Some emotions . What I meant to say is that if I feel mad, it’s something that comes and goes, not anything I can prevent out of some duty to not get emotionally attached. I didn’t mean to say I can’t “control emotions” as in the case of taking it out on other people!
Dinkum, yeah I think Craig and Kagan talked past each other for the most part. I’d recommend watching the Stenger debate. It’s been a while but I think Stenger presented a very solid case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKzVIb1h4v8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
I love how the atheists after losing to Craig go and rally together and talk about all his unreasonable Dr. Craig is. “Of course things can come into existence without any cause!”
One can lose a debate while still being right. And what atheist(s) say things can come into existence without any cause?
Particulars off the top of my head I cannot say; I do not want to falsley attribute a saying to someone. But I have heard it typically in the context of the universe coming out of nothing (ultimate bootstrap which I believe belongs to Dennet) or re-defining nothing as the case of Hawkings.
People can lose a debate and still be right. But what exaclty to do you mean? What is the warrant for belief in a paradigm that is on the losing end of debates? I am not talking about in general or consensus. I mean when your views are rebutted constantly why would you hold to that?
Robert, it has to do with Craig being out of the mainstream (mainstream in apologetics sure, but most contemporary atheists are unaware of him). Atheists walk in arrogant, and quickly learn that Craig is quick on his feet and that they didn’t do their homework. Makes for a mediocre formula on the atheist side. The point being there are sufficient rebuttals, but they are not made in the debates by those who are unsuspecting.
Atheist phycisists have a different interpretation of “nothing.” They use “nothing” in quotes for a reason, because they believe that there are hidden unknowns concerning the quantum world that could allow for a “self-causation.” If you say, “but that’s not nothing!”, that completely misses the point. It’s not changing the definition, it’s using allegoical language.
Hawking Radiation and other sorts of quantum physics/mechanics/whatever are indeed attempts to explain what happened before the Big Bang. But you seemed to have been mocking the claim, which is why I asked. I don’t usually encounter other fellow atheists who are simply claiming “Pah, we don’t need God, the universe came from…nothing!” and that’s it. The claim isn’t usually that shallow. Furthermore, I don’t usually see atheists talking about what happened before the Big Bang. While there are scientific hypotheses out there, I gather most would say they don’t know.
What I meant by losing a debate and still being right is that one can enter a debate, lose for whatever reason, and yet still be on the side of truth. The reason why they lost could be a multitude of things, such as being a poor debater, having an off-day, or simply being opposed to the majority of the audience’s views. If you and I were to debate about literal creationism (God creating everything as we see it now) vs. evolution, or the age of the Earth, and I lost, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It means I was unconvincing in a structured debate.
Simply put: some debates don’t determine what is actually true.
Agreed, losing a debate does not entail the other person actually has truth on their side. Consistently losing debates and being resoundly rebutted in print on the other hand…
If I can find any videos or writings of atheists saying what I allege I will try to post them.
To say that Craig is mainstream in apologetic debates and what not almost sounds like you are being dismissive. Perhaps you don’t know just how much he interacts with a broad array of atheists on all sorts of subjects consistently?
Robert, newsflash: Not everybody agrees that the atheist side is consistently rebutted by William Lane Craig. And no, I’m not being dismissive. I’m saying other atheists are being dismissive of him in debates because they don’t realize that Craig is a competent debater. As I said, they are arrogant heading into the debate and haven’t done any effort to look at how Craig structures his arguments.
Don’t you think this is a rather subjective view? You could say that an atheist going up against Craig was stunningly defeated while I could say the opposite. Constantly losing may have the effect of pointing out who might be on the side of truth, but not always. I’m sure if I debated Craig over and over again I’d lose every time, not because I would be wrong, but because I probably wouldn’t have the ability to answer every claim.
I guess the only way to judge who wins a debate is to objectively look at the facts we have and determine who was closer to matching them. I wonder how often that happens, however, since determining who wins is probably judged by who and how many people simply agreed with a certain debater.
@ Eric080Sure, not everyone agrees. I didn’t say you were, it just seemed that way. Thanks for the clarification. You seem to implicitly agree that the atheist loses because they have weaker arguments, though.
@Bluelin976
I agree that not nearly enough people are objective. I personally was a deist before watching his debates and encountering his work. I was so astounded by his claims that I actually read atheist articles and watched their videos to find refutations of Dr. Craig, it seemed to good to be true. All I am saying is that the atheist, especially the pop (new-)atheist are not being reasonable when there is an answer to their problems; they act as if there was never a response and declare themselves the winner.
In the context of the debate, sure their arguments fail to address Craig as well as they could possibly address Craig. That’s all I’m implying.
I’m not sure what you mean by “there is an answer to their problems.” I’m also not sure if they act like there was no response, but rather they see Craig’s “answers” as non-answers.
I agree. Kagan is a mastermind, he has a free online lecture on the philosophy of death which is awesome. But I think Craig did poorly in this debate because the topic was “Is God Necessary for morality?” The answer is no. Even notable christian philosophers drew up the same conclusion and decided to use reason to define morality, Kant for instance, which used reason to define morality. He was a christian that somewhat ignored the influence of God in a morality structure. Another example would be Thomas Aquinas, who debunked the whole “God Command Theory”( in other words, if God commands it, it must be good), by saying that when talking about morality, God is not a necessity, in his case, it was Natural Law that determined morality.
I love how the atheists after losing to Craig go and rally together and talk about all his unreasonable Dr. Craig is. “Of course things can come into existence without any cause!”
Oh boy. I can tell you really, really love Craig, but lets bring it back down to reality. You are over generalizing big time. Some atheists may say that there need not be an ultimate cause, some say you can get something from nothing, some say the universe always existed, etc. Atheists have all sorts of different reasons why they reject the concept of God.
I find Craig to be quite reasonable within the context of an oral debate. He’s generally a good oral debater, especially since most of his debate opponents expect him to be just another silly theist and don’t research his arguments beforehand. His arguments are all over the web and have been refuted in many different places, yet most of the people he shares the debate stage with are caught completely unaware of his arguments. However, reading responses to his arguments by other philosophers and historians online reveals that his arguments are far less compelling. I encountered Craig around the time I was going through deconversion and he kept my faith afloat for a few additional months, that is until I read more and more, especially combing through the great articles on his arguments at infidels.org.
Stenger did such a terrible job! I just finished watching it. Stenger did MISERABLE. Can you point to any solid argument you thought he had? I freely admit that sometimes atheists say smart things, or cause pause, or sometimes have really good ‘rhetorical flourishes.’ But I can’t think of one single thing that Stenger said that was good at all.
I do not think I saw the debate with Kagan. You can have morality without God but you cannot have objective morality. If morality is some kind of socio-biological product then it is definitely dependent (subjective) on humans. In fact, if that is the case, then it is not even geared to truth! It is merely geared for survival of the fittest and has no truth value.
@ Dinkum I don’t “really, really love Craig.” He is very persasive and so much more so than the vast majority of people he interacts with. When atheist say there is not some cause of the universe they have stopped doing serious philosophy and even stopped doing science. We have a disagreement about whether his arguments have been refuted, that’s fine. I’ll look into the articles at infidels.org.
Stenger did such a terrible job! I just finished watching it. Stenger did MISERABLE. Can you point to any solid argument you thought he had? I freely admit that sometimes atheists say smart things, or cause pause, or sometimes have really good ‘rhetorical flourishes.’ But I can’t think of one single thing that Stenger said that was good at all.
I have one: Stenger’s point that you have to compare like with like in order to make claims about relative probability went unanswered by Craig.
Can you explain a little more what you are talking about? I just watched it and do not recall hearing him having said that. Was it with regard to fine-tuning possibly?