Stefan - Are you familiar with William Lane Craig? Book title "Reasonable Faith"

[Xtort]

I'm copying this from my own post on another forum.  Would love to get Stefan's take on this or anyone else for that matter.  The reason I find this interesting is because this prominent theologan who constantly refers to himself as a philosopher wrote a book about applying reason to the topic of god.  Lo and behold, when I read the book (I'm only through the first chapter), he seems to spend the entire time speaking AGAINST the use of reason, evidence and/or argumentation.  He seems to have a great disdain for these things!  Yet he's taking the position that his arguments are so reasonable they should be considered absolutely true.  It's a total mind fck of epic proportions.

 

Maybe this is typical of theological work but my god, this was a new experience for me.  I think I went through some kind of intellectual vertigo, and I can't quite bring myself to start chapter 2, titled "The Absurdity of Life without God"

 

 

 

Anyway, here it is -

 

First of all, I want to preface this by pointing out that William Lane Craig does not represent all Christians.  This is my take specifically on Craig's arguments about Christianity, which means this is not definitive of Christianity as a whole.  My intended audience here is other atheists though if any believers want to chime in that's fine.

Now, I want to say something, in general, about what reason is and why it's important.  When engaging in debate, it's important to have an agreed upon criteria upon which to evaluate each other's arguments and positions.  If I engage in a discussion about my position with another individual without first being willing to acknowledge that it's possible that my argument is wrong and establishing criteria we can use to determine whether or not my argument is wrong, then all I am doing is tricking you into joining me for some mental masturbation and maybe a little intellectual fraud by tricking you into thinking we are participating in an actual discussion.

Wikipedia defines reason thusly:

 

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information

In other words, if I present an argument and the method of my reasoning to arrive at the conclusions I did, that method must be universally applicable.  If the reasoning I used to reach my conclusion is valid, then any conclusions I reach using that method of reasoning must also be valid.

I promise, you will understand why I am saying all of this upfront shortly.

Chapter 1 - "How do I know Christianity to be true?"

I skipped the intro because just based on the title of the chapter, I knew this was what I was after.  Craig gets right to the point, and I can appreciate that.  As an atheist there's nothing more irritating about Christians than the way they will make assertions and claims without anything to support it.  We are constantly thinking, "but how do you know that to be true?"

William Lane Craig will constantly point out in debates that he is a philosopher, and in the realm of this discussion he is truly a power house for the Christian argument.  He's damn near unavoidable and he routinely walks all over atheists in debates, so I was very excited to read his work.

(Small disclosure, this book was clearly written for a Christian audience to help them in their discussions with atheists and people of other faiths.  This was not an attempt to convert non believers)

Now, you can imagine my disappointment when one of the first things I read was this:

 

I think that Dodwell and Plantinga are correct that, fundamentally, the way we know Christianity to be true is by the self-authenticating witness of God’s Holy Spirit.

Please remember what I said earlier about the importance of establishing criteria for determining the validity of an argument (also known as reasoning) rather than simply putting your hands over your ears and deciding you're right no matter what.  And that is exactly what WLC is saying here.  Self-authenticating is a shyster's way of saying his argument is valid no matter what.  There's no way to disprove or invalidate God according to Craig.  Technically, there is one way - if the Holy Spirit were to invalidate itself.  That is the only possibility.  

Craig goes on to explain that the holy spirit is the first and primary source of knowledge about god.  Argumentation, reason, evidence, etc, are secondary AT BEST.  Craig argues that every single person in the world, regardless of their religion or lack of religion, has experienced the holy spirit and is already Christian.  

In his own words:

 

The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God’s Holy Spirit.

His purpose here is clear.  He dislikes the idea of God giving people a pass when they arrive at the pearly gates because they rejected Christianity due to a lack of education on the Christian religion or because they were given poor arguments for Christianity.  Every one of us already know the holy spirit, according to Craig, and in failing to live by the tenets of Christianity we are like people jumping off of cliffs and denying gravity (my words, not his).

Finally, I'd like to point this quote out:

 

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa.

In other words, as pointed out earlier, Christianity is valid because it's valid and anyone or anything that says otherwise is wrong by default.  It seems clear to me that the reason Craig is constantly stating that he's a philosopher is because no one would ever believe him to be otherwise.  How a philosopher could ever make such a ridiculous statement as this is completely beyond me.

In closing, I am thoroughly disappointed in this book.  I began reading in good faith because I felt perhaps I had too much of a confirmation bias and hadn't considered the Christian/theist side fairly enough...having read too much atheist material.  I will read the rest of the book but my spirits have dropped.

I do, however, recommend all atheists pick up a copy of this book and read it.  It's already been very enlightening for me in explaining the callous, arrogant, condescending and close minded attitudes that seem so prevalent amongst christians.  This has seriously been one of the most childish works I've ever read, and yet this man is very well respected.

[Mike Fleming]

 

William Lane Craig will constantly point out in debates that he is a philosopher, and in the realm of this discussion he is truly a power house for the Christian argument.  He's damn near unavoidable and he routinely walks all over atheists in debates, so I was very excited to read his work.

 

 

I saw a debate between him and Sam Harris where they were debating morals, and in particular, Harris's view of morality and he walked all over Sam Harris and deservedly so.

 

But when it comes to religion, he is a hack and nothing more.  He tries to tie people up in words so they don't have a clue what he is talking about and just think "wow, this guy is smart".  He does have some intelligence but his religious views are contradictory and without evidence.  So like I said, he's just a hack and not worth the time imo.  He should know better to not make the arguments that he does.  Either he truly doesn't know that his arguments don't make sense or he is deceitful.  Either way he's not worth it.

[Stefan Molyneux]

I've heard about him for quite some time, but I don't know anything about his arguments, thanks for the heads up.

[Xtort]

I've heard about him for quite some time, but I don't know anything about his arguments, thanks for the heads up.

No problem.  I only bring him up because he's very influential with theists and he really makes an effort to get out there and debate.  That and creating a book specifically about applying reason to theism seems right up your ally....though as I said he seems to feel reason is a problem to be solved with theism.

 

But the general perception of him, at least as far as I can tell, is that he's a legitimate philosopher/authority that routinely 'beats' atheists in logical debates.

[Freedomain]

I attempted to put together a debate between William Lane Craig and Stefan, but Craig's people declined. I'd love to make that happen at some point in the future though.

[Xtort]

I attempted to put together a debate between William Lane Craig and Stefan, but Craig's people declined. I'd love to make that happen at some point in the future though.

 

That's interesting because when Dawkins refused to debate him (dawkins won't debate creationists), Craig made a big song and dance about it.  He took it so far as to debate an empty chair (Dawkins' empty seat).

I saw a debate between him and Sam Harris where they were debating morals, and in particular, Harris's view of morality and he walked all over Sam Harris and deservedly so.

 

But when it comes to religion, he is a hack and nothing more.  He tries to tie people up in words so they don't have a clue what he is talking about and just think "wow, this guy is smart".  He does have some intelligence but his religious views are contradictory and without evidence.  So like I said, he's just a hack and not worth the time imo.  He should know better to not make the arguments that he does.  Either he truly doesn't know that his arguments don't make sense or he is deceitful.  Either way he's not worth it.

Yeah, it's always disappointing when he debates atheists that just don't understand what he's talking about and end up losing.  They accept a lot of his assertions is valid when they aren't and it allows him to structure the discussion as he prefers it.  Especially on the topic of morality.  They just give him the "You can't have objective morality without god" premise as a given.

[bootoo]

Hitchens did this guy pretty good....hours and hours of youtube videos out there

[Xtort]

Hitchens did this guy pretty good....hours and hours of youtube videos out there

I listened to this today while working:

 

 

It's him debating Lawrence Krauss and the first thing Craig does is launch into his syllogisms.  One nice thing about Craig is that he's consistent.  Every single debate he gives the same spiel.  Just postsing for anyone that wants to hear his pro-god arguments as syllogisms...I may write up my own take on them later.  One good point made in this debate by Krauss is that while Craig is doing his damndest to prove god, for Krauss he doesn't believe anything until he's tried and failed to DISPROVE it.

 

I mean this is really the same song and dance that theists and atheists have been going over for decades (probably longer), I only bring this up because Craig is so influential with Christians.

[dayna j.]

So in other words, his argument is "X is true because I have experienced X as being true"--very compelling.  I don't see how WLC is different from any other fundamentalist Christian/cult member.  How is it that he "walks all over" people in debates?  Is he very aggressive or intimidating? 

Also, if a person is interested in "debating" an empty chair, I find that to be very telling.  What sort of person would do such a thing?  Certainly not a person who is interested in another's point of view.  It is completely juvenile and it proves that he has no qualms with regard to basing an entire argument on logical fallacies.  This should have been an unrecoverable death-blow to his reputation as a respectible thinker--if such reputation ever existed.  Furthermore, who would be interested in watching such a thing?  This is nothing more than low-hanging fruit and additional reverb for the echo chamber.  Now that I have looked at a few moments of his videos, I have the sense that he is ALWAYS debating empty chairs--even while the chairs are currently occupied.

[Xtort]

So in other words, his argument is "X is true because I have experienced X as being true"--very compelling.  I don't see how WLC is different from any other fundamentalist Christian/cult member.  How is it that he "walks all over" people in debates?  Is he very aggressive or intimidating? 

Also, if a person is interested in "debating" an empty chair, I find that to be very telling.  What sort of person would do such a thing?  Certainly not a person who is interested in another's point of view.  It is completely juvenile and it proves that he has no qualms with regard to basing an entire argument on logical fallacies.  This should have been an unrecoverable death-blow to his reputation as a respectible thinker--if such reputation ever existed.  Furthermore, who would be interested in watching such a thing?  This is nothing more than low-hanging fruit and additional reverb for the echo chamber.  Now that I have looked at a few moments of his videos, I have the sense that he is ALWAYS debating empty chairs--even while the chairs are currently occupied.

He debates prominent atheists, like Sam Harris, on topics like morality and they concede to him immediately that for objective morality to be real, there has to be a god.  He then does a decent job of proving objective morality to be valid (though he does use a lot of philosophical jargon that they're obviously not familiar with as well to confuse them).  It's pretty painful to watch.

 

He really is no different, but he's very consistent, and he's very influential amongst Christians.  In my experience when you start poking holes in his syllogisms they get very upset.

[Mike Fleming]

 

Yeah, it's always disappointing when he debates atheists that just don't understand what he's talking about and end up losing.  They accept a lot of his assertions is valid when they aren't and it allows him to structure the discussion as he prefers it.  Especially on the topic of morality.  They just give him the "You can't have objective morality without god" premise as a given.

 

I probably wasn't clear enough.  Atheists do not "lose" to him, imo.  It's all just opinions who wins debates anyway and in my opinion he loses the majority of them, that I have seen.  The one exception that I've seen was when he debated Harris about morality and Harris put forth his view of morality, which is basically bullshit in my view.  Craig can destroy someone who has a bad argument.  Atheism though is not a bad argument and he ends up looking like, well, an asshole in my opinion to anyone who has knowledge of philosophy.   The average person though just would not know how to dissect his arguments and he ends up appearing like a respected authority figure.  In fact, he does have many mannerisms of authoritarianism and tries to bulldoze opponents rather than actually debate.  I'm not impressed with him in the slightest,  Quite the reverse.  He feels to me like someone who uses his knowledge and intelligence for evil.  Maybe that's a bit strong but he's certainly not someone you could respect.

[dayna j.]

The ironic thing is that if his syllogisms actually proved the existence of God then he wouldn't need to debate anymore.

[AnCap AllCaps]

The best debates that I have watched with Craig:

http://goo.gl/q99GZQ

http://goo.gl/YRaVLN

 

And while there are many rebuttals to Craig's silly ontological "Kalam Cosmic Argument," the best and very thorough are here:

http://goo.gl/JT78nJ

[Xtort]

The best debates that I have watched with Craig:

http://goo.gl/q99GZQ

http://goo.gl/YRaVLN

 

And while there are many rebuttals to Craig's silly ontological "Kalam Cosmic Argument," the best and very thorough are here:

http://goo.gl/JT78nJ

Excellent, thank you

 

Edit:  Looks like Kagan starts off by conceding that god is needed for objective morality.

[AnCap AllCaps]

Looks like Kagan starts off by conceding that god is needed for objective morality.

 

Perhaps watch the first clip. The conversation between Kagan and Craig is very instructive.

[Xtort]

Here is Craig going over some common objections to the KCA.  One of the things he says, is that when reasoning a priori, your premise has to either be true....or be 'more plausible' than it's negation.  Is that true, or is it just something he's made up?  I thought when creating a syllogism, the premise has to be true, period.