The William Lane Craig Debunking Thread

[CosmicJoghurt]

Who won the Debate with Hitchens, I haven't seen the debate yet but many people say Craig won the debate.

I watched a few minutes of the debate while writing my reply to TruthIsLife7, who asserted much the same thing. I couldn't get past minute 10 because of Craig repeating his same old points again. If Hitchens really had no proper reply to them, then Hitchens would lose all of my respect in one instance.

He had excellent replies.

 

[Inferno]

He had excellent replies.

Knowing Hitchens, that's exactly what I assumed. Which explains why I turned off YT and did something more productive.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I can debunk everysingle argument WLC has ever made or could ever made about the existance of God and sumarize it in one simple statment.

"William Lane Craig is at best a philosopher, not a scientist."

This is a very powerfull statment and yet I don't think any of you can grasp the deep consequences that it implies just by looking at it. And I wouldn't be surprise that you would be skeptic and find me a bit of pretentious by saing that. I intended to write a script for video elaborating on the consequences of this statment and prove my point with any shadow of a doubt. But as of now I have litle time, and I may only be able to work on it next year.
But I let you with a litle taste by referencing Descartes "I think therefore I am", and asking you a simple question.
How do you really know that which exists?

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

- Objective Morality -
I would agree with Craig that Morality is Objective here - but if I were to debate him I would issue the challenge if the act of cutting one's own hair being immoral. If he disagrees, then he disagreess that in the past God set the Moral Standards for the Jews that cutting one's own hair was immoral. If he agrees, fancy yourself a hardy chuckle and ask inquire of him about his recent barbering activities.

If I am to take the writings of Sam Harris and a few others upon their merit, then I would say that objective morality is of more likelyhood than that of subjective morality - but not in the way that would assert Hitchens as correct.

In the explenations of Harris, as well as some thinking of my own, I would most likely place the argument that Morality does have objective foundations to it. Once a human has come to a realization and education that something is wrong, along with valid reasoning behind the thought, then it will come to correct itself. It is also based off of the principle that Morality should not hang on the hinges of ancient cultures, brainwashing, and the mentally disfunctional.

The assertion here, however, is that the objective moral foundation is to minimize harm to other life - clearly different from the Morality asserted by the Bible, and with a plausible explenation in the foundations of biological processes. Ergo, it can be concluded that cutting one's own hair is not an immoral act unless it reaches a point which we can conclude that it is physically or emotionally harmful to the person who's hair is being cut.

- The Fine-Tuned Argument -
I would agree that humans themselves are pretty fit for their environment - but not "Fine-Tuned" for the Universe. The Universe itself is so fantastically large and vast, and we find ourselves limited to but a fraction of a fraction of a dust spec in comparison to simply our own Galaxy.
If the assertion is made that life is fine-tuned then Craig should be asked why is it fine-tuned for such a small fraction of such a vast universe, and why an eternally-powerful creator would not account for his creation not being able to explore 99.99 x 10^-100 percent of his Creation.

If you can picture his answer as well as I do, then your next question/statement would be what is anything you just said different from what I just said earlier - minus the divine creator entity, of course?

 

[sturmgewehr]

@ Inerno, @ CosmicJoghurt and @ Master_Ghost_Knight:

To make things clear I am a Skeptic or call me Agnostic or as u wish.

Anyways.

I watched the Debate and from my POV I think WLC spanked Hitchens, Hitchens didn't even try to refute the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument and some other points which Hitchens didn't even bother to comment on.

I like the point where WLC said that Evolution was so unlikely that you would certainly think there is a God because Evolution was more than 10 times unlikely to happen than to happen.

WLC also made some other Valid Claims, now I don't know if u watched the debate but if you did you would see that WLC had better arguments and Hitchens seemed lost in there.

Plus WLC doesn't say that Theism is True or Correct he just says that Theism is the better option.

Also about Deism being part of Theism thing and not vice versa.

I am not that good at detecting sophisticated Logical Fallacies though, maybe he used many of them.

Also I read that WLC has written a book refuting Richard Dawkings Delusion of god with the following thing:

the cosmological argument from contingency
the kalam cosmological argument based on the beginning of the universe
the moral argument based upon objective moral values and duties
the teleological argument from fine-tuning
the ontological argument from the possibility of God's existence to his actualit

Now why doesn't Richard Dawkings debate this guy if he thinks WLC is easy to refute and if he thinks that WLC is using a bunch of Logical Fallacies???

I would LOVE to see Richard Dawkings debate this guy, WLC has been debating Atheists for 20 years if not more with the same tactic and same arguments and how is it possible that no one can own him in a debate if they know his tactics.

 

[Laurens]

William Lane Craig doesn't want to debate Dawkins, he just wants to use Dawkins' name to push his non-sense. You can see that from the fact that WLC has reversed the situation and is using Dawkins' name anyway, declaring himself the 'man who Dawkins is scared to debate'.

I'd say Richard Dawkins has made the right decision. WLC is a pathetic attention whore.

 

[sturmgewehr]

Well in that case RD should put the slut in his place.

Is it really true and what Religious numbnuts claim that WLC has owned every Atheist he has debated, I heard also some Atheist say that Sam Harris and another guy named Shelly Kagan owned him too.

I am currently downloading the Sam Harris debate.

 

[Laurens]

Well in that case RD should put the slut in his place.

Is it really true and what Religious numbnuts claim that WLC has owned every Atheist he has debated, I heard also some Atheist say that Sam Harris and another guy named Shelly Kagan owned him too.

I am currently downloading the Sam Harris debate.

I linked the Shelly Kagan debate in the original post.

I think RD is putting him in his place by ignoring his stupidity.

If WLC acted like an adult and wasn't like 'Richard Dawkins is a scared to debate me nah nah nah naah nah' then perhaps he might be more inclined to enter into a discussion. I think he's perfectly justified in ignoring someone who displays such low integrity - giving in to him would just be giving him exactly what he wants.

 

[nemesiss]

- Objective Morality -
I would agree with Craig that Morality is Objective here - but if I were to debate him I would issue the challenge if the act of cutting one's own hair being immoral. If he disagrees, then he disagreess that in the past God set the Moral Standards for the Jews that cutting one's own hair was immoral. If he agrees, fancy yourself a hardy chuckle and ask inquire of him about his recent barbering activities.

If I am to take the writings of Sam Harris and a few others upon their merit, then I would say that objective morality is of more likelyhood than that of subjective morality - but not in the way that would assert Hitchens as correct.

In the explenations of Harris, as well as some thinking of my own, I would most likely place the argument that Morality does have objective foundations to it. Once a human has come to a realization and education that something is wrong, along with valid reasoning behind the thought, then it will come to correct itself. It is also based off of the principle that Morality should not hang on the hinges of ancient cultures, brainwashing, and the mentally disfunctional.

The assertion here, however, is that the objective moral foundation is to minimize harm to other life - clearly different from the Morality asserted by the Bible, and with a plausible explenation in the foundations of biological processes. Ergo, it can be concluded that cutting one's own hair is not an immoral act unless it reaches a point which we can conclude that it is physically or emotionally harmful to the person who's hair is being cut.

i was looking into this argument and i see the major problem with argument happening here too, though i doubt it's intentional. it has to do with the word Objective.

The word objective has many definitions.
two of them are
1 - undistorted by emotion or personal bias
2 - a part of reality

when most people talk about morality and objectivity, they mean the 1st mentioned definition.
the issue with WLC argument is that he only sees god as the ONLY way for morality.
if it's not directly god, then indirectly god.
the basic rules of "mommy is always right"
rule #1 mommy is always right
rule #2 when mommy isn't right, rule #1 is automatically applied

the other issue with is god argument (which i hadn't yet formulated completely) is that it's Authority. It's obience and makes it's impossible for the "sheep" to tell if it's correct behavior, which is the whole point of being able to tell/know if certain actions are moral or immoral.

if we were to apply definition 2, then ANYTHING can be considered objective moral behavior including such things as murder, slavery, rape, incest, torture, greed, adultry, bullying, theft... which most people would say are not (good) moral.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

i was looking into this argument and i see the major problem with argument happening here too, though i doubt it's intentional. it has to do with the word Objective.

The word objective has many definitions.
two of them are
1 - undistorted by emotion or personal bias
2 - a part of reality

when most people talk about morality and objectivity, they mean the 1st mentioned definition.

WLC also tends to begin with something pretty similar to the first defintion, and seems to argue as if the 2 definitions are ultimately one and the same... it's a pretty boldfaced transgression into the is-ought problem.
He starts out by saying that objective moral values are morally correct whether or not anybody agrees with them (i.e. independent of personal bias). But he is careful to use the word "anyone" rather than "everyone", as the word "anyone" implies individuals... If he had used the word "everyone", then that would expose a clear failure. He does, however, make the leap from saying that if something is not true based on a single arbitrary individual's evaluation, that means it's availed through another source. Of course, the idea that the truth of an idea is not the product of a single individual's evaluation doesn't say anything about the evaluation of a collective of multiple individuals or even the evaluation of other individuals besides the sampled individual.

the issue with WLC argument is that he only sees god as the ONLY way for morality.

That's pretty much the core principle of all his arguments. God is the only explanation for anything.
I mentioned this fundamental flaw in my rants on the Kalam argument, and his defenses thereof ever since Youtubers started tearing it apart. He always makes his arguments and every extrapolation thereof as if god is the only solution to any problem. What's the cause of the universe? Oh, well, since it's timeless, spaceless, and eternal, it's gotta be a disembodied mind of inordinately massive power! Duuuh!!
http://grumpyantitheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/kalam-defense-showing-more-failure.html
http://grumpyantitheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/kalam-defense-showing-more-failure-part.html

 

[Mauricio Duque]

That's pretty much the core principle of all his arguments. God is the only explanation for anything.
I mentioned this fundamental flaw in my rants on the Kalam argument, and his defenses thereof ever since Youtubers started tearing it apart. He always makes his arguments and every extrapolation thereof as if god is the only solution to any problem. What's the cause of the universe? Oh, well, since it's timeless, spaceless, and eternal, it's gotta be a disembodied mind of inordinately massive power! Duuuh!!
http://grumpyantitheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/kalam-defense-showing-more-failure.html
http://grumpyantitheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/kalam-defense-showing-more-failure-part.html

Ok, but would also "prove" anything that someone puts there, right?

Exchange the word 'god', for 'pink unicorn', and you just "proved" that the great Pink Unicorn, its the creator of all things.

So, how can someone give any credit for this Craig guy? Hes argument isnt even a new one...

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

In terms of his grasp of philosophy in the generic sense, he's actually quite capable. He has published work which is not specifically related to religion that is not so atrocious as the sorts of material for which he lives in infamy amongst the hordes of the reasonable.

The simple fact is that when he gets into that point of trying to argue for god's existence, he is no longer a good philosopher. He lets a lot of things drop down to looser restictions on intellectual rigor and relies heavily on common intuition rather than fact. This makes him very approachable to the lay audience, while at the same time, he lays on this thick veneer of language skills which makes him look as if he has solid points. The very notion that he is in any way rational in his apologetics is handily refuted with his "foremost" evidence of the truth of Christianity. He has repeated on numerous occasions that the "foremost" means by which he knows the truth of Christianity is the "witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart..." and that it is a "self-authenticating" verification which cannot be controverted even if physical evidence happens to come forth to refute Christian teaching.

Right... So... his strongest proof of Christianity is a subjective emotional experience described and outlined in Christian dogma and conveniently couched in Christian terms that is unverifiable by and considered wholly separated from all evidence and carries with it an intrinsic quality designated by way of Christian indoctrination to be in the position to supersede all reason, logic or evidence. That's about as textbook irrational as it gets.

 

[tuxbox]

True, but this sort of error in circular thinking dominates in Christian apologetics. In the Cosmological Argument, they'll tell you that anything that began had a cause. But when you ask them what caused the Cause, they'll tell you nothing, because their Cause (God) exists outside of nature, and is not subject to the one immutable fact of reality that they laid down not 10 seconds before. When you bring up the infinite regress problem, they dismiss it, telling you that 'infinite' can't exist. But they're perfectly okay with their uncaused Cause being past-eternal.

So not only are they claiming to know the absolute rules of This Universe, and not only are they willing to assume an Extra-Verse existing outside of our own, and not only are they're claiming to know the absolute rules of this Extra-Verse, they're cherry-picking which rules of the Extra-Verse apply, and when.

It's hard to understate that level of pure hubris.

Most of the apologists I have heard state that "cause and effect" only applies within our universe. Since time began with the "Big Bang", anything outside of space time must be infinite.

 

[sturmgewehr]

How can someone talk about something Spaceless/Timeless and out of our perception or logic?

I don't get it, and there is no point in it, we are made of space/time and energy and talking about something without space/time and non physical is like talking about nothing, first of all you can't even define this spaceless/timeless and nonphysical being because you have to be one to define it.

Also how can spaceless/timeless and nonphysical interact/interfere or even create something which is inside the boundaries of Space/time and matter.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

@ Inerno, @ CosmicJoghurt and @ Master_Ghost_Knight:

To make things clear I am a Skeptic or call me Agnostic or as u wish.

Anyways.

I watched the Debate and from my POV I think WLC spanked Hitchens, Hitchens didn't even try to refute the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument and some other points which Hitchens didn't even bother to comment on.

I like the point where WLC said that Evolution was so unlikely that you would certainly think there is a God because Evolution was more than 10 times unlikely to happen than to happen.

WLC also made some other Valid Claims, now I don't know if u watched the debate but if you did you would see that WLC had better arguments and Hitchens seemed lost in there.

Plus WLC doesn't say that Theism is True or Correct he just says that Theism is the better option.

Also about Deism being part of Theism thing and not vice versa.

I am not that good at detecting sophisticated Logical Fallacies though, maybe he used many of them.

I have been meaning to write a response to this post, but, WildWoodClaire1just made a video that sums it up better than I could. However, the short answer is you fell for Craig's logical fallacies.

​

 

[sturmgewehr]

@ he_who_is_nobody

Thanks a lot, good video. I read somewhere in this forum that WLC has also said this:

The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

I think pretty much this will sum up everything

 

[nemesiss]

@ he_who_is_nobody

Thanks a lot, good video. I read somewhere in this forum that WLC has also said this:

The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

I think pretty much this will sum up everything

it helps if you don't have a bias in a certain area, cause that bias can cause alot of contradictions which makes it harder to accept the truth.
When you ask a young earth creationist about stuff like dinosaurs, the cambrian explosion, the speed of light traveling from galaxy millions of lightyears away... the mental gymnastics they HAVE to perform to explain it is almost borderline insane, you'd think it's easier to accept that the earth and the universe is older then 6000 years.

when you point it out, they become VERY, VERY defensive.
if we use WLC as an example, with his kalam argument, you see it fail when you apply it to its fullest.
if everything that exists has a cause/creator. if this were true then their god must also have a cause/creator.
and that cause/creation also needs a cause/creator. and this will go on into infinity.
their standard response to this is: OUR GOD DOESN"T NEED A CAUSE!!!!!!111010101!

i think a better approach would be:
let's give them the benefit of the doubt that the universe was created... by A god.
the question arises: WHICH GOD or GODS?
What evidence is their to support that it even was/is the hebrew god? why not the Norsk Gods or the Egyptian Gods, or the Buddha? Or... that the universe was created by ME?

this should atleast make them go on the offense and go into their typical self-destruct mode

 

[sturmgewehr]

@ Nemesis:

That is true they will say God doesn't have a cause cuz he is infinite and something infinite doesn't have a cause.

I am still fighting to cope with an Infinite Intelligent being and can't understand how that would work, infinite knowledge, imagine that.


Is this Logical ?

How can something that has no cause cause something?

And where did God get his consciousness and knowledge or he simply made knowledge up which is another thing that makes little to no sense.

 

[Laurens]

God wasn't invented to make sense.

People should really stop trying to make sense of a fundamentally nonsensical proposition.

Although it is funny to see the lengths that people like WLC go to...

 

[Laurens]

I find Craig's argument from Objective Morality his most cringe-worthy.

Whether or not there is objective morality is actually quite an interesting philosophical argument, but Craig often reduces it to; 'we just know that some things are just wrong (therefore God)'.

Really this doesn't rule out the position that he opposes, that morality is merely a biological adaptation. Biological adaptations can very strongly influence how we feel. For example I feel disgusted by carrion and I would never want to eat it, I just know it's wrong, does that mean that eating carrion is objectively wrong? No. Maggots and bacteria eat it all the time, the reason I feel disgusted by it is purely biological, because if I did feel like was okay to eat rotting meat I'd be likely to catch something nasty from it, hence the feeling of disgust - it's merely a defence against eating/coming into close contact with something that could be harmful. The same goes for our apparent knowledge of right and wrong - the fact that we have some innate sense of it doesn't mean it's not merely a biological adaptation.