Willian Lane Craig's "Five Reasons God Exists"

[Kitsune]

Do you think any rational non believer would be convinced by these?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/ ... p=trending

Steve Novella, even though he rarely touches religion, responded
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... ic-of-god/

[Simon_Jester]

The problem here is the huge psychological disconnect between the author and the people he seeks to convince. The author simply does not understand that to a typical non-Christian of any stripe, there is no need to "explain the events surrounding the Resurrection," to "explain the empty tomb" as I once heard it summed up. Because the account of the Resurrection is found only in the sacred writ of Christianity- which is a history book to the Christian, but at best a work of creative writing to the nonbeliever. The Christian thinks that, because of the Bible, it is historical fact that there is an empty tomb which must be explained by a resurrection; the non-Christian thinks that this is not a historical fact, and that no resurrection is required to explain a thing which didn't happen in the first place.

Right there, that guarantees that the author will completely fail his own objectives with argument (4).

I could go into more detail on how this works out in the other four arguments but lack the time.

[Metahive]

It's an error to presume that apologists like Craig, Plantinga and co. write for the undecided and the unbelievers. No, they write for believers who want reassurance in their faith. Why else do you think they keep repeating the same few and already disproven arguments over and over?

Just consider this, if the christian God were really as close and personal as many believers insist, why would anyone need "logical proofs" of his existence?

[Simon_Jester]

For that matter, people who do have faith may want reassurance that their faith is, well, logical. This may seem like a contradiction, granted. But modern societies are pretty good at instilling into people the idea that things are at least supposed to 'make sense' on some level.

What the author does is reassure his readership that it is logically appropriate to have faith.

[Ahriman238]

I'm a decently religious person, and I'm just embarrassed by this. This is why we need to include logic and rhetoric in high school.

'Most people get offended by thing like the Holocaust. This proves an objective morality, of which God is the only plausible source." Yeah no. Seriously, no. You haven't proved objective morality, a pretty big task in it's own right, and you want to link that to God?

But apparently historians have reached a consensus that Jesus historically existed, performed miracles, and vanished from the tomb at which point all his disciples became convinced of the resurrection. Which historians have you been talking to?

But the one I would consider most offensive were I an atheist is that lots of people over the ages have found comfort and fulfilling lives in religion, therefore religion is true. There are so many holes in this belief I don't even know which ones to start poking at.

[The Vortex Empire]

1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe.[citation needed] Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning.[citation needed] Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause,[citation needed] there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence.[citation needed] This entity must therefore be enormously powerful.[citation needed] Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.[citation needed]

2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.[citation needed] Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life.[citation needed] That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range.[citation needed] There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible,[citation needed] given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.[citation needed]

3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.[citation needed] Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness,[citation needed] and His commandments constitute our moral duties.[citation needed] Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.[citation needed]

4. God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.[citation needed] Historians have reached something of consensus that the historical Jesus thought that in himself God’s Kingdom had broken into human history, and he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as evidence of that fact.[citation needed] Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary.[citation needed] I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one the original disciples gave: God raised Jesus from the dead.[citation needed]

5. God can be personally known and experienced.[citation needed] The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Down through history Christians have found through Jesus a personal acquaintance with God that has transformed their lives.[citation needed]

Yeah, you can't just make these assertions without actually supporting them and expect any rational person to take you seriously. Where's this guys math?

[Kitsune]

For that matter, people who do have faith may want reassurance that their faith is, well, logical. This may seem like a contradiction, granted. But modern societies are pretty good at instilling into people the idea that things are at least supposed to 'make sense' on some level.

What the author does is reassure his readership that it is logically appropriate to have faith.

Does that really work though. . . .
Somebody who is question may look at his arguments and be curious what responses are.
They read the responses but there are no counter responses.

[Dass.Kapital]

.... Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly

Okay...I've seen this comment a few times from Apologists-philosophers and...I really kind of want to know if it is true?

Have philosophers been saying that there was a BB for ages and only now has science/Astronomy/etc caught up....

Or are they just waffling and 'back dating' things to make them-selves look like they are on top of things?

I'm curious about this....does any one have any ideas?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Okay...I've seen this comment a few times from Apologists-philosophers and...I really kind of want to know if it is true?

Have philosophers been saying that there was a BB for ages and only now has science/Astronomy/etc caught up....

Or are they just waffling and 'back dating' things to make them-selves look like they are on top of things?

I'm curious about this....does any one have any ideas?

Philosophers of various stripes have been discussing the origin of the universe for a loooong time, but there was never any sort of consensus on the subject until the 20th century, thanks to science. Even then, it took the form more of discussion about whether the universe was static or changing and whether or not it conformed to platonic mysticism wrt to regular solids (though that thankfully died in the 17th century)

Hell, the pre-socratic philosopher Democritus had the basic ideas behind evolution and uniformitarian geology down.

[Lord of the Abyss]

1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

No, he provides no explanation at all. Where'd God come from? Saying "God did it" just pushes the question back a step and shuts down inquiry.

2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.

No. First, it's easily explained by the Weak Anthropic Principle and the assumption that there are many universes. The universe is "fine tuned for life" for much the same reason Earth is fine tuned for life; if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to notice. And it still fails to answer the question of where God is from and how the universe (or wherever he is) is fine tuned for his existence.

3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness, and His commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.

There's no reason to assume that objective morality exists, or even is desirable; people who talk about "objective morality" always assume that it just happens to perfectly match their morality. If there actually was such a thing as objective morality, how do we know that it actually does condemn something like the Holocaust? If it's objective then it isn't going to be based on subjective human scruples after all.

He asserts without evidence that God is good. But going by how he is portrayed, he's anything but good. There's also the problem that even if his moral guidance was desirable, that's not evidence he's real.

4. God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

As said, there's nothing to explain.

5. God can be personally known and experienced.

No, he can't. In other words, prove it.

And of course there's the overarching error that his "evidence proves the existence of the Christian God, and not some other god, "gods" plural, a goddess, or something else.

[Kitsune]

With Craig, he basically wins all his debate for various reasons but does it really even matter?
All he ever proves is that he is a master debater but if anybody looks at his stuff in any depth, his arguments are really lacking.

[Metahive]

For that matter, people who do have faith may want reassurance that their faith is, well, logical. This may seem like a contradiction, granted. But modern societies are pretty good at instilling into people the idea that things are at least supposed to 'make sense' on some level.

What the author does is reassure his readership that it is logically appropriate to have faith.

The thing is, if you need "logical" evidence to have faith then you've pretty much shown you don't have any. It's like those shmucks who claim to enjoy certain movies by "switching their brains off" but then go on message boards to show that, yes, their no-brain movie totally does make sense. It just pathetic.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't disagree.

I think there are also people out there who are just reassured by being able to say "See? Learned scholars support my opinion!" They personally may have no interest in logicking their way through this issue, because they don't think of that kind of hard serious thought as being "for them." But they want the idea that they're not clinging to a completely vapid idea.

[Metahive]

Well, too bad for them then. Accepting that sometimes you can't eat your cake and have it too is what distinguishes adults from children. My uncle is a pastor and theologian and he never bothers with fallacious logic to justify his faith and never did so back when I had Bible lessons with him.

[Scrib]

The problem here is the huge psychological disconnect between the author and the people he seeks to convince. The author simply does not understand that to a typical non-Christian of any stripe, there is no need to "explain the events surrounding the Resurrection," to "explain the empty tomb" as I once heard it summed up. Because the account of the Resurrection is found only in the sacred writ of Christianity- which is a history book to the Christian, but at best a work of creative writing to the nonbeliever. The Christian thinks that, because of the Bible, it is historical fact that there is an empty tomb which must be explained by a resurrection; the non-Christian thinks that this is not a historical fact, and that no resurrection is required to explain a thing which didn't happen in the first place.

Right there, that guarantees that the author will completely fail his own objectives with argument (4).

I could go into more detail on how this works out in the other four arguments but lack the time.

And this sort of blindness or special treatment of Christian doctrine shows in everything.

Since you're busy I'll expand:His first arguments all fail immediately becaue of this. There is a cause and this cause is God is immediately problematic to anyone not a Christian. How does it follow that this theoretical "God" is the Christian God and not some unknowable being? It obviously doesn't, but the same huge blindspot that lead to people taking Pascal's Wager seriously rears its head. My belief is true, therefore it has special status therefore X must mean my belief. It is always entertaining to see others fall into these sorts of holes.

With Craig, he basically wins all his debate for various reasons but does it really even matter?
All he ever proves is that he is a master debater but if anybody looks at his stuff in any depth, his arguments are really lacking.

I remember reading a few articles about this that went back a long way and they were pretty scathing wrt what they consider his sophistry. His insistence on debating people like Dawkins, who is not a philosopher, on philosophical topics thus removing the strongest tool in Dawkins' arsenal, his ability to throw so many things at the wall that it's difficult to refute, all great strategy.

He's definitely a hitman for his fellows who need someone who walks and talks like a credible academic so he can affirm their bullshit.All the better if he takes on these supposed atheist messiahs and doesn't come out looking like a fool. If people on message boards debunk his arguments, who cares? No one reads those things anyway

3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness, and His commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Question here: does God even solve the problem of objective moral values? People have been slowly pushing me to see this like the Is-Ought gap-a problem without a clear solution. So what if God claims that his moral values are important and transcendent. So? What do we mean by objective moral values here? The only useful definition that I can see is that God has the "Stick" and so determines what is right from a utilitarian perspective by warping the universe around him. But Christians seem to have no interest in this, as mentioned above they want to have their cake and eat it. God determines good and evil, and it's good and evil because God is conveniently good in a manner we can accept. (I wonder why no one pulled this shit on Socrates)

Otherwise isn't this just an assertion like those that deal with the Is-Ought gap? You can assert all you want that God gives objective moral values, but it doesn't matter a lick to someone who believes that torture is wrong and takes those as his/her values now does it? The only difference now is that God can punish this person.

[Spoonist]

The Christian thinks that, because of the Bible, it is historical fact that there is an empty tomb which must be explained by a resurrection; the non-Christian thinks that this is not a historical fact, and that no resurrection is required to explain a thing which didn't happen in the first place.

What is even more strange is that they ignore the bible.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=NIV
The first explanation that crossed the minds of Mary and the disciples was not a ressurection - it was that someone had stolen the body and taken it away. The stone had been removed so graverobbers was the most likely explanation for the actual people described in the bible.
JC needed to show up and talk to each individual disciple to get them to consider the ressurrection angle...

[Replicant]

This arrogant condescending shit is why atheists really hate religious types.

[Channel72]

The problem here is the huge psychological disconnect between the author and the people he seeks to convince. The author simply does not understand that to a typical non-Christian of any stripe, there is no need to "explain the events surrounding the Resurrection," to "explain the empty tomb" as I once heard it summed up. Because the account of the Resurrection is found only in the sacred writ of Christianity- which is a history book to the Christian, but at best a work of creative writing to the nonbeliever. The Christian thinks that, because of the Bible, it is historical fact that there is an empty tomb which must be explained by a resurrection; the non-Christian thinks that this is not a historical fact, and that no resurrection is required to explain a thing which didn't happen in the first place.

Yeah, Craig makes such a big deal about the empty tomb, even when debating with atheists.

Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary.

As surprising as it might be to atheists, a lot of the more intellectually-minded Christians actually take this argument pretty seriously. The general argument is that: as far as standards for historical validation go, the empty tomb is one of the most well-testified and independently corroborated incidents in history, since it's recorded in 4 independent sources (and possibly vaguely referred to in Paul's epistles.) In comparison to a lot of events in secular history (like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Alexander conquering the Persians, etc.) that's actually a lot of verification. Consider that, for example, Julius Caesar's assassination is only recorded by two sources, Suetonius and Plutarch, (writing decades after the event), and yet nobody doubts Caesar's assassination or considers it fictional.

I don't buy the argument, but it's a very common argument in Christian apologetics circles. The best refutation is really that:

(1) The actual scholarly consensus regarding the Gospels is that they are not 4 independent sources, but the Synoptics at least are derived from the same 2 sources, and it's entirely possible that the Empty Tomb story only comes from 1 source, "Mark", who was later copied by the other evangelists.

(2) The earliest manuscripts of Mark do have the Empty Tomb story, but do not include any post-Resurrection appearances, which gives the impression that these were later fabricated in response to the obvious explanation that Jesus's body was stolen or whatever.

(3) The events recorded in secular history which allegedly have worse attestation/corroboration than the empty tomb, like Caesar's assassination, are taken for granted mostly because there is nothing supernatural or extraordinary about these claims, and so we are warranted to believe them with less evidence.

Incidentally, there's a really fantastic and comprehensive overview of the historicity of the empty tomb by Peter Kirby, a specialist in Early Christian Writings. You can read it here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/