is on a debate tour of Britain. Apparently Polly Toynbee pulled out of debating him. I heard on Uncommon Descent that a replacement had been found. (I’d emailed WLC to volunteer myself! – but I guess it has to be Somebody.)
I’m starting this thread to house any comments about the tour and the debate.
Then you should be ashamed that in thirty-four years you have not grown emotionally enough to introduce yourself in public without calling people that you’ve just met cowards.
Arguments for god. Have any of you ever read W.L. Craig’s website? If not, I’ll dig up the links. He’s shockingly not smart for all the credit he gets. It’s very weird.
I agree with BWE on this one. Lane Craig is one of the many people who have a following, but are not really worthy of one. Many if not most of his arguments have fundamental flaws to them. They may have logical consistency to them, but they have as much bearing on reality as
1) boojums exist
2) a snark is a type of boojum
3) therefore snarks exist. (the snark is a boojum, you see)
Craig’s arguments always have an unsupportable assertion. At least, I haven’t found any that don’t and I read almost his whole website once. Perhaps he saves his good arguments for a private audience.
Professor Weirdo,
Professor Weirdo,
Professor Weirdo,
Sure, I’ll take you on, but keep in mind, I work 40 days a week, so it would have to be on a weekend. Also, I live in the Baltimore area. If you really want to debate, an online voice debate would be the most convenient for the both of us. Let’s see how courageous you really are.
Elizabeth,
You expressed interest in a live debate with WLC. He of course denied that request. I then challenged you to replace WLC. You denied that request. You remained interested in a written debate. Let’s do it. I prefer to do it with email. I don’t have time to debate 7 people at once. email me at bobsmith99 at catholic.org but keep in mind that just because my email is at catholic doesn’t mean I’m catholic.
Written is fine, as long as we can spread it out a bit, as I’m very busy right now. But why email? Why not a public forum, like here?
I don’t see a great deal of point in having a private email debate!
Elizabeth,
like I said, I don’t feel like debating 7 people at once. If you go on UD and you manage to respond to take on 7 opponents at one time, then I’ll reconsider it.
also, we can publish the debate after it’s over,
I suggest that you debate here. Ask Elizabeth to setup a special topic that requests that nobody other than the two of you post comments until it is agreed (by both of you) that the debate is over.
There have been a couple of occasions when I’ve found myself defending a minority position against several opponents and I agree it’s difficult, not to say time-consuming.
I also remember a few years back there was an online debate where, as has been suggested, the debate itself was on one thread for just the two protagonists and there was a separate comments thread for anyone else running in parallel. Moderators made sure anyone trying to butt in to the debate thread was thrown out.
I know I would be interested to see a written debate between Noam Ghish and Lizzie and I would promise to stay out of it.
Elizabeth can use her magical guano powers for that.
@ Noam Ghish
Indeed, what on Earth is the point of a private email exchange? Unless they are to be published, in which case, what is the point of a private email exchange!?
It is a simple matter to restrict a thread here to designated commenters. Or indeed to have an exchange of thread posts, the details agreed beforehand. So don’t have to respond to anyone other than Lizzie who can be your sole “opponent” assuming she’s able to spare the time.
There are many internet debates that take place in a civilized manner; just decide what’s acceptable to you. If facing a barrage of comments from other commenters is all that bothers you, it’s easily sorted.
Neil Rickert,
sounds like a great solution to me. i’m all for it.
Ah, I see. Why publish afterwards. What’s the problem with publishing immediately? Material in the public domain is clear and immune from revision. How can Lizzie be sure that publication will be guaranteed if she agrees to keep it private initially? She could go to a lot of trouble to no purpose.
Pretty sure this can be handled in the software. It could also be an exchange of thread posts and these could be entirely comment restricted with a separate thread for the popcorn and peanuts.
Yeah well, my comments were in preparation. 🙂
That’s entirely understandable, Noam. Over at Talk Rational we sometimes set up “Exclusive Engagement threads” and debate threads, for exactly that reason, and we can do that here. BWE is experienced at chairing such a debate, and we can set it up so that only you and I can post in the thread.
Yes I am experienced at moderating such debates. When I get home today I will check out the admin panel here and set up the thread for the debate and moderate it if that’s what you want.
We need a resolution and a format.
How long between posts, word count (including whether quotes count as word count), and any other rules you want to establish.
No hurry, BWE, as I am up to my ears in stuff right now, and things won’t thin out till at least mid October. Long lost relatives (brother-in-law and family) are arriving from Australia next week, then the following week I’m off to Budapest, then long-lost relatives from America (sister and family) the week after that!
But it would be great if Noam could propose a motion, and you could sort out the software 🙂
Will do it.
bwe moderating is fine. as far as word count per response i think there should be no limit. i would like to set up topics and we could debate each topic. i could propose 3 topics and you could propose 3 topics and we could debate each in turn. going off topic i think is inevitable so there need be no hard and fast rule about staying on topic, it would just be a general guideline. here are the three topic i propose
1. the physicalism/dualism debate
2. the god of the gaps argument
3. the liu article on the bacterial flagellum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852327/
Twenty quatloos on the Febble!
Having seen the topics, I expect an interesting debate.
You work “40 days a week”? Somehow, I think you meant to type “hours” instead of “days”…[shrug] mistyping happens to the best of us…
Anywho, I really don’t think you understood the Prof’s offer, which (it’s pretty clear) was meant as a reducto ad absurdum of your expressed you-gotta-do-exactly-as-I-say-or-you’re-a-stinkin’-coward position.
It would be simple enough to have it here, and just limit it to the two of you. If email, you could post the back and forth here.
Actually she just did that and creamed them all.
I’d be happy to start with number 1 (I was going to post something on that anyway, at some stage).
As I said, I’m pretty tied up until mid-October, but if you’d like to prepare an opening statement, that would be great.
cheers
Lizzie
Is physicalism really the only alternative to dualism? Hmm. I need to get out more.
I do not consider myself a dualist. I also do not consider myself a physicalist.
Perhaps others would consider me a physicalist. But it seems to me that whether everything is physical is to be discovered empirically and not assumed a priori.
Hmm, come to think of it, Berkeley’s idealism is neither physicalist nor dualist.
So too with Schopenhauer.
No. In any case, physicalism doesn’t necessarily preclude some kind of dualism. Nor does dualism necessarily preclude physicalism. If we interpret both rather broadly.
Here is a link to the audio of the Stephen Law vs William Craig debate that took place last evening.
What happened to Noamh Gish?
William Lane Craig gave himself a bit of a logical problem during his opening statement.
He said if the universe has always existed, then it would have an infinite number number of events in its past.
Wouldn’t that also apply to god then?
If god was never caused, but has always existed, then he too would have an infinte number of events in his past.
How?
Nothing existed to create an event for god to experience.
That means nothing to remember.
If god has always existed, he has no past or memories that existed before he “created” the universe.
So, how concious was god before he created the universe?
For how long did god have to put up with having no memories?
The answer would be forever, since god predates the universe by a value of “infinity”.
Does Craig think that the creator of the stars we see and the planet that we walk on, needs to call on physical matter to be necessary causes?
In other words, why does an omnipotent being need help?
If an omnipotent being does **not** need help, then it’s clear that it is the Israeli soldiers who were being judged, and they failed.
So murder is now a victim-less crime?
Toronto,
If Craig is right that “those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy”, murder isn’t any kind of crime, victimless or otherwise. Rather, if Craig is right about that, murder is the greatest favor one could possibly do for another person. Doesn’t seem like Craig has thought this through very well…
Cubist,
The scary thing, is that there are people who will defend Craig’s conclusions.
One would have to take that one sentence out of context, ignore all of the surrounding morality and theology, to reach that conclusion.
The person that hasn’t “thought it through” is you, not Craig.
What does Craig mean by the term “omnipotent”? What **you** mean by the term is irrelevant to Craig’s argument.
Is there anything that Craig could ever (hypothetically) say that couldn’t then be defended by saying “oh, but you have to consider it in the context of everything else he says!”?
Looks like you’ve written him a blank cheque to say anything at all, no matter how inane.
Might as well make Craig’s works into the Third Testament of the Bible.
When the context is utterly discarded and the single statement used as if it defined all the theology and morality in question, it’s not a question of defending Craig, but rather pointing out the flaws in the argument that hinges upon a misrepresentation of the quote-mined comment.
“What makes one happy” is not considered in Christian theology or in law to be sufficient warrant to render any action moral or legal. There is far more to consider, both in morality and law, than just “what makes one happy”.
It’s the conclusion, the bottom line, that is being questioned.
Is it okay, sometimes, for soldiers to be ordered to kill all civilians, including the innocent, in this case children?
A truly “objective” moral code would not allow it.
God can no more “allow” murder than our own law-makers can.
If it’s the law, it’s the law, ..for everyone.
No god can allow “selective” morality.
If he’s given us an absolute moral code, he has to assume we’re goint to follow it absolutely.
If god ever tells you to “steal” from someone, it’s up to you to say no.
A concluding statement bereft of context.
You are mistaking the directions towards a goal for the goal itself. No “moral code” is objective; the purpose it describes or is trying to achieve is what is objective.
To illustrate: if the purpose is to get to Dallas, then the instructions one receives in Oklahoma City from a perfect instructor reads : “head south”, while the instructions a person in Austin receives is “head north”.
The instructions appear to be contradictory when they are taken out of the context of the objective goal and the relative positions of the people who are attempting to reach the goal.
Context is everything.
Finally.
The instructions, “Thou shalt not kill”, are **not** the actual moral code.
The “Ten Commandments” are not to be taken literally.
How you are expected to behave, is specific to “you”.
The moral code for each of us is determined subjectively.
What do you mean “finally”? I’ve always maintained that moral are subjective while the good (purpose) they describe (in terms of oughts) is objective.
You said it here;
Murray:
You are mistaking the directions towards a goal for the goal itself. No “moral code” is objective; the purpose it describes or is trying to achieve is what is objective.
Consequentialism (aka Utilitarianism):
“Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one’s conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission) is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence.” — Wikipedia
Once again; you take something out of context; not only that, you do not even say where you took the quote from.
From the thread “Religion’s Misguided Missiles”, posted on Sept. 12:
The moral rules we are all subject to are those which categorically get us closer to, or fulfill, our objective purpose. Some of those, as in the “getting to Dallas” analogy, can appear to be contradictory; that doesn’t mean that all moral statements are subjective to the point of including apparently contradictory statements. For example, torturing infants for personal pleasure is always wrong, and no subjective position variance will ever make it a good thing to do.
That doesn’t change the fact that “torturing infants for pleasure is immoral” is a subjective moral statement, any more than “an orange is a orange fruit” is a subjective description of a thing we accept to be objectively existent. A subjective description of an orange might include apparently contradictory statements like “it tastes good” or “it tastes bad” or “hard to peel” and “easy to peel” and they all might be subjectively true and objectively acceptable statements about the orange; but one cannot subjectively and truthfully claim that the orange is a ten-foot mammal because that is objectively not true of the thing being subjectively described.
I fail to see how your comment relates to the quote you provided.
In any event, I need to amend what I said; not all morals refer to an objective goal; I was talking about theistic morality. Non-theistic morality is a subjective description of a subjective goal, and is referred to as “morality” or “ethics” only in a rhetorical sense, and are ultimately incoherent.