Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, June 6, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Recently, William Lane Craig has produced a video, based on an essay in a book he and Paul Copan have edited this year “Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics” entitled “Terrible objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument”. I am yet to read the essay, but I must assume it to broadly follow the line of his video of the lecture “Worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument”.
I have a mild obsession with the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) and am poten...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 3, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
As you may have gathered, I object to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. A lot. On my You Tub video about it, a Christian posted something to which i retorted. I then also sent him my extended post rejecting the KCA. He then sent me a video recently taken of Craig refuting objections by internet philosophers of the KCA.
So far I have only watched 19 minutes of it, but based on those 19 minutes, my opinion is pretty damned low. Craig's problem with the circularity picks on a rather bizarre and i... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 25, 2012,
In :
Books
I will soon be writing an extended essay on the Kalam Cosmological Argument as used by William Lane Craig. This has recently been a personal interest of mine as a subject, so it seems obvious that it would be a future choice of subject for a book.
The KCA has been a stalwart defence used by many apologists, particularly Craig. erroneously so, I believe. The essay and book will set out to undermine the KCA in the ways that I have shown already on this blog and in the essay section in my cosmolo... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 11, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a post aimed at getting some answers out of William Lane Craig about his inner witness of the Holy Spirit. John Loftus at DC would like him to answer dome pertinent questions, as you can see:
Most people know that I defend William Lane Craig against the charge that he is dishonest as an apologist. Among skeptics I am his biggest defender, perhaps the only one. But I have just ask...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, December 22, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig, in the video above, cements the sort of views which I
posted in the previous blog entry. Thanks to GearHead Ed who linked this video
in the last blog post. Watch this video, and read the last blog post, and you
shall see that one can conclude the following about Craig’s views:
1)The
Witness of the Holy Spirit / subjective experience of God trumps every other
type of evidence / proof.
2)As
such, there is no contrary evidence whatsoever that would invalidate a bel...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, December 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig has recently posted a Q&A that beggars belief. I'm not sure I need to explain it - I'll let the man talk for himself:
"This is because the resurrection of Jesus is essential to the truth of Christianity. So if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity would be false. So if the bones of Jesus were discovered, that would entail that he did not rise from the dead and so Christianity would be falsified. ...
"So, yes, if the bones of Jesus were to be found, then he did not rise and Chr... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, December 2, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
During William Lane Craig’s recent Reasonable Faith tour to
the UK
where he debated philosophers such as Stephen Law and Peter Millican, Craig
received a vast amount of publicity for having Dawkins refuse to debate him.
However, what was more important to me was either a severe case of
philosophical amnesia, or Craig has dropped the Kalam Cosmological Argument,
which has been a standard part of his three / four / five pronged attack for
decades. Why, I wonder. Well, let me explain.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, November 1, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
This, from the review by Wintery Knight, shows the refutation to the KCA that I have been banging on about for a year or so is being used against Craig in debate. Finally. Well done Peter Millican.
"1. There is no evidence that whatever begins to exist requires a cause. All the evidence we have of things beginning to exist are when something is created from rearrangements of other things that already existed.
The closest analog we have to something coming into being from nothing is quantum part...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, October 28, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, October 20, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to the rebuttals. Craig pointed out in several of his
rebuttals that Law has not, and did not seem to want to, critique the
cosmological argument. Craig does have some beef here as Law seemed to want to
debate Craig’s version of God rather than the more fundamental argument over A
God’s existence. Thus in true debate point-scoring, Law would take a hit here.
However, as Law plainly stated, and I think this was a wise move, this would
have broadened the scope too far and wasn’t im...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, October 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to Law’s opening statements. It’s probably better to
get this from the horse’s mouth - http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-speech-craig-debate.html.
However, I will duly sum up. Law, much to his credit, claimed he was only
interested in defending his position using only one argument, based on the
Evidential Problem of Evil. That being, if God is omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent, then he is able, knows how and is loving enough to want to do
something about all ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
Last night, two friends and I went to the Stephen Law vs
William Lane Craig debate at Westminster
where the two philosophers were debating ‘Does God Exist?’ Craig’s Reasonable
Faith tour has been hotly anticipated by Christians and non-Christians alike,
and with the relative unknown of Stephen Law (in debating terms), there was a
feeling of unpredictability thrown in to the usual wager that Craig would win.
The debate was good, though not necessarily for the
straightforward reason o...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was lucky enough to be in Westminster at the Law vs Craig debate on Craig's Reasonable Faith tour. It was a cracking night. I do not have time to review it yet. Suffice to say that it was probably a draw. The format was good and the contributions good. I thought it was well-narrowed down, and Craig did not produce a scatter-gun approach.
A much larger review to follow.
Also, I got to meet both of them, gave Law my book, and asked Craig a question to which he couldn't answer. Great.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 16, 2011,
In :
Religion
I am going to see William Lane Craig debate Stephen Law tomorrow in Westminster. I am pretty excited, even though the best one can hope for is some kind of philosophical impasse. Anyway, I have penned a couple of questions which I would love the opportunity to ask. I will try and get my tuppence worth in the Q & A:
Given that God is perfect, this must either be the perfect
creation, or the most perfect created parameters that could achieve the best possible outcome. Since plate tectonic which...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 9, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in t...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, October 5, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
A really important point made here in the context of debating William Lane Craig:
"Additionally he has to posit that the most complex state of being possible, God, was uncaused whilst the simplest possible state, empty space, had to have been caused by god." This, as a wider point, is a really concise and acute way of putting across the idea that an eternally existing universe is no more, and even somewhat less, improbable than an eternally existing God. I like it.
"So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers t... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 25, 2011,
In :
Books
I have just rushed off the second part to the critique of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith. It can be found here. Any comments abou tthe critique, please feel free to reply to this blog post. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, April 12, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I am a conceptualist who does not believe in objective
existence. The burden of proof would be on Craig to prove objective existence.
Without this, his whole argument of objective morality falls apart. This is why
he needs to debate a good philosopher who would take him to task on his
foundational assumptions.
There is no such thing as objective morality, because any
idea is subjective. Abstract ideas do not and cannot exist objectively.
It is anthropocentric. Imagine a more intellige...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 4, 2011,
In :
Religion
What annoys me is the fact that by now people should know how to debate Craig. Price and Ahmed pretty much tried the right tack with some success. It sounds close to ad hom, but you need to set your stall out by attacking Craig's methodology. I lie in bed at night sometimes dreaming of how I would debate Craig. This is the definition of sad, I know. He puts himself in an unassailable position in debate terms because he
1) uses a scatter-gun approach that means that you have to answer about 100... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 25, 2011,
In :
Books
William Lane Craig is very famous for his seminal classic "Reasonable Faith" - an apologetic that unashamedly defends Christianity supposedly in a very reason-based manner.
I am in the process of critiquing the book in detail. However, it is slow-going. As a result, and insipred by a conversation on the Amazon review I made of this book, I have put the first part of the critique on the website here: http://atipplingphilosopher.yolasite.com/book-reviews.php.
