Angra Mainyu
New Member
In case anyone is interested, Craig replied to one of my objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, and I posted a new version here, addressing his reply, and adding a few points.
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The William Lane Craig Debunking Thread
- Thread starter Laurens
- Start date
ShootMyMonkey
New Member
Well, his classical argument against that is to say that other animals like lions, and tigers, and bears (oh, my!) have no souls and therefore no sense of the moral or ethical dimension, therefore you cannot base anything on what other animals do.Laurens said:
The thing is that he's commiting something he routinely accuses others of doing -- deriving an 'ought' from an 'is'. As you pointed out yourself, your reaction to carrion is one of a personal sense of disgust. It's a biological adaptation that is intended to prevent us from ingesting meats that are likely to have rotted and carry a variety of pathogens and would probably make us quite ill if we ate it. What Craig does is to take these types of relatively universal sensibilities which are personal and interpret that to mean that it is actually an intrinsic and objective property of reality itself rather than something which is a common impression that individuals throughout the species experience which has proven functional to our success. He is projecting his own vision onto the universe itself. Plain and simple.
That too, when he accuses others, e.g. Sam Harris, of deriving an 'ought' from an 'is' when he speaks of having science inform moral attitudes, he completely ignores the part where he never speaks of science itself being a source of moral codes, but science informing people in the construction and modification of moral codes. It doesn't drop the idea of moral values and priorities, but merely states that the 'is' portion that is science is providing facts which may be analyzed in the context of those values in order to derive the final results. It is not the immediate 1:1 mapping that Craig pretends it is... what Craig does with his "objective morals" is exactly a 1:1 mapping. The values he cites are apparently universal across most all of humankind, therefore they are actually an intrinsic property of the universe which must have been proscribed by an all-powerful being.
I think he missed a few trillion steps in the middle there.
Laurens
New Member
I think I can refute the Kalam Cosmological argument in 1 paragraph... Ready?
In order for the KCA to be valid it is assumed that the universe cannot be eternal or infinite (i.e. arisen from a prior eternal state that existed pre-big bang or as a cyclic model etc.), and that the universe cannot spring into existence from nothing without cause. This means that in order for the logic to be sound God cannot be eternal (or else you can simply say 'well if God can be eternal then why can't the universe?' thus making quite a huge dent in the logic) but if God cannot be eternal then he must have sprung into existence from nothing without cause (if you want to avoid the infinite regress of who designed the designer that is), but according to the argument this is logically impossible... By the logic of the argument God isn't possible as an eternal being or an uncaused being that sprang into existence from nothing, because if he is either one of these, then it must be conceded that it can also apply to the universe - which would then refute the argument... BAM! Done.
In order for the KCA to be valid it is assumed that the universe cannot be eternal or infinite (i.e. arisen from a prior eternal state that existed pre-big bang or as a cyclic model etc.), and that the universe cannot spring into existence from nothing without cause. This means that in order for the logic to be sound God cannot be eternal (or else you can simply say 'well if God can be eternal then why can't the universe?' thus making quite a huge dent in the logic) but if God cannot be eternal then he must have sprung into existence from nothing without cause (if you want to avoid the infinite regress of who designed the designer that is), but according to the argument this is logically impossible... By the logic of the argument God isn't possible as an eternal being or an uncaused being that sprang into existence from nothing, because if he is either one of these, then it must be conceded that it can also apply to the universe - which would then refute the argument... BAM! Done.
I literally HATE WLC. I have seen many debates where he talks and he says the same things over and over and over and over x10^10 again.
I agree that Dawkins shouldn't debate WLC, but I think my reasons are different. I think Dawkins would lose, the reason is he is TOO passionate, he get's involved to much and fustrated when people don't understand what he is saying, it's one of the reasons why it was a good idea he didn't give evidence at the Kitzmiller vs Dover case.
Dawkins is far more interesting, intelligent, logical, reasoned and sincere but he does (and quite rightly so) have a short fuse when it comes to people like Craig.
Hitchens was perfect but he can't offer much scientific arguments to show Craig to be a moron.
If anyone wants to see Craig get slammed good and proper, (and you can actually see Craig look worried after the first round), watch his debate with Lawrence Krauss. The audio is shocking but it's amazing. Craig's cosmological arguments are destroyed and Krauss basically says "what s the point of philosophy when we know the answers".
Every argument Craig offers is "we don't know therefore God did it", where as Krauss says, "nope, we do know that and here is how".
I agree that Dawkins shouldn't debate WLC, but I think my reasons are different. I think Dawkins would lose, the reason is he is TOO passionate, he get's involved to much and fustrated when people don't understand what he is saying, it's one of the reasons why it was a good idea he didn't give evidence at the Kitzmiller vs Dover case.
Dawkins is far more interesting, intelligent, logical, reasoned and sincere but he does (and quite rightly so) have a short fuse when it comes to people like Craig.
Hitchens was perfect but he can't offer much scientific arguments to show Craig to be a moron.
If anyone wants to see Craig get slammed good and proper, (and you can actually see Craig look worried after the first round), watch his debate with Lawrence Krauss. The audio is shocking but it's amazing. Craig's cosmological arguments are destroyed and Krauss basically says "what s the point of philosophy when we know the answers".
Every argument Craig offers is "we don't know therefore God did it", where as Krauss says, "nope, we do know that and here is how".
Laurens
New Member
Frenger said:
I loved seeing Krauss destroy Craig's arguments.
Another favourite moment of mine was when Sam Harris went and attacked Craig's actual position which you could see really shook him up and he reacted like a little kid, with his whole 'but that's not the topic of this debate...' nonsense.
I love how William Lane Craig is supposedly the best that apologists have got, and he is really, really shit... That says it all if you ask me.
Laurens said:
It was AMAZING wasn't it.
What I like is that Craig has made a career on debating people outside of their comfort zones. His "5 reasons for god" are so wide reaching that no one person can debunk all of them. BUT, if you put all of the debates together you realise that every point is debunked by a different person.
What's funny now is that he is so predictable, people like Sam Harris are able to put it all together and more which like you said made Craig nervous a child like.
Krauss has become a hero of mine after that debate. I love his start "I don't really like debating, or philosophy, or this topic. I DO like physics so I shall just treat this as a lecture".
I would like to ask Craig why he thought it was a good idea to talk cosmology with a cosmologist? Someone as "intelligent" as him should have been able to see FAIL written all over that.
Laurens
New Member
Frenger said:
Well Craig seems to think he knows cosmology better than cosmologists, history better than historians (as shown in his debate with Bart Ehrman), science better than scientists...
Also Krauss is a well respected cosmologist, I'd say 98% of the reason that Craig wanted to debate with him was to elevate his own status...
If you draw pleasure from watching Craig getting his arse handed to him, I'd recommend watching his debate with Shelly Kagan (linked in the first post of this topic).
I love how Kagan so easily shows that Craig's opinion that there can be no objective morality without God is false by choosing to argue for an objective moral standard that he doesn't even adhere to. Brilliant.
Laurens said:
I DO indeed enjoy watching Craig being intellectually battered (and probably physically battered) so that's my weekend sorted. Can't wait.
You're probably right, he does just debate people like this because 1) it elevates his status and 2) if he happens to debate someone who can't always get their ideas across (Lewis Wolpert for one) it looks like he wins.
He is a good debater as in, he comes across well and looks like he knows what he's talking about.......but he just doesn't.
WarK
Active Member
Laurens said:
Well guess what, if you're the best at shovelling manure you're still just manure shoveller :lol:
I think WLC shouldn't be debated by anyone serious like Dawkins or Krauss, it would be the same if they debated Ray Comfort, it'd only boost WLC, he'd go on and boast how he'd obliterated one of the brightest that atheism has to offer.
devilsadvocate
New Member
Thanks to the angry spirit (Angra Mainyu, the "devil" of zoroastrian religion, if I'm not mistaken.) for his through blog posts. I already agreed with the general point that the temporal cosmological argument invokes causality that is unlike any ordinary causation we observe*, but it was fun to read objections spesific to WLC's version of the argument and seeing him trip over his own words.
Laurens,
It is asserted in the KCA, but it isn't mere assumption. I mean, and as you well know, we have reason to believe that the universe did have a beginning, the Big Bang. If, on the other hand, you mean by "universe" something along the lines "all there is", you would be right, we can't know if that something isn't eternal (and an eternal thing would solve the infinite regress problem, because eternal things don't have beginning), but usage of the word then also includes God, so it doesn't get us anywhere.
One problem with the cosmological argument, though, and I think this is what you were after, is that it does nothing to persuade that the eternal cause is 1. either singular, or 2. is worthy of our worship (which I think, is an attribute the holder of the title "God" needs to have.) For all we know, even when accepting the KCA, universe could have been designed by a committee (which would explain a lot of things) or by some dumb, soulless machinery that just happens to poop out universes.
*The first premise of the temporal cosmological argument, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause", gains it's acceptance by wealth of observations of causes and effects, but since causality fundamentally depends on time, cause necessarily being before the effect, the premise is in trouble if we are to believe time itself had a beginning. Causality without time (and this is what it must be in the case of creating time, you can't have time before time exists) is very different beast from the ordinary kind we do have evidence for, and so defending the premise on one kind of causality and using it to argue for categorically different kind, is like arguing that all sharks must be red because all tomatoes you've seen were. They maybe have something in common, both are living organism in the analogy, but they are also radically different. In fact, I would say time is so fundamental part of our understanding of causality that comparing notions of causality with and without time is more like comparing bricks and alphabets than tomatoes and sharks.
Laurens,
It is asserted in the KCA, but it isn't mere assumption. I mean, and as you well know, we have reason to believe that the universe did have a beginning, the Big Bang. If, on the other hand, you mean by "universe" something along the lines "all there is", you would be right, we can't know if that something isn't eternal (and an eternal thing would solve the infinite regress problem, because eternal things don't have beginning), but usage of the word then also includes God, so it doesn't get us anywhere.
One problem with the cosmological argument, though, and I think this is what you were after, is that it does nothing to persuade that the eternal cause is 1. either singular, or 2. is worthy of our worship (which I think, is an attribute the holder of the title "God" needs to have.) For all we know, even when accepting the KCA, universe could have been designed by a committee (which would explain a lot of things) or by some dumb, soulless machinery that just happens to poop out universes.
*The first premise of the temporal cosmological argument, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause", gains it's acceptance by wealth of observations of causes and effects, but since causality fundamentally depends on time, cause necessarily being before the effect, the premise is in trouble if we are to believe time itself had a beginning. Causality without time (and this is what it must be in the case of creating time, you can't have time before time exists) is very different beast from the ordinary kind we do have evidence for, and so defending the premise on one kind of causality and using it to argue for categorically different kind, is like arguing that all sharks must be red because all tomatoes you've seen were. They maybe have something in common, both are living organism in the analogy, but they are also radically different. In fact, I would say time is so fundamental part of our understanding of causality that comparing notions of causality with and without time is more like comparing bricks and alphabets than tomatoes and sharks.
nudger1964
New Member
devilsadvocate said:
So far as i thought, what we know as the Big Bang model merely explains how the universe goes from being little to being quite big... the whole singularity thing shouldnt really be mixed up with big bang, even though i appreciate the name implies it should.
I am quite satisfied with the evidence for the Big Bang, but i am a long way from being convinced it started spontaniously from a singularity...so far as i can tell, there is no concensus within cosmology that it actually did
nudger1964 said:
That is how I perceive it, too, and I've never heard any scientist say that the BB theory talks about what came before.
It's probably a lot like with evolution and abiogenesis - even in the way many creationists misconstrue the science. In some cases, it seems they even think that evolution is supposed to explain EVERYthing, even the Big Bang - or at the very least that evolution is wrong because, like, uh, an explosion totally can't create life and stuff.
WLC isn't in that latter category, but he seems to be slightly in the former, thinking that scientists (and the BB theory) claim that there was nothing, and then it exploded.
devilsadvocate
New Member
What I had in mind, is the standard definition of "universe". The Oxford english dictionary defines it as follows:
"The universe: all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos."
With this definition, we can meaningfully state things like, "The universe is expanding" or "the universe has no center". And, I think, we can also meaningfully say "the universe had a beginning". We have to be careful though, not to talk about it as any ordinary event, since there was no time prior to it nor space where it took place, but we can still say that at some finite point in the past space-time did form, allowing objects to exist and events to happen.
"The universe: all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos."
With this definition, we can meaningfully state things like, "The universe is expanding" or "the universe has no center". And, I think, we can also meaningfully say "the universe had a beginning". We have to be careful though, not to talk about it as any ordinary event, since there was no time prior to it nor space where it took place, but we can still say that at some finite point in the past space-time did form, allowing objects to exist and events to happen.
)O( Hytegia )O(
New Member
That's quite one of the several problems within science that is encountered all the time -
the fallacy of common sense.
Casual logic contradicts what the evidence and the mathematics say all the time. For example, the movement of particles and light being that of Matter AND a wave of energy. This, along with several other occurences in science that we know to be true based upon the evidence are completely contradictory to what we would perceive as "Common Sense."
The same goes for the origins of the Universe - in common sense logic, we would prance the idea of an event has a cause, and can basically grind that logic infinitely down into what is the bullshit of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. However, it fails on the fact that, though the Universe may have very well HAD a beginning it fails to note that most things in the Universe that we would usually compare to cause/effect natures are actually working in Cycles.
What's to say that the Universe doesn't just cycle and simply makes itself?
Not to mention that it forgets to mention that before the Universe of action/reaction principles that the Cosmos that we very well assign these attributes didn't exist, along with the concepts of Space and Time for there to be any form of cause/effect (An event must both have a place in space and a time which it occured - neither of which could exist until the point of the "Big Bang")
Benjamin Franklin once said "Common sense is not so common." I would hate to think that the problem is that "Common Sense" in terms of dealing with the Universe is TOO common and it contradicts what evidence and data that is presented. It causes people to reject the facts in favor of Common Sense.
the fallacy of common sense.
Casual logic contradicts what the evidence and the mathematics say all the time. For example, the movement of particles and light being that of Matter AND a wave of energy. This, along with several other occurences in science that we know to be true based upon the evidence are completely contradictory to what we would perceive as "Common Sense."
The same goes for the origins of the Universe - in common sense logic, we would prance the idea of an event has a cause, and can basically grind that logic infinitely down into what is the bullshit of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. However, it fails on the fact that, though the Universe may have very well HAD a beginning it fails to note that most things in the Universe that we would usually compare to cause/effect natures are actually working in Cycles.
What's to say that the Universe doesn't just cycle and simply makes itself?
Not to mention that it forgets to mention that before the Universe of action/reaction principles that the Cosmos that we very well assign these attributes didn't exist, along with the concepts of Space and Time for there to be any form of cause/effect (An event must both have a place in space and a time which it occured - neither of which could exist until the point of the "Big Bang")
Benjamin Franklin once said "Common sense is not so common." I would hate to think that the problem is that "Common Sense" in terms of dealing with the Universe is TOO common and it contradicts what evidence and data that is presented. It causes people to reject the facts in favor of Common Sense.
nudger1964
New Member
well all the smart money within cosmology seems to be riding on our universe being within a wider universe/s, so im not sure where that leaves Mr craig...although i expect his logic is malleable enough to cope
)O( Hytegia )O( said:
I completely agree. Everytime someone brings him up on this he says "well, my arguments are consistant and logical".
Well do you know what? The Universe didn't form around the rules of our "common sense". The Universe is the way it is whether we like it or not. Quantum mechanics is the very opposite of common sense, but it works. We don't know how, but it does.
Science is always being blamed for taking the "mystery" out of things, but what is less mysterious than "common sense" and logic. This is my main argument with religion, it really does take the fun out of everything!.
devilsadvocate
New Member
nudger1964 said:
The cosmological argument still works (and it is not by any means Craig's argument, it has been around at least since Aristotle), and you could even say more so, because there would be more of what's existence to explain. You can't get away from the argument by explaining the existence of this universe by quantum soup or by string theory branes or anything like that, since if those things are not eternal (which Craig and others argue they cannot be because actual infinities cannot exist), we still need an explanation for their existence. And even if we don't agree with Craig and others about implausibility of actual infinite, the modal version of the cosmological argument doesn't depend on universe having a beginning, only on it being contingent (that it is possible it might not have existed).
Fortunately, the objection about causality I presented, does not in any way depend on time coming into existence at the big bang moment. All it needs is that time came to exist at some point. Also, time doesn't necessarily exist, so it too is contingent. And since time then needs an explanation according to modal version, we run into the same trouble with causation we did in temporal argument.
Angra Mainyu
New Member
You're welcome, devilsadvocate.devilsadvocate said:
I didn't post it before because they were asking for arguments debunking Craig's five main arguments, but I also wrote a post against Leibnizian modal arguments, including Craig's and others.devilsadvocate said:
Here's the link, in case you or others are interested.
Back to Craig's five main arguments, in addition to the Kalam argument, I've now written a post against Craig's "Moral Argument".