William Lane Craig's Apologetics for Children

[AyameTan]

First off, this is another self-aggrandising thread. It is also, however, crucial to the next generation of children, especially those being homeschooled/brainwashed by the Evangelical crowd.

I have linked my review to God is All-Good, because the contradictions between this book, the rest in the series, and reality are the most blatant.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R8D2SP2E6XP3Z/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1484835123#wasThisHelpful

A Review for the Children

William Lane Craig would have you believe that a perfectly loving god would allow earthquakes, child rape, child torture, mass murder and a surfeit of suffering in the world. I invite you to ask yourselves these questions:

Would an all-loving parent allow their children to be raped?
Would an all-loving god value the free will of child rapists more than the free will of their victims?
Would an all-loving human being allow preventable suffering?
Would an all-loving doctor force surgery on a patient when medication would be painless and just as effective?
Would an all-loving god tempt his or her creation and punish them with eternal torture for doing what he KNEW they would do?
Would an all-loving god torture anyone for eternity?
How could a perfect creation ever become imperfect?
Do any of the other books in this series contradict the content of this book and/or reality?

Now on to the Problem of Suffering.

The Problem of Evil is an insurmountable one for Christians (and all other theists who believe in a perfectly loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god). There have been intense and motivated efforts over the past two millennia to defend such a position rationally, and they have all failed. Miserably. Utterly. And in many cases, dishonestly.

Some approached involve invoking an unknown "greater good" defense (which throws god's omnipotence under the bus. An omnipotent deity could simply actualise a desired goal without needing to use suffering as a "middle man"). Attempts to shift the problem by asserting that human happiness is not the goal of life (but knowing god is) removes the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of god (if you love someone, you don't want them to suffer. It really is that simple).

Here, Craig takes the old canard of free will. Unfortunately, free will is meaningless unless everyone has an equal amount of it. This is undeniably NOT the case. Not everyone is given the same lifespan, physical strength, mental acuity, political clout, financial resources, and so on. Craig is pontificating from the luxurious confines of his residence, funded by conveniently gullible sheep. This has certainly damaged his ability to empathise with the billions who live on less than a dollar each day. And the thousands who starve to death every time the Earth completes a full rotation.

Craig also, perhaps unwittingly, advocates a social Darwinism in which the rich and physically powerful are able to murder, rape and steal from weaker individuals (and are therefore less able to exercise their own free will to prevent their own suffering). Craig worships a cosmic pedophile who revels in granting freedom to abhorrent individuals while getting his jollies from seeing the most vulnerable suffer and die in agony (only to get thrown into even more torture in the Christian vision of hell).

Lastly, a loving god would take away free will from those who would willingly surrender it in return for a life without suffering. Funnily enough, Craig seems to believe in a heaven without suffering but with all the bells and whistles of freedom. So why not create that universe from the get-go and stick with it? Why create a universe with even the possibility of corruption? It certainly is not something a perfect god would do. Then again, a perfect god would not blackmail beings he supposedly loves for eternal worship.

 

[Laurens]

Craig's 'greater good' defense against the problem of evil ultimately results in the conclusion that there is no evil.

If it was part of God's plan for the greater good that Stalin killed 12 million people, then you have to say that ultimately his actions were good. Thus all sensible discussion on ethics goes out of the window....

 

[AyameTan]

Craig's 'greater good' defense against the problem of evil ultimately results in the conclusion that there is no evil.

If it was part of God's plan for the greater good that Stalin killed 12 million people, then you have to say that ultimately his actions were good. Thus all sensible discussion on ethics goes out of the window....

And what makes things even worse is when he says "evil cannot exist without god." What a dick. I guess he thinks there'll be suffering in heaven (which CS Lewis claimed in The Problem of Pain).

BrettpPalmer on has addressed this issue on YouTube.

 

[Laurens]

The other problem with theism is that phenomena which---on the assumption of atheism---are just random unfortunate events (such as disease and natural disasters) become moral acts under the assumption of theism.

Most of us can agree that 'evil' has something to do with the actions of morally conscious entities. Thus something like an earthquake becomes an evil act when we factor God into the equation, because it was either under his control, or he failed to stop it from occurring. So even if we completely ignore evil actions at the hands of humans there is still a huge problem of evil for theists to surmount.

Malaria ceases to become just a blind, unfortunate occurrence that causes great suffering and instead rests upon moral decisions made my an all powerful entity.