| unluckynumber11 |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 03:38 PM | Reply with quote #61 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by lucidQuote: Originally Posted by unluckynumber11
You say that Craig shouldn't be making arguments for something he already believes.
Nope, I'm saying that his enterprise is a sham because what he already believes is entirely subjective and circular, and entails the pre-determined, automatic rejection of any counter arguments offered in return. As I said earlier, he is simply biased and dogmatic in this regard so his whole debating enterprise is nothing more than a GAME or SHAM. He doesn't behave like an honest philosopher/scientist/historian, he is just behaving like any other faith head you see on the street corner.
If he was arguing for something he believed in for objective reasons and was open to actually listening to his opponents and perhaps changing his mind instead of smearing them with the term "unbeliver" or "unsaved", then you might have a point.
But he's not, so you don't.
 You seem to not even mention the fact that your logic would entail the scenario that I have just present, so I'm going to assume that you agree with me. As such, in order to believe Craig's "enterprise" is a "sham" one would have to assume he is wrong in the first place. |
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| WLCFan |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 03:51 PM | Reply with quote #62 |
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| Meh, not necessarily. He could just be doing it all for the wrong reasons, or in a deceitful manner (which he is, by the way). |
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| unluckynumber11 |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 03:53 PM | Reply with quote #63 |
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| Well there you have folks, WLCFan has spoken. Move along now. |
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| lucid |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 04:27 PM | Reply with quote #64 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by WLCFanLucid, Craig outright admitted that he isn't concerned about reason. If every of his word-game 'arguments' were proven wrong, that wouldn't reduce his conviction at all that God is real. Craig is a self-proclaimed 'philosopher' who believes in the existence of the supernatural based principally on the 'warm feeling' it gives him. Enough said.
He is only interested in justifying his beliefs ad-hoc to make himself and his insecure followers feel better.
Yah yah, precisely. |
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| CrashTestAuto |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 04:49 PM | Reply with quote #65 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Lawlessone777Again prior to breaking down this post I'll again have to note that I do complain about fisking in other posts, but in this circumstance I'm going to have to cover each individual complaint on it's own basis so I will quote your post separately to cover the subject matter.
Quote: Lawless, again you are missing the point. I honestly can't tell if you don't understand how fallacies work, or if you are misunderstanding my point. Let me be very clear, an ad hom fallacy is only a logical fallacy if it is made in a logical argument, i.e.:
1) Craig made some arguments.
2) Craig doesn't believe his conclusions because of his arguments.
Therefore, Craig's arguments are false.
This is a logical fallacy, but I am not making this argument. I am actually undermining an actual fallacy made by some theist, the appeal to authority:
1) Craig made some arguments.
2) Craig believes these arguments are true, and has two doctorates.
Therefore, Craig's arguments are good.
Crash I'm going to have to point out that I honestly do know what a logical fallacy is, I know that what is being presented in this thread is obviously fallacious, and I know that you're simply trying to rationalize your obvious logical fallacies. I'm not "misunderstanding" what you're saying, I know exactly what you're saying, I'm simply not accepting your weak rationalization of it not being a logical fallacy.
As for your claim above, absolutely no one on this board supports the arguments of WLC by stating, "Dr. Craig said it, so it's true." I've only ever once appealed to Dr. Craigs credentials and that's when someone accused him of falsely declaring that a certain subject was a "majority view" when he is clearly well respected in his field, and would obviously know better than a random person on the internet what the state of philosophy is.
Each of one of us defends the pro-theistic arguments presented by WLC by logically deducing them, by presenting evidence, and by discussing and studying the subject. I've dedicated 80+ hours to WLC's podcasts and defenders classes alone, not counting the research material and books I've read on the subject. I have absolutely no need to appeal to WLC's credentials to support my claims, nor does any well studied apologist, I can defend them on my own quite fine.
You're also switching gears. You earlier claimed that WLC's only motive for supporting his arguments is because he believed in Christ, and now you're saying you were simply trying to speak against the believer's claim that his arguments are sound because he has two doctorates. You're changing your subject, and again I'm simply not accepting your weak rationalization of ad homs and appeals to motive. Quote: Now, I have avoided calling this a fallacy because I hate when the word gets overused here. Appeals to authority are not always misguided, and it is actually one of my lesser favoured tactics of Craig to throw out the word so frequently.
I have said repeatedly that I reject Craig's arguments on their own merits. They are awful. What this thread, and all of my posts in it relate to, are the reasons why someone as intelligent as Craig is seen to be presenting such patently unsupported claims. It is an argument against an appeal to authority, not against Craig's arguments.
And here you're simply applying your own bias of the situation and claiming that these arguments are awful. If these arguments are truly awful then why does every single atheist that steps onto the debating stage with WLC fail to rebut them? Honestly, I've studied all of the rebuttals of the Kalam argument and others and they almost universally stem from either a misunderstanding of the argument itself, or from the opponents willingness to adhere to a very high intellectual price tag in order to try and undermine one of the premises.
Please don't try and rationalize, this thread and your responses, as well as the video that was linked, is blatantly and obviously attempting to undermine the quality of WLC's arguments by making an appeal to motives. If you think that the arguments are bad, debate the arguments, leave the person presenting the arguments out of it.
Besides the whole claim is obviously ridiculous. You're complaining that the only people who adhere to and support the Kalam argument are theists? Well of course! How much more obvious can that be? If they believe the Kalam argument to be true, and it seeks to prove God's existence, then of course those people would believe in God! How absurd and ridiculous a proposition to claim that the belief of the debater somehow speaks for, or against, the quality of the argument. Do you expect there to be atheists who attest that the Kalam argument is both sound and correct? If they did, they wouldn't be atheists. I mean honestly, of course WLC is trying to save souls. So am I. Accusing our arguments of being questionable because of the motive that we're trying to save souls is like saying an Architect's blueprints are questionable because he obviously wants to build a building. Seriously, that's just silly.
This entire post is an utter misrepresentation of pretty much every position it attempts to describe, including your own. Of course people appeal to Craig's credentials, that's how academics works. There is a reason that people include citations in papers and essays, and that is because it adds weight to an argument.
I've also seen you misdescribe both a deductive argument and a question-begging argument despite me very slowly correcting you, so I wish you'd stop just asserting that you know this stuff. Describing my arguments as weak rationalisations is pointless, as I clearly disagree, and saying that isn't really going to convince me.
Pretty much every atheist who steps on stage with Craig has rebutted them, but Craig is an excellent rhetorician and manages to obscure the details. No philosopher bar Craig accepts these arguments. Heck, not even every theist on this board accepts these arguments. They don't work. |
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| lucid |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 05:05 PM | Reply with quote #66 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by CrashTestAuto
No philosopher bar Craig accepts these arguments. Heck, not even every theist on this board accepts these arguments. They don't work.
Yes I remember a thread a while back asking which of Craig's arguments were the weakest and the responses from some of the believers here were quite surprising.
Since all of his arguments have been debunked, what or rather who are we left with?
Just another dogmatic theist who no longer has the ability to change his mind. |
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| CrashTestAuto |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 05:09 PM | Reply with quote #67 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by lucid
Yes I remember a thread a while back asking which of Craig's arguments were the weakest and the responses from some of the believers here were quite surprising.
Since all of his arguments have been debunked, what or rather who are we left with?
Just another dogmatic theist who no longer has the ability to change his mind.
I really don't get it, especially the KCA. I mean, the whole thing hinges on the idea that WLC is capable of intuiting pre-Big Bang physics, and we're meant to take it seriously. Beyond the fact that he has two doctorates (which apparently we aren't supposed to consider), why on Earth would we??? |
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| WLCFan |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 05:11 PM | Reply with quote #68 |
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| We would take them seriously in an attempt to justify, a priori, our poorly reasoned belief in the supernatural. |
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| lucid |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 05:20 PM | Reply with quote #69 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by CrashTestAuto
I really don't get it, especially the KCA. I mean, the whole thing hinges on the idea that WLC is capable of intuiting pre-Big Bang physics, and we're meant to take it seriously. Beyond the fact that he has two doctorates (which apparently we aren't supposed to consider), why on Earth would we???
Ha! Yes, given how bonkers and mysterious the universe appears to be, we might as well listen to a dogmatic theologian who already knows that Jesus did it... |
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| harvey1 |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 05:58 PM | Reply with quote #70 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by lucid
Yes I remember a thread a while back asking which of Craig's arguments were the weakest and the responses from some of the believers here were quite surprising.
Since all of his arguments have been debunked, what or rather who are we left with?
Just another dogmatic theist who no longer has the ability to change his mind.
I saw how you distorted my argument, so I'm not impressed with your conclusions here. Impress me and then I'll re-evaluate my opinion. |
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| Lightfoot |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 07:08 PM | Reply with quote #71 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by lucidQuote: Originally Posted by Lightfootlucid, Quote: There is no doctrine of biology which one must adhere to religiously. Darwin was wrong in some ways, so were Watson and Crick. Biology is based on evidence and observation.
So are your saying-- scientists are not prone to bias or haven't falsified results?
No, I'm saying that there is no unquestionable doctrine of biology. This was a direct response to a false comparison made earlier. Read back. You guys trip over yourselves constantly trying to defend this guy and just ignore it when someone points it out, moving instead to some completely different thread of argument.
There doesn't have to be a "doctrine of biology"-
All that one has to show is that people can have their own bias. Robert Price sounded afraid of Craig to be honest, and went outside of the debate format to attack issues from reasonable faith. The whole problem here is that Robert Price will have his own bias and commitments to his own worldview.
If what Craig says is true, than regardless of his own bias, what is true will be true.
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| Lightfoot |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 07:14 PM | Reply with quote #72 |
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CrashTestAuto,
I noticed a large number of atheists on this board seem to not fully understand the Kalam as an "argument"
It is not meant to be a "drop down-knock out argument"- That isn't the claim. All that it tries to do is show reasonable reasons for believing that something like God started this whole process. Even Hawking (who is an atheist) has said- "as long as their is a beginning one can suppose a creator"
That is the extent of the argument. Are there good reasons to believe something, and what is more plausible. Craig clearly has a winning position If you factor in the science of the 'beginning of the universe'-we head into metaphysics, and clearly, Craig's argument gains force.
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| Blake1960 |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 10:12 PM | Reply with quote #73 |
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Logorrhea ad infinitum.
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| Satarack |
| Posted 04/26/12 at 11:33 PM | Reply with quote #74 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by CrashTestAutoI really don't get it, especially the KCA. I mean, the whole thing hinges on the idea that WLC is capable of intuiting pre-Big Bang physics, and we're meant to take it seriously. Beyond the fact that he has two doctorates (which apparently we aren't supposed to consider), why on Earth would we???
Dr. Craig is manifestly not proposing any physics. Science and Physics are not the only means of determining truth. One of the central axioms of Science is that the universe obeys the rules of logic. If it didn't, then it would make no sense to try to find an underlying physics. If the universe didn't follow consistent rules then there simply wouldn't be any Physics or Science at all.
As long as it is true that the universe is logical, then even if we have no specific Physics for the pre-big bang state then, regardless of what the Physics actually is, it would have to obey the rules of logic as well. Therefore, it is possible to know something about it using Philosophy.
If Dr. Craig's argument is true then it doesn't tell us what the Physics prior to the big bang is: what it tells us is that, regardless of what the Physics might be, at some point God had to start the process. That without God to act as the efficient cause for the universe coming into being then the Universe would never have existed at all.
Why? Because the first premise, he argues, is true by the fact that the negation of the premise is logically absurd. If you have any statement, then either that statement is true or false, so:
Either P or not P.
If you can show that not P is false, then it follows logically that P.
Either P or not P Not not P Therefore P
This is called a disjunctive syllogism, and it is one of the basic forms of logical arguments (along with others like Modus Tolens, Modus Ponens, etc.)
In this case P is, "Everything that comes into existence has an efficient cause for it coming into existence." So not P would be, "It is not the case that everything that comes into existence has an efficient cause for it coming into existence." If not P is true, then some things could come into existence without any cause for it.
The problem is, if that is true, then there is no logical reason why only Universes might come into existence uncaused. If only Universes can do this, then you're saying that there is some restriction on the powers of uncaused becoming; but uncaused itself means that not anything was responsible for causing it. So how does this restriction exist if not anything is responsible for the event? A restriction implies the existence of something that is being restricted, in this case being restricted in its powers to cause things to come into existence, but the event is supposed to have not anything that caused it; therefore there is not anything on which this restriction can be placed.
It follows logically therefore that if some things can come into existence uncaused, then logically any thing can come into being uncaused. Therefore, if you want to affirm that not everything that comes into existences has a cause; you must accept that it is logically possible for a banana to come into existence, uncaused, protruding from your computer monitor; or that a Sperm whale and a flower pot could come into existence 1000 feet above the surface of the earth. No explanation needs to be given, because things that come into existence don't require a cause if the first premise is false.
Given therefore that this is patently absurd, and further it would contradict Science and Physics (for example, it would contradict the conservation of Energy, because new matter coming into existence would introduce new energy), then that gives us good grounds for believing that not P is false. Going back to the disjunctive syllogism, "Either P or not P," is a tautology, "not P" is false which means, "not not P," is true. Thus it follows, "Therefore P." |
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| CrashTestAuto |
| Posted 04/27/12 at 02:31 AM | Reply with quote #75 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Lightfoot
CrashTestAuto,
I noticed a large number of atheists on this board seem to not fully understand the Kalam as an "argument"
It is not meant to be a "drop down-knock out argument"- That isn't the claim. All that it tries to do is show reasonable reasons for believing that something like God started this whole process. Even Hawking (who is an atheist) has said- "as long as their is a beginning one can suppose a creator"
That is the extent of the argument. Are there good reasons to believe something, and what is more plausible. Craig clearly has a winning position If you factor in the science of the 'beginning of the universe'-we head into metaphysics, and clearly, Craig's argument gains force.
An interesting take, but I don't see how it is plausible. WLC presents the KCA as a logically deductive argument. The conclusion is meant to, in his words, 'necessarily follow' from the premises. If the KCA isn't a knockdown argument, then there must be something wrong with it. A deductive argument, where the conclusion might be false is, is by definition an invalid argument.
A non-knockdown argument would look like:
Evolution happens in a way that doesn't seem to require a designer.
Therefore there is no designer.
It isn't logically deductive, and it isn't meant to be. It is just a non-deductive reason to throw onto the atheism pile. You could do the same with 'The Bible exists and I feel it is true." |
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