There are literally dozens of clips on TH-cam of Dr. Craig carefully arguing in detail for Christianity as the One True Religion. Scoffing at his remarks in this clip as though he had nothing more to offer in defense of his view is the tactic of the ignorant and dishonest thinker. Most of the remarks here that are antagonistic toward Dr. Craig are nothing more than schoolyard rhetoric born of insecurity and an inability to think beyond the superficial.
This video should be titled “why all religions cannot be true”....towards the end of the video he gives a very brief summary of why he believes that Christianity is the one true faith. There is not enough time for him to go into detail in this one video but if you actually look up what he says about it you will find plenty of in depth detailed video’s with Dr. Craig in them explaining his view.....
@masteroftheobvious86 "Well, if something exists, it began to exist." This is absolutely not a requirement. Einstein's general theory is completely compatible with infinite time, if you take that time line to >infinity< keeping in mind differential geometry, we would theoretically end up with this singularity. But infinite time is quite clearly not a finite point in time.
Dr. Craig lost me at the superior theonomy assertion, “There are good reasons to believe that there is a personal creator and designer of the universe, who is the locus of moral values…” Popular branches of Christianity hold that Yahweh cares about doctrinal agreement, not morality, for salvation. Hence, serial killer Ted Bundy went to heaven, because he accepted Jesus shortly before execution. Most of his young victims went to hell. That doesn’t harmonize with " locus of moral values.”
Ok, so I watched and waited and in the end the reason given was just Craig asserting it to be so. This is not a reason. There was no argument, no reasoning, just assertions. Then, what was I expecting? I am sure that if there was a single decent argument for his position we would all be well aware of it. You would think that if it was true then there would be at least one piece of evidence or one sound argument.
As for the "royally disagreeing" about texts - you have to be skeptical about *every other* religious text. It does you no harm. Nor does it do you any harm disbelieving ghost stories, or those Nigerian bank scam emails. Skepticism is healthy, normal, and you exercise it judiciously much of the time.
Poppycock. It's correct to say that all religions cannot be true when they contradict eachother, but Craig has no good argument for the veracity of christianity. There is no credible evidence for the divine origins of morality nor is there any evidence for the dual human/divine nature of Jesus.
This video is right up the point, and that is the reason why people don't like it. All religions cannot be true, because they contradict each other. There is no "your" path and "my" path. There is Just one way. We all need to humble ourselves to find that One way. I know it is Yeshua of Nazereth- Jesus Christ, God incarnate.You can make your own decisions.
1 - It's not a contradiction at all. You think you understand logic? 2 - A disbelief of something unproven does not carry a burden of proof, if some could exist (which it can't. You can not disprove the existence of things). You are making a positive statement that something exists - you have to supply the evidence.
"How Can Christianity Be The One True Religion?" - hahaha, he answered this by essentially saying it's right because he believes he is. Is this the rational, logical and sophisticated type of argument he illogically attacked Dawkins for? This man is a joke.
Honestly, why do so many Christians point to this guy as if he is the pinnacle of theological debate? He proved absolutely nothing here, just made baseless assertions. I could just as easily say the same thing, replacing the word Christianity with Hinduism, Islam, etc. And no, proving Christ to be a historical character does not prove Christianity. There is historical evidence for Gilgamesh of Uruk, but that doesn't mean he did all the things described in stories.
@goodwinsmart That is partially true, regarding the aim of Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism does not abide by the teachings of Buddha. (I can show many important scriptural passages which contradict the teachings and practices of Pure Land.) It is an offshoot sect which has deviated so far from Buddha's original teachings, I'd hesitate to call it Buddhism.
Read John chapter six. The Body and Blood of Christ.Believed By the vast majority of Christains(Orthodox & Catholic...who by the way can recieve Communion in each others Churches because of the...) the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We Christians need to get the sacraments and word back together. I applaud Dr. Craig for his awesome witness..above and beyond.
I love the fact when he is presenting Christianity, He just babbles stuff that's not proven to be true and shows lovely paintings as if they historically occur that way
Not to mention, you didn't even know that the heaven realms were part of samsaric existence. The escape from samsara is Nirvana, NOT one of the multiple heaven/deva realms. Also, it's not 6, it's 31 realms of existence sectioned in 4 categories; the "state of depravation," the "sensuous world," the "fine-material world," and the "immaterial world" which are correlated with the jnanas, or the states of consciousness.
.. the thing is, when a person is asked a yes/no question, he instinctively thinks he can only give the answer "yes" or "no".. however, in real life, there is a THIRD answer which could also be a true answer which is " I DON"T KNOW ", or to put it more specifically, "I don't know if u are lying because only u yourself know " ..(see next)
Actually, WLC doesn't put forth much of an argument at all. Because Christianity says Jesus is the son of God and performed miracles during his revelation, including the notion of resurrection and bodily ascension, that this religion is most likely the best one, is simply not an argument. I made that pretty clear in my first first post. (cont)
I just heard "Christianity is true, because it is" His argument was, "Christianity has ultimate moral values and Jesus revealed himself" He jumps so smoothly into it, it's almost hard to notice.
@goodwinsmart You fail. That sutra is not spoken by Buddha and it's not part of the Pali Canon. The sutra is explicitly attributed to Ksitigarbha, a bodhisattva, NOT Buddha. Also, you confuse what I said. I didn't say heaven/hell are rarely mentioned in Buddhism, I said rarely mentioned in scripture. Also, I only care about Buddha's doctrine, not some bodhisattva who came after Buddha. Buddha didn't really mention the realms, except as states of consciousness (as seen in Abhidhamma).
Why are there so many dislikes? All religions can be false, but no more than one world religion can be true because they have contradictory beliefs. Tick. Just curious, does anyone think any of the world religions have a stronger historical claim and greater probability of being the one true world religion - assuming the existence of God - than Christianity? And if so, how?
I should probably explain why it isn't contradictory as it seems to be causing you difficulty. Read what I said carefully. The main points were a) I don't believe in god. b) I can't definitively say god doesn't exist as an absolute. a) and b) have almost nothing to do with each other.
i thought he was doing well until he started talking about how Christianity must be the "true" religion He was right on the mark about how none of the religions agree with each other. He was only one small LOGICAL step from "so of course they're all wrong" because if there was even a SCRAP of evidence to support one of the 470 religions, we would all believe the same thing. It's the blind leading the blind when it comes to religion. Come into the 21st century folks.
@jason1973tl The only thing he might (I say might because I'm not %100 sure myself) be incorrect about regarding Buddhism is that he stated that they don't believe man has a soul that is distinct from his body. I think they do believe man has a soul that is distinct from his body. Apart from that he was totally correct. If you're going to say he knows nothing about a certain religion you need to point out specifically where he's wrong. Just saying he's wrong helps no one.
I agree William Craig. But I happen to live in a buddhist country and I have seen that they do both pray to "buddha" or "god" and that they believe in heaven and hell. When I went to school and studied buddhism I was thought that there was no God in buddhism and that it was a philosophy. But living in a buddhist country has proved otherwise...
Each region developed its own theology based on the experiences of the inhabitants; if they experienced volcanoes and earthquakes their theology would include hell, since they didn't know they lived on a planet constantly cooling itself. Fire coming from the bowels of the earth, and the ground splitting open to swallow people gave rise to the myth of hell "below". The loss of life in the wake of these disasters led them over time to believe that the powers needed blood, hence human sacrifice.
Buddhists say there is no heaven, hell, or sin? Actually, Craig is wrong here. Buddhism actually believes in all 3 of those things. So often apologists are looking through at religious questions from their own narrow religious perspective.
he didn't actually offer any reasons why Christianity makes the best claim to be the one true religion, he was just like "god vindicated jesus's claims by bringing him back from the dead". that's all in the bible, both the claims of jesus and the claims that god resurrected him. Circular to the max
MrDepp .. that is, they are all looking for the SAME THING. This is a UNITING desire and makes everyone a sincere pursuer of the same elusive truth, no matter what paths they take.. I do not know why one religion should arrogantly say another religion is wrong. Why would He, if he is truely lovely and generous, turn away his own creations sincerely looking for him by different methods, isn't the desire to look for him enough for Him to accept them whether they are Toaist or Hindhus?
The resurrection claim is not unique to Christianity. If that is the only criteria to make it true, then one could argue that Egytptian mythology in regards to Osiris' resurrection is the "one true religion". Yes, there are some slight differences in the two stories (Osiris would only reign in the land of the dead and could not rejoin the living), but Christianity by no means has a unique claim to a resurrection of it's lord.
Yes, Osiris was put back together, but Isis did "resurrect" him through spells or magic, which to me, would essentially be the same thing that God did with Jesus. Using magic, spells, wishing, etc.
People shouldn't gloss over similarities, though, especially apologists.. The Buddhist worldview presented here is far more humanistic than actual Buddhism. BTW, some Christian apologists say that even if Hell is eternal, the actual punishment cannot be unlimited, becaues peoples sins are not all equal or to the same degree. It is hard for ordinary people to imagine an existence without time, where there is just a series of events.
Ok for one, I did not get my info from Mayer or the like. I got it from the "Egyptian Book of the Dead". Also, I am not arguing against Christ's resurrection. I was just trying to point out that his story is not unique. Several religions share resurrection stories that predate Christ, and that by no means makes it any more true than the others.
Indeed. He actually starting tripping at 1:00 when he clearly doesn't understand Bhuddism. 'We have to assess what evidence...' boom logical discussion is now over.
What I actually said was that I don't believe in god. If you can't understand the fundamental difference between that and a statement of 'God does not exist' then there really is no hope. On the surface, yeah, they might seem to be the same, but they are not. Non-belief should be the default until evidence is given. It's the only sensible way.
The only point I ever see him make, that makes any sense, is that there has to be a creator that made everything. How he connects this with Jesus, healing the blind, and being resurrected is just evidence of his narrow mindedness. And I still want an explanation about who created the creator (and no "he is eternal" then I can say "the universe is eternal" = touché.). The only reasonable answer i can think of is that all matter has always existed, but who am I to say anything about that really.
Yes I did say that. The statement is that "I do believe there is no deity". Well, I don't believe in god, so that statement is true. Presumably though, you meant I should prove god's non-existence. As I've already explained in length, it's impossible. You can't disprove Vishnu, Apollo, Thor, Zeus, Ra etc in the same manner. I assume you don't believe in them but is the onus on you to disprove them? Of course not. The onus is on those claiming they do exist.
In retrospect, if you were in the position that you thought religious pluralism was coherent, I guess this video was educational. Of course the argument is *right*. My issue is that reanimation is NOT plausible. Perhaps I'm being unfair to WLC by taking this segment in isolation, but if you really think about it rationally, if someone says that a dead man rising is *plausible* I'm quite entitled to say "that's stupid".
If you want to convince yourself that something is plausible when it is hypothetically possible in an alleged "possible world", then it is the paragon of plausibility. If you consider the myth claims of all other religions equally and without prejudice, then the only realistic thing to do is to reject them all, barring convincing evidence. The reanimation story, like all unsubstantiated myths, is the basis for nothing.
@MrMonkeyInk Just assertions? You are probably not familiar with Craig's arguments, are you? He just summarizes his arguments in less than a minute, and there's no way he can show all of his premises underlying his arguments in one minute. If you want a full version of that, you can watch any of his debates on existence of God. Now, could please kindly tell me which part of his arguments that do not have any shred of evidence or not sound? Peace
In a world where Yahweh or Allah or Ganesh or Loki or any other god or no gods might exist then it is not plausible, no. The argument comes from a standpoint of agnostic skepticism. It doesn't need any stronger footing than that. That the son of a god rose from the dead is an extraordinary claim. There is a reason you don't believe all the myths of the various religions.
@adknerr A universe with a beginning can be assumed from a number of perspectives not just the big bang. Just take a look at how the universe works from a very basic standpoint. You exist because your parents pre-existed. You existence requires their pre-existence. If your existence requires an infinite number of previously existing causes to bring you into existence, you would never make it to the present; but you did so it is logical to assume a beginning.
No, it is not necessary to presuppose that Yahweh, Loki, Allah, Vishnu or any other supernatural entity do not exist. I merely presuppose that dead people don't come back to life by magic, until it can be shown otherwise. Rational skepticism and agnosticism - that's ALL that is required. I am repeating myself.
As i hear it, Mr. Craig argues that christianity is the only one true religion, based on the good and solid evidence in the bible?? Wow.. that's very persuasive!
No, it doesn’t: 1- If you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments. (Jesus Christ Matthew 19:17). 2- Torah: Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD. 3- Gospel: Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD. 4- Quran: 112:1 Say: He is Allah the One and Only. God law is clear, the same law from Adam to Muhammad, Trinity brakes the law and leads to Hell, follow Jesus Christ commandments if you want to be saved.
MrDepp FOr example, in a court of law, if a cross examiner asks a defendant "are u lying when u said you are lying about stealing the money?" obviously the examiner is addressing the whole admission, not the elemental constituent contents of the defendent's admission statement.. Obviously, the examiner DON"T KNOW if the admission is true, thats why he asks..
And this is where he fails. There is no way to tell which religion is the one true religion. Because all religions think the same thing. Both Islam and Christianity have the same amount of "evidence" for themselves, as i'm sure other religions do as well. Therefore, if you want to be a believer in intelligent design, there is something called "general theism", it's the belief in a creator without the religion part. Which is honestly what Dr. Craig should be.
MrDepp ok, court of law.. when a person makes a confession about making a false statement, the court can only take it as a confession statement but could not yet ascertain if the confession is a true confession, which has bearings on whether the suject matter is true or false.. So, the court adjourns until further investigations for circumstantial and material evidence..
Buddhism believes in a heaven and hell. That the body does have a soul. If it didn't believe in a concept such as a soul reincarnation wouldn't be such a crucial belief in Buddhism. Heaven is known "Nirvana" Hell is known "Naraka"
MrDepp and now, a second thing - PERSPECTIVE.. when i asked "am I lying ?", the perspective u should be addressing should be the legitimacy of the whole statement, and not whether there are lies within a lie..
@adknerr Well, if something exists, it began to exist. While you don't appear to subscribe to kalam, you will at least have to admit as much as this. Believing that something exists without beginning is, to be frank, an enormous leap of faith. Einstein proved that the universe was not static; it is clearly expanding. Thusly, it has been expanding from a singular point of beginning; the singularity. So...kalam is in keeping with the General Theory of Relativity, which you probably believe in.
"but i dont agree that because they cant all be true, then that makes christianity the right one." I don't see how you watched the whole video and though that that was his argument...total misunderstanding there.
@johnspartan98 What are you talking about? I said that in the context of Christianity is not the only religion to make such a claim, and more evidence needs to be presented. You seriously think there is only one religion to make the claims I mentioned? I don't need to "know everything" to say that, what an absurd thing to say. I know that other religions have claimed sons of gods, messengers, etc.
@goodwinsmart As a Buddhist, I will inform you that this is false. First of all, heaven or hell are very rarely mentioned at all in scripture, and when they are referred to, they are correlated with mental states by explicitly stating that X realm is the realm of X consciousness. And no, breaking the cycle of samsara is not heaven. As a matter of fact, the multiple heaven and hell realms are part of samsara which are supposed to be broken away from. Nothing you said is really true.
First he shows the difference between Buddism and Islam stating that either one of these can be true or they're all false. Then he adds a whole list of religions, including christianity, and wonder what arguments can be given for them, yet the option of all being false is omitted now for some reason And what happened to the good arguments for christianity being the one true religion? He just stated they exist, then gave a brief description of christianity. Are the arguments in another video?
@shlukh Well thats the stance of SOME Atheists, not all. For me personally, I just think an extraordinary claim made with the absence of extraordinary evidence shouldn't be believed until such evidence is presented. I don't go around saying "god doesn't exist" with certainty, all I say is "we don't know, but my best bet is a 'no' ".
@AAC1990 I agree that truth is exclusive, that isn't what we are talking about here though. What I was getting at was that at this point, no one can KNOW which (if any) religion is exclusively right, as WLC claims to know.
I have to be honest, at one time I was fairly impressed by Craig and his ability to defend Christianity. I mean after hearing from young earth nuts half the time he's a genius in comparison. I'm happy to announce I'm no longer impressed after watch this video.
As I said before, using this extraordinary "man comes back to life" claim as *support* for the whole shebang is something that might convince a wavering believer, but it isn't intelligent argument. If I might make a suggestion, ask yourself this - "How do i decide what is real and what is a story?". Ask it about everything.
@tipoomaster Because, as Craig says, on behalf of Christianity are there the most plausible, strong arguments/reasons to believe that it is the one true religion, where as other religions' studies could more easily be questioned or falsified. He didn't prove it here, only shared his basic idea. This is a 2 min. video. Why not read his works where he proves them in detail?
@jason1973tl Cool bro, I stand corrected. I was also wrong about Buddhists believing man has a soul that is distinct from his body. Craig was right there, they don't believe man has a soul. So pretty much what I wrote was a heap of crap and I regret posting it. But Craig, I believe, makes a valid point when he says the claims of all religions can't all be true and that was what he was trying to point out in this interview. But, I do agree that one should strive to accurately represent others.
He's not saying the Christianity is true because they can't all be true. He believes in Christianity because there are superior arguments (in his opinion) for christianity as opposed to islam, judaism hinduism etc. watch 1:32 where he explains some reasons to believe in christianity. This is a 2 minute video don't complain that he didn't go into enough detail,he's has decades worth of written work defending arguments for christianity.This video only shows that Christianity CAN be the only truth.
Why doesn't your contradiction argument include the bible? I think you're right.. when you have to many contradicting accounts of an event, it's pretty likely that it didn't happen.
search a video with a title like "reasons to believe the bible" or "proof of the bible's word" you may have only looked up videos arguing against the bible, look up videos mathematically, logically and scientifically validating the bible's word. there are many youtube videos that give good reasons to trust in the bible, but none are truly indisputable. however, you should look at the evidence and decide for yourself. the bible holds alot more than meets the eye
ROFL. You got a thumbs down because your comment basically would destroy all knowledge ever discovered. It's very irrational to dismiss something merely because it claims to be more true than other philosophies. Plus, a thumbs down has absolutely NOTHING to do with intolerance. It has to do with whether I think your opinion makes good sense or bad sense. I don't because if followed consistently, I'd have to dismiss science and many other things with religion.
MrDepp Fallacy 5 Oversimplifying the nature of God.. In one question that i provided u, it consists 3 layers of truths and lies within it.. In any historical texts especially one like the bible which is derived from many judeo-sources which cross-references among itself and have highly personal styles of narration, most historians have been unable to agree on the likelihood that some of the events especially the more dramatic ones actually took place..
MrDepp .. Since both scenarios cannot be ascertained by YOU, but only can be ascertained by ME, your answer (YES) is too simplified to address a 3-tiered question, so .. THE TRUEST ANSWER from you is still "I DON"T KNOW" ..(next post)
MrDepp Fallacy 1 u see, in their zeal to grasp who or what god is, most christians oversimplify the question of the nature of god's existence into black/white, yes/no, this/that answers. Sometimes altho certain questions look like a yes/no questions, in fact an answer outside yes/no, like "I don't know" is still the truest most honest answer because forcing yrself to take a stand is simply wildguessing or overly depending emotions..
Ok so Christianity has the resurrection under it's belt so it must be the one true one. So the one that has the most difficult thing to believe is the most like to be true? Craig is an intelligent being that's using the credulity of others to make huge amounts of profits. This is how the religious have been taken advantage of since the beginning of time. Good for him... bad for anyone that's fallen for it.
@Fuglebolle Friend, my comment was not a rhetorical device. It was a response to your statement that something made no sense to U. The sentence U quoted rested upon the statements that preceded it, and was not meant to stand alone, as U have rendered it. The day shall come when your perplexity will be personal to U, and U will be unconcerned w/ witty riposte & wordplay. As long as U are content to stand outside and judge, then your perspective will lack the clarity of one who is in the midst.
The real problem here, though, is that Craig, without evidence, assumes a closed set of religions. Since we've seen new religions come into existence, we can only safely assume that more will emerge. And more can be re-discovered through archaeology and anthropology. And he seems to be basing his claim solely on the religion's own claims. Which seems a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@sonuEEE No, he didn't you already believed it, but just didn't know what it was called. Most postmodern people in our society believe in Buddhism - like principles they just haven't thought through the similarities.
Yes, I realize that you believe in God/Jesus. I was just helping you in your defense a bit :), but may have jumped in the middle of something and not known the context..sorry about that. BTW, I've done 15 years of translating and do some teaching on how to translate :). So, I know a bit about it :).
fuck. craig could have made so many great points about the roman's historical accounts of christ, the codes in the bible, the mathematical coincidences in the bible, the testament being ahead of it's time, the testaments displaying knowledge of science, space, light, the manuscripts of the new testament..... but all he did in this gap was self reference the bible. although i still greatly respect him
No... Buddhists do believe in a soul... Just not one with the same definition. If there's nothing that is apart from the body, then reincarnation (a staple of Buddhism) is not possible. And again, it's about definition. Heaven/hell do have a place in Buddhism, just different interpretations. And as for sin being an illusion, that's mostly a metaphor, because the point of Buddhism is self-perfection through many lives rather than a single life, which is almost like a dream in comparison.
There are literally dozens of clips on TH-cam of Dr. Craig carefully arguing in detail for Christianity as the One True Religion. Scoffing at his remarks in this clip as though he had nothing more to offer in defense of his view is the tactic of the ignorant and dishonest thinker.
Most of the remarks here that are antagonistic toward Dr. Craig are nothing more than schoolyard rhetoric born of insecurity and an inability to think beyond the superficial.
I'm sorry, I missed the part where you show us the testable evidence for Christianity.
He said "I believe it because it's true". Hopefully that saves you guys time.
This video should be titled “why all religions cannot be true”....towards the end of the video he gives a very brief summary of why he believes that Christianity is the one true faith. There is not enough time for him to go into detail in this one video but if you actually look up what he says about it you will find plenty of in depth detailed video’s with Dr. Craig in them explaining his view.....
@masteroftheobvious86 "Well, if something exists, it began to exist." This is absolutely not a requirement.
Einstein's general theory is completely compatible with infinite time, if you take that time line to >infinity< keeping in mind differential geometry, we would theoretically end up with this singularity. But infinite time is quite clearly not a finite point in time.
Dr. Craig lost me at the superior theonomy assertion, “There are good reasons to believe that there is a personal creator and designer of the universe, who is the locus of moral values…” Popular branches of Christianity hold that Yahweh cares about doctrinal agreement, not morality, for salvation. Hence, serial killer Ted Bundy went to heaven, because he accepted Jesus shortly before execution. Most of his young victims went to hell. That doesn’t harmonize with " locus of moral values.”
Ok, so I watched and waited and in the end the reason given was just Craig asserting it to be so. This is not a reason. There was no argument, no reasoning, just assertions. Then, what was I expecting? I am sure that if there was a single decent argument for his position we would all be well aware of it. You would think that if it was true then there would be at least one piece of evidence or one sound argument.
He's right. All religions could be false. Including his.
As for the "royally disagreeing" about texts - you have to be skeptical about *every other* religious text. It does you no harm. Nor does it do you any harm disbelieving ghost stories, or those Nigerian bank scam emails. Skepticism is healthy, normal, and you exercise it judiciously much of the time.
he IN NO WAY explained how that makes Christianity any more likely
Poppycock. It's correct to say that all religions cannot be true when they contradict eachother, but Craig has no good argument for the veracity of christianity. There is no credible evidence for the divine origins of morality nor is there any evidence for the dual human/divine nature of Jesus.
wow i get thumbs down for a comment like that?? nice display of tolerance.
This video is right up the point, and that is the reason why people don't like it. All religions cannot be true, because they contradict each other. There is no "your" path and "my" path. There is Just one way. We all need to humble ourselves to find that One way. I know it is Yeshua of Nazereth- Jesus Christ, God incarnate.You can make your own decisions.
1:15 "They could all be false, but they can not all be true."
This is the first intelligent thing I have ever heard Dr. Craig say.
How the hell did this guy pass logic 101 in any university? Hearing this guy talk is like hearing a baby trying to explain nuclear physics.
1 - It's not a contradiction at all. You think you understand logic?
2 - A disbelief of something unproven does not carry a burden of proof, if some could exist (which it can't. You can not disprove the existence of things). You are making a positive statement that something exists - you have to supply the evidence.
Dr. William Lane Craig just sold Buddhism to me :)
"How Can Christianity Be The One True Religion?" - hahaha, he answered this by essentially saying it's right because he believes he is.
Is this the rational, logical and sophisticated type of argument he illogically attacked Dawkins for?
This man is a joke.
Honestly, why do so many Christians point to this guy as if he is the pinnacle of theological debate? He proved absolutely nothing here, just made baseless assertions. I could just as easily say the same thing, replacing the word Christianity with Hinduism, Islam, etc.
And no, proving Christ to be a historical character does not prove Christianity. There is historical evidence for Gilgamesh of Uruk, but that doesn't mean he did all the things described in stories.
@goodwinsmart
That is partially true, regarding the aim of Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism does not abide by the teachings of Buddha. (I can show many important scriptural passages which contradict the teachings and practices of Pure Land.) It is an offshoot sect which has deviated so far from Buddha's original teachings, I'd hesitate to call it Buddhism.
Read John chapter six. The Body and Blood of Christ.Believed By the vast majority of Christains(Orthodox & Catholic...who by the way can recieve Communion in each others Churches because of the...) the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We Christians need to get the sacraments and word back together. I applaud Dr. Craig for his awesome witness..above and beyond.
I love the fact when he is presenting Christianity, He just babbles stuff that's not proven to be true and shows lovely paintings as if they historically occur that way
Not to mention, you didn't even know that the heaven realms were part of samsaric existence. The escape from samsara is Nirvana, NOT one of the multiple heaven/deva realms. Also, it's not 6, it's 31 realms of existence sectioned in 4 categories; the "state of depravation," the "sensuous world," the "fine-material world," and the "immaterial world" which are correlated with the jnanas, or the states of consciousness.
..
the thing is, when a person is asked a yes/no question, he instinctively thinks he can only give the answer "yes" or "no"..
however, in real life, there is a THIRD answer which could also be a true answer which is " I DON"T KNOW ", or to put it more specifically,
"I don't know if u are lying because only u yourself know "
..(see next)
Actually, WLC doesn't put forth much of an argument at all. Because Christianity says Jesus is the son of God and performed miracles during his revelation, including the notion of resurrection and bodily ascension, that this religion is most likely the best one, is simply not an argument.
I made that pretty clear in my first first post.
(cont)
I just heard "Christianity is true, because it is"
His argument was, "Christianity has ultimate moral values and Jesus revealed himself"
He jumps so smoothly into it, it's almost hard to notice.
@goodwinsmart
You fail. That sutra is not spoken by Buddha and it's not part of the Pali Canon. The sutra is explicitly attributed to Ksitigarbha, a bodhisattva, NOT Buddha. Also, you confuse what I said. I didn't say heaven/hell are rarely mentioned in Buddhism, I said rarely mentioned in scripture. Also, I only care about Buddha's doctrine, not some bodhisattva who came after Buddha. Buddha didn't really mention the realms, except as states of consciousness (as seen in Abhidhamma).
Why are there so many dislikes?
All religions can be false, but no more than one world religion can be true because they have contradictory beliefs. Tick.
Just curious, does anyone think any of the world religions have a stronger historical claim and greater probability of being the one true world religion - assuming the existence of God - than Christianity? And if so, how?
Ha, this guy convinced me. I'm converted.
I should probably explain why it isn't contradictory as it seems to be causing you difficulty.
Read what I said carefully.
The main points were
a) I don't believe in god.
b) I can't definitively say god doesn't exist as an absolute.
a) and b) have almost nothing to do with each other.
i thought he was doing well until he started talking about how Christianity must be the "true" religion
He was right on the mark about how none of the religions agree with each other. He was only one small LOGICAL step from "so of course they're all wrong" because if there was even a SCRAP of evidence to support one of the 470 religions, we would all believe the same thing. It's the blind leading the blind when it comes to religion. Come into the 21st century folks.
@jason1973tl The only thing he might (I say might because I'm not %100 sure myself) be incorrect about regarding Buddhism is that he stated that they don't believe man has a soul that is distinct from his body. I think they do believe man has a soul that is distinct from his body. Apart from that he was totally correct. If you're going to say he knows nothing about a certain religion you need to point out specifically where he's wrong. Just saying he's wrong helps no one.
His problem is that he sees the truth on a religion, forgetting that the ultimate truth isn't on a religion, but in God, indeed, which is The Truth.
I agree William Craig. But I happen to live in a buddhist country and I have seen that they do both pray to "buddha" or "god" and that they believe in heaven and hell. When I went to school and studied buddhism I was thought that there was no God in buddhism and that it was a philosophy.
But living in a buddhist country has proved otherwise...
Each region developed its own theology based on the experiences of the inhabitants; if they experienced volcanoes and earthquakes their theology would include hell, since they didn't know they lived on a planet constantly cooling itself. Fire coming from the bowels of the earth, and the ground splitting open to swallow people gave rise to the myth of hell "below". The loss of life in the wake of these disasters led them over time to believe that the powers needed blood, hence human sacrifice.
"Christianity is the most plausible religion, because god revealed himself in Jesus, and then raised Jesus from the dead."
Makes no sense to me.
Buddhists say there is no heaven, hell, or sin? Actually, Craig is wrong here. Buddhism actually believes in all 3 of those things. So often apologists are looking through at religious questions from their own narrow religious perspective.
he didn't actually offer any reasons why Christianity makes the best claim to be the one true religion, he was just like "god vindicated jesus's claims by bringing him back from the dead". that's all in the bible, both the claims of jesus and the claims that god resurrected him. Circular to the max
MrDepp
.. that is, they are all looking for the SAME THING.
This is a UNITING desire and makes everyone a sincere pursuer of the same elusive truth, no matter what paths they take..
I do not know why one religion should arrogantly say another religion is wrong.
Why would He, if he is truely lovely and generous, turn away his own creations sincerely looking for him by different methods, isn't the desire to look for him enough for Him to accept them whether they are Toaist or Hindhus?
The resurrection claim is not unique to Christianity. If that is the only criteria to make it true, then one could argue that Egytptian mythology in regards to Osiris' resurrection is the "one true religion". Yes, there are some slight differences in the two stories (Osiris would only reign in the land of the dead and could not rejoin the living), but Christianity by no means has a unique claim to a resurrection of it's lord.
Yes, Osiris was put back together, but Isis did "resurrect" him through spells or magic, which to me, would essentially be the same thing that God did with Jesus. Using magic, spells, wishing, etc.
People shouldn't gloss over similarities, though, especially apologists.. The Buddhist worldview presented here is far more humanistic than actual Buddhism.
BTW, some Christian apologists say that even if Hell is eternal, the actual punishment cannot be unlimited, becaues peoples sins are not all equal or to the same degree. It is hard for ordinary people to imagine an existence without time, where there is just a series of events.
Ok for one, I did not get my info from Mayer or the like. I got it from the "Egyptian Book of the Dead". Also, I am not arguing against Christ's resurrection. I was just trying to point out that his story is not unique. Several religions share resurrection stories that predate Christ, and that by no means makes it any more true than the others.
Indeed. He actually starting tripping at 1:00 when he clearly doesn't understand Bhuddism. 'We have to assess what evidence...' boom logical discussion is now over.
It would be nice if he did say what evidence and arguments he has for Christianity over all of the other religions.
as an atheist who likes hearing challenging arguments from the other side, this was disappointing.
What I actually said was that I don't believe in god. If you can't understand the fundamental difference between that and a statement of 'God does not exist' then there really is no hope.
On the surface, yeah, they might seem to be the same, but they are not.
Non-belief should be the default until evidence is given. It's the only sensible way.
What atheist here has read Reasonable Faith and what did you think of it?
The only point I ever see him make, that makes any sense, is that there has to be a creator that made everything. How he connects this with Jesus, healing the blind, and being resurrected is just evidence of his narrow mindedness. And I still want an explanation about who created the creator (and no "he is eternal" then I can say "the universe is eternal" = touché.).
The only reasonable answer i can think of is that all matter has always existed, but who am I to say anything about that really.
Yes I did say that.
The statement is that "I do believe there is no deity". Well, I don't believe in god, so that statement is true.
Presumably though, you meant I should prove god's non-existence. As I've already explained in length, it's impossible. You can't disprove Vishnu, Apollo, Thor, Zeus, Ra etc in the same manner.
I assume you don't believe in them but is the onus on you to disprove them? Of course not.
The onus is on those claiming they do exist.
In retrospect, if you were in the position that you thought religious pluralism was coherent, I guess this video was educational.
Of course the argument is *right*. My issue is that reanimation is NOT plausible.
Perhaps I'm being unfair to WLC by taking this segment in isolation, but if you really think about it rationally, if someone says that a dead man rising is *plausible* I'm quite entitled to say "that's stupid".
If you want to convince yourself that something is plausible when it is hypothetically possible in an alleged "possible world", then it is the paragon of plausibility.
If you consider the myth claims of all other religions equally and without prejudice, then the only realistic thing to do is to reject them all, barring convincing evidence. The reanimation story, like all unsubstantiated myths, is the basis for nothing.
2:00 Jesus is like "dude, ive been working out, check out my pecks!
@MrMonkeyInk Just assertions? You are probably not familiar with Craig's arguments, are you? He just summarizes his arguments in less than a minute, and there's no way he can show all of his premises underlying his arguments in one minute. If you want a full version of that, you can watch any of his debates on existence of God. Now, could please kindly tell me which part of his arguments that do not have any shred of evidence or not sound? Peace
In a world where Yahweh or Allah or Ganesh or Loki or any other god or no gods might exist then it is not plausible, no. The argument comes from a standpoint of agnostic skepticism. It doesn't need any stronger footing than that.
That the son of a god rose from the dead is an extraordinary claim. There is a reason you don't believe all the myths of the various religions.
@adknerr A universe with a beginning can be assumed from a number of perspectives not just the big bang. Just take a look at how the universe works from a very basic standpoint. You exist because your parents pre-existed. You existence requires their pre-existence. If your existence requires an infinite number of previously existing causes to bring you into existence, you would never make it to the present; but you did so it is logical to assume a beginning.
No, it is not necessary to presuppose that Yahweh, Loki, Allah, Vishnu or any other supernatural entity do not exist. I merely presuppose that dead people don't come back to life by magic, until it can be shown otherwise. Rational skepticism and agnosticism - that's ALL that is required. I am repeating myself.
OR,
right now as I'm speaking, I'm lying that I'm lying,
do you think I am LYING or TELLING THE TRUTH ??
As i hear it, Mr. Craig argues that christianity is the only one true religion, based on the good and solid evidence in the bible?? Wow.. that's very persuasive!
No, it doesn’t:
1- If you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments. (Jesus Christ Matthew 19:17).
2- Torah: Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.
3- Gospel: Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.
4- Quran: 112:1 Say: He is Allah the One and Only.
God law is clear, the same law from Adam to Muhammad, Trinity brakes the law and leads to Hell, follow Jesus Christ commandments if you want to be saved.
MrDepp
FOr example,
in a court of law, if a cross examiner asks a defendant "are u lying when u said you are lying about stealing the money?"
obviously the examiner is addressing the whole admission, not the elemental constituent contents of the defendent's admission statement..
Obviously, the examiner DON"T KNOW if the admission is true, thats why he asks..
And this is where he fails. There is no way to tell which religion is the one true religion. Because all religions think the same thing. Both Islam and Christianity have the same amount of "evidence" for themselves, as i'm sure other religions do as well.
Therefore, if you want to be a believer in intelligent design, there is something called "general theism", it's the belief in a creator without the religion part. Which is honestly what Dr. Craig should be.
"intellectuals" who are Christian never sound intellectual.
..and I love the fact that this guy didnt say anything in this video...absolutely nothing.
Ofc the white guy who believes in a white god , what a coincidence.
This Jesus character is not the only person supposedly brought back from the dead ...
YES AMEN THANK YOU !!!!! I LOVE THIS GUY ALREADY (:
MrDepp
ok, court of law..
when a person makes a confession about making a false statement, the court can only take it as a confession statement but could not yet ascertain if the confession is a true confession, which has bearings on whether the suject matter is true or false..
So, the court adjourns until further investigations for circumstantial and material evidence..
Buddhism believes in a heaven and hell.
That the body does have a soul. If it didn't believe in a concept such as a soul reincarnation wouldn't be such a crucial belief in Buddhism.
Heaven is known "Nirvana"
Hell is known "Naraka"
MrDepp
and now, a second thing - PERSPECTIVE..
when i asked "am I lying ?", the perspective u should be addressing should be the legitimacy of the whole statement, and not whether there are lies within a lie..
This whole argument presupposes that the bible is true. You would first have to show evidence of that which no one has done yet.
I would like to see Craig debate the dalai lama, that would be awesome
@adknerr
Well, if something exists, it began to exist. While you don't appear to subscribe to kalam, you will at least have to admit as much as this. Believing that something exists without beginning is, to be frank, an enormous leap of faith.
Einstein proved that the universe was not static; it is clearly expanding. Thusly, it has been expanding from a singular point of beginning; the singularity.
So...kalam is in keeping with the General Theory of Relativity, which you probably believe in.
"but i dont agree that because they cant all be true, then that makes christianity the right one."
I don't see how you watched the whole video and though that that was his argument...total misunderstanding there.
@johnspartan98
What are you talking about? I said that in the context of Christianity is not the only religion to make such a claim, and more evidence needs to be presented. You seriously think there is only one religion to make the claims I mentioned? I don't need to "know everything" to say that, what an absurd thing to say. I know that other religions have claimed sons of gods, messengers, etc.
@goodwinsmart
As a Buddhist, I will inform you that this is false. First of all, heaven or hell are very rarely mentioned at all in scripture, and when they are referred to, they are correlated with mental states by explicitly stating that X realm is the realm of X consciousness. And no, breaking the cycle of samsara is not heaven. As a matter of fact, the multiple heaven and hell realms are part of samsara which are supposed to be broken away from. Nothing you said is really true.
First he shows the difference between Buddism and Islam stating that either one of these can be true or they're all false.
Then he adds a whole list of religions, including christianity, and wonder what arguments can be given for them, yet the option of all being false is omitted now for some reason
And what happened to the good arguments for christianity being the one true religion? He just stated they exist, then gave a brief description of christianity. Are the arguments in another video?
@shlukh
Well thats the stance of SOME Atheists, not all. For me personally, I just think an extraordinary claim made with the absence of extraordinary evidence shouldn't be believed until such evidence is presented. I don't go around saying "god doesn't exist" with certainty, all I say is "we don't know, but my best bet is a 'no' ".
@AAC1990
I agree that truth is exclusive, that isn't what we are talking about here though. What I was getting at was that at this point, no one can KNOW which (if any) religion is exclusively right, as WLC claims to know.
I have to be honest, at one time I was fairly impressed by Craig and his ability to defend Christianity. I mean after hearing from young earth nuts half the time he's a genius in comparison. I'm happy to announce I'm no longer impressed after watch this video.
As I said before, using this extraordinary "man comes back to life" claim as *support* for the whole shebang is something that might convince a wavering believer, but it isn't intelligent argument.
If I might make a suggestion, ask yourself this - "How do i decide what is real and what is a story?". Ask it about everything.
@tipoomaster Because, as Craig says, on behalf of Christianity are there the most plausible, strong arguments/reasons to believe that it is the one true religion, where as other religions' studies could more easily be questioned or falsified. He didn't prove it here, only shared his basic idea. This is a 2 min. video. Why not read his works where he proves them in detail?
@jason1973tl Cool bro, I stand corrected. I was also wrong about Buddhists believing man has a soul that is distinct from his body. Craig was right there, they don't believe man has a soul. So pretty much what I wrote was a heap of crap and I regret posting it. But Craig, I believe, makes a valid point when he says the claims of all religions can't all be true and that was what he was trying to point out in this interview. But, I do agree that one should strive to accurately represent others.
Sure, I guess you could call it a straw man, but I'm not really making an argument. I don't even pretend to.
So Christianity is true because......it says it's true?!?!?!
What a rational and logical argument...
He's not saying the Christianity is true because they can't all be true. He believes in Christianity because there are superior arguments (in his opinion) for christianity as opposed to islam, judaism hinduism etc. watch 1:32 where he explains some reasons to believe in christianity. This is a 2 minute video don't complain that he didn't go into enough detail,he's has decades worth of written work defending arguments for christianity.This video only shows that Christianity CAN be the only truth.
Why doesn't your contradiction argument include the bible? I think you're right.. when you have to many contradicting accounts of an event, it's pretty likely that it didn't happen.
search a video with a title like "reasons to believe the bible" or "proof of the bible's word"
you may have only looked up videos arguing against the bible, look up videos mathematically, logically and scientifically validating the bible's word.
there are many youtube videos that give good reasons to trust in the bible, but none are truly indisputable. however, you should look at the evidence and decide for yourself. the bible holds alot more than meets the eye
ROFL. You got a thumbs down because your comment basically would destroy all knowledge ever discovered. It's very irrational to dismiss something merely because it claims to be more true than other philosophies. Plus, a thumbs down has absolutely NOTHING to do with intolerance. It has to do with whether I think your opinion makes good sense or bad sense. I don't because if followed consistently, I'd have to dismiss science and many other things with religion.
MrDepp
Fallacy 5
Oversimplifying the nature of God..
In one question that i provided u, it consists 3 layers of truths and lies within it..
In any historical texts especially one like the bible which is derived from many judeo-sources which cross-references among itself and have highly personal styles of narration, most historians have been unable to agree on the likelihood that some of the events especially the more dramatic ones actually took place..
I agree.
MrDepp
..
Since both scenarios cannot be ascertained by YOU, but only can be ascertained by ME, your answer (YES) is too simplified to address a 3-tiered question, so ..
THE TRUEST ANSWER from you is still "I DON"T KNOW"
..(next post)
Ha ha! In other words Bill here is saying: It's MY religion, and I believe it, so it's true!"
MrDepp
Fallacy 1
u see, in their zeal to grasp who or what god is, most christians oversimplify the question of the nature of god's existence into black/white, yes/no, this/that answers.
Sometimes altho certain questions look like a yes/no questions, in fact an answer outside yes/no, like "I don't know" is still the truest most honest answer because forcing yrself to take a stand is simply wildguessing or overly depending emotions..
Ok so Christianity has the resurrection under it's belt so it must be the one true one.
So the one that has the most difficult thing to believe is the most like to be true?
Craig is an intelligent being that's using the credulity of others to make huge amounts of profits. This is how the religious have been taken advantage of since the beginning of time. Good for him... bad for anyone that's fallen for it.
@Fuglebolle
Friend, my comment was not a rhetorical device. It was a response to your statement that something made no sense to U. The sentence U quoted rested upon the statements that preceded it, and was not meant to stand alone, as U have rendered it. The day shall come when your perplexity will be personal to U, and U will be unconcerned w/ witty riposte & wordplay.
As long as U are content to stand outside and judge, then your perspective will lack the clarity of one who is in the midst.
The real problem here, though, is that Craig, without evidence, assumes a closed set of religions. Since we've seen new religions come into existence, we can only safely assume that more will emerge. And more can be re-discovered through archaeology and anthropology.
And he seems to be basing his claim solely on the religion's own claims. Which seems a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@sonuEEE No, he didn't you already believed it, but just didn't know what it was called. Most postmodern people in our society believe in Buddhism - like principles they just haven't thought through the similarities.
Yes, I realize that you believe in God/Jesus. I was just helping you in your defense a bit :), but may have jumped in the middle of something and not known the context..sorry about that. BTW, I've done 15 years of translating and do some teaching on how to translate :). So, I know a bit about it :).
fuck. craig could have made so many great points about the roman's historical accounts of christ, the codes in the bible, the mathematical coincidences in the bible, the testament being ahead of it's time, the testaments displaying knowledge of science, space, light, the manuscripts of the new testament.....
but all he did in this gap was self reference the bible.
although i still greatly respect him
No... Buddhists do believe in a soul... Just not one with the same definition. If there's nothing that is apart from the body, then reincarnation (a staple of Buddhism) is not possible. And again, it's about definition. Heaven/hell do have a place in Buddhism, just different interpretations. And as for sin being an illusion, that's mostly a metaphor, because the point of Buddhism is self-perfection through many lives rather than a single life, which is almost like a dream in comparison.