"Is There Evidence for God?" Craig v Krauss

[Recusant]

Dr. William Lane Craig is a slick, well-practiced debater, but after the third or fourth time hearing his spiel (I guess I have an abnormally high tolerance for bullshit) I decided he's also a tiresome bore.  He's content to bring the same set of arguments to every appearance he makes, with few if any innovations in his presentation.  He's very good at what he does, though.  It doesn't matter that the content of his arguments has been torn into tiny bits of dreck in various places, on numerous occasions.  Usually he's performing in front of a mostly sympathetic audience, and he and they believe in the taffy and hand-waving.

Dr. Lawrence Krauss is an eminent physicist, a professor and occasional speaker on topics related to atheism and/or physics.  He says he doesn't like debates, and he certainly is not as proficient as Craig in that format.  However, the topic of this debate apparently was one that he felt was compelling enough that he chose to participate.

The sound quality is abysmal in this video.  For pretty much the entirety of it, there is an annoying 60 cycle hum and the mikes on the participants, especially Krauss, produce an unpleasantly over-modulated sound.

I happen to be something a fan of Krauss, though, so to me it was worth it.  I admit skipping over some of Craig's yammerings, and because of this it's impossible for me to say who I think "won" this debate.  Krauss, though not in his element (he's much better giving talks on physics and cosmology) does a reasonable job, while obviously outclassed in the debate format by Craig.

Direct link: THE GREAT DEBATE: IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR GOD? Presented at North Carolina State University by Campus Crusade for Christ

Promotional Page

[Whitney]

I listened to this live....I missed the part where Craig actually presented anything that could be called evidence. Well, other than him basically stating that whatever was the thing that caused the universe is god (describing it in such a way that god could be the big bang or the multi-verse).

Did all the power point slides show up in the recording?  In the live broadcast they were down for most of the debate.

[freeservant]

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011 ... rauss.html


Craig is an excellent logician and I fail to see that his arguments have been refuted as they are certainly sound in that if the premises are valid then the conclusion is true.  You may find that he keeps presenting them because he would welcome a valid refutation as this would present genuine challenge.

Consider the law of the excluded middle

A proposition can not be both true and false.

So if I submit that the proposition regarding the existence of God is true then it follows that the atheist shares a burden in regarding proving the negation.

Do most atheist claim to have evidence for atheism?  Is there a strong atheology that gives them an apologetic to give defense of that view?  When atheist talk of evidence it begs the question of what they define as evidence?

consider what is evidence: http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/20 ... dence.html

I don't profess to have all truths or knowledge but what I find out there points to the Christian God.  And with an open mind I can recognize what counts as evidence and a logical coherent worldview need not have all the entailment's hammered down for one to feel one is on the right track.

There is even an argument about what is truth: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... a_of_truth

[fester30]

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/03/william-lane-craig-vs-lawrence-krauss.html


Craig is an excellent logician and I fail to see that his arguments have been refuted as they are certainly sound in that if the premises are valid then the conclusion is true.  You may find that he keeps presenting them because he would welcome a valid refutation as this would present genuine challenge.

Consider the law of the excluded middle

A proposition can not be both true and false.

So if I submit that the proposition regarding the existence of God is true then it follows that the atheist shares a burden in regarding proving the negation.

Do most atheist claim to have evidence for atheism?  Is there a strong atheology that gives them an apologetic to give defense of that view?  When atheist talk of evidence it begs the question of what they define as evidence?

consider what is evidence: http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/20 ... dence.html

I don't profess to have all truths or knowledge but what I find out there points to the Christian God.  And with an open mind I can recognize what counts as evidence and a logical coherent worldview need not have all the entailment's hammered down for one to feel one is on the right track.

There is even an argument about what is truth: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... a_of_truth

Here is a thread where atheists and theists when back and forth on the question of whether we can disprove God.  This went on and on for days.  http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6459

Of course, you can only go so far when attempting to prove a negative.  However, the burden of proof is not on me, but on the person trying to tell me that the supernatural exists.  I simply don't care whether or not someone believes in God.  My beautiful wife does and that doesn't bother me a bit.  The religious, however, seem to have a mission of proselytizing.

[Stevil]

I don't know if I am going to be able to watch the whole debate, certainly not in one sitting.

Craig's first argument was based on the Cosmological Argument.
1. Everything that exists has an explaination of its existence...
2. The Universe exists
3. If the Universe has an explaination for that existence, then that explaination is God.
4. Therefore the explaination of the universe is God.

My personal reaction to this argument is that this is a very dishonest argument. The debater must know the appaulingly obvious fallicy and hence is resorting to underhanded, dishonest and intentionally misleading tactics for the purpose of "winning" a debate. He simply cannot believe this is evidence of anything (not even in simply raising the probability of God by a miniscule fraction of a percent). Why does he so quickly resort to such a bad argument? Does this mean he has no honest and semi convincing argument in support of his stance? Does he take the audience for fools? Is he really an atheist in disguise with the intent of making theists look like idiots?

In case you are wondering, the issue with the argument is this:
Statement 3 makes a baseless assumption that there is a God which is outside SpaceTime reality and that the God was the cause of the Universe. There is no attempt to prove the god's existence, there is no attempt other than a feable tounge in cheek suggestion that the only alternative is for abstract objects like the number 7.  By abstract objects, I take it that he means "Concepts" rather that existent objects. He very cheekily tries to seperate the God concept as being something other than an abstract object so that he can discredit abstract objects and leave himself only with God, however his discredit of abstract objects also discredits the God concept. If God is something other than an abstract concept then he has not gone to the trouble to explain why god can be the only non abstract concept outside of SpaceTime reality.
Statement 4 is exactly the same as statement 3, only worded slightly differently, so basically he is saying that his conclusion is not only based on an assumption but that his conclusion IS the assumption. With regards to this argument you could simply replace the injection of God in statement 3 with any conceptual object which is not proven to be only a concept e.g. Pink unicorn, Sasquache, Loch Ness, Santa Claus, Dr Who, Lister... and your conclusion in Statement 4 would be none other than Pink unicorn, Sasquache, Loch Ness, Santa Claus, Dr Who, Lister...
This is such a dishonest argument, surely theists have something better.

Also of note, with regards to his set up for the debate, I noticed a technique he used. He set the bar very high, suggesting that it could be proven that the probability of God is more than 50%. He then avoids having to prove this noting that the debate is not about proving this high bar, but leaves the audience thinking that maybe he could actually prove it if necessary. He then drops the bar much, much lower, giving the audience the appearance that he is tasked with a very easy proposition, almost trivial, given what could be proved (but which is left to the audience's imagination since that is not the objective for today). This is a cheep but effective trick, but shows very quickly that this guy is slick and slippery and needs to resort to cheap tricks because the meat of his arguments are likely not strong enough to stand by themselves.

[freeservant]

Consider the law of the excluded middle

A proposition can not be both true and false.

So if I submit that the proposition regarding the existence of God is true then it follows that the atheist shares a burden in regarding proving the negation.

Do most atheist claim to have evidence for atheism?  Is there a strong atheology that gives them an apologetic to give defense of that view?  When atheist talk of evidence it begs the question of what they define as evidence?

Here is a thread where atheists and theists when back and forth on the question of whether we can disprove God.  This went on and on for days.  http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6459

Of course, you can only go so far when attempting to prove a negative.  However, the burden of proof is not on me, but on the person trying to tell me that the supernatural exists.  I simply don't care whether or not someone believes in God.  My beautiful wife does and that doesn't bother me a bit.  The religious, however, seem to have a mission of proselytizing.[/quote]

Try and explore with me the rules of debate:

Theists, it is asserted, have the burden of proof. As I have demonstrated before, burden of proof is a debating term referring to the party making an assertion at the start of a debate. That person makes the case for his point. Then the opposing side has the burden of rebuttal, being required to refute the case being presented using the same standards for acceptance and rejection as are used for the original case; then the rebuttor makes a counter case, the validity of which is, again, subject to the same standards for acceptance and rejection.

http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/20 ... there.html

If the atheist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.

We both have the same standards or it is my view that the non-belief vacuum-head atheists type don't stand upon a standard that is to be considered rational or comports with the axioms of logic.

I will see what I can contribute to the thread you mentioned.

In case you are wondering, the issue with the argument is this:
Statement 3 makes a baseless assumption that there is a God which is outside SpaceTime reality and that the God was the cause of the Universe. There is no attempt to prove the god's existence, there is no attempt other than a feable tounge in cheek suggestion that the only alternative is for abstract objects like the number 7.  By abstract objects, I take it that he means "Concepts" rather that existent objects. He very cheekily tries to seperate the God concept as being something other than an abstract object so that he can discredit abstract objects and leave himself only with God, however his discredit of abstract objects also discredits the God concept. If God is something other than an abstract concept then he has not gone to the trouble to explain why god can be the only non abstract concept outside of SpaceTime reality.

Here is a post that speaks to why the third statement is not baseless.

Hierarchical Domains, not Magesteria
In the first post, the idea that reality extends beyond the realm of the tangible is presented. The first level of transcendence is the intangible domain of intuition, which is a form of thought. Thought itself is an intangible, as with many concepts that we use and believe every day. On another list one commenter observed that his "jar of 'meaning' is empty". Meaning is transcendent; it can't be weighed, measured, or thrown out with the trash. And what about the "meaning of meaning"? The word "meaning" does have a meaning or we wouldn't be able to use it. And the "meaning of the meaning of meaning"? Well, this demonstrates a hierarchy, all of which do have...meaning. In the world of the hierarchy of "domains", what would the next domain level above thought and intuition look like?



If level 1 is "sensate", and level 2 is extra-natural "intuition / thought", then we find that level 3 is "acquired through a second level of extra-natural faculties". And if Godel's theorems hold, the third level would be required to exist in order to validate the second level. So the third level fully encompasses the second level, just as the second level fully encompasses the first.



Think of two concentric spheres, with level 1 at the very center filling the smallest sphere, and level 2 between the level 1 sphere and the level 2 sphere. Level 3 would exist outside the other two spheres while encompassing them at the same time. The "magesteria" are concentric spheres, and by the way, they are not magesteria at all: they are hierarchical domains, with the "sensate", natural empiricism fully enclosed by the other two "extranatural" domains.



This argument for the extra-extra-natural depends only upon logic and rational thought, and does not involve theism, deism, or fantasy in any way. And I am aware of the argument against Godel's theorems: must they have higher order validation in order for the theorems themselves to be known to be true? If so then they are true. If not, they are also true! But wait, maybe Godel's theorems don't apply to anything but math! However, math is just logic and rational thought applied to sets and numbers. So Godel's theorems must apply to logic and rational thought as well! That is the beauty of it.



Level 3; it's out there.

http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/se ... %20Domains

For the hide bound naturalist/materialist they are not even free thinkers enough to see level two even when their intuitions and thoughts show materialism to be self refuting unless we are all under a noncompatablist hard determinism.  This determinism means that we are all wasting time.

So Godel's theorems must apply to logic and rational thought as well! That is the beauty of it.

And this beauty is not for the closed mind that can not think outside the stilted godless box that is the atheist worldview.

[Whitney]

If the atheist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.

If the aunicornist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the a-alienist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the aleprechaunist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the afariest concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.


Obviously...not having a belief in something is neither incoherent nor irrational in the absence of evidence.

[freeservant]

If the atheist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.

If the aunicornist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the a-alienist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the aleprechaunist concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.
If the afariest concedes that they have no burden of rebuttal then they have no evidence to present on their side and are thus incoherent and irrational.


Obviously...not having a belief in something is neither incoherent nor irrational in the absence of evidence.

FIRST:  There is evidence that give the Christian validation and confirmation for their belief

SECOND:  The atheist only functions from what they believe that gives confirmation for them.

Both have a firm evidence based belief system that should if it is to be considered rational comports with the laws of logic and debate under a free and open marketplace of ideas.
                 

For atheists to claim rationality this entails a worldview that is coherent or they are just blathering a strawman word salad about noodles non-stamp collecting and baldness is the haircolor of satire.  (anti-rational and is automatically self-defeating)

The law of the excluded middle means you are either a rational thinking person who comports to your beliefs or a satirical anti-rationalist who is blinded and unthinking.

Q.E.D

Arguments of an experiential nature â€" experiencing the deity or a spiritual experience â€" are rejected as “brain farts” in the words of one Atheist. All experiences are explainable in terms of brain states and / or brain chemical imbalances. Correlation is causation it is presumed. Another claims that experiences cannot be trusted because the cause of the experience cannot be correlated with the content of the experience(!)

By labeling all intuitive knowledge as fallacious, chemically imbalanced, brain farts, the Atheists have Poisoned the Well, and have used that tactical fallacy to shut down any argumentation of personal experience as delusional.

So the demand is reductively focused on material evidence of a non-material being, one that would exist necessarily outside space-time and mass-energy, a being whose non-material characteristics we cannot even imagine, much less measure using devices that do not apply in any way, being designed to measure material things.

Thus the demand itself is self-contradictory, self-refuting, and Atheists who have any logic in them at all know this. A non-coherent demand, being irrational, does not merit a response, of course, in spite of some theists attempting to respond (with arguments which cannot possibly satisfy the non-coherents making the non-coherent demand). Because the demand is non-coherent, no answer can suffice, so there is the spectacle of theists being chewed up in their attempts to match rational arguments to an irrational question, and Atheists sneering at their failures. Rationally speaking there is no rationality involved.

http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/20 ... there.html

The irrational can think they are rational all they like but the more I get word salad satire and strawman the more it proves my point and shows a fundamental failure of some to be actual truth seekers who show they have a rational mind not clouded with emotion and what is pointless fallacious thinking.

[Whitney]

I see that taking some time away from the forum did not increase your understanding of atheists or logic.

[freeservant]

I see that taking some time away from the forum did not increase your understanding of atheists or logic.

No I would say that by using logic I understand some atheists quite well.  (I use to be an atheist)

I respect the atheists that are genuine truth seekers and are not bound to the postmodern anti-rationalist wing of the group.

It is all about following the logical entailment's...


They try and function not from what they do not believe as a never ending argument from personal incredulity but from what they do believe and are willing to question their presuppositions as I have sought to do.  I am ready to be an atheist at any time if I could find good coherent logic based probabilities that have epistemic weight.  To even participate here I must question my own noetic effects and understanding of the world around us.  I need not take much time here to see the axiomatic reflex of postmodernism and anti-rationalist mindsets.  Don't worry I shan't stay long if no good critical thinkers are around.  If the tautology like the one in my sig works then I would be wasting my time with anti-rationalists who can't figure out why the word salad of it is all just a non-belief thus can't question ones own mind.  I mean come on, with this closed mindset one can't even face the possibility that they can't even falsify or properly define what atheism is.

Here is a good example of the issue I am presenting from a former RDF forum participant

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011 ... organ.html

I seek the real free thinkers who are ready to critically question everything including their own belief system.

Also:

The first 20min of Krauss's presentation is fraught with an improper mindset.  Extraordinary claims ONLY require sufficient evidence.  Any claim only requires sufficient evidence.  In court this is known as either beyond a reasonable doubt or the preponderance of the evidence.  This shows the black and white thinking of someone who may be operating on wrong presuppositions or axioms that turn out to be wrong.  Given the ten impossible things before breakfast meme I would as him if he sees the difficulty of the quantum inference that something comes from nothing.  Right now I have two books by Feynman that I intend to read.  The Pleasure of Finding Things Out  and The Character of Physical Law   It should be some interesting reading.  This also begs the question of why in the quantum realm something can come from an absolute condition of nothing and this does not bleed over into the physical realm.  We should have magic if that is the case amiright?  You know Poof an there is a new astronomical object ex nihillo or poof and you have cheese puffs with your beer....

[Whitney]

If you want to stick around here you need to actually address the membership and not respond as if you are talking to strong militant new-atheist types.  The reason I said you don't understand atheists or logic is because I posted something and then you responded with the assumption that I took the strong atheist position; something that did not logically follow from my post.  Not to mention that it is completely illogical to demand evidence of non-existence...things that don't exist can't leave behind evidence.

[freeservant]

If you want to stick around here you need to actually address the membership and not respond as if you are talking to strong militant new-atheist types.  The reason I said you don't understand atheists or logic is because I posted something and then you responded with the assumption that I took the strong atheist position; something that did not logically follow from my post.  Not to mention that it is completely illogical to demand evidence of non-existence...things that don't exist can't leave behind evidence.

Yes I see that I need to go a little deeper

Presupostion:  You can only have proof if it comports to certain empirical standards?  Is this the axiom you function from?

Consider that proof is a more interesting and nuanced thing.   Also understand that this:  

Not to mention that it is completely illogical to demand evidence of non-existence...things that don't exist can't leave behind evidence.

Did you know that this is a POSITIVE assertion?  You see as a former atheist myself it was interesting to learn all the positive knowledge based assertions that I hid under the obfuscation of atheism somehow having a weak part or a strong part.  This is baked into the postmodern rationalizations cooked into the idea that atheist make no positive assertions thus have the vacuum head of non-belief.

How can we even prove we are not brains in a vat somewhere?

Look into these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_Trilemma

Here, one has a mere choice between:
an infinite regression, which appears because of the necessity to go ever further back, but isn’t practically feasible and doesn’t, therefore, provide a certain foundation;
a logical circle in the deduction, which is caused by the fact that one, in the need to found, falls back on statements which had already appeared before as requiring a foundation, and which circle does not lead to any certain foundation either; and finally:
a break of searching at a certain point, which indeed appears principally feasible, but would mean a random suspension of the principle of sufficient reason.
Albert stressed repeatedly that there is no limitation of the Münchhausen-Trilemma to deductive conclusions. The verdict concerns also inductive, causal, transcendental, and all otherwise structured justifications. They all will be in vain.
Therefore certain justification is impossible to attain. Once having given up the classical idea of certain knowledge one can stop the process of justification where one wants to stop, presupposed one is ready to start critical thinking at this point always anew if necessary.

Wow!  This makes proving a positive just a problematic as proving a negative amiright??

Consider this problem in Science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude

The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory. This problem was central to the philosophy of science of Karl Popper, largely because Popper was among the first to affirm that truth is the aim of scientific inquiry while acknowledging that most of the greatest scientific theories in the history of science are, strictly speaking, false. If this long string of purportedly false theories is to constitute progress with respect to the goal of truth then it must be at least possible for one false theory to be closer to the truth than others.
Popper assumed that scientists are interested in highly informative theories, in part for methodological reasons â€" the more informative a theory, the easier it is to test, and the greater its predictive power. But clearly informative power by itself is rather easy to come by, and we do not want to gain content by sacrificing truths. So Popper proposed that closeness to the truth is a function of two factors â€" truth and content. The more truths that a theory entails (other things being equal) the closer it is to the truth

Even in science we should think in terms of proof being very limited and empiricism even more limited.

The atheist makes positive claims no less then the Theist but one can see that if you fall into the logic trap of having a non-belief like a mental vacuum in your head you go further down the path of making a religion like scientism or the atheist equivalent to buddhism.  Remember that both these religions are comparable with the false idea that you can have such a thing as a weak or strong atheism. The postmondernist or anti-rationalist can't use critical thinking to see how self refuting this meme can be.

Look as the definition in use since 1546:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism

From the Greek 'a' -without 'theos' -god

So the atheist is full of positive assertions and efforts to show the negation of the God Hypothesis.  It is just sad that the blinded anti-rationalist atheist is so confused by postmodern philosophy  that presents that there are no truth  but relativistic personal truths that makes it against the laws of logic and thus an axiom for the blinded self.

[Whitney]

I don't believe in god...i don't claim to be able to prove that a god doesn't exist.  It would not change my life if a creator god did exist.  Quit trying to tell me what I ought to believe and deal with what I'm actually claiming.

[The Magic Pudding]

It is just sad that the blinded anti-rationalist atheist is so confused by postmodern philosophy

That is sad, anyway who is this sad, blind  and confused atheist?
If you see them you should suggest they drop by, we'll cheer them up.  

[Tank]

It is just sad that the blinded anti-rationalist atheist is so confused by postmodern philosophy

That is sad, anyway who is this sad, blind  and confused atheist?
If you see them you should suggest they drop by, we'll cheer them up.  

Quite right, I have yet to meet such a person, on a forum or in real life.