not by questioning the meaning of life, but by throwing it out because it's "unscientific" IMO. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.
Once again, I think your views on God and theism are a tad bit sensationalized. It reminds me of Richard Dawkins's description of the Judeo-Christian God in his book by describing him as homophobic, genocidal, filicidal, pestilintiel, megolamaniacal, malevolent, a bully, and many other things. I certainly don't believe in this God, and in fact, I don't know anybody who does! (outside of maybe the Westboro Baptist Church). To go along with that, I also don't see my faith as enslavement, a God of free will is just the opposite.
I'm certainly not here for the "sport" of debate or arguing, I'm here for the same reasons most are, and that is to engage in discussion and learn. I would be delighted to talk to some of the other theists on this board, in the same way that I enjoy talking to former atheists. As somebody who grew up an atheist (from 6 to 16) and converted near the end of high school, I can relate to that.
I guess I am missing the point if that's the case. What do you get out of "converting" someone to atheism? I'm not trying to play Pascal's wager or anything, but what do you get out of that other than the satisfaction of self-importance and agreement? Not trying to sound snarky or cynical, just curious.
We agree on Ray Comfort, I see sidewalk fire and brimstone pastors like him on the side of my street once a month, I'm not interested in his means of religion. As for Craig wanting to become a modern legend among the likes of Anselm and Augustine, that's a hasty generalization if I've ever heard one.
Craig may be a bit egotistical, but compared to Hitchens and Dawkins, he's as modest as a lamb.
Do you mean John Lennox? I encourage you to at least skim through some of Alister's writings, as a theistic evolutionist and as a brilliant scientist, he might be a bit easier to relate to. The same goes for Dr. Francis Collins, a truly remarkable geneticist.I'll say it once more, I hope you see my posting as genuine and not a game of devil's advocate. It seems that you've been a bit hostile, and I will say in advance that I am sorry if I have done the same.
"Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women."
-~William Lane Craig~-
Proverbs 16:33
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
My 2 cents on the meaning of life question.
Life means what you want it to mean. Your purpose in life is what you want it to be. My life is joyful and loving, stressful at times, and has as much meaning as I want. In short, just like every other human on this planet. You have chosen your meaning to revolve around religion - but you can choose meaning however you want and can change the meaning of your life to something else at any time.
My purpose purpose in life is to leave my corner of the world a little better than when I found it. To do as little harm as I can manage. Realistically, we all do some harm just by living - by using resources and making waste. But we can try to minimize the downside and compensate positively.
I doubt you have much more in the way of meaning in your life. After all, god/s/dess does not tweet you every day with updates - "yo, dude, more praying, more tithing, don't let your pastor starve!" "Watch out for that tornado/earthquake/hurricane/landslide/avalanche/tsunami I'm sending your way today!" "Hey, keep your kids inside today. Big danger coming up!" "Get out there and spread the gospel, people!" No?
Your purpose is to "spread the gospel", correct? But you are talking to a bunch of people who have heard the gospel. Some on this forum used to be preachers. A couple were/are biblical scholars. Some of us were sincere believers - for years. What do you think you can spread around that we haven't heard before?
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
A lot of people here are taking the time to address your question of William. I will not.
Why? Because even before you get to this guy, even before you even get to the bible, you are still dealing with the naked assertion that a magical invisible super brain with no material and magical super powers exists. Muslims and Jews have their apologists as well and have as much evidence for their position as you do for yours.
All you are saying is "I like what this person writes" , which does not constituted any credible claim that one could verify in a lab setting under the scrutiny of testing and falsification.
If William were arguing in his apologies for Allah, instead of the god of Jesus, would you still buy his arguments> And even beyond that, before you even get to that, what evidence can you empirically demonstrate that would prove that a thought can arise out of a non-material process?
THAT is why I am not going to bother with this. Putting the cart before the horse hardly impresses me. It doesn't work when you do it, or any Muslim or Jew or Hindu does it. Traditions of superstitions are common in our species and being literate and smart does not preclude smart people from believing false things.
If a Muslim has a Phd in biology that doesn't automatically convince you that Allah is the one true god. Elaborate tripe doesn't constitute reality.
Until you, or any invisible friend claimed by anyone of any religion, can demonstrate the existence of an invisible friend, in a universal manor, you are engaging in mental masturbation, wild speculation, and mere wishful thinking.
A history of tradition is a bad argument otherwise the earth would be flat and the sun really would be a god. Being smart is also a bad argument. Being smart doesn't make one right about everything, otherwise Newton's alchemy would be treated as real science today.
Bluntly put, I could give a shit less what William said, he is starting from an unprovable naked assertion in the first place.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Roger,
you seem to assume that meaning can only come from us having an authoritarian guardian figure 'above' us. Obviously this assertion is based on your personal perspective. And I will not question the validity and honesty of that position within your personal perspective and basic assumptions.
But as most people here can testify, that is absolutely not the only way to achieve or derive such a feeling, which is what it ultimately is.
I can understand why you might fail to understand how we could find a meaning and purpose, but that would be because you are coming from a very different set of assumptions and way of understanding things. I am concerned, if possible, to help you understand this.
How does having a supreme 'boss' and father-figure give you 'meaning'??
What is the meaning you feel you have, specifically? I would genuinely like to hear you spell i out a little more. as you see it.
As has already been said, we non-believers have our own ways of finding a meaning and purpose in life.
My personal reaction to your claim is to think of a slave whose only purpose is to serve and obey their master, which does not appeal to me in any way, although I do know that is one mode of living which some people can adapt to, or even embrace. I am not saying that all applies to you, I am just telling you how I perceive these issues.
My purpose and meaning is derived along similar lines to what cj described. Helping others and trying to leave some positive improvement in the world for succeeding generations seems as fine a 'purpose' and 'meaning' as I can conceive of. And it does work for me.
Nourishing the ego of some God figure for eternity seems a pretty unworthy and pointless goal to me. Why would such an entity need us, especially if he is as powerful, all-knowing, etc as typically claimed? How could such insignificant beings as us meaningfully contribute to him? If he doesn't need us, what is our purpose?
The other thought that always comes to me here is we perhaps serve to amuse and distract him from the infinite boredom of being in such a position, already knowing everything, no-one else to talk to. Is that our purpose?
I am genuinely puzzled as to how you see a purpose in that scenario? As I said, I would genuinely like you to explain it, rather than just repeat the same old claim we have heard ad nauseum, that without God you can imagine no purposes and meaning. Which is a claim I have heard WLC state many times.
EDIT: In direct response to your opening question, I would say yes, if all you want to do is encourage and please the believers in the audience, but not if you want to make any headway with atheists.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Can you honestly accept our testimony that we do not feel driven to despair when contemplating the non-existence of God, that your assumption of the implications of non-belief to a person are simply mistaken, without foundation, however seemingly inevitable from your point of view?
This is that sort of thing which I think we should discuss here - I would appreciate trying to resolve such issues.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
If you think eternity is such a good and meaningful thing, you should watch the Days of our Lives soap opera for a decade or two, of the six decades total.
Trust me, ending is not such a bad thing!
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Theism and atheism are positions on reality. Emphasizing that your belief gives you hope or meaning is subjective and irrelevant as they are appeals to consequences. It can make your worldview appear appealing, but anyone that is converted for these reasons are believing something that is unjustified simply because it feels good to them.
"Absolute" "meaning" is a definitively inept concept, as things like meaning, hope, and purpose exist as the subjective feelings and motivations of intelligent beings. Assuming that such 'meaning' existed, there would be not be much reason for me to accept that meaning other than I agreed with it and/or deference to some authority, which coincidentally, is the combination that we see in Christianity. So, the entire distinction is worthless for any practical purpose, being no more than semantics and philosophical mental masturbation. Iow, we both have meaning, hope, etc. but I view my meaning as coming from my own feelings while you've merely asserted an authority that I do not agree with.
I will say that I do wish there was a god, but a good god, not "God," as in not the Christian God. So, in logic similar to yours, I could say that the position of atheism with respect to the Christian God would undeniably be an optimistic one, since the God of the Bible is quite a homophobic, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, malevolent bully. A world with the Christian God would indeed be a world without hope; all hope would be squashed as every event that will ever occur has been planned by this bully, not to mention everyone is doomed to one of two infinitely long dystopian afterlives.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
The difference is that McGrath claims to use evidence on which to base his conclusions (he's not correct because he thinks he needs to add magic to science to make science works better). WLC is a "Screw the evidence! The Holy Spirit says I'm right so I am."
See the difference?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
St. Thomas Aquinas formulated 5 ways to prove the existence of God. 1. All things exist in either a state of potential change or actualized change. But a being in a potential state has to be caused in order to reach an actualized state. But something has to be caused outside of itself in order to reach an actualized state, except if everything is in some potential state all change ultimately leads back to something already in a fully actualized state. This changeless and fully actualized being we call God. 2. All effects have an efficient cause. Not all things can be the result of an efficient cause because then the number of efficient causes would go on forever and nothing could be caused. So there must be something that is not the result of an efficient cause but is instead the cause of efficient causes. This we call God. 3. All existing things have a form or nature that allows them to potentially exist (which is their essence) and an actual present existence. Something could go out of existence but in order for it to come back into existence its essence must still exist. An essence isn’t actual existence though so there must be something that eternally exists as pure existence to allow these other things to exist. This we call God. 4. All things have a certain level of value. This can be seen as one thing is recognized as better than another or as one person is more moral than another. So there must be an ultimately perfect being from which this level of value is derived from. This being we call God. 5. All things are directed towards an end which can be seen throughout nature. For example a zygote in the womb is directed towards growing into a fully developed human being. Something intelligent must direct all of these processes. This we call God. Overall the being must also be consciously aware or otherwise He wouldn’t be able to will anything and willing is logically required in order for the causations described to take place. This can also only be one being because to postulate more than one being would be arguing for another identical being as the one that has already been proven and that would be unnecessary and illogical. Everyone here should read The Last Superstition A Refutation of New Atheism if they are serious about debating the existence of God.
........yourself, Lane Craig and Thomas Aquinas all make the same fallacy when you start your appologetics. You postulate that there is a god without offering up any proof that a god or any god exists. You only offer up why you think a god exists; how about some real evidence, prove there is a god then explain why you believe it.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Argument from degree
From Iron Chariots WikiAs formulated by Thomas Aquinas, the argument from degree is stated as follows:
"We notice that things in the world differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum. Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum to set the standard for perfection, and we call that maximum God."
Counter-apologetics
Dawkins replies:
"That's an argument? You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God. Or substitute any dimension of comparison you like, and derive an equally fatuous conclusion."
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Hello,
I would have to agree with the majority of the agnostics on here such as Brian and Bob.
I studied on Craig in order to study him for myself. I asked questions while his lectures were taped.
I had lunch with him a few times.
He is a nice guy. But he is absolutely not representing Christianity let alone Christian apologetics.
He is a molinist and is proud to admit that he is a molinist.
He follows the pagan epistemology of "middle knowledge." which is rooted in mysticism.
He also follows the arguments of Thomas Aquinas as pointed out by a fellow a few posts above me.
This is obvious since he argues from a neutral means.
I also believe by my personal conversations with him that he denies sola scriptura.
He is more Roman Catholic then Christian. I personally believe
that he is a Roman Catholic. He actually has lectured on
both Roman Catholic and Protestant colleges/seminaries.
His arguments in the end are similar to how a pig would debate a Chef the night before Easter.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
I agree. Except the part of Hitchens. Hitchens was his Nemesis. He was a snake tongue that one and a brilliant debater. I hated his attitude but that's another subject...
Craig starts well from the philosofical standpoint but then quickly jumps into Christian apologetics and ruins everything.
I have to disagree.
There are no theists on operating tables.
Well... I kind of agree with Kalam argument to a First Cause. I don't see anything impossible there. I already talked about it in this forum. Talking about a "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" being is pure speculation and meaningless. Our limited mind and existence don't allow us to go to that territory, wheter is exists or not.
The objectivity of moral... well... I agree and disagree at the same time. Depends on what one means by that. what I believe is that "moral judgements can be rationally defensible, true or false, that there are rational procedural tests for identifying morally impermissible actions, or that moral values exist independently of the feeling-states of individuals at particular times."
well he is right about the last one. Ultimately believing in a God is a question of faith because you cannot rationalize it.