I can't help but love the fact that random people on the internet can completely destroy the apologist champion. Well done sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
I have never seen a professional philosopher deconstruct William Lane Craig in this way. You need to write a book if you haven't already. I would buy it. This is pure gold.
Joseph Lee-Doktor To be fair professional philosophers do rip Craig apart, but use more formal language. Their materials also tend to be published in journals that either cannot be or are hard to access for lay people. Craig, fully aware of this, never refers to these refutations or even acknowledges their existence. The sad fact is that he knows perfectly well that believes will not fact check him mainly because they want to believe and so won't go looking for disconfirmatory evidence. In general, it is my experience that theists will often know a good about claims that support their contention, but practically nothing about valid and sound objections. Religion has the majority view, but this is being gradually eroded. The more people are challenged in their beliefs the more they have to ponder, which is something people hadn't really had to think about much until relatively recently.
Joseph Lee-Doktor It's also worth noting that 70% + of professional philosophers are atheists. A slightly less significant number are agnostic, whilst only a small number are theists. (15% I think). This is not an argument from popularity, it's an observation. Nevertheless, that philosophers are not convinced by these and other arguments ought to be a sign that something is seriously wrong. Compare this to the consensus view of number of cosmologists and physicists who are atheist (90+%) and we see that people who understand the science don't agree with religious assertions. Religion is losing out to rationality, which is a good thing for humanity as a whole. If it earns its place anywhere, its in history and the undeniably beautiful architecture and art works it has inspired
Weren't you dead five months ago when you posted this? Also the real Christopher Hitchens had nothing but nice things to say about Dr. Craig. They may have disagreed but he never went as far as to call him a liar in order to achieve some sort of status.
8:30: I don't think Craig categorizes people like you as "intellectually inferior". He's just plain *dishonest* or *insecure* (Occam's razor, man!). He's a debater / religious apologists and that's all he. This is why Dawkins refuses to debate him. He only debates people with actual *substance*. And this is why Craig evades/lies etc. He realizes that he's been proven wrong, but he can't afford to officially admit it because he has no *real* job to fall back on. Dawkins is a professor/biologist, Krauss is a physicist, Hitchens was a journalist etc. They all have/had *real* jobs, so they can *afford* to be proven wrong, which is why they can afford to be *honest*... Never trust a man whose *livelihood* depends on his answers!
josepth chauvin And? Dr. Jason Lisle has also a PHD in astrophysics and has no idea what he's talking about/deliberately uses his title to promote creationism.
I believe that Craig, Brugencate, Slick and many modern apologists (especially the presuppositionalists) have simply assembled a self-reinforcing delusion out of tattered philosophical cloth.
@@josephchauvin1973 Yes, and John Nash won a Nobel Prize, and was the Doctorate Professor of mathematics research at Princeton. During all of this he had paranoid schizophrenia, so there is one example where you can be pedigreed but still present a mental disorder. Craig is either delusional or he is so invested in his livelihood he can't possibly be intellectually honest. He can't meet the burden of proof for his first presupposition: the existence of God.
I'm thankful [!?] that there are young university level instructors who are willing to engage WLC. I'm old, a former teacher, at both K-12 and college levels, and also a former christian, and I don't have the energy to watch or listen to Craig, who obviously attempts to sound above the heads of us lesser fools. The fact is, the man wears no clothes. Even as a believer, I wouldn't have tolerated him for a moment. It's almost as If he isn't a christian at all, that he has taken himself into a world of philosophy, which he doesn't even understand, and is lost in his own imagination. You'll see his methodology in the works of Lewis Carroll. He's confused. He's the apologist's answer to Sarah Palin. Keep up the good work.
Iarry wright 0nIy just disc0vered this m0n ami the singIe best descripti0n 0f the hapIess " dr " craig I have ever read there was aIways s0mething ab0ut his unf0cussed n0nsense I c0uId n0t put my finger 0n y0u just did many thanks
My hat off to you sir, that is by far the most intelligent, well thought out, rational disassembling of Kalam. Mind if I spread this idea if ever I come across others who try to use such poor logic?
No! Good ideas must be kept within close quarters, lest enterprising individuals will use them for their own gain… Then again, that may only apply to certain types of ideas and inventions. Either way, we wouldn’t want this gold to be discovered by unscrupulous people, would we?
@@notatheist I like how your username has two possible meanings: not atheist (atheist as an adjective) not a theist (theist as a noun) So you or may not have been an atheist when you made that username lol
I think Craig's unusual degree of use of ad hominem and petty objections which don't address the issue is a testament to the utter strength of TBS's argument. You can tell he is desperate when he starts quoting Sam Harris and uses such condescension. This video is incredibly impressive, and is one of the major influences on me to pursue an education in philosophy. But I'm disappointed that Mr Clifton hasn't pursued anything more in philosophy of religion beyond his TH-cam channel. Oh well, he certainly has an incredible mind.
Ad hominem means you are suggesting the reason you demean the person is your only argument. Which isn't an argument It means against the man in place of a real rational or coherent objection or counter argument. If Craig explains where the argument fails and gives an opinion of the person who failed. It is not an ad hominem fallacy.
I first deeply dug into the Kalam argument a few weeks ago and while it seemed so "neat" and tidy on the surface, it took just a couple of days of reflection to realize several "problems" with its premises, the important of which center in the "causality" premise. I am glad(and rather impressed) to notice that several others, including you here and Quentin Smith saw the very same problems I did with the argument!... Nevertheless, other problems exist with some of the other premises too. Why Crage continually ignores such problems is a wonder to me as I had deep respect for him as one of the greatest philosophers of our time. Seems I may have been mistaken.
On Craig's response to Smith that you quote at the end: If he thinks the definitions need to be revised, then he should get to revising them! Good luck to him with THAT task.
Well, folks. A decade later it happened. Craig and Scott actually had a debate. And Craig's response this line of reasoning is that he does not consider this to be the defining feature of causation. I guess we won.
@Vic 2.0 *_"If he has had these experiences, and there is no evidence that they're delusory, then of course he is justified in trusting said experiences."_* This once again seems like shifting the burden; as you're demanding evidence that they're delusory, rather than evidence that they're accurate. Craig's quote from above suggests that even if presented with evidence that his experiences were delusory, he would deny the evidence in favor of his experiences. *_"But if one's experience convinces me that there is a god, and no evidence exists that there isn't one, then at very least the conclusion that there is a god is rational."_* But if there also is no evidence that there _is_ one, what is the rational conclusion? (Recall what the Null Hypothesis indicates, since you claim to be a logician.) *_"I don't know if that's a core belief in Islam at all, actually."_* In islam, jesus is a prophet, and not a god. So unless you (the logician) allow that jesus can both be god and not be god, a christian experience and a muslim experience are incompatible. You don't have to wonder in any case, since you already know Craig dismisses the experiences of muslims, mormons and others. But rather than dithering about "core belief", just address the actual point: If another theist has an experience which is incompatible with Craig's experience, they cannot both be true; at least one of them must be false (delusory). _Please advise if you disagree._
I love how this whole thing is being worded. I would assume that it's much more entertaining than saying, "A creator can not create something without materials to do so. Therefore if a 'god' exists he must have existed alongside materials that he used to create the universe. So if the universe was made from nothing, it would suggest that there is no creator."
For both sides, stop using philosophy to talk about the *mechanics* of beginning of the universe! The theory of the big bang is a physics theory not a philosophical theory. According to big bang theories, at "beginning" the universe was an "hot, dense state". So you have both relativistic and quantum mechanics here (or one day an unified theory). Quantum physics certainly does not conform to the philosophical arguments that both of you have mentioned. While causality is fundamentally important to physics, when you are talking about that much mass, in such a small space, at such high energy, and at the smallest time period, please don't use your understanding of philosophy to make up rules on how it should have behaved. Philosophy gave major contributions to science long ago, but long gone are those days.
This...Oh My God (lol)...This. The whole of apologetics is built on circular and contradictory reasoning wrapped up as confusingly as possible in philosophical navel gazing. They co-opt (very badly) genetics, biology and physics - really all of science - and then apply philosophical rules to them. It is absurd and intellectually dishonest in the extreme. It is convincing only to their own which includes a disappointingly large number of senators, governors, government ministers, etc.
I do not think either person here is trying to speculate how causality worked at the beginning of the universe, rather what caused the matter to come into being in the first place if there is indeed such a cause.
So glad I found your page. I have no philosophical training and I have been watching the debates between Craig and Harris, Hitches and Krauss thinking "I know he is much smarter than me, so I must be missing something very very complex in his arguments". It's very telling that from the earliest encounter to the latest he never changes his position. And you can see the look on his opponents face when he gives a response that just says "Wait, is that what I said? Cause I don't think that's what I said? Isn't this my day job? Shouldn't I be better at explaining my position?" It seems like there really is no evidence that you could present to him that would make him pause for a second. It seems like what he is doing is not speaking to the debater but trying to appeal to those people watching the debate who may have doubts but want to believe and he's giving them something that on the surface looks reasonable that they can tell themselves "I don't just believe it because I feel it. Now I also have a logical reason. So not only do I have spirituality to back up my claims, I also have reason" I swear in every debate I have seen he always says something like "Don't let your questions about the rational reasons to believe in god, distract you from your personal experience" That says a lot about ultimately the way he wants people to think. He FEELS like it should be true, so he finds evidence to support that feeling.
Seth Pitts I've come to the same conclusion and so have many others. I've also said it before and I'll say it again. His only aim is to make theism, specifically Christianity, seem like a defensible proposition. And this illusion is indeed intended for those that already believe. It seems to me that his act is to merely shore up the numbers losing faith. He is damage control.
I wouldn't say he is smarter than you. Maybe he is more informed on the same bs arguments he has been throwing down for ages. I wish people would quit debating this clown and give him credibility. Interesting that he refuses to debate non-phd holders, which frees him from having to go in the ring with some people really good at tearing apart fallacies and proving the unsound Ness of his arguments
Hi TBS, This presentation really speaks to the core of why I have a problem with W.L. Craig, apologists and especially presuppositional apologists. Babies, which we all have been are born 'tabula rasa', we have no concepts -only perception. Our perception develops quickly but concept formation develops over a lifetime. Before one can posit a God one must first pass through perception and develop concepts and language. Then we develop abstractions, and widen our eruditions a posteriori. These apologists start "philosophizing" mid stream then attempt to retrofit an a priori assertion of God. When they are challenged, the apologetic tap-dance ensues and they begin to dis-integrate the well established epistemic standards. The standards that brought us the scientific method, and the advanced technology that allows them to freely promulgate their self reinforcing delusions. It's agonizing.
If science did not exist, religious people wouldn't even be able to post any religious videos on TH-cam because the internet wouldn't even exist. There is a strange irony when religious people use tools which were created by science to promote their own pseudo-scientific ideas.
Working in science & engineering since 1966 had taught me that differing views lead to refined assertions, always in the recognition that evidence is the final arbiter of correct ideas. Bravado & personal emotions are usually weeded out from the participants in frequent review processes; straying from the subject matter is frowned on. It takes people quite a while to adapt to such discipline where self-doubt forces us to listen to our critics' alternate ideas without acrimony.
I find it kind of amazing that anyone thinks Creatio ex Materia would preclude the existence of a particular god. Even if one were to take the bible literally, Genesis doesn't say anything about ex Materia or ex Nihilo creation, it just says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I do find it grating that individuals who aren't doing the hard work of the quantum cosmologists are willing to make blatantly dishonest claims about the initial state of the universe, when they have no clue nor evidence to support their position. And it's these scientists who are going to be remembered in a few hundred years, not the apologists who make their living by fleecing the faithful.
No one says it precludes the existence of a god/gods even though we don't believe in any gods. Craig is making the argument for ex nihilio creation because Christians need that to be true. If any material existed along side their god then it raises the question of "Where did the material come from?" They can not answer that question.
***** The claim "the universe was designed or the universe was not designed" is indeed a binary proposition as they are negations of each-other. But the way you framed it with unclear terms to say the least "and the modern world is composed of DESIGN. it's that or it's chance and dirt." at least doesn't appear to be a binary proposition int he same way as the aforementioned, this would be the same as logically equating "it's chance and dirt" with "The universe was not designed" and I see no justification for that
***** "even if the blindwatchmaker was designed" ~ I don't understand what this means, the blind watchmaker was a concept I thought, not a thing that could be designed. "human designers create many designs that depend on variation and trial and error in order for systems to adapt to their environments or return optimal results. these designs are still...designed." ~ Yes, but there is a subtle yet vital difference between apparent design in biology and actual design in human creations: we do in fact have evidence that the designs humans make were designed due to the fact that we know and have evidence of them being designed e.g.) for cars we can observe humans in the process of designing them, for the case of observing traffic, again, this needs to be treated with context as we do know apriori what traffic is and whether it is controlled by some kind of agency or not. The difference and the problem with asserting design in biology is this though: We do not have any examples whatsoever of biological organisms "being created by some agency" as we do with humans creating cars. The only thing we do know with evidence is that biological organisms occur in nature, that is all. Thus the design hypothesis remains just that, an interesting, yet evidence-less hypothesis. "to answer the question of design probabilistically we have to ultimately have a collective view of the universe. we have to open up science and be less...hyper-skeptical. hyper-skepticism is not healthy for science." ~ I am completely open to this hypothesis but I do wonder how would you go about assessing the probability of design in biology or cosmology in a precise, scientific/quantitative way? "we have to ultimately have a collective view of the universe" ~ What does that mean and how does that assess the probability of design?
Being skeptical is not good for science you honestly have probably heard it somewhere else first because apologists spit out stupidity faster than an A-10 spits bullets.
Your comments about Craig taking you out of context and reassigning meaning to them takes me back to the WLC vs Sam Harris debate where Harris calls him out for the same with his comment "perhaps you’ve noticed Dr. Craig has a charming habit of summarizing his opponent’s points in a way in which they were not actually given".
Ever given any thought to doing a lecture type series on philosophy? Either on TH-cam or some paid series of videos elsewhere? I'm always impressed by your ability to recognize problems in your opponent's argument and wish I had a better foundation in some of the basic terms, common arguments, etc.
I dislike WLC as a person, due to his inept ability to analyse himself appropriately, but more so, I think philosophy in general has no benefit in today's actual world due to the fact that we no longer have to guess on most subjects. We can now test with actual physical entities... philosophy only addresses the incomprehensible... aka: the un-falsifiable.
Well, science is technically a branch of philosophy (evidentialism or empiricism, take your pick). Without philosophy, there would never have been such a thing as science, much less such a thing as logic on which science is so dependent. But even in the modern world, philosophy has important contributions to make on the demarcation problem. Yes, there are and should be a lot of scientists working on the demarcation problem, but this is precisely the sort of question philosophy was made to answer. To reject philosophy as a potential means of answering this question seems short-sighted at best.
Sorry, but Swype mangled my previous post. Anyway, even if the demarcation problem is the only area in which philosophy makes a worthwhile contribution, then the discipline is still relevant.
***** Ill have to mince words a bit here but I think you don't quite understand. If I witness a chemical reaction, I don't have to "believe" anything about that reaction. I can see what happened and draw conclusions based upon the observation. If you believe in something, it doesn't make it true, regardless of if your belief is correct is or not. My point was when there are "beliefs" which are held that cannot be falsified philosophy is involved. As scientific knowledge grows, both philosophy and belief go out the window because they are no longer required to understand a phenomenon. Philosophy is not required when physical interactions are witnessed and understanding the processes are known.
Zach Hollett Technically speaking, science is a branch of evidentialism (or empiricism if you like), which is a branch of philosophy. Saying that philosophy is a separate category from science is like saying that mammals are a separate category from dogs.
It's WLC what do you expect? His whole shtick is making arguments that don't make sense if you think about them then getting money from those who don't.
Here's something I discovered rather early on when WLC came on the scene. The man has no interest in discussing anything. No matter how many video's you make, his responses will always be another rehash of his "points" and condescending bullshit. He is in the business of getting followers among believers, as to make money.
Scott, I find you to generally be a pretty thoughtful individual, but you've entirely missed the mark on this one. Slow down and read Craig's responses again. He understands you quite well and has responded to your argument accordingly.
Nice try , but assertions given without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. TBS demonstrated in detail in this video that WLC did not respond to his arguments. Provide more specific examples of TBS's supposed ineptitude or STFU.
It appears that Craig's response has been (re)moved, and is no longer available at the link provided in the description. Does anyone have it elsewhere?
In 1916, Albert Einstein didn't like where his calculations were leading him. If his theory of General Relativity was true, it meant that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning. Einstein's calculations indeed were revealing a definite beginning to all time, all matter, and all space. This flew in the face of his belief that that the universe was static and eternal. He later called his discovery "irritating." He wanted the universe to be self-existent-not reliant on any outside cause - but the universe appeared to be one giant effect. In fact, Einstein so disliked the implications of General Relativity - a theory that is now proven accurate to give decimal places - that he introduced a cosmological constant (which some have since called a "fudge factor") into his equations in order to show that the universe is static and to avoid an absolute beginning. In 1919, British cosmologist Arthur Eddington conducted an experiment during a solar eclipse which confirmed that GR was indeed true - the universe wasn't static but had a beginning. Like Einstein, Eddington wasn't happy with the implications. He later wrote, "Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me... I should like to find a genuine loophole." By 1922, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann had officially exposed Einstein's fudge factor as an algebraic error. (Incredibly, in his quest to avoid a beginning, the great Einstein had divided by zero - something even schoolchildren know is a no-no!) Meanwhile, Dutch astronomer William de Sitter had found that General Relativity required the universe to be expanding. And in 1927, the expanding of the universe was actually observed by astronomer Edwin Hubble. In 1929 Einstein made a pilgrimage to Mount Wilson to look through Hubble's telescope for himself. What he saw was irrefutable. The observational evidence showed that the universe was indeed expanding as GR had predicted. With his cosmological constant now completely crushed by the weight of the evidence against it, Einstein could no longer support his wish for an eternal universe. He subsequently described the cosmological constant as the "greatest blunder of my life," and he redirected his efforts to find the box you to the puzzle of life. Einstein said that he wanted "to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thought, the rest are details." Although Einstein said that hour believed in a pantheistic God, hid comments admitting creation and divine thought better describe a theistic God. And as irritating as it may be, his theory of GR stands today as one of the strongest lines of evidence for a Theistic God. Indeed, GR supports what is one of the oldest formal arguments for the existence of a theistic God - the Cosmological Argument.
All that copy and paste and you still come up with a god MUST be the cause with NO evidence. Things in this universe happen WITHOUT CAUSE as well as with a cause.
All that copy and paste? Now why must God need a cause? The first premise on the KCA says that everything that begins to exist must have a cause, God did not begin to exist, therefore God does not need a cause. Name me one thing on this Earth that happens without a cause...
Almost everyone here has heard long boring speeches about how everything must have a cause, and the speech always ends with "except a particular type of magic I believe, which needs no cause, TROLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL." So please, at least acknowledge that that you're peddling the same type of trickery as every other religion that has ever existed.
I hope you read the comments.....You have a live debate coming up with WLC, please don't pull any punches. When Craig starts with his dishonest BS, please call him on it. To often in these live debates i feel the atheist debater is too nice.
Realizing this should be all that you need to know to understand that the closest we're ever going to get to objectivity is positive evidence (something mutually perceivable by you and others), and not negative evidence (something mutually unperceivable by you and others).
See this top hat? Nothing inside, right? I place it on the table - I say the magic words "Kalaam, Kalaam" - I lift it up - and oh, what have we here? A real, live, fluffy universe! And - oh, it's dead. Well, but it was alive, for a moment. You saw that, didn't you? Michael? Gabriel?
I'm doing Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics so I can deal with logic just fine, yet I found it really hard to keep up with this video's pace. Philosophers have a habit of using long words and multiple premises seemingly effortlessly to form a coherent and intelligible argument, which obviously they have no trouble understanding if it is their own, but really I imagine that it must be very time-consuming for them to listen to an argument several times before comprehending it fully.
One example of the goal of this seminar is the Physical sciences prospectus: " In the larger context, the mission of the Chemistry, Physics and Engineering Department at Biola University is to train and mentor students to become skilled scientists, engineers, and educators in the physical sciences, who will glorify God, serve others and be good stewards of His creation. Further, we strive to serve as a resource for science education and science-faith integration to the greater Biola community."
Right! Working backwards is the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter if it's coming from a academic like Craig or some preacher in a storefront church, it's all the same.
I know. That's standard MO for WLC. Just as he specified in his resurrection debate with Richard Carrier that the reliability of the NT should emphatically NOT be a topic in the debate. As if the reliability of pretty much our only sources for the resurrection is of no account when debating its historicity. I've also noticed that WLC's appeal to authority ("a majority of NT scholars") rests on a single 1977 book in German by Jacob Kremer which Craig only names when pushed and never elaborates on
Christian apologists seem to think of philosophy as a paintbrush, painting a picture that appeals to them. Philosophy should be used in the way Sherlock Holmes uses a magnifying glass. It should be used to uncover truths, whatever the truth might happen to be.
Really well done as usual. BTW, can you remember an example where WLC actually made an argument in a debate? By an argument I am thinking of something with premises that he actually tried to support (excluding blatantly fallacious arguments), and these premises even tentatively supported the conclusion he made.
Rules of physics, logic, any type of science or not, all we have to recognize is that our minds are finite in their capabilities and that we could easily be wrong in the context of knowing everything there is to know about the universe or even beyond it. Recognizing this allows for the potential of anything's existence beyond what we've experienced or think we can comprehend. What I asked may be silly in the context of what 'we' know, but is relevant to the much bigger scope we're dealing with.
Arguments based on a first cause assume that there was a first cause; one could also assume that the cosmos is eternal, therefore requiring no first cause. Without evidence refuting an eternal model, arguments from a first cause are only rhetorical. All that we can conclude is that we don't know. WLC refuses to understand this simple truth.
Thanks for the Good Laugh. Atheists have been debunking practically every argument for God's existence, Fine Tuning, God of the Gaps, Irreducible Complexity, you name it.
Do you perform tours of your work or provide written lectures on your works? That would be wonderfully useful foe my Junto in Adelaide. I'm really hoping to find young men and women who can deliver refutations as eloquently as you have done here. Is there a way to contact you vie e-mail?
I've always argued that a live debating format is a terrible one for dealing with apologetics. By its nature, modern apologetics has to move ever further into the field of philosophical abstraction, and even for intelligent opponents, these arguments are extremely hard to counter on the spur of the moment. They require deep consideration, or a comprehensive understanding of science and/or philosophy. This why Craig himself always confines the terms of discussion so rigidly.
To call non table material caused to become a table makes no sense. It's potential table material. Wood and nails IS not a table, but it is NOT non table material.
Yeah, I agree with you about 'something from nothing' to the extent that it seems illogical. As an engineer, I've often found that our intuitions can be illusive, so I advise that we suspend judgement. Quantum mechanics is very strange indeed! Thanx for your open-minded response. Please, continue...
He said that he was shocked that a theist used a strawman. Then he said it was a sarcasm, so in fact he wasn't shocked that theist used a strawman. I doubt that anyone is.
If william lane craig has the reading comprehension of a fifth grader then the 5th grade me had a hell of a better reading comprehension (it was so high they had to guess and guessed it was at that of a college freshman)
The reason why Craig's resurrection debates "are pretty long" seems to be because going straight to the core of his argument: We should completely accept the NT accounts as "unvarnished history" would make the audience go "Wtf?" Yet this is exactly what Craig says, and he tops it by claiming that his resurrection scenario becomes more rather than less plausible as a historical event when he slabs on the label "supernatural". As a historian, I find Craig's resurrection debates completely useless.
An unrestricted causer does not require pre-existing material to produce material. A carpenter is restricted. Unrestricted by definition means unrestricted. Perhaps within our material boundaries we have no use for this, but beyond the physical and into the metaphysical we crack the door open and peek into eternity.
Problem with Craig is that he doesn't understand how language works, i guess. I guess i can make something come into existence by defining it, but only in the abstract realm of definitions. Craig seems to think this two "worlds" can invade each other- definitions can cause an actual change in the substantial universe. But the world of definitions is just a communicational system built by our neurons, that allows us to describe stuff. It isn't a "world".
That last quote from Craig in the debate with Craig Smith is just…..wow. Add that to his most recent “one-in-a-million” admission that he actually lowers his epistemic standard for Christianity because he thinks it’s worth believing, and you have all reasons you’d ever need to not take this guy seriously as an honest seeker of truth. Even when I was a Christian in my infancy of engaging with apologetics, I honestly did not understand why my fellow believers were so impressed by this guy. Even then I could recognize him misrepresenting his opponents to their faces. I came to the conclusion that he was either not very bright, or was trying to win people to Christ through dishonesty and I was having none of it either way.
To notice is that Hawking openly states that the Big Bang Theory is more USEFUL than the account in Genesis. That's what he thinks makes a model good or bad, while asking whether it's real or not is useless.
I was referring to his debates - not his written works. Btw, I've noticed that, apart from reviews/responses, most of his publications seem to be on the same topics as the 5-6 arguments from the "God show", which he has repeated for 2-3 decades (the "Resurrection Show" is merely an expansion on the "resurrection argument" from the "God Show"). Added to these is of course a load of general apologetics.
Exactly. He relies on a live debating platform where people have a strict time limit to respond to a multitude of arguments Craig presents them. He is a sheep in a wolf's clothing.
Something I noticed when Craig was debating Hitchens and a couple of other atheists: He always CLAIMED that NONE of his questions had been answered by his opponents, even though, if he had been listening, Hitchens and Harris had indeed answered his arguments. Of course, Hitchens and Harris REiterated their points, and yet again, Craig ignored their responses and claimed they had not addressed his arguments again. I could almost sense their sighs of frustration with his condescending tone and dogged determination to paint them as ignorant buffoons when it comes to arguing against HIM... how DARE they disagree?
Take your pick of any of say Times' Higher Education's list and see if ANY of them has a faculty/school of "Arts & Sciences". If you can't find the page then just start at the Biola main page, click on "School of Arts & Sciences", then either "History & Political Science" or "Philosophy", then "About Us".
"He is a skilled and slimy debater, but that doesn't make his position correct. " And calling him skilled and slimy debater doesn't make his position incorrect either. To say that it does would be an ad hominem fallacy.
How remarkable that, even 11 years before the phrase was coined by @misterdeity, WLC was demonstrating why he would earn the moniker of *_”Low Bar Bill.”_*
Well, perhaps you ought to read up a bit on Aristotle, who made clear that an efficient cause is not limited just to the artisan, but also his art, which, of course, makes no sense if never applied. Therefore mechanism has to be taken into account when defining efficient cause. Furthermore, we cannot assume that causation can be defined by only one of Aristotle's categories. We derive our understanding of causation from nature, which at least includes both efficient AND material cause.
At c. 8:26 you engage WCL in an attempt to make sense of his arguments vs. you. Viewers should note that instead of WLC speaking/writing over our heads, he resembles more a first year university grad student in philosophy. Actually, more like an undergrad. This video is now almost five years old. How have you fared? WLC is still deep inside the rabbit hole.
Liked the video. Precise, polite, consistent and a mercilless indictment of Craig's Derek Trotter approach to debating. Few people have the patience to parse the man's tortuous casuistry with such scalpel-like efficacy - keep it up; the more he misrepresents and attempts to dismiss you the more people look at your arguments and start questioning the man's character as well as his reasoning.
Again, the problem is not that Aristotle doesn't attribute causation to an art, it's that an art as Aristotle understood it isn't a mechanism. It's just a body of information. The whole idea of mechanism- of outside forces and laws acting upon something to bring about change- is alien to Aristotle's teleological conception of nature. The artisans's art (notice the possessive nature there) isn't a process, it's a quality of the artisan.
12:00 Wait, so Craig realizes how "coincidental" it is to assert that completely different types of causes must be somehow related in that whether or not an object has an efficient cause affects whether or not it has a material cause. And he says that anyone claiming this needs to meet a burden of proof because it is a strange claim. Yet this is *exactly* the same claim he asserts as obvious in his Kalam argument and makes no attempt at arguing for. Since we know that things begin to exist with no efficient cause, Craig modifies the first premise in the Kalam to, "Everything that begins to exist has an efficient or a material cause," and concludes that the Universe had an efficient cause. But he gives no reason for why two completely different types of causes should be so coincidentally related in this way. This new version of the premise is logically equivalent to, "Anything that begins to exist and has no material cause has an efficient cause." Why would not having a material cause mean that something has to have an efficient cause? It seems much more reasonable to assume the opposite, that having no material cause means it also has no efficient cause - at least there's an argument in favor of that option (the argument you gave in the video).
"When all other alternate explanations fail to hold up historically" As Bart Ehrmann repeatedly pointed out in his debate with Craig, WLC has in fact not even begun to scratch the surface of alternate explanations, yet wants us to immediately accept a supernatural explanation based on an inerrantist view of the Gospels... Well, excuse me if I'm a little underwhelmed by the persuasiveness of this line of argument.
And this is PRECISELY why Craig doesn't like to do free-ranging debates. Even here, on a subject that is his supposed speciality, that he has spent decades refining, against a superior intellect, he is quickly made to look foolish.
In some senses, this is a battle in which WLC is not engaged. He is not in the area of 'debating apologist' to win debates. He's perfectly open (at least, at times) about this. Nor is he interested in presenting or dealing honestly with evidence. He is only (I repeat _only_) doing this to win or preserve souls. His book (_Reasonable Faith_) makes this point clear, too. Finally, because of WLC repeated offences against honesty and fair play, universities and student organisations should stop booking him.
When Craig realizes that neither his opponent nor the audience understood any of his arguments, he regards it as a victory. He is a complete dolt.
William Lame Craig is what stupid people believe a smart person sounds like.
Non-baby non-table material is still probably one of my favourite things ever spoken by a human
The irony of Craig accusing anyone else of resorting to magic, as if that's not the entirety of his argument 😂
I can't help but love the fact that random people on the internet can completely destroy the apologist champion. Well done sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
it's still pidgeon-chess though.
Rejecting Kalam's first premise isn't absurd. Any premise which is never proven can automatically be rejected until it is proven.
I have never seen a professional philosopher deconstruct William Lane Craig in this way. You need to write a book if you haven't already. I would buy it. This is pure gold.
Joseph Lee-Doktor To be fair professional philosophers do rip Craig apart, but use more formal language. Their materials also tend to be published in journals that either cannot be or are hard to access for lay people.
Craig, fully aware of this, never refers to these refutations or even acknowledges their existence. The sad fact is that he knows perfectly well that believes will not fact check him mainly because they want to believe and so won't go looking for disconfirmatory evidence.
In general, it is my experience that theists will often know a good about claims that support their contention, but practically nothing about valid and sound objections.
Religion has the majority view, but this is being gradually eroded. The more people are challenged in their beliefs the more they have to ponder, which is something people hadn't really had to think about much until relatively recently.
Joseph Lee-Doktor It's also worth noting that 70% + of professional philosophers are atheists. A slightly less significant number are agnostic, whilst only a small number are theists. (15% I think). This is not an argument from popularity, it's an observation. Nevertheless, that philosophers are not convinced by these and other arguments ought to be a sign that something is seriously wrong. Compare this to the consensus view of number of cosmologists and physicists who are atheist (90+%) and we see that people who understand the science don't agree with religious assertions.
Religion is losing out to rationality, which is a good thing for humanity as a whole.
If it earns its place anywhere, its in history and the undeniably beautiful architecture and art works it has inspired
@@plasticvision6355 it is not irrational
I enjoyed this, Craig is a dishonest liar. He will distort quotes and known information to suit his religious agenda.
Weren't you dead five months ago when you posted this? Also the real Christopher Hitchens had nothing but nice things to say about Dr. Craig. They may have disagreed but he never went as far as to call him a liar in order to achieve some sort of status.
Michael H No, Hitch didn't like him. No status achievement intended.
+Michael H Craig is DEMONSTRABLY a liar and the late Christopher never seemed to needlesly pull any Hitchslaps.
MrRolnicek Examples?
Michael H Craigs self contradictions or Hitchslaps? Honestly I think it should be pretty easy to find a few of both if you just look around youtube
8:30: I don't think Craig categorizes people like you as "intellectually inferior". He's just plain *dishonest* or *insecure* (Occam's razor, man!).
He's a debater / religious apologists and that's all he. This is why Dawkins refuses to debate him. He only debates people with actual *substance*. And this is why Craig evades/lies etc. He realizes that he's been proven wrong, but he can't afford to officially admit it because he has no *real* job to fall back on.
Dawkins is a professor/biologist, Krauss is a physicist, Hitchens was a journalist etc.
They all have/had *real* jobs, so they can *afford* to be proven wrong, which is why they can afford to be *honest*...
Never trust a man whose *livelihood* depends on his answers!
I Love your chirps man....!!!!!lovvit!!!!!
I really wish WLC would stop calling himself a philosopher. He is not a philosopher, he is a sophist.
Fa1c0 he had two PHD's and this guy has 0....
josepth chauvin And? Dr. Jason Lisle has also a PHD in astrophysics and has no idea what he's talking about/deliberately uses his title to promote creationism.
I believe that Craig, Brugencate, Slick and many modern apologists (especially the presuppositionalists) have simply assembled a self-reinforcing delusion out of tattered philosophical cloth.
@@josephchauvin1973 Yes, and John Nash won a Nobel Prize, and was the Doctorate Professor of mathematics research at Princeton. During all of this he had paranoid schizophrenia, so there is one example where you can be pedigreed but still present a mental disorder. Craig is either delusional or he is so invested in his livelihood he can't possibly be intellectually honest. He can't meet the burden of proof for his first presupposition: the existence of God.
@@josephchauvin1973 A literal appeal to authority.
I'm thankful [!?] that there are young university level instructors who are willing to engage WLC. I'm old, a former teacher, at both K-12 and college levels, and also a former christian, and I don't have the energy to watch or listen to Craig, who obviously attempts to sound above the heads of us lesser fools. The fact is, the man wears no clothes. Even as a believer, I wouldn't have tolerated him for a moment. It's almost as If he isn't a christian at all, that he has taken himself into a world of philosophy, which he doesn't even understand, and is lost in his own imagination. You'll see his methodology in the works of Lewis Carroll. He's confused. He's the apologist's answer to Sarah Palin. Keep up the good work.
Iarry wright
0nIy just disc0vered this m0n ami
the singIe best descripti0n 0f the hapIess " dr " craig
I have ever read
there was aIways s0mething ab0ut his unf0cussed n0nsense I c0uId n0t put my finger 0n
y0u just did
many thanks
My hat off to you sir, that is by far the most intelligent, well thought out, rational disassembling of Kalam. Mind if I spread this idea if ever I come across others who try to use such poor logic?
No! Good ideas must be kept within close quarters, lest enterprising individuals will use them for their own gain…
Then again, that may only apply to certain types of ideas and inventions. Either way, we wouldn’t want this gold to be discovered by unscrupulous people, would we?
@@notatheist your name is quite double-edged
@@notatheist
I like how your username has two possible meanings:
not atheist (atheist as an adjective)
not a theist (theist as a noun)
So you or may not have been an atheist when you made that username lol
I think Craig's unusual degree of use of ad hominem and petty objections which don't address the issue is a testament to the utter strength of TBS's argument. You can tell he is desperate when he starts quoting Sam Harris and uses such condescension.
This video is incredibly impressive, and is one of the major influences on me to pursue an education in philosophy. But I'm disappointed that Mr Clifton hasn't pursued anything more in philosophy of religion beyond his TH-cam channel. Oh well, he certainly has an incredible mind.
Where do you see Craig using ad hominem (assuming you mean the fallacy)? And which rebuttal of Craig's arguments do you find convincing?
Ad hominem means you are suggesting the reason you demean the person is your only argument. Which isn't an argument
It means against the man in place of a real rational or coherent objection or counter argument.
If Craig explains where the argument fails and gives an opinion of the person who failed. It is not an ad hominem fallacy.
I first deeply dug into the Kalam argument a few weeks ago and while it seemed so "neat" and tidy on the surface, it took just a couple of days of reflection to realize several "problems" with its premises, the important of which center in the "causality" premise. I am glad(and rather impressed) to notice that several others, including you here and Quentin Smith saw the very same problems I did with the argument!... Nevertheless, other problems exist with some of the other premises too. Why Crage continually ignores such problems is a wonder to me as I had deep respect for him as one of the greatest philosophers of our time. Seems I may have been mistaken.
when being an actor hides being a brilliant philosopher
Apologists are, at best, good rhetoricians. They have to sell their wares and console the faithful, not engage in serious debates with unbelievers.
On Craig's response to Smith that you quote at the end: If he thinks the definitions need to be revised, then he should get to revising them! Good luck to him with THAT task.
Well, folks. A decade later it happened. Craig and Scott actually had a debate. And Craig's response this line of reasoning is that he does not consider this to be the defining feature of causation.
I guess we won.
where is the debate
W.L. Craig comes from the "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" school.
Star Lord is correct, all WLC is good at is being embarrassed by theoretical physicists.
@Vic 2.0 *_"If he has had these experiences, and there is no evidence that they're delusory, then of course he is justified in trusting said experiences."_* This once again seems like shifting the burden; as you're demanding evidence that they're delusory, rather than evidence that they're accurate. Craig's quote from above suggests that even if presented with evidence that his experiences were delusory, he would deny the evidence in favor of his experiences.
*_"But if one's experience convinces me that there is a god, and no evidence exists that there isn't one, then at very least the conclusion that there is a god is rational."_* But if there also is no evidence that there _is_ one, what is the rational conclusion? (Recall what the Null Hypothesis indicates, since you claim to be a logician.)
*_"I don't know if that's a core belief in Islam at all, actually."_* In islam, jesus is a prophet, and not a god. So unless you (the logician) allow that jesus can both be god and not be god, a christian experience and a muslim experience are incompatible. You don't have to wonder in any case, since you already know Craig dismisses the experiences of muslims, mormons and others.
But rather than dithering about "core belief", just address the actual point: If another theist has an experience which is incompatible with Craig's experience, they cannot both be true; at least one of them must be false (delusory). _Please advise if you disagree._
I love how this whole thing is being worded. I would assume that it's much more entertaining than saying, "A creator can not create something without materials to do so. Therefore if a 'god' exists he must have existed alongside materials that he used to create the universe. So if the universe was made from nothing, it would suggest that there is no creator."
For both sides, stop using philosophy to talk about the *mechanics* of beginning of the universe!
The theory of the big bang is a physics theory not a philosophical theory. According to big bang theories, at "beginning" the universe was an "hot, dense state". So you have both relativistic and quantum mechanics here (or one day an unified theory).
Quantum physics certainly does not conform to the philosophical arguments that both of you have mentioned. While causality is fundamentally important to physics, when you are talking about that much mass, in such a small space, at such high energy, and at the smallest time period, please don't use your understanding of philosophy to make up rules on how it should have behaved.
Philosophy gave major contributions to science long ago, but long gone are those days.
You said it all, mate. Succinctly. Bash onward, science!
This...Oh My God (lol)...This. The whole of apologetics is built on circular and contradictory reasoning wrapped up as confusingly as possible in philosophical navel gazing. They co-opt (very badly) genetics, biology and physics - really all of science - and then apply philosophical rules to them. It is absurd and intellectually dishonest in the extreme. It is convincing only to their own which includes a disappointingly large number of senators, governors, government ministers, etc.
I do not think either person here is trying to speculate how causality worked at the beginning of the universe, rather what caused the matter to come into being in the first place if there is indeed such a cause.
So glad I found your page.
I have no philosophical training and I have been watching the debates between Craig and Harris, Hitches and Krauss thinking "I know he is much smarter than me, so I must be missing something very very complex in his arguments".
It's very telling that from the earliest encounter to the latest he never changes his position. And you can see the look on his opponents face when he gives a response that just says "Wait, is that what I said? Cause I don't think that's what I said? Isn't this my day job? Shouldn't I be better at explaining my position?"
It seems like there really is no evidence that you could present to him that would make him pause for a second. It seems like what he is doing is not speaking to the debater but trying to appeal to those people watching the debate who may have doubts but want to believe and he's giving them something that on the surface looks reasonable that they can tell themselves "I don't just believe it because I feel it. Now I also have a logical reason. So not only do I have spirituality to back up my claims, I also have reason"
I swear in every debate I have seen he always says something like "Don't let your questions about the rational reasons to believe in god, distract you from your personal experience" That says a lot about ultimately the way he wants people to think. He FEELS like it should be true, so he finds evidence to support that feeling.
Seth Pitts I've come to the same conclusion and so have many others. I've also said it before and I'll say it again. His only aim is to make theism, specifically Christianity, seem like a defensible proposition. And this illusion is indeed intended for those that already believe. It seems to me that his act is to merely shore up the numbers losing faith. He is damage control.
I wouldn't say he is smarter than you. Maybe he is more informed on the same bs arguments he has been throwing down for ages. I wish people would quit debating this clown and give him credibility. Interesting that he refuses to debate non-phd holders, which frees him from having to go in the ring with some people really good at tearing apart fallacies and proving the unsound Ness of his arguments
Phelan
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he says "troop of baboons" in his next debate, lol
Hi TBS, This presentation really speaks to the core of why I have a problem with W.L. Craig, apologists and especially presuppositional apologists. Babies, which we all have been are born 'tabula rasa', we have no concepts -only perception. Our perception develops quickly but concept formation develops over a lifetime. Before one can posit a God one must first pass through perception and develop concepts and language. Then we develop abstractions, and widen our eruditions a posteriori. These apologists start "philosophizing" mid stream then attempt to retrofit an a priori assertion of God. When they are challenged, the apologetic tap-dance ensues and they begin to dis-integrate the well established epistemic standards. The standards that brought us the scientific method, and the advanced technology that allows them to freely promulgate their self reinforcing delusions. It's agonizing.
If science did not exist, religious people wouldn't even be able to post any religious videos on TH-cam because the internet wouldn't even exist. There is a strange irony when religious people use tools which were created by science to promote their own pseudo-scientific ideas.
You look like the guy from Guardians of the Galaxy
Working in science & engineering since 1966 had taught me that differing views lead to refined assertions, always in the recognition that evidence is the final arbiter of correct ideas. Bravado & personal emotions are usually weeded out from the participants in frequent review processes; straying from the subject matter is frowned on. It takes people quite a while to adapt to such discipline where self-doubt forces us to listen to our critics' alternate ideas without acrimony.
Well you're the hottest TH-cam atheist I've seen.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
+Awakened Goldfish As a heterosexual male... even I came to the same conclusions lol
He's a famous Soap Opera star now.
Perhaps his air conditioner is broken and that is making him hot.
No. Not your fault. Craig does this routinely to anyone with whom he disagrees.
even such a long time ago, Craig liked to point people to his published work instead of addressing arguments when they need to be addressed.
I find it kind of amazing that anyone thinks Creatio ex Materia would preclude the existence of a particular god. Even if one were to take the bible literally, Genesis doesn't say anything about ex Materia or ex Nihilo creation, it just says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
I do find it grating that individuals who aren't doing the hard work of the quantum cosmologists are willing to make blatantly dishonest claims about the initial state of the universe, when they have no clue nor evidence to support their position. And it's these scientists who are going to be remembered in a few hundred years, not the apologists who make their living by fleecing the faithful.
No one says it precludes the existence of a god/gods even though we don't believe in any gods. Craig is making the argument for ex nihilio creation because Christians need that to be true. If any material existed along side their god then it raises the question of "Where did the material come from?" They can not answer that question.
Ojeebus you are right.
W.L.Craig is actually creating more non-believers at a breakneck speed.
Good !! ....We need more people living in the modern world. :)
***** it's that or it's chance and dirt. ~ yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white
***** The claim "the universe was designed or the universe was not designed" is indeed a binary proposition as they are negations of each-other.
But the way you framed it with unclear terms to say the least "and the modern world is composed of DESIGN. it's that or it's chance and dirt." at least doesn't appear to be a binary proposition int he same way as the aforementioned, this would be the same as logically equating "it's chance and dirt" with "The universe was not designed" and I see no justification for that
***** "it's either designed or it isn't" ~ Ok, so that's the position you take then, I agree with that claim as well
***** "even if the blindwatchmaker was designed" ~ I don't understand what this means, the blind watchmaker was a concept I thought, not a thing that could be designed.
"human designers create many designs that depend on variation and trial and error in order for systems to adapt to their environments or return optimal results. these designs are still...designed."
~ Yes, but there is a subtle yet vital difference between apparent design in biology and actual design in human creations: we do in fact have evidence that the designs humans make were designed due to the fact that we know and have evidence of them being designed e.g.) for cars we can observe humans in the process of designing them, for the case of observing traffic, again, this needs to be treated with context as we do know apriori what traffic is and whether it is controlled by some kind of agency or not.
The difference and the problem with asserting design in biology is this though: We do not have any examples whatsoever of biological organisms "being created by some agency" as we do with humans creating cars. The only thing we do know with evidence is that biological organisms occur in nature, that is all. Thus the design hypothesis remains just that, an interesting, yet evidence-less hypothesis.
"to answer the question of design probabilistically we have to ultimately have a collective view of the universe.
we have to open up science and be less...hyper-skeptical.
hyper-skepticism is not healthy for science."
~ I am completely open to this hypothesis but I do wonder how would you go about assessing the probability of design in biology or cosmology in a precise, scientific/quantitative way? "we have to ultimately have a collective view of the universe" ~ What does that mean and how does that assess the probability of design?
Being skeptical is not good for science you honestly have probably heard it somewhere else first because apologists spit out stupidity faster than an A-10 spits bullets.
Your comments about Craig taking you out of context and reassigning meaning to them takes me back to the WLC vs Sam Harris debate where Harris calls him out for the same with his comment "perhaps you’ve noticed Dr. Craig has a charming habit of summarizing his opponent’s points in a way in which they were not actually given".
The last thing I expect from WLC is honesty..
david buckIey
0r c0herence
Larry krauss says behavior of tiny space suggests "something" from "nothing" happens all the time on a tiny scale.
Not to mention Dr. Craig's "moving the goalposts" in that little treat!
What is the difference between metaphysics and magic?
Pick up a dictionary. This is a rudimentary.
It was rhetorical, Genius.
Not for atheists, it isn't.
I would have thought that the difference would be important for anyone, regardless of their theistic/atheistic position.
I thought they were the same thing. I didn't know there was a difference.
This is gold! If only I'd found your channel sooner!
Craig no longer engages with non-lettered interlocutors and it’s likely due to the thorough flogging he received from Scott Clifton.
You sir are an intellectual badass.
spinosauruskin Hello I'm from the future
Theoretical Bullshit what is your field of studies? Because you express your ideas so well. I'm a big fan of your videos.
***** Thanks
Ever given any thought to doing a lecture type series on philosophy? Either on TH-cam or some paid series of videos elsewhere? I'm always impressed by your ability to recognize problems in your opponent's argument and wish I had a better foundation in some of the basic terms, common arguments, etc.
I dislike WLC as a person, due to his inept ability to analyse himself appropriately, but more so, I think philosophy in general has no benefit in today's actual world due to the fact that we no longer have to guess on most subjects. We can now test with actual physical entities... philosophy only addresses the incomprehensible... aka: the un-falsifiable.
Well, science is technically a branch of philosophy (evidentialism or empiricism, take your pick). Without philosophy, there would never have been such a thing as science, much less such a thing as logic on which science is so dependent.
But even in the modern world, philosophy has important contributions to make on the demarcation problem. Yes, there are and should be a lot of scientists working on the demarcation problem, but this is precisely the sort of question philosophy was made to answer. To reject philosophy as a potential means of answering this question seems short-sighted at best.
Even if the demarcation problem were the only are where philosophy were making a contribution (and it is not), then the field itself is worthwhile.
Sorry, but Swype mangled my previous post. Anyway, even if the demarcation problem is the only area in which philosophy makes a worthwhile contribution, then the discipline is still relevant.
***** Ill have to mince words a bit here but I think you don't quite understand. If I witness a chemical reaction, I don't have to "believe" anything about that reaction. I can see what happened and draw conclusions based upon the observation. If you believe in something, it doesn't make it true, regardless of if your belief is correct is or not.
My point was when there are "beliefs" which are held that cannot be falsified philosophy is involved. As scientific knowledge grows, both philosophy and belief go out the window because they are no longer required to understand a phenomenon. Philosophy is not required when physical interactions are witnessed and understanding the processes are known.
Zach Hollett Technically speaking, science is a branch of evidentialism (or empiricism if you like), which is a branch of philosophy. Saying that philosophy is a separate category from science is like saying that mammals are a separate category from dogs.
It's WLC what do you expect? His whole shtick is making arguments that don't make sense if you think about them then getting money from those who don't.
Here's something I discovered rather early on when WLC came on the scene.
The man has no interest in discussing anything.
No matter how many video's you make, his responses will always be another rehash of his "points" and condescending bullshit.
He is in the business of getting followers among believers, as to make money.
Yes....he is as fake as a 47$ bill....
TBS ty for your clear use of logic. You're are awsome.
Scott,
I find you to generally be a pretty thoughtful individual, but you've entirely missed the mark on this one. Slow down and read Craig's responses again. He understands you quite well and has responded to your argument accordingly.
Nice try , but assertions given without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. TBS demonstrated in detail in this video that WLC did not respond to his arguments. Provide more specific examples of TBS's supposed ineptitude or STFU.
It appears that Craig's response has been (re)moved, and is no longer available at the link provided in the description. Does anyone have it elsewhere?
In 1916, Albert Einstein didn't like where his calculations were leading him. If his theory of General Relativity was true, it meant that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning. Einstein's calculations indeed were revealing a definite beginning to all time, all matter, and all space. This flew in the face of his belief that that the universe was static and eternal. He later called his discovery "irritating." He wanted the universe to be self-existent-not reliant on any outside cause - but the universe appeared to be one giant effect. In fact, Einstein so disliked the implications of General Relativity - a theory that is now proven accurate to give decimal places - that he introduced a cosmological constant (which some have since called a "fudge factor") into his equations in order to show that the universe is static and to avoid an absolute beginning.
In 1919, British cosmologist Arthur Eddington conducted an experiment during a solar eclipse which confirmed that GR was indeed true - the universe wasn't static but had a beginning. Like Einstein, Eddington wasn't happy with the implications. He later wrote, "Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me... I should like to find a genuine loophole."
By 1922, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann had officially exposed Einstein's fudge factor as an algebraic error. (Incredibly, in his quest to avoid a beginning, the great Einstein had divided by zero - something even schoolchildren know is a no-no!) Meanwhile, Dutch astronomer William de Sitter had found that General Relativity required the universe to be expanding. And in 1927, the expanding of the universe was actually observed by astronomer Edwin Hubble.
In 1929 Einstein made a pilgrimage to Mount Wilson to look through Hubble's telescope for himself. What he saw was irrefutable. The observational evidence showed that the universe was indeed expanding as GR had predicted. With his cosmological constant now completely crushed by the weight of the evidence against it, Einstein could no longer support his wish for an eternal universe. He subsequently described the cosmological constant as the "greatest blunder of my life," and he redirected his efforts to find the box you to the puzzle of life. Einstein said that he wanted "to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thought, the rest are details."
Although Einstein said that hour believed in a pantheistic God, hid comments admitting creation and divine thought better describe a theistic God. And as irritating as it may be, his theory of GR stands today as one of the strongest lines of evidence for a Theistic God. Indeed, GR supports what is one of the oldest formal arguments for the existence of a theistic God - the Cosmological Argument.
All that copy and paste and you still come up with a god MUST be the cause with NO evidence. Things in this universe happen WITHOUT CAUSE as well as with a cause.
All that copy and paste? Now why must God need a cause? The first premise on the KCA says that everything that begins to exist must have a cause, God did not begin to exist, therefore God does not need a cause.
Name me one thing on this Earth that happens without a cause...
Almost everyone here has heard long boring speeches about how everything must have a cause, and the speech always ends with "except a particular type of magic I believe, which needs no cause, TROLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL." So please, at least acknowledge that that you're peddling the same type of trickery as every other religion that has ever existed.
kewltony everything that has a beginning needs a cause. God did need come into being therefore no cause needed
Michael Estrada you forgot "TROLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL"
Congrats on having a discussion with WLC in the last month or so! It was a fantastic discussion and made me learn about the A and b theory of time.
I hope you read the comments.....You have a live debate coming up with WLC, please don't pull any punches. When Craig starts with his dishonest BS, please call him on it. To often in these live debates i feel the atheist debater is too nice.
I agree, and when confronted they suddenly don't want to discuss. It's about ignorance here, not having good arguments prepared.
Realizing this should be all that you need to know to understand that the closest we're ever going to get to objectivity is positive evidence (something mutually perceivable by you and others), and not negative evidence (something mutually unperceivable by you and others).
See this top hat? Nothing inside, right? I place it on the table - I say the magic words "Kalaam, Kalaam" - I lift it up - and oh, what have we here? A real, live, fluffy universe! And - oh, it's dead. Well, but it was alive, for a moment. You saw that, didn't you? Michael? Gabriel?
What a constructive, substantive academical argument.
I'm doing Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics so I can deal with logic just fine, yet I found it really hard to keep up with this video's pace. Philosophers have a habit of using long words and multiple premises seemingly effortlessly to form a coherent and intelligible argument, which obviously they have no trouble understanding if it is their own, but really I imagine that it must be very time-consuming for them to listen to an argument several times before comprehending it fully.
One example of the goal of this seminar is the Physical sciences prospectus:
" In the larger context, the mission of the Chemistry, Physics and Engineering Department at Biola University is to train and mentor students to become skilled scientists, engineers, and educators in the physical sciences, who will glorify God, serve others and be good stewards of His creation. Further, we strive to serve as a resource for science education and science-faith integration to the greater Biola community."
Right! Working backwards is the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter if it's coming from a academic like Craig or some preacher in a storefront church, it's all the same.
I know. That's standard MO for WLC. Just as he specified in his resurrection debate with Richard Carrier that the reliability of the NT should emphatically NOT be a topic in the debate. As if the reliability of pretty much our only sources for the resurrection is of no account when debating its historicity.
I've also noticed that WLC's appeal to authority ("a majority of NT scholars") rests on a single 1977 book in German by Jacob Kremer which Craig only names when pushed and never elaborates on
Christian apologists seem to think of philosophy as a paintbrush, painting a picture that appeals to them. Philosophy should be used in the way Sherlock Holmes uses a magnifying glass. It should be used to uncover truths, whatever the truth might happen to be.
Really well done as usual. BTW, can you remember an example where WLC actually made an argument in a debate?
By an argument I am thinking of something with premises that he actually tried to support (excluding blatantly fallacious arguments), and these premises even tentatively supported the conclusion he made.
*acting confused, pretending to not know what's going on, asking stupid questions, asking Moonwalker to be your nanny and babysit you through reality*
Rules of physics, logic, any type of science or not, all we have to recognize is that our minds are finite in their capabilities and that we could easily be wrong in the context of knowing everything there is to know about the universe or even beyond it. Recognizing this allows for the potential of anything's existence beyond what we've experienced or think we can comprehend. What I asked may be silly in the context of what 'we' know, but is relevant to the much bigger scope we're dealing with.
Thank you for reading his quotes. Your voice is much more pleasant thank Mr. Pompous himself WLC.
Arguments based on a first cause assume that there was a first cause; one could also assume that the cosmos is eternal, therefore requiring no first cause. Without evidence refuting an eternal model, arguments from a first cause are only rhetorical. All that we can conclude is that we don't know. WLC refuses to understand this simple truth.
Thanks for the Good Laugh. Atheists have been debunking practically every argument for God's existence, Fine Tuning, God of the Gaps, Irreducible Complexity, you name it.
Do you perform tours of your work or provide written lectures on your works? That would be wonderfully useful foe my Junto in Adelaide. I'm really hoping to find young men and women who can deliver refutations as eloquently as you have done here.
Is there a way to contact you vie e-mail?
I love how the burden of proof is this utterly alien concept to the overwhelming majority of creationists.
There is a very good reason why.
I've always argued that a live debating format is a terrible one for dealing with apologetics. By its nature, modern apologetics has to move ever further into the field of philosophical abstraction, and even for intelligent opponents, these arguments are extremely hard to counter on the spur of the moment. They require deep consideration, or a comprehensive understanding of science and/or philosophy. This why Craig himself always confines the terms of discussion so rigidly.
To call non table material caused to become a table makes no sense. It's potential table material.
Wood and nails IS not a table, but it is NOT non table material.
Yeah, I agree with you about 'something from nothing' to the extent that it seems illogical. As an engineer, I've often found that our intuitions can be illusive, so I advise that we suspend judgement. Quantum mechanics is very strange indeed! Thanx for your open-minded response. Please, continue...
He said that he was shocked that a theist used a strawman.
Then he said it was a sarcasm, so in fact he wasn't shocked that theist used a strawman. I doubt that anyone is.
If william lane craig has the reading comprehension of a fifth grader then the 5th grade me had a hell of a better reading comprehension (it was so high they had to guess and guessed it was at that of a college freshman)
The reason why Craig's resurrection debates "are pretty long" seems to be because going straight to the core of his argument: We should completely accept the NT accounts as "unvarnished history" would make the audience go "Wtf?"
Yet this is exactly what Craig says, and he tops it by claiming that his resurrection scenario becomes more rather than less plausible as a historical event when he slabs on the label "supernatural".
As a historian, I find Craig's resurrection debates completely useless.
An unrestricted causer does not require pre-existing material to produce material. A carpenter is restricted. Unrestricted by definition means unrestricted. Perhaps within our material boundaries we have no use for this, but beyond the physical and into the metaphysical we crack the door open and peek into eternity.
Problem with Craig is that he doesn't understand how language works, i guess. I guess i can make something come into existence by defining it, but only in the abstract realm of definitions. Craig seems to think this two "worlds" can invade each other- definitions can cause an actual change in the substantial universe. But the world of definitions is just a communicational system built by our neurons, that allows us to describe stuff. It isn't a "world".
That last quote from Craig in the debate with Craig Smith is just…..wow. Add that to his most recent “one-in-a-million” admission that he actually lowers his epistemic standard for Christianity because he thinks it’s worth believing, and you have all reasons you’d ever need to not take this guy seriously as an honest seeker of truth.
Even when I was a Christian in my infancy of engaging with apologetics, I honestly did not understand why my fellow believers were so impressed by this guy. Even then I could recognize him misrepresenting his opponents to their faces. I came to the conclusion that he was either not very bright, or was trying to win people to Christ through dishonesty and I was having none of it either way.
To notice is that Hawking openly states that the Big Bang Theory is more USEFUL than the account in Genesis. That's what he thinks makes a model good or bad, while asking whether it's real or not is useless.
I was referring to his debates - not his written works.
Btw, I've noticed that, apart from reviews/responses, most of his publications seem to be on the same topics as the 5-6 arguments from the "God show", which he has repeated for 2-3 decades (the "Resurrection Show" is merely an expansion on the "resurrection argument" from the "God Show"). Added to these is of course a load of general apologetics.
Exactly. He relies on a live debating platform where people have a strict time limit to respond to a multitude of arguments Craig presents them. He is a sheep in a wolf's clothing.
Something I noticed when Craig was debating Hitchens and a couple of other atheists: He always CLAIMED that NONE of his questions had been answered by his opponents, even though, if he had been listening, Hitchens and Harris had indeed answered his arguments. Of course, Hitchens and Harris REiterated their points, and yet again, Craig ignored their responses and claimed they had not addressed his arguments again. I could almost sense their sighs of frustration with his condescending tone and dogged determination to paint them as ignorant buffoons when it comes to arguing against HIM... how DARE they disagree?
"... Craig would realize ..." this made me laugh :D
Take your pick of any of say Times' Higher Education's list and see if ANY of them has a faculty/school of "Arts & Sciences".
If you can't find the page then just start at the Biola main page, click on "School of Arts & Sciences", then either "History & Political Science" or "Philosophy", then "About Us".
"He is a skilled and slimy debater, but that doesn't make his position correct. " And calling him skilled and slimy debater doesn't make his position incorrect either. To say that it does would be an ad hominem fallacy.
How remarkable that, even 11 years before the phrase was coined by @misterdeity, WLC was demonstrating why he would earn the moniker of *_”Low Bar Bill.”_*
Well, perhaps you ought to read up a bit on Aristotle, who made clear that an efficient cause is not limited just to the artisan, but also his art, which, of course, makes no sense if never applied. Therefore mechanism has to be taken into account when defining efficient cause. Furthermore, we cannot assume that causation can be defined by only one of Aristotle's categories. We derive our understanding of causation from nature, which at least includes both efficient AND material cause.
The link to Craig's response in the description leads to a 404 error
At c. 8:26 you engage WCL in an attempt to make sense of his arguments vs. you. Viewers should note that instead of WLC speaking/writing over our heads, he resembles more a first year university grad student in philosophy. Actually, more like an undergrad. This video is now almost five years old. How have you fared? WLC is still deep inside the rabbit hole.
Did you mean academic? Also, I wasn't making an argument. But the rest of your comment is just amazing! Thanks for sharing!
I'm sure if Mr. Bullshit were hired as a professor somewhere, WLC would gladly debate him in an appropriate academic forum.
Has he ever done anyone or any thing any favours....???he is the worst....even his god should be ashamed of WLC attempts of apologetics...
"When have I done this apart from".... "how did I do that except that one time"..
"Are you asking me the question you just asked?"
Your analogy at 16:20 is fantastic! :)
Liked the video. Precise, polite, consistent and a mercilless indictment of Craig's Derek Trotter approach to debating. Few people have the patience to parse the man's tortuous casuistry with such scalpel-like efficacy - keep it up; the more he misrepresents and attempts to dismiss you the more people look at your arguments and start questioning the man's character as well as his reasoning.
WLC makes it look like PhD's are easy to get. His arguments (minus the terminology), aren't anything outside of highschool level shit.
Again, the problem is not that Aristotle doesn't attribute causation to an art, it's that an art as Aristotle understood it isn't a mechanism. It's just a body of information. The whole idea of mechanism- of outside forces and laws acting upon something to bring about change- is alien to Aristotle's teleological conception of nature. The artisans's art (notice the possessive nature there) isn't a process, it's a quality of the artisan.
12:00 Wait, so Craig realizes how "coincidental" it is to assert that completely different types of causes must be somehow related in that whether or not an object has an efficient cause affects whether or not it has a material cause. And he says that anyone claiming this needs to meet a burden of proof because it is a strange claim. Yet this is *exactly* the same claim he asserts as obvious in his Kalam argument and makes no attempt at arguing for. Since we know that things begin to exist with no efficient cause, Craig modifies the first premise in the Kalam to, "Everything that begins to exist has an efficient or a material cause," and concludes that the Universe had an efficient cause. But he gives no reason for why two completely different types of causes should be so coincidentally related in this way. This new version of the premise is logically equivalent to, "Anything that begins to exist and has no material cause has an efficient cause." Why would not having a material cause mean that something has to have an efficient cause? It seems much more reasonable to assume the opposite, that having no material cause means it also has no efficient cause - at least there's an argument in favor of that option (the argument you gave in the video).
"When all other alternate explanations fail to hold up historically"
As Bart Ehrmann repeatedly pointed out in his debate with Craig, WLC has in fact not even begun to scratch the surface of alternate explanations, yet wants us to immediately accept a supernatural explanation based on an inerrantist view of the Gospels...
Well, excuse me if I'm a little underwhelmed by the persuasiveness of this line of argument.
And this is PRECISELY why Craig doesn't like to do free-ranging debates. Even here, on a subject that is his supposed speciality, that he has spent decades refining, against a superior intellect, he is quickly made to look foolish.
In some senses, this is a battle in which WLC is not engaged. He is not in the area of 'debating apologist' to win debates. He's perfectly open (at least, at times) about this. Nor is he interested in presenting or dealing honestly with evidence. He is only (I repeat _only_) doing this to win or preserve souls. His book (_Reasonable Faith_) makes this point clear, too. Finally, because of WLC repeated offences against honesty and fair play, universities and student organisations should stop booking him.