Nov
27
Contra William Lane Craig
ContraRarian
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead
us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung
[member of planet atheism and the atheist blogroll.]
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Posts tagged William Lane Craig
Oct
22
Oh, What a Tangled Web!
antybu86 shows that William Lane Craig’s arguments for the existence of God are entirely circular. They depend upon one assuming the existence of God to begin with. Without such an assumption, his arguments carry no weight. Thus it is reasonable to believe that the God Craig describes does not exist.
This is something I have pointed out time after time about Craig’s arguments.
(ht: CSA)
Aug
2
Why Religious Arguments Don’t Persuade
showing how apologetic arguments are complete nonsense
(See more at Common Sense Atheism)
Aug
1
William Lane Craig, King of Fail
William Lane Craig, the worlds greatest living Christian Apologist, explains why God damns most people to hell for not being Christians:
God ensures that no one who would believe the gospel if he heard it remains ultimately unreached. Once the gospel reaches a people, God providentially places there persons who He knew would respond to it if they heard it. He ensures that those who never hear it are only those who would not accept it if they did hear it. Hence, no one is lost because of a lack of information or due to historical and geographical accident. Anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved.
Did you get that? Anyone why dies a non-christian would have rather gone to hell than been a christian anyway.
So what is the point of trying to convert people to Christianity? By this logic, evangelism is completely irrelevant, because if people want to be “saved” God will make sure they are, and if they’d rather burn in hell in eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve (which is how Craig describes hell), then God will make sure that happens too.
Oh - wait a minute - it seems William Lane Craig hasn’t thought this entirely through…
The solution I have proposed to the problem of Christian particularism is only a possible solution. But I find it attractive because certain biblical passages also suggest something very close.
Did you get that? The best answer the greatest living Christian apologist can give to justify his religion is that given an entirely free and fair choice, most people would choose to be tormented eternally in hell with no possibility of reprieve than go to heaven. And he only offers this as a possible solution.
Reading this reminded me of an observation by Paul Tobin over at the excellent Debunking Christianity blog:
Evangelicals seems to have difficulty understanding the difference between the concepts of possibility and probability- just because an hypothesis is possible does not mean it is the most probable explanation for something.
Here’s a more probable explanation than William Lane Craig’s.
Christianity is not true, and his “solution” is as stupid a defence of religion as you will ever hear.
May
23
“
…the basic criticism of both Christian and Muslim exclusivism is that it denies by implication that God, the sole creator of the world and of all humanity, is loving, gracious and merciful, and that His love and mercy extend to all humankind. If God is the creator of the entire human race, is it credible that God would set up a system by which hundreds of millions of men, women and children, the majority of the human race, are destined through no fault of their own to eternal torment in hell? I say ‘through no fault of their own’ because it cannot be anyone’s fault that they were born where they were instead of within what exclusivism regards as the one limited area of salvation.
One exclusivist Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig, has tried to meet this difficulty by appealing to the idea of ‘middle knowledge’, the idea that God knows what every human being would do in all conceivable circumstances. He then claims that God knows of all those who have not had the Christian Gospel presented to them that, if it were presented to them, they would reject it. It is therefore not unjust that they, constituting the majority of humanity, should be condemned. But this is manifestly an a priori dogma, condemning hundreds of millions of people without any knowledge of them; and even many other very conservative Christian philosophers have found it repugnant. For on any reasonable view exclusivism, practiced within any religion, is incompatible with the existence of a God whose grace and mercy extends to the entire human race.
” John Hick : Philosopher of Religion & Theologian
May
13
ChristianAnswers, explaining why Evangelical Christians think “God” damns the majority of humankind to burn in eternal hellfire, no matter how well they live their lives, and no matter how sincere they are in their attempts to commune with what they consider “god” to be. And indeed, even if they die of cancer as children after months of agonising pain. All because they aren’t Christians.
William Lane Craig thinks “the self-authenticating witness of God’s Holy Spirit” has told him personally that is irrevocably true, and that any arguments whether in evidence or logic to the contrary are a priori invalid.
Wintery Knight even thinks this is “God” “objectively” wanting what is best for us.
Most Christians just haven’t thought about it.
May
1
William Lane Craig argues that every single person who dies without being a “christian” would have irrevocably decided not to be “saved”, and therefore deserves to burn in hell for all eternity.
This is insane.
Apr
30
Be more like Jesus?
I dunno - according to Glenn Beck, William Lane Craig, Wintery Knight et al. jesus is one messed up melonfarmer…
(via mwaaalove)
Apr
28
“Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa.” [William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, (Revised edition, Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), p. 36.]”
William Lane Craig, proving that when evidential push comes to logical shove, he is full of crap.
Apr
15
Apr
12
How the progress of science strengthened the kalam cosmological argument
via silasriis, who just keeps posting the same bullshit over and over, without any attempt to think about it.
The kalam cosmological argument
- Whatever begins to exist requires a cause
- The universe began to exist
- Therefore, the universe requires a cause (M.P. 1,2)
We do not know that premise 2 is true. If a proposed “god” requires no beginning, then why should the universe require a beginning?
The post silasriis refers to contains this gem of an observation:
Everybody seems to like to comment on these things without making any claims or citing any authority or evidence. So if you are leaving a comment critical of this post, then cite the part you disagree with, quote someone who agrees with you who is an authority…
Jesus fucking Christ. The only authority it cites is William Lane Craig, who isn’t a cosmologist. You want my authorities? How about Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, both of whom argue against a “personal god”?
How about the the cold hard fact that the rate of disbelief in God amongst scientists is substantially higher than that of the general population?
Reality, it seems, has an atheistic bias - and since silasriis can’t cope with reality, he sticks to his little bubble of fundamentalist christians telling him what he wants to hear, over and over and over and over…
Mar
26
“In order to recognize that an explanation is the best, you don’t have to have an explanation of the explanation.”
says silasriis referencing William Lane Craig @ Who Designed the Designer?
But Craig’s analogy is false. He references design by beings we can understand, even if we cannot identify them. If his argument is that these beings require a designer, then why doesn’t his designer require a designer? He does not say.
While it’s not a “law”, it is generally recognized that the explanation which requires the fewest assumptions is usually the best one (Occam’s razor).
Let’s run thru it.
Theism: Universe -> God -> cause unknown/undefined
Atheism: Universe -> cause unknown/undefined
Atheism requires the fewest assumptions.
Yes, blind chance, Harrison is talking about the multiverse theory, not the cause of this single Universe.
Word salads are not arguments. Theories of “multiverses” do not invoke “blind chance”.
Who is this “Harrison” person anyway? I see him quoted all over the net on creationist websites, but I can’t find out anything about him. What qualifications does he have to comment on cosmology?
The vast majority of NAS physicists and astronomers do not believe in a personal God.
The only way anyone can quote “cosmology” in support of their religious beliefs is to ignore what most cosmologists actually say.
Peace.
