Is There Evidence for God? | William Lane Craig & Kevin Scharp at Ohio State University
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- William Lane Craig and Kevin Scharp discuss the validity of reasons given for God's existence at The Veritas Forum: "Is There Evidence For God?" | Ohio State University, 2016 | Explore more at www.veritas.org.
William Lane Craig is a Christian philosopher and research professor at Talbot School of Theology. Kevin Scharp is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University and identifies as an atheist.
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My friend and I played a drinking game during the question and answer period. We had to take a drink each time Dr. Scharp interrupted Dr. Craig.
I'd like to ask all the Christians to please pray for my friend. He's in the hospital now, dying of cirrhosis .
I'm more than 51℅ confident that a lot more than 51℅ of Scharpe's arguments should not be granted more than a 49℅ confidence level.
meyerius’ own this deserves so many likes
Bayesian statistics, based on Bayes Theorem can be used to argue in favor of theism or atheism.
LOL! That's a great original comment!
BEST
wack
I think Kevin Scharp was the person who rejected my PhD application to OSU. Plain BS
lol XDDD
Lol!!!
Kevin is contradicting himself and is not providing any proof for his claims or logical reasoning. SMH I almost don't even want to watch the whole video but ima wait for Craig to destroy him!
I was annoyed at how he asked Craig to refute the obscure mutually contradictory theories for objective morals without describing any of them, requiring that the audience either takes his word for it or do their own research, but perhaps they were too complicated to define?
What should Kevin prove then? That the invisible immaterial timeless guy with superpowers didnt pull a big bang from his butthole?
What proof should he present then that no god exists? A bunch of nothing?
If there the invisible immaterial timeless guy with superpowers who pulls universes from his butthole actually exists, then its THEISM the one that should prove it.
" I almost don't even want to watch the whole video but ima wait for Craig to destroy him!"
You'll be waiting a long time, Craig is one of the most dishonest and stupid people I've ever seen! I can't believe you Christians take such a douchebag seriously.
Oners82 How you figure?
marcus edwards Because I have watched the guy for years and he does not appear to be particularly smart for a scholar (his h-index is a measly 6 and his arguments nothing more than regurgitation of medieval theology), and I can prove that he is a liar.
There are however much better Christian apologists out there who are genuinely smart and intellectually honest so it is just a shame that many Christians tend to flock around the charlatans like Craig.
If you guys followed the good theistic philosophers instead of the popularist ones it might make for more interesting debates rather than us having to refute nonsense like the KCA and the moral argument, ad nauseum!
I wish the section where Dr. Craig and Dr. Scharp questioned each other was longer. This was fun to watch.
+Matthew Shurtz Heh, i was just going to post the same comment Matthew, I think most of us who watch these debates are aware of WLC's arguments, it was good to see a more open debate as they sat down next to eachother. I particularly was very interested in the section where they discussed the 'all loving-ness' of God in relation to Hell, and this separation from God for people who reject Christ's salvation.. it was just getting interesting then the moderator stepped in. I would have liked a longer discussion on that.
+bonnie43uk I think WLC gave the nutshell of the argument, it relies upon your vantage. It's not a quick answer..and no one likes long ones anymore!
IF you think God is just like us and should be able to accept all humans without any justifying then you will find Him cruel and punitive. That is not the argument of Christianity at all..the WHOLE point is that GOD is NOT like us. He is GOD. He is Holy...since that is a lost concept it puts us at a disadvantage. The reason sacrifice was a part of daily life for Israel was b/c God was holy. Sacrifice is the underpinning...if a judge lets a child rapist go b/c he wants to he lowers his 'just-ness' ...mercy is given at great cost. SO...the point is Jesus is the once for all sacrifice that ALLOWS God to be what He must be...Holy and Just...and still merciful...There is no other way to keep both in play...
If God offers himself to us and we freely choose to be without Him..we choose eternity without GOD...that is the option...it's not a choice God makes...we do.
+bonnie43uk
Does "43" have an atheist significance?
There is an atheist CZcams channel that is "43 [something]".
I am a Christian, but I am curious.
20july1944 non whatsoever my friend. 43 was my age when I first came onto CZcams. No hidden meaning I'm afraid 😀
bonnie43uk
OK, just a coincidence.
Dr. William Lane Craig - the only man who can win arguments with his wife.
Is his wife a potato?
Not likely. Logic just makes a woman madder.
I actually cried laughing 😂
Under what premises you came to such nonsense conclusion? I’m afraid you’re attacking a straw man
Only by using that bashful smile
I think Kevin Scharp did a much better job of debating William Lane Craig than the other atheists I've seen debate him. Unlike the others, who tend to appeal to emotion, Dr. Scharp approached it with intelligence. I don't, however, think the objections he raised hold up, because his objections seem rather subjective. How confident I am in my belief of something does not change whether the thing is true or not.
+Timothy Fish
Very good points.
+Timothy Fish, yes. Scharp should know that the most popular form of Bayesian probability is a version of probability that is subjective, so I wonder if he was being a sophist here. The prior probability that person X might place on the there being miracles might be 5% because of her background knowledge, but for person Y, she will place it at 60% given her background knowledge.
Speaking of, Scharp seemed to be very confident in his confidence argument; whether you call such epistemic permissibility of accepting the theistic (or non-theistic) arguments "out-right belief" is irrelevant. It seems like we would want to say that someone is entitled to p if we accept the probability that p has a 51% of being true or that's my confidence level (however I calculate my confidence). If it's 30%, someone is not epistemically justified in holding p; she is in fact irrational. If it was at 80%, I am epistemically obligated to accept p or I'm being irrational.
Also, the debate was whether there was evidence for God, which he granted, but perhaps it was more about "sufficient evidence".
I don't think the non-theist should accept his point on divine psychology because it rules out some very powerful arguments against the existence of the classical conception of God. Some of the arguments are as follows: The argument from non-belief and argument from evil. In regards to evil, Scharp seemed to be behind in the literature on skeptical theism and new logical arguments from evil, and he should know that skeptical theism and greater good defenses don't work well against the argument from non-belief. He used the phrase "divine psychology" in an extremely pejorative way. Both sides are arguing what we would expect of God. With a parent, we would ask what we would expect if the parent loved the child, and what we would expect if the parent hated the child. If God exists, the plausible contention is that God cannot allow any evil at all unless he has a morally sufficient reason for allowing said evils. And this is derived from looking at his nature. I'm not somehow in the mind of God or reading his thoughts. I trust non-theist Philosophers of Religion like J. L. Schellenberg before I trust Scharp's opinion who I don't think is a Philosopher of Religion, the issue of credibility.
That being said, Scharp's epistemological argument was an interesting argument that seemed to be intended as more of an undercutting defeater of theism even though it wasn't so much a rebutting defeater (rebutting defeater= p is false). As we've said, such an argument doesn't seem to be very convincing to us; we're not confident lol. It almost seemed like Scharp was more interested in trying to show that Craig was inconsistent in his views, not do much that theism is undermined. Scharp did well and also raised a few objections to Craig's arguments like challenging Craig to give evidence that premise 1 of the moral argument is true.
+Timothy Fish His argument doesn't require objective knowledge of one's confidence level, he states that WLC's arguments provide a minimum of 51% confidence (as WLC states himself), which is not enough to rationally warrant strong belief. All Scharp's argument requires is that you acknowledge there is a difference between, say, thinking it's more likely than not that Hillary Clinton will win the election, and strong belief that she WILL in fact win the election. If you can see this difference, your objections to his argument don't hold up.
Jockito
Again, that is arbitrary. The Hillary example is a bad example because any confidence we have in her winning the election is based on opinion polls and past experience tells us that opinions change quickly and pollsters are sometimes selective in who they ask, so their candidate looks better.
But suppose we have a game in which we know that 51% of the time you will pay me a penny and 49% of the time I will pay you a penny. We would start with $1 each and play the game until one of us ran out of money. I'm sure that you would have a strong belief that you would be the person who ran out of money first.
+Timothy Fish I think you're missing the point. The Hillary example is only to show the difference between a weak belief and strong belief, it is not meant to be extrapolated any further than that. You seem to think that as long as you have at least 51% confidence, this warrants strong belief.
Your example is not analogous at all. What you are missing to point out, is that this game is played over and over. We know mathematically that given enough rounds of the game, there is a 100% certainty that I will run out of money, so of course we should have a strong belief! This precisely proves the point. The reason I would have strong belief that I would lose my money is precisely because there is a 100% chance of it happening! But you conveniently set this thought experiment up as a test which runs again and again, so that while each game has 51/49 odds, the overall odds of losing all my money is certain.
The proper analogy would be to play the game ONCE. Now, to give gravitas to the situation, suppose instead of winning a $1, you risk either dying or staying alive depending on if you win or lose. So you have a 51% chance of not dying. Are you going to strongly believe you'll live? of course not.
Subjectively measure your belief but call it “confidence” instead. Then give your subjective confidence a number between 1-100. Your confidence has to be 80% to be called “belief”- even though belief and confidence are synonymous. My scoring system is accurate because I just made it up and put it on a graph and it’s obviously influenced by personal bias. #micdrop
that's it
Craig: polite, argues carefully, respects his opponent, does not interrupt.Sharp: opinionated, loud and engages in ad homs (what has gay adoption have to do with Craig's argument). Is this really what modern atheism has become?
+TBOTSS
Even as an atheist I have to agree, Sharp failed both philosophically and
in terms of conducting himself..
(though the polite part does not describe Craig at all IMO
if you read/see his writings/talks and how both disparaging he talks about
nonbelievers - hypocritically, the other way around
he would cal it generalizing, disrespectful and complains about 'new atheists/militant atheists' - and dishonest and condescending I
disagree that his calm demeanor has anything to do with politeness)
Check out my *Philosophy* playlist for a collection of IMO much
better rebuttals of Craig's and classic theistic arguments if you're interested!
*****
Now *you* are not polite with your strawman.
Re-read Sherlock (and inform yourself, rather than making judgments on WLC on outward appearance in front of an audience ;)
***** For gawd? Yep, me too ;)
Don't hold your breath.
+ReligionInTheBin I have heard this before, and I agree it's opposed to the teachings we espouse to be cruel (being a Christian is hardly a claim to perfection, but it is a standard to reach for). I would love to hear some of his 'personal attacks" Please provide links etc.
...I don't think there is ANY reason a theist should shy away from calling ideas, theories etc. wrong, irrational, damaging etc...but does he nail the character? Does He impugn the families of these 'new atheists"...I have heard that done to WLC.
+TBOTSS
Craig is far more opinionated than I am ('opinionated' means dogmatic). Being loud is irrelevant -- in fact, you taking it to be relevant to assessing my quality is an ad hominem. And I engaged in zero ad hominem attacks against Craig (as I said in my presentation). The point about same sex adoption was about WHY any of this debate matters. We were instructed to address this topic. I followed the instructions. Craig didn't. Even if it had been off topic, it wouldn't be an ad hominem attack. Overall, you seem to have no idea what you're talking about.
at the end of the debate, both are asked if they ever have had concerns about objections to their beliefs, and as WLC admits there are some concerns he has had and dealt with, Kevin makes the arrogant claim that there is NOTHING with his belief that concerns him. And that ladies and gentleman, is the attitude of most New Atheists.
+Oliver Beidoun
I agree with you -- I wish I had answered this question better. There are aspects of the view that I find less plausible than others, but I think I was too tired at this point to lay them out clearly.
+Kevin Scharp I appreciate the civil response Dr. Scharp, and admire that you make the effort to personally respond here on youtube. hats off to you sir.
+Oliver Beidoun
Thanks Oliver. I certainly underestimated how much energy it would take to face such a hostile crowd -- I'd never experienced anything like that before. Just getting through the presentation was exhausting. Next time I'll be better prepared for what to expect.
+Kevin Scharp hostile? it was anything but...that is kind of funny...love to hear how you get that?
+Kimie schneider
While up on stage I felt like I was surfing huge waves of animosity coming off the crowd. Just about everyone I talked to agreed that it was an overwhelmingly Christian crowd and fairly hostile to the opposition. Did you catch it in person?
This was a good debate...Kevin was well prepared and did a good job unlike other atheist before him..But sadly not good enough to win against William Lane Craig.
I'm at 70% confidence level that Scharp's arguments are shit. Is that enough?
Yes, it's enough to prove that you're too thin-skinned to respond to rational arguments with rational arguments.
@@tomhanson8921 what was irrational about using sharpes logic against him?
@@tomhanson8921 and why did you like your own comment?
I'm 90% that Craig is a good debater that never actually proves his position. So what? Dr Craig got out debated tonight it happens. Do you know how many times Dr Craig has out debated someone but still not proven his position at all? Dozens. Debates don't prove positions. Debates are generally one by someone who's better at debating not who has a better position. He got beaten at his own game and you guys can't take it. Do you think I like saying that Christopher hitchens lost to craig? Of course not because I think that hitchens has better points in most cases than Dr Craig ever will but he fucked up and he made assertions he couldn't back up and he tried playing Dr Craig like he does everyone else and Dr Craig was prepared for it and dismantled him. Well this guy prepared for Dr Craig used his own arguments against him and beat him. That doesn't mean there's no God just like when hitchens lost that doesn't mean there is a god. A debate is not going to prove or disprove a god. Ever.
@@thickerconstrictor9037 "Debates don't prove positions."
True enough. But then again, they're as close as we can get to anything being proven. If you just listen to a speech (or even read a book) by one person representing one side of the argument, you have very little way of knowing what's true, what's false, or even what's controversial. But with a debate, you get to hear from both sides in the moment. You not only get to hear rebuttals but counterpoints *to* the rebuttals.
And IMO, Craig does a better job than most (though not perfect) at trying to respond to every argument which is helpful.
"Debates are generally one by someone who's better at debating not who has a better position."
That's only if you decide who "won" or "lost" by something other than the arguments themselves. But one thing I think we do agree on: Someone winning a debate isn't necessarily equal to them being right or the other side wrong.
"He got beaten at his own game and you guys can't take it."
That's one simplistic way of viewing it, I guess. But in reality, I think Craig responded adequately to all of Scharp's points. Scharp really brought a challenge (even Craig has said so), but nothing he said was all that compelling.
"Do you think I like saying that Christopher hitchens lost to craig? Of course not because I think that hitchens has better points in most cases than Dr Craig ever will"
Such as?
Sharps definition of weak (51% confidence) vs strong belief (tending toward 100%) "that we would count as knowledge," misses the point. This isn't a debate for doxastic norms in belief formation. The question to be discussed is evidence for God's existence. Ontologically he either exists or he does not. When we examine evidence to justify I would have expected an undermining of that evidence with an alternative explanation that has more explanatory power than Dr. Craig's. Instead, I get a diatribe about why I should be more skeptical of knowledge claims based on confidence levels.
If we apply Sharp's method to historical claims what happens to history? What about historical sciences like evolutionary biology? If I apply Sharp's method then should the lack of abiotic biogenesis theories or the lack of directional morphological evidence (as opposed to oscillation) lower my confidence levels enough to reject Neodarwinian evolution? I bet he would only apply his doxastic method theism.
You're wrong, he applies this systematic criticism to all epistemic methods. And like most analytic philosophers, he does not give human sciences such as history the title of "rigorous science"...sciences that aim to "understand"/"comprehend" are far too ambitious, and fail at remaining scientific. Popper makes this crystal clear, I think.
I agree with you. Ontologically God either exist or he does not, a Bayesian confidence interval IS DIFFERENT than a Frequentist confidence interval!!! Sharpe is basically saying believe what you want, he did NOT present a shred of evidence of how to estimate even his own confidence a posterior!!!
Atheists don't understand that their "lack of belief" is not the same thing as a logical refutation. They operate at the lowest possible level of comprehension; that of confusing the subjective with the object. It is the mindset of an animal.
@@stevedoetsch Theists don't understand that beliefs are only justified with positive evidence, and so a "logical refutation" isn't required when theists don't have a valid reason to believe in the first place. (And they don't.)
@@user-jb5sk7pc2m You claim "you're wrong, he applies this systematic criticism to all epistemic methods."
Even if true, that wouldn't make the OP wrong. Essentially the Atheist in the video is commiting a red herring fallacy by switching the focus of the debate to something easier for him to respond to. The debate is not about doxastic norms for belief formations. The question to be discussed is whether God exists or not. Ontologically, He either does or does not.
The semantics regarding whether an Atheist chooses to word it as a lack of belief or a declaration God doesn't exist do not change the logical structure of the position ontologically.
Semantical changes can never change the actual logical structure of a position / argument, yet the Atheist is focusing on trivial semantics regarding what belief means when he really needs to be arguing for the position God doesn't exist.
Not even halfway through and this is already my favorite WLC debate. Best opponent with the possible exception of Paul Draper. I’m a general theist, but I really enjoyed Dr. Scharp’s opening. Clearly a level above fools like Hitchens and damn was that entertaining. Man’s got style!
Though he does make some major mistakes. Still would love to get a beer and talk about this stuff with him though.
@@brandonwalker1814 Not me. His "open mind" is actually skeptical materialism and rather unscrupulous. I´m interested in defining spiritual-religious phenomena, for one miracles, the limits of science, and progressive forms of the arguments. The Moral argument is better made in terms of "sow and reap" and achievements like UN and human rights in Jesus´ actual legacy.
hitchens destroyed craig
Well I’d say Sharp’s main advantage is that he avoids the problem of evil. That always turns into an emotional diatribe on suffering and how mean the god of the Bible is.
Wow! Way to go, professor Scharp! I don’t often see Craig on his back heels like this. Scharp’s ‘psychology of god’ argument was powerful-Craig always confidently assumes that he’s got the right god with the right motives in place to create a universe like ours. How could the probability of these assumptions ever be calculated? In contrast, when faced with inscrutable evil, the motives of Craig’s god suddenly become opaque.
I do wish Craig's opponents could get through their heads that "Does God Exist?", capital "G" and all, really just requires Craig to limit the available worldviews to ones that include a thing worthy of the name "God". He does not have to limit the worldviews all the way down to Christian monotheism in particular. If we are left with atheism and pantheism off the table, and only some sort of monotheism available to us, Craig has done his job.
God is the proper name of the Christian god, so no: Craig not only has to demonstrate that _a god_ exists (which he doesn't) but that it's _God specifically._ It's tremendously dishonest to argue that leprechauns exist on the basis that I call my coffee mug "leprechauns", so redefining terms isn't a valid path to proving gods exist.
The confidence level thing is interesting but entirely subjective.
If belief means higher than 80% confidence, then one must concede the to believe a proposition is false is not the same as to not believe that it is true. Why? Because if you do not believe it is true you have less than 80% confidence, whereas if you believe it is false you believe its opposite is true with higher than 80% confidence and therefore you believe the proposition is false with less than 20% confidence. If you have confidence between 20% and 80% you neither believe the proposition is true nor do you believe it to be false.
If someone wants to define belief this way, by all means go ahead, but they should be aware of these consequences. The problem doesn't really arise when defining belief to be over 50% confidence because the probability that you have exact 50% confidence in a proposition (and therefore neither believe it is true nor believe it is false) is zero because 50% is an exact number, not an interval.
@@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714 :: So you're essentially saying: "argue semantics over your belief in order to dodge the question of if you believe something that doesn't have evidence"? Maybe I misunderstood...
@@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714 how confident are you in atheism?
@Gabriel Amadej I recant my original comment. I have learned more about evidential arguments in the last year and understand where he is coming from. But I have also learned that the evidential arguments for theism are very persuasive.
Excellent discussion!! I much prefer a dialogue to a debate as the exchange is more vigorous and sincere and all points can be properly addressed (as one might expect)
You prefer them to be sitting down and addressing questions quickly back and forth rather than explaining their arguments one by one. A sort of conversational debate.
I must say - the temperament of Dr. Craig is so well suited for these formal debates. I have watched many of them and in the face of snide and mocking remarks by these types of atheists he maintains his professionalism and goes right on dissecting their inadequate arguments. So wonderful to watch and grateful for the gifts God has given him. His work is so important today.
Yes, he makes the worst arguments with the highest level of professionalism. I couldn't agree more.
Aside from rhetoric and emotional responses they don't much else to say. If you pay close attention most ignore his reason and evidence and just pursue a strawman or use emotional responses to sway the crowd.
"See now, your case only warrants 69% confidence, not 70% confidence, so that's a failing grade right there."
There would be no way of knowing when someone gets to high confidence because confidence is subjective.
@@Convexhull210 True. Just one of many of the problems with Scharp's approach.
@@Vic2point0 yep and on top of that, scharp didn't in my opinion, actually make the positive case for atheism. He only attempted show that Craig's arguments weren't sound but that would then leave his case towards some sort of agnosticism.
I think it’s a pretty *nice* grade myself.
Depends on the school
Kevin Scharp is actually a pretty smart guy. He did good compared to some of the people Craig debates, but his main argument seems to depend on a silly redefinition of belief.
Not really. He was saying that merely having more confidence than not in the existence of God does not justify belief and that holds true for Craig's arguments too. If they merely establish that it is more likely than not that God exists, the arguments do not justify BELIEF in God That was an excellent point. Now Craig wanted to pick quantitative nits about what percentage would qualify, however they did not touch upon the qualitative aspect of Scharp's point about confidence which was to justify believe you must simply have much greater confidence than not, to the point of being beyond reasonable doubt.
I agree in general. His focus on "belief" avoided the role of empiricism and philosophical truth standards, along with historical psychosocial issues in relation to those. Scharp´s use of "confidence levels of belief" and the meaning. Craig picked up on that like a bloodhound. "Plucking thresholds out of the air, disregard for truth versus personal expression of "confidence" in a belief. 49% would be the empirical threshold for a decision-making belief.
Scharp is overconfident in his own indulgent classification. "You should meet my standards....."
Craig is a conservative, which has some influences on extended issues. A progressive like myself would argue with some differences.
"How do I know that God would create the Universe?" We observe, empirically, and reason philosophically with concepts. The problem is that Scharp is projecting his assumptions, and trying to judge Craig´s conclusions. The atheist has to deny logical coherence, as in fine tuning. And Scharp tries the typical strategy of putting the burden proof on the theist, which is projecting his disagreement.
Scharp´s question of "love," and Craig´s clarification of Scharp´s caricature. Craig´s response is conservative, but not responsible for Scharp´s own presumptions of human nature and the meaning of religion, and Christianity. How, for example, was slavery made illegal, along with the rest of modern democracy and University-based knowledge.
And Scharp finished with his "Iron Age" anachronistic projection, a form of naturalistic reductionism, which he had denied he does. A lack of integrity. Historical sociology informs us about economic materialists who have been funding fundamentalists, meanwhile. Meanwhile, progressive Christians have led modernization, from developing monastic schools in Universities, Luther´s Reformation all the way to Social Gospel FDR´s vision and legacy in negotiated UN and human rights world community of nations.
@@windcatcher331 Craig wasn´t "nitpicking", since Scharp, like you, is doing a "goal-post shifting" dance. 51% is the threshold for something in decision-making and belief. Creating a spectrum as a survey, and disconnecting confidence from belief is its own weak explanatory system, based on popular surveys, not empiricism and philosophical truth.
Yes, in that he actually sort of confronted Craig’s points and didn’t go off on an emotional diatribe regarding suffering and the amelekites. He didn’t do much to support his arguments though. All I can remember is he seems to think physical laws have some sort of enforcement mechanism which I’m sure is a false impression of his actual beliefs but he does little to present anything better. One would imagine he understands that physical laws merely describe the observed behavior of physical objects and have no baring on supernatural interference.
"It sounds like you just plucked that out of the air." This sums up Kevin Scharp 100% throughout the entire debate. Trying to apply a subjective numerical statistic to one's own confidence level is a bit silly. People's confidence in whether or not they'll arrive safely after a trip in a plane are completely subjective personal judgments. These are meta-physical opinions that can differ from person to person based off amount of knowledge, wisdom or information regarding any particular topic. Pure non-science IMHO.
Furthermore, Kevin's argument makes absolutely no sense to me for this reason: if you're 99% sure of something, you're still unsure. I'm not 99% sure that I have a father, I'm 100% sure. It's either all or nothing. If at any time you're on the fence about something, this doesn't need to have a statistic applied, it's just the logic and reasoning abilities may still be in process or the person simply chooses to withdraw belief.
+Tannar Frampton " if you're 99% sure of something, you're still unsure" ----Exactly! Putting a number on certainty is a subjective way of expressing uncertainty.
Let's not get off-track here. The goal is not certainty. If modernism has taught is anything it is that we can't be certain of the reality of the past, other minds, or an external world.
Premises only have to be more likely than their opposites to make the point. P1 The universe began to exist, is much more than 99% confidence level.
P2 The universe is fine-tuned for life, is again more than 95% confidence level.
Both premises are based on 90+ years, and 50+ years, of scientific research respectively.
But we do to need to be certain to make sound deductive or inductive arguments.
Uber Genie No we can't, but we're not suppose to. This is where faith comes in based on reasonable evidences. In fact, most if not all human interaction within the world requires a minimal amount of faith. You can't escape it, because no human is beyond space/time/matter to have an absolute knowledge of something. You can apply a "what if" to literally anything. But that's where reason should come into play. There are thresholds where things become unreasonable and/or unrealistic.
Still, this guy's argument with applying % to certainty is completely subjective, and fails under it's own logic by simply taking a step back and asking "How confident is your confidence, and how can you be sure?" In other words, it's like asking how do you test science? Do you test science with science? Of course you can't, because you can't test something with itself. You have to go beyond "it" to test "it". So he's stuck in a vicious cycle of circular reasoning, which to no surprise all atheists are because you cannot logically or reasonably make any sense without the uncaused cause.
If someone claims not knowing the confidence level of one's belief (like WLC does), that means his belief is a blind faith without critical thinking.
Does the question "How confident are you, that you are 51% confident in your belief?" make any sense.
Yes it does. It also has an answer that makes sense. Question: When I am 51% confident in my belief, how confident am I? Answer: I'm not confident.
No (lol)! And how can one even begin to statistically quantify a percentage of confidence for belief in a theistic God? It's the most absurd argument against confidence I've ever seen - and that was one of Scharp's main "arguments"? Smh
If everyone would take statistics this world would be a better place...surveys are especially difficult to nail down. Belief is not quantifiable, so if I said I was 99% sure of something I obviously am not sure and undecided. The question he would need for his survey is as open to interpretation as its results! You either adopt or withdraw belief: what may be described as bearing an estimable degree of confidence (the measuring system to use is also open to any given participant's interpretation) is the likelihood of changing it (which is also contingent on one's willingness to change it, or perhaps their willingness to pursue contrary evidence) depending on what evidence they may encounter (if at all). There's no substance to any of it, and more absent variables than I can count. It does more to disprove the "critical thinking" Dr. Scharp used to arrive at his own belief. He seems to be a nice guy, so I find it disturbing when he attempts to employ confounded rhetoric followed by self-incrimination, overly conscious of his audience. He added nothing to the discussion whatsoever: rather than describing any viable theory for objective moral values he simply listed contributors to the field, claiming that Craig should address them all, however obscure or underdeveloped. There is a difference between God-of-the-gaps and the best explanation for a phenomena we understand, and since God's existence offers a viable explanation he can't get away with pulling a "we have yet to produce/refine evidence to refute your argument but an answer could exist so until then I'm not buying it." At that point, that's atheism-of-the-gaps.
Then he made the weakest application of the so-called "problem" of divine phycology (and the only one, since he made this up) I've ever heard. As for his final remarks on the inductive argument for Christ's resurrection, he nearly appealed to Hume's dismissal for miracles and I can't give that any credit since it requires that you presuppose atheism in order to deny a claim that is directly relevant to the existence of God who easily has the ability to manipulate what He's made.
@@Courtney85 It only becomes absurd if you don't understand, or interpret, the argument at hand. Don't be too confined in your way of thinking, you'd be surprised how much of our understanding of reality can be quantified, even abstract concepts like belief & love.
@@jof8160 How do you know belief can't be quantified? Or any abstract concepts for that matter? Saying that belief can't be quantified is like saying we can't measure the distance between the sun & the earth, simply because it "looks" impossible. As difficult as it may be, it's very well possible. You just have to "think" outside the box. Don't be too constricted on what's possible & what isn't. I don't find his rhetoric confounding, or that he self-incriminated himself. A lot was added to the discussion on both parties, but if you're either a straight thesis or atheist, then you're naturally gonna choose one party over the other simply because it follows your ideology, & from the looks of it, it's easy to perceive what party you favor the most. When it comes to arguments in regards to the philosophical notion of "God," evolution, the universe, etc., it's never ending! & it's going to continue to be never-ending. There is NO empirical evidence to proof the existence of a higher power, only evidence to support the probability of a higher power as either being high or low, depending on one's subjective view on the topic. So "God" is not a viable explanation if we don't have any direct methods to study God's effect on reality, let alone even the very nature of God itself. How do we know it's not Allah, Zeus, Big Giant Spaghetti Monster, or even a hacker operating our world, aka a simulation? We don't know, we only believe. & we can't immediately say that just because science has yet to have an explanation on whatever phenomenon, that "God" is the answer to it all. Again, no empirical evidence. Now it's also to point out that we cannot disprove the existence of God either. It can go either way, but since we don't have any concrete evidence to prove either belief absolutely, it's just gonna be an argument fest. So believe what you want to believe, & we'll know the TRUE answer once we're gone from this world.
If I'm ever caught on camera robbing a bank, I'll need to remember the Scharp tactic. "Yes you have proof that I robbed the bank. But we're not justified in concluding that I robbed the bank unless you can give a reason to think I *would* rob the bank" ;)
I must say I really don’t like the little “good”s that Scharp keeps interjecting in the debate section. Very condescending.
No he was being conversational by giving verbal cues that he is listening and understanding, and willing to interact. That's just good communication skills being practiced by Scharp.
Kevin is right in my view that 51% isn't sufficient for belief, but the whole confidence argument is silly, how do you quantify confidence in relation to evidence? There could be any number psychological things happening to skew our confidence that have little to do with evidence. But it's an important question about how much evidence is required to believe something, and it's a very hard problem to solve, I personally hold that we "know" almost nothing (apart from knowing we exist etc) and that everything else is a matter of belief with varying confidence, but who knows exactly what justified belief is precisely.
Well I’d say you can know a few other things. You know that you have sense experiences. That is you hear sounds and see colors and shapes and feel pain, whatever these might indicate. You can know anything that can be proven mathematically or tautologically. You can also know that you do not consciously control all your experiences.
@@Agaporis12 Yeah I agree with experiences, which falls under why we know we exist. I'm not convinced on the math part, only because it's possible to be wrong about logical things, if we think we proved something but make a mistake for instance, but with experience you cannot be wrong since even if you have a delusion, it's at least true that you experienced the delusion even if it's not a part of the external world.
Scharp hasn’t said anything except to critique the way WLC makes his arguments
This was probably my favourite WLC debate
It seems like Scharp made some decent points. However, the implicit ad hominems against both Craig and Christians in general by Scharp did not help his case.
Also, why does Scharp think that Divine psychology would play a role in cosmological argumentation? He did not elaborate on that enough. If a real God simply cannot help Himself but to create universes, then no Divine psychology as it is traditionally thought of would be necessary. In that situation, we would have a World Ensemble Multiverse and a real God, without any need to appeal to God's beliefs, free volition, or plans. (Anselmian theists may even be satiated with this version of God---a God of the Many Worlds Multiverse might be a greatest conceivable God, depending on one's view concerning possible worlds.) Also, why would Scharp think that such Divine psychology considerations would play a role in the arguments from intentionality / qualia?
Scharp's biological evolution attack against fine-tuning argumentation will likely fail, as the functionality of the effect of fine-tuning would be present for the *first* generation of analog lifeforms. Thus, the fine-tuning argumentation applies *prior to* any biological evolution occurring. (Biological evolution here requires at least one already pre-existing organism with a functional metabolism, and it also requires a transition between one generation and the next generation of organisms.)
+Zackary Kendall
It hasn't been shown that fine tuning is necessary for life to come into existence prior to biological evolution. It only makes sense that life is to arise in environments that can sustain it - obviously you wouldn't find life in a place that does not allow life to form or survive.
There is a lot of progress in the field of abiogenesis. They have created life out of non-life in the lab, though the scientists say that this is probably not how life formed initially on Earth. The point though, is that it is possible to create life wthout supernatural shenanigans and just because the full process of the origin of life is not fully understood, doesn't mean we can substitute god as an explanation - this is simply god of the gaps.
We should not confuse the work of Venter et. al. with what bottom-up abiogenesis would be. And I would to some extent disagree with you concerning the notion that all theistic/supernatural arguments from abiogenesis must be god of the gaps. However, one would need to be careful in the wording and argumentation.
But I think in one sense you were missing my point, which was to say that Scharp's method of attacking fine-tuning (by use of an appeal to evolutionary biology) doesn't technically work. However, you are correct to observe that the debate would then follow to one over abiogenesis, particularly concerning what type of abiogenesis occurred. (Here I use the term in a broad sense.)
I'm unfamiliar with Venter's recent work in abiogenesis...I was referring more to the work of Martin Hanczyc, where he creates blobs of biochemicals - protocells - that behave like living systems, moving around, identifying food sources, interacting with other protocells, fusing together and even self replicating.
I think Scharp's objection at 46:00 is potentially a huge problem for the fine-tuning argument.
Chance might be very improbable but that does not mean it is more improbable than God designing the universe. Why isn't it extremely improbable that God would design the universe?
If we don't have access to those probabilities, the inference to design is undermined. If Craig can't show design is more probable than chance, then we shouldn't conclude to design.
For all I know, the design hypothesis is more unlikely than the chance hypothesis. I reject Craig's claim, and I don't say it is false; rather, I don't believe the claim. Craig is making the argument, so the burden of proof is on him to provide evidence (i.e. reasons) that design is more probable. If there's no evidence, I don't have to accept the claim. If there's evidence, I will then need to show why the evidence fails. So far, Craig hasn't given any evidence to show that design isn't more improbable than chance.
I'm kind of disappointed in Sharp. He didn't really attack the legitimacy of the scientific claims made by Craig, perhaps because he isn't well educated in the field. Craig essentially reused the same arguments that he used against Sean Carroll, which were refuted by him. Even after being refuted, he still decided to use the same arguments, which shows that Craig is banking on the opponent's (and the audience's) ignorance.
In the case of fine tuning, there are many refutations against it that are based on the empirical evidence.
"Pardon me...?" I love that. I was just as shocked that scharp claimed he's never used that argument when he's had it part of his opening arguments in the past decade of debates..
I dont understood 36:40 minutes of video what craig said and why every one smiled? can someone explain it to me??
Scharp made a pot-shot at Craig's age, saying "modern epistemology"
I chuckle when atheists try to bring science against religion as if the greatest scientists in history didn't believe in God.
*I chuckle when theists use a scientist's belief that an invisible magician exists as relevant to the fact that science has destroyed the majority of explanations previously attributed to invisible magicians.*
***** "What is an invisible magician?"
*A magician that's not visible.*
"What has Science destroyed exactly?"
*Explanations previously explained by invisible magicians.*
Even Einstein believed in god. You belittle people for believing in a "magical magician" but someone capable of mentally performing differential equations found it reasonable due to the universe's complexity. No one believes in an invisible magician, and before you redistribute ad hominems you found someplace else in the anonymous wonderland of the internet please consider that, in the very least, we should treat people with dignity or else we'll welcome the same denigrations to ourselves.
What does it matters that the people believed in God? It matters that they didn't used God in science, therefore the success of science gives good reasons that God don't exists. The scientific method as of yet is the single best method for discovering what is true, and God is not part of it.
Jo F Even Einstein believed in god"
*No, he didn't. He made it clear over and over again, only for idiots like you to try and claim he did. Here's his letter written in 1954 just before his death:*
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can [for me] change this. These subtilized interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them."
"No one believes in an invisible magician"
*So, you don't believe your fictional superhero "spoke" the universe into existence out of nothing? You don't believe it "breathed" life into inanimate matter, creating a fully formed adult human? Calling it's supposed magic tricks "miracles" doesn't change the fact that they are **_M-A-G-I-C!_** Of course you believe in an invisible magician!! At least own up to what you believe!!*
*As long as people believe in the absurd claims you do, I will mock those beliefs. I do care what you BELIEVE because your actions are informed by your BELIEFS! The muzzle 'em that murdered 50 in Orlando did so because he BELIEVED he was following his invisible magician's orders. When people push to have creation taught in schools, they do so because they BELIEVE an invisible magician "Abracadabra'd" people into existence. Everybody should be concerned about what everyone else believes!!*
*If I believed in something false, I'D WANT TO KNOW!! Unfortunately, you just want to believe your fairy tale more than you want to know the truth.*
Kevin Schard destroyed himself really with his silly confidence argument! Lol.
Now let's not jump to conclusions here. How can we be so sure? How high is your confidence level that this is the case?
@@jof8160 - now let's not jump to conclusions here. How can you be so sure? How high is you confindence level that this is the case ?
49:35 "If you'd like to ask a question"
Was there some doubt?
This is a joke, Sharp just makes up a stat list that he forces on his debater. Its just a noose on the openness of discussion.
Excellent talks from both speakers. I find it curious that atheists used to be frowned upon for insulting theists given that theists are doing exactly that. Have a look at the comments section and you'll immediately notice a trend. Everyone is praising Craig and insulting Scharp. I don't think that's very helpful. Kevin did raise some new criticisms of Bill's work and that's worth thinking about.
In all honesty the comments against Scharp (which may not be from theists) are much more relevant to his contribution to the debate than the typical internet-atheist's comment against a theist, and less critical. I think they're frustrated with Scharp's way of presenting himself as well as his lack of substantial criticisms. Clearly he is not used to such high-pressure speaking, but I do think his false conclusions/intentional and unintentional obfuscation/arrogance/and obvious lack of preparation are open to honest commentary. I'm not condoning anything grotesque, but when someone is full of hot air I can't help but think so, and this is a place for sharing thoughts.
+Jo F You are right in that he did behave arrogantly in his initial presentation but I can attribute that, as you say, to his inexperience as a speaker in such events. Though arrogance of this kind is common the Atheist persons who have debated Craig. Lawrence K. being the epitome of this attitude. But once you get past his introductory remarks he appears like a gently enough fellow and it is because of this that all the negative comments are unnecessary. He could have behaved an awful lot worse. All in all he was respectful and Craig says so himself in his analysis of the Debate in his podcast.
The approach taken by Scharp is a new one. He formulated a different kind of argument to "dismantle", as he says all of Craig's arguments at the same time. Other people have alluded to what Scharp went on to flesh out in his remarks, but it was never done in a way that encouraged thought. Scharps criticisms if left to graze the on the discourse-grass would become big problems for Craig's work.
+Jo F (Continued) Craig is a not a rhetorician of the kind that makes up responses to problems on the spot. He's not a lawyer, or a philosopher who engages in that kind of spontaneous arguing. He is a strategist. He prepares for hours on end honing his existing arguments and trying to account for any possible rebuttal to them. This is evident when often times when a question that hasn't been asked of him before is raised he often misinterprets it, either on purpose or by accident. As in regards to Scharps case too, he didn't quite respond to the psychology and weakness problems. This can be attributed to Craig's being ill prepared to face these arguments, as no one else has really pressed them the way Scharp did. For these reasons Kevin Scharp deserves some respect. He managed to exploit Craig's sole vulnerability by coming up with an unexpected frame of critique to his opponent's virtually impenetrable case for Christianity.
"As in regards to Scharps case too, he didn't quite respond to the psychology and weakness problems."
I happen to disagree with you on your first point--I think Craig is a very capable extemporaneous speaker and would suggest that you look into his other debates/regular Q&A's for examples of that, though I think I should retract my statement that Scharp was ill prepared. Rather, he was extremely prepared in terms of content, though much of his apparent arrogance is probably due to the failure of his delivery.
Now, on his divine-phycology argument, I think Dr. Craig did the right thing in continuing to press his argument from fine tuning.
Scrap's basic argument can be summed up as follows:
“We don't know what God would choose to do. The Fine Tuning Argument (FTA) claims that chance and necessity are less probable than design. But the hidden assumption is that there is not an improbable chance that god would decide to fine tune a universe, which, according to Dr. Craig we cannot have any confidence in asserting (because it's an appeal to divine psychology)."
The issue with Scharp's argument is simply that it does not concern the FTA. The question isn't whether God would or would not finely-tune the universe for intelligent life, it is the question of whether the universe was or was not finely tuned for the development of intelligent life by God. And, given the assumption that Craig's argument succeeds in inferring God for this phenomena, it *does* seem that God finely tuned the universe.
Scharp's comparison to the theistic defense to the problem of evil involving an appeal to our ignorance given our perspective verses God is also suspect to me. With respect to gratuitous evil (evil that a moral God cannot permit), it is something of which we do not know whether it exists or not, so comparing it to fine-tuning--something which we *do* know exists--is mistaken.
Jo F
Your response is several months delayed!
"I think Craig is a very capable extemporaneous speaker and would suggest that you look into his other debates/regular Q&A's for examples of that"
There isn't a single debate he has participated in that I have not seen, and there is little content he has put out in video format that I haven't had the pleasure of watching. I follow his weekly podcasts and newsletter, too. I know who Craig is and what he does. I love his work.
In defense of what I've already said, Craig strikes me as the type who reads for thousands of hours for any potential rebuttals to his arguments and so is prepared for just about anything his opponents might say. The typical, and atypical responses of atheists alike have been addressed and put down by Craig time after time. He has made a reputation for himself. That said, occasionally there comes a single point his opponent might make that he has absolutely no idea how to respond to. I neednt remind you that Craig is 67 years old and it is very commendable that he is as articulate as is the case. I'm not saying this to attack him, but rather as a statement of fact. If you ask me his way of doing it is assuredly better than a halfhazardly attempt to defend your thesis on the spot. Having no time to test whether your rebuttal actually works, whether it has some gaps in it, etc, is a problem. But there are some people who are really good at making arguments that are apparently, but not actually good. All I'm saying is that Craig's approach is that "interactive" speaker, for lack of a better word, and this in our particular example felt like a cop out when Craig failed to address the argument Scharp made.
"Scrap's basic argument can be summed up as follows:
“We don't know what God would choose to do. The Fine Tuning Argument (FTA) claims that chance and necessity are less probable than design. But the hidden assumption is that there is not an improbable chance that god would decide to fine tune a universe, which, according to Dr. Craig we cannot have any confidence in asserting (because it's an appeal to divine psychology)."
The issue with Scharp's argument is simply that it does not concern the FTA. The question isn't whether God would or would not finely-tune the universe for intelligent life, it is the question of whether the universe was or was not finely tuned for the development of intelligent life by God. And, given the assumption that Craig's argument succeeds in inferring God for this phenomena, it does seem that God finely tuned the universe."
I don't see what you're talking about there. There might be fine tuning, but it means nothing if you don't successfuly posit that it has been done by God. There are two options, chance or design. To attribute the cause of the finely tuned universe to design you would be presupposing that the entity would have wanted to create it in the first place. Thus you're appealing to divine psychology. Now the problem is that a little bit earlier we made the claim we couldn't have possibly known that God doesn't have sufficient reasons for preventing gratuitous evil. Here's where the problem lies. We would either need to abandon the argument by fine tuning or to modify our defense to the problem of evil. How would you go about doing that?
Scharp's entire presentation was a slightly more creative version of the standard atheist argument "You have no evidence...Oh well that's not enough evidence."
Look at the body language and sense of urgency in the voice of each. Just an interesting contrast.
+Flamenco del Pueblo Viejo So you're saying let's look at the body language and tone of a person who's done literally hundreds of public debates vs someone who is an amateur at it? You want people to look at that kind of thing instead of assimilating their respective points of view? I have to say, if your comment was meant to be jab at kevin and a high-five at william, I think both would pity you.
as always, Dr. William Lane Craig, besides his superior arguments is more polite than his opponents.
Craig has never put forwad a superior argument to anyone in his life. And as for politeness, who gives a shit?! You should be concentrating on the substance, not style, and in the case of Craig his susbstance amounts to ZERO...
@@Oners82 Really? You´ve never watched Craigs debate against Hithcens it seems, or maybe you did but just did not understand or maybe something else. Either way, in that debate, Hitchens did not even deal with atleast 2 of Craigs arguments for Gods existence AND Hithcens misunderstood the moral argument that Craig presented...
@@Ivann1005
Yep, I've seen them all, I understood them perfectly and his arguments are terrible.
The moral argument is the worst of a bad bunch, hence why no moral philosopher takes it seriously. It is child's play to refute.
@@Oners82 "his arguments are terrible." Any evidence for that? I've noticed that you didn't even adress the part of my comment about Hitchens, why is that?
@@Ivann1005
I didn't address Hitchens because it is a complete waste of time - you are biased towards Craig and I am biased towards Hitch. It simply amazes me that anybody can take Craig's arguments seriously, but as a theist you obviously share far more of his presuppositions than I do.
If you think Craig won I really don't care - I would rather discuss the actual issues.
As for arguments, do you want to discuss the moral argument? Or is there another you prefer?
The moral argument is by far the weakest theistic argument in my opinion, both in the premises and the way Craig defends them.
This "confidence level" philosophy that Kevin repeatedly brings up is doom to fail. Craig is completely correct to point out that there is literally no way to determine whether your confidence level is 55% or 95%, because both would have you believe that your answer is probably true. It is a moo point brought up by Kevin.
+Weston Byerly
A moo point? Really? Reminds me of Joey Tribbiani.
+Eclectic Media thats exactly where i sourced it hahah
+Weston Byerly
There are lots of ways to determine confidence levels. You could read up on the literature for yourself and find out.
+Weston Byerly I think that's the crux of his argument. That its subjective.
+Weston Byerly Kevin is *not* saying there is a way to determine what our confidence level has to be in order for us to be justified in believing something. He is saying, however, that 51% is too low, and that is has to be higher.
For example, I don't know many many houses constitute a town, but two houses is too little.
I am not a philosopher, but it seems rather odd to assign mathematical precision to these considerations of the sort that can distinguish between 49% and 51% (for example) probability for believing something.
It is silly. You're right.
Has anyone found a paper where Kevin Sharp or any other philosopher discusses the divine psychology argument?
I don't believe in the whole God dumbo jumbo.
But, I will admit. This guy is an absolutely incredible speaker.
+DivineDinosaur Do you say that with a 100% confidence level?
terry brown LOL
+DivineDinosaur
It's not that Craig makes good arguments. He doesn't. What he does is make bad arguments in a very convincing manner.
+Stephen Land if your view is correct then why don't the atheist start pointing out the errors in his arguments. There are debates going back over 30 years a with many of the same arguments. Why did Sharp miss them? Why do the top atheist philosopher lament the explosion of theistic philosophers in the last 30 years? Curious. If you want rhetorical flourish bereft of argument turn to any of the New Atheist! Why if Craig's arguments are so indefensible as you suggest, that Daekins is afraid to point out Craig's obvious mistakes in a debate that would solidify Dawkin's atheistic case?
Please pick one of the first five arguments Craig gives and help us understand where Craig's obvious missteps are.
Atheists are in the default position. Since you have no demonstrable proof of a god. You're just gullible.
Witnesses of the Christian God were willing to die for what the saw, or they were merely insane, but in which case they must've been inspired God to compose words of wisdom. Whereas witness of a unicorn or big foot would not.
If willingness to die for a believe were evidence of divine inspiration, then you'd have to extend that absurd conclusion to *everyone* who dies for their beliefs, Christian and non-Christian.
Tom Hanson the thing is they were the creators of the idea, whereas 99% of the people that die for there beliefs were told by others. If they were making it up then they would not have fought for it nearly as much.
Tom Hanson It’s less that they were willing to die for it, and more about the drastic transition off a witnessed event. They departed and denied Jesus before his execution...had every theological reason to believe they would see him at the end of days....instead saw him in the flesh a few days later (surprising everyone)... and their lives were radically transformed by this revelation that went against everything they thought would happen.
It’s that men who had denied the faith witnessed and recorded something that changed them permanently and forever. To the extent they would then die for the very thing they wouldn’t die for just a few days/weeks prior.
@@ngif1736 Your response does not at all resolve the logical inconsistency of the original argument.
DOOM Slayer how so?
Kevin gives it his best shot, but Craig's arguments are clearly stronger.
Craig always starts with evidence for a generic god, defined as an external entity that would be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and personal. In other words, it must exist outside the universe it causes ro exist. And, it must be able to cause it in a single moment, not causing it continually like some abstract force.
From there, we can move towards a specific deity and he often uses the resurrection of Jesus to do this. That males perfect sense because the resurrection is the best event that would easily prove or completely refute the Christian God. If refuted we could go to other deities that make refutable claims. However, Craig often shows that the resurrection easily proves the Christian God and thereby proves Jesus' claims and his gospel message.
Craigs arguments are logical and he explains them in a way most people can understand and relate to.
Atheists, when attempting to avoid the conclussions, always seem to be forced to conjour up some weird abstract arguments that are difficult to relate with and often severely flawed. This 51% confidence argument is on example. I'm not interested in confidence. I'm interested in truth. Either somethibg is true or false. Atheists used to say Gid does not exist. Now, they merely say he likely doesn't exist. I understand the motive being to not have to refute a negative, but it makes for a difficult defensive position.
Are ya kidding? Craig got demolished.
Dr. Scharp freely admits that Dr. Craig trounced his previous debate opponents. In his Defenders class, Dr. Craig complimented Dr. Scharp on being the best prepared of his opponents. This is the best of all God debates I have seen.
+William Browning
Then watch the debate between WLC and Sean Carroll. ;)
+Rami Gilneas No question here that the Carroll debate was the most well rounded of them all, but I think for the wrong reasons. Craig allowed himself to be pulled into minutiae which does call into doubt certainty regarding his premises, but not that they are more plausible than not. We can attack all the premises of all of his or frankly nearly any argument for certainty, and Carroll did that masterfully, but I think in the end they still hold up. Is it still more plausible than not that the Universe began to exist - yes. Is it still more plausible than not that things which have a beginning have a cause - yes.
Russell Jones
WLCs premises are just assertions that appeal to common sense.
But he still has to demonstrate that his premises are true.
-Prove that the universe began to exist(not just the current state of the universe).
-Prove that God didnt begin to exist(Just defining him as uncaused is not enough).
-Prove that the laws of causality that exist inside of the universe also exist outside of the universe.
+Rami Gilneas hey thanks for the response and for the politeness! don't see a lot of that on CZcams.
I don't think Craig has to prove these, just show they are more plausible than their contradictory. I think he does show this marshalling both scientific and philosophical arguments
Russell Jones
"I don't think Craig has to prove these, just show they are more plausible than their contradictory. I think he does show this marshalling both scientific and philosophical arguments"
Its more about convincing laymen who dont know that much about logical fallacies that his premises are more plausible, without demonstrating that they actually are more plausible.
How can a supernatural cause be more plausible than a natural cause?
Even if we dont know the natural cause.
Other philosophers or scientists would simply say that they dont accept WLCs premises and then the debate is over until he demonstrates that his premises are true.
If you were dying of cancer would you opt for the treatment with 51% success probability rate? Or the one with 49%?
Did Kevin prepare for this debate??...there’s a great Bob Dylan song with the lyric...”I’ll know my song well before I start singing it”. William has clearly done his homework and argues his case with total belief.🙏♥️🥊x
That is because WLC makes the same crappy arguments in every debate he does.
Oners82
Elaborate??x
@@wormsnake1
I'm not sure what part of my last post you didn't understand. He has made the same shit arguments for decades and they have all been rebutted. What is not to understand?
Oners82
Which parts?...how so?...back it up?...it seems that your opinion is a just a lazy generic statement...a character assassination without back up...the other guy in this debate is out of his depth...WCL takes him to the cleaners...philosophically and scientifically...x
@@wormsnake1
Go back to school and learn how to properly use an ellipsis.
Anyway, as for my claim; just watch his past debates. It is the same tired old shit time after time after time - the KCA, the moral argument, the ontological argument etc.
The fact that you even need to ask me to back up my claim would suggest that you know less about him than I do, lol!
Confidence levels? Really?? How do you measure confidence level it would fluctuate from person to person there is no objective way to do this, why even bring it up.
A bit confusing for me but it fun I trying to figure it out
Craig can you please respond to the divine psychology argument...?
Thats not an argument its just gibberish to flash in front of stupid people to confuse and distract them. Like saying "thats God of the gaps" when the theist is presenting his actual evidence (cosmology, thermodinamics, biology, etc.) that prove his point.
Did Scharp say 'Killary'? (at 39:07)
Wow, Kevin Scharp ain't so sharp... sounds like he plucked his whole presentation put of thin air...
LOL
And yet he beat Craig. I will be the first to admit that William Lane Craig outperforms atheists in almost every debate he does. Now I don't think he does this because his position makes sense I think he does this because he's an excellent debater. I do think that he shows flaws in atheists many times, and I think that he has actually defeated them based on their bad arguments but Craig was dismantled here he was thrown off his game and he was beaten at his own game. And I know that you probably are a lover of Craig and that's fine so nothing I say is going to convince you that he lost but I will gladly admit even though I like Christopher hitchens a lot, that Craig dismantled him because Christopher hitchens just made a bunch of assertions. I think Christopher hitchens is a great mind and I think he has a lot of great points but I think he was outmatched in a debate. I think that he went about it the wrong way as do I think that Sam Harris did in one of their debates I don't recall the second one. But Craig's position doesn't follow. The Kalam as cannot get you to God no matter how hard he tries. And again I know you're not going to believe me because you probably believe in a God and I'm sorry for assuming that if you don't, and that's fine we all have our biases and what not but Craig was the loser in this debate absolutely 100%.
I want to know the percentage of certainty Kevin is at in knowing that you can measure certainty. On the concept of genuine love, what standard is Kevin comparing God's love to? There is no objective standard to appeal to.
Yep. If there is no moral lawgiver there is no moral law. Kevin failed to give an argument for secular morality. Merely listing names of professors who do secular ethics isn't an argument.
good debate, properly the closest ive seen yet
but still one need to stay on topic more and not show how worried he feels
but if the crowd was laughing to me like that, i might too
Loving these debates
Im 99% confident that this is a debate over the evidence for God’s existence and NOT which theory of epistemology within the philosophy of religion is best to use when discussing God’s existence.
Kevin Scharp should read some of the writings of atheist professor John Gray. Here is one quote: “Modern humanism is the faith that through science humankind can know the truth - and so be set free. But if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true, this is impossible. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals. ...Darwinian theory tells us that an interest in truth is not needed for survival or reproduction. More often it is a disadvantage. Deception is common among primates and birds… Truth has no systematic evolutionary advantage over error. Quite to the contrary, evolution will select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced…In the struggle for life, a taste for truth is a luxury - or else a disability.”” (Atheist Prof. John Gray, formerly Professor of European Thought at the London School for Economics)
+JesusisGod This is why we need the scientific method to find the truth an not just our instinct and feelings. It is not impossible, it is just hard and it is why scientists spend years studying and doing research and it is why modern science developed only recently in human history, even if homosapien exist since 150 000 years.
+JesusisGod
This is just Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. It's bunk.
haha. I was just saying that the quote from Gray isn't Gray's argument -- it's Plantinga's. And I was offering an opinion on it. Fair enough if you disagree.
+Kevin Scharp I really enjoyed the debate. I think you were an excellent opponent to Dr. Craig, and I admire how you respected him enough to really immerse yourself on his work. That said, there are a couple of issues that are confusing to me, regarding how you use probabilities, and I was wondering if you could help me clear this up. I'm not a philosopher, and I understand my observations are probably hopelessly naive, but here they are:
Let's say I was a genius computer programmer, and I had created a version of The Sims with actual sentient beings, and I decided, at some point of their game history, to cause Mary Sim to become pregnant by programming baby Jesus Sim into her. That is the only time I ever directly interfered in the game. Now, 2000 game-years later, some skeptic Sims are arguing that it would be far more probable for the whole story to be bunk, that the probability of it having happened is too low, etc. Despite all that, the truth would be that I really did it. Are you saying that, even if it happened, there would be no way for people to find out due to the probability of it happening being too low, so that people would be more justified in believing that it didn't happen?
A second observation, related to the one above is the following: if I programmed that Sims world using an evolutionary algorithm and consistent laws, etc, so that everything had evolved to their current state, would the inhabitants of that world be justified in believing that I can't interfere with their world due to the existence of said consistent laws and their understanding of how they work?
+David Leal
Thanks!
You're right that I think it's possible (given all the evidence we have) that the stories in the Bible are true and that miracles did happen. Let's imagine for a moment that those miracles are genuine. Then we would be in the situation of having a ton of evidence (e.g., all the evidence for our best scientific theories) for a false view (i.e., those miracles didn't happen). So yes, in that case it would be rational for us to believe that false view over the true view.
Is that a problem? No, because the situation is the same for the Christian. Assume for a moment that the Christian is right that it's more rational to believe that those miracles happened than not. Surely it is possible (given all the evidence we have) that they didn't happen. So it is possible that the Christian is in the situation of having the strongest evidence for a false view. If that situation were actual, then it would be more rational to believe that false view (Christianity) over the true view.
So our situations with respect to what is possible, given the evidence, are the same. What differentiates us is the fact that there is so much more evidence for our best scientific theories than there is that those miracles happened. So it is way way way more likely that I am not rationally believing something false than it is that you are not rationally believing something false.
On the second question, I have no idea. It would depend on what evidence was available to the sims in that situation. But I think this is a misunderstanding of my view. I'm not saying that God couldn't intervene in the world. If there were a God, he could certainly intervene. Moreover, I'm not assuming anything at all about natural laws -- I'm only talking about scientific theories. On my view, miracles are possible. We just have very good reason to believe that none have occurred.
Kevin said that it would not be nothing personal, but IT WAS SUPER PERSONAL.
Poor envy boy :/
Awesome Debate!!!
The nice thing about watch Craig debates on CZcams is that you can skip past his presentation because it is the same every time.
I have no confidence in the confidence "argument".
Dr craig's? I agree it's total shit but he's a great debater and he can the majority of the planet that two plus 2 equals 5. Doesn't make it right just means he's really good at debating. And he got beaten at his own game here it's okay it happens everyone loses
@@thickerconstrictor9037 No, Craig didn't have a confidence argument. He was responding to Scharp's.
And how did you come to the conclusion that Scharp won this debate?
It seems to me that Kevin had zero objective argument here. His ENTIRE refusal of Craig's arguments such as the Kalam and the Teleological Argument is not that the premises are wrong, they are clearly true, but he continues bouncing on an unknown as to the probability of God creating the universe. We do not know this probability, therefore it cannot be invoked to evade these objective evidence-based arguments. Furthermore, it is IRRELEVANT to the evidence.
***** " Yeah, we don't know the probabilities that god made the universe because we don't know what the sample space is."
This is largely incorrect. We are aware of a great number of probabilities implicated in various aspects of fine-tuning in the universe. For example, the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, the gravitational constant, the location of a planet within the Goldilocks Zone of a solar system, the location of a planet within the Armpit Region of a galaxy, etc, etc, etc. We are very aware of these probabilities -- and the tallied up probability of life existing makes it clear that it is inconceivably improbable -- to a point beyond any imagination. This makes design a much more plausible theory on reality then chance, and as science works, we must always accept the most plausible explanation until we have a better one.
+MHM EEKK You are posting stupid stuff here too? Jesus, don't you ever get fed up being corrected by people who know what they're talking about???
***** "Yeah, says you."
Yes, and I went on to explain why it was incorrect. Let's see if you end up engaging in my argument.
"The question, however, is this: why MUST these mathematical values of the distances between planets, the speed of light etc be due to an all-powerful creator with a vested interest in humanity? I see no evidence of this."
I find it terribly strange that no one has explained the argument to you, and yet you feel the need to claim its wrong. You're very late, but I will enrich you with knowledge here. As the Teleological Argument points out, the only possibilities for the constants to be so perfect for the existence of life is due to physical necessity, chance, or design. Physical necessity has been long dismissed by science for various reasons -- I can link you to some sources if you'd like. Anyways, as for chance, the calculated probability for just *one* of these constants being perfect for life is 1 in 10^120. If you know anything about mathematics, you'd realize that based on just *one* of over *700* necessities for the existence of life, the odds for life existing is beyond conception. In short, coming through such a probability by pure chance is quite literally, impossible. Statistically, something is impossible with a chance of 1 in 10^50. This is 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000x more unlikely then impossible. Design is thus, the most plausible explanation, and in science, the most plausible explanation is always accepted until we get a better theory. Design is the only possible way this can happen.
"And by the way, what's the probability that god exists?"
There is no conceivable way to calculate such a probability. It's likely 100%, but of course we can't use a mathematical formula to come up with this answer.
"And I haven't even brought up the problem of moral evil yet. And I won't. I'll stop here."
There is no "problem" with Christian Theism and evil in the world. Evil happens, and God judges it. Pretty simple.
MHM EEKK You know nothing about statistical improbability because you don't know what the denominator is. 10^50 is a trivially small number compared to the 10^500 for the number of possible universes under the multiverse hypothesis. And you've also clearly never heard of statistical necessity.
In summary, Craig's musings or yours on probability is irrelevant. It's an argument from personal incredulity (I can't imagine it so it must be god) and profound ignorance, which are both logical fallacies, and so allow the argument to be dismissed by your critics without the need for further consideration.
In fact, far from being an argument for god, fine tuning is actually a problem you need to explain. In a natural universe one would expect constants to have to fall within very restricted range because the universe is not 'designed' for life. On theism, no such limit need apply as god should not be contained by the constants. If so, this shows god to be weak and constrained in and by his creation. Now that's surely not what you're claiming for an all powerful god is it? Lol!
CogitoErgoSum "You know nothing about statistical improbability because you don't know what the denominator is. 10^50 is a trivially small number compared to the 10^500 for the number of possible universes under the multiverse hypothesis. And you e also never heard of statistical necessary. "
You're very confused. Statistically, something is impossible with a 1 in 10^50 chance. That's a fact, search it up. The number of potential universes predicted by String Theory does not change this.
"In summary, Craigs musings or yours on probability is irrelevant. It's an argument from personal incredulity (I can't imagine it so it must be god) and ignorance, which are both logical fallacies, and so allow the argument to be dismissed without the need for further consideration."
Strawman Fallacy. Craig's argument is to merely show that the hypothesis of design is more plausible than the hypothesis of chance, and Craig demonstrates design is more plausible by pointing out the monstrously improbable chance that life can exist by chance. Do you truly believe we got 1 in 10^120 lucky? Are you that naive?
"In fact, far from being an argument for god, it's actually a problem you need to explain. In a natural universe one would expect constants to have to fall within restricted limits. On theism, no such limit need apply. If so, this shows god to be weak and constrained in and by his creation. Now that's surely not what you're claiming for an all powerful god is it? Lol! "
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.
What God did was create a universe that operates on the laws that He created for them to operate on (we call them the laws of physics and nature), and God then altered these constants so we can live. You argument, simplified is, "God made it so we can live in His creation therefore he is weak". It is a non-sequitur, as HE created this universe, so how can it constrain Him?
the moderators voice is so funny haha
This moderator is giving me life.
38:50. Craig needs to go back to philosophy school or catch up on the literature (Craig graduated decades ago). 51% obviously isn't enough for belief
Philosophy of Religion Blog serious question? Why is it so obvious as you say? If the evidence is convincing to me why am I not within my rational grounds to accept it in the absence of any defeater? Also, belief isn’t %100 in our control. If arguments are convincing it makes perfect sense to me to tend to believe them.
I think he failed to convince us why his system of confidence is so binding and authoritative.
Also, if your life depends on an outcome and your %51 “confident” why on logical grounds would you not put your bet there?
Thanks for reading.
Your argument is a logical fallacy though..
If youre dying of cancer and there are two treaments available to you, one has a 51% probability success rate, the other has 49%, which one do you choose?
I think Scharp's objection at 46:00 is potentially a huge problem for the fine-tuning argument.
Chance might be very improbable but that does not mean it is more improbable than God designing the universe. Why isn't it extremely improbable that God would design the universe?
If we don't have access to those probabilities, the inference to design is undermined. If Craig can't show design is more probable than chance, then we shouldn't conclude to design.
For all I know, the design hypothesis is more unlikely than the chance hypothesis. I reject Craig's claim, and I don't say it is false; rather, I don't believe the claim. Craig is making the argument, so the burden of proof is on him to provide evidence (i.e. reasons) that design is more probable. If there's no evidence, I don't have to accept the claim. If there's evidence, I will then need to show why the evidence fails. So far, Craig hasn't given any evidence to show that design isn't more improbable than chance.
+Aristotle Thank you for your thoughts, however I must disagree. Scharp's objection is that an unknowable probability (the probability that God would create a universe) undermines the IBE (inference to the best explanation) even though we have established a prior probability of extremely low that it is Option 1 or 2 (necessity or chance). This seems to be, at face value, very wrong.
For any situation, there are unknown probabilities. Take an argument for evolution - all of evidence suggests it is true (IMHO), but there could be an unknown probability that the Cartesian Demon exists and is deceiving us now. We don't know the probability of that and anything like that would be speculative. So, what would we assign to that probability? Well, generally we would ignore it, but if pressed, we would assign it 50/50, since we have no idea, rendering it innocuous. There is no reason to give, in either case, a probability biased in one direction or the other, much less extremely in one direction as would be necessary to overcome the low probability of chance in the fine tuning argument.
I think the Divine Psychology argument fails in this regard for the Fine Tuning argument. The proper way to approach it would be to give an unbiased probability, and in fact it appears the probability would have to be enormously low for it to actually tip the balance against the FTA.
I responded on the other post
+Aristotle I think that is the whole point of the probabilities. If we consider the math there is a need for the multiverse as a response to it. Chance is by it's nature not 'organized', clearly...whatever the cause of the universe is chocked full of pattern and organization.... that is where the evidence and support is for the claim and as with anything it's subjective to you to see it as a result of the multiverse, or a creator who put it in from the get go....we have more evidence for the later...in our experience.
We exist, therefore God intended us to exist. It's rather simple really. God would create us because if there was no probability of him creating us then we obviously wouldn't exist.
+Truthwarrior
That first sentence... you missed a step.
Wow!
This was a really great debate, Dr. Scharp brough pretty good views on the table, and there is something true about the confidence level, f.e. you dont go swimming if you are not really sure lets 51% that the weather will be later on good, but if lets say you check multiple forecast information that your confidence level riser based on real data you dont pray to God that you want to swin and the weather should be good, and also I think that saying God did this or that, how does that improve our understanding, science, technology, one may say very little almost zero.
How do you calculate that more evidence for yes rather than no make it just 51%? Why is it relevant anyway? If you were dying of cancer and had to choose between a treatment that is 51% likely to cure you and a 49% would you choose the latter? And saying "God did this" is not suposed to make you better at math or robotics, its supposed to answer the question "who did this(univers and lfie) ?"
The key question of the entire debate is at 42:20. The objection Scharp raises is THE objection Craig had to answer, and he failed spectacularly. Scharp asks him, suppose god would have all the attributes Craig lists, why think that that god would create the universe? Craig first tries to flip it by saying that a life permitting universe on accident is highly improbable, but when he gets pressed about SPECIFICALLY the probability of god partaking in universe-making, his response:
"It's not absurdly improbable because god could have good reasons for doing that."
If that isn't a complete failure of an answer I don't know what is. It's not only tautological (a being that could create a universe (=god), could create a universe), but it's also a complete dodge, because he was asked how Craig arrives at the probability.
And if that wasn't enough, he then proceeds to try to shift the burden of proof.
+AR333 I'm not totally sure this works but let me give it a shot...
Imagine a man enters an empty room, with a shuffled deck of cards in it. The same man then leaves a few minutes later. I enter the room to find the once shuffled deck perfectly in order.
If I want to know the reason as to why the deck was ordered then I have to ask what could have put the deck in order. Imagine there are no plausible explanations other than intelligent interference.
At this point saying 'well you can't say that the man did it because you have no knowledge of the probability he'd be interested in arranging decks' doesn't seem to cut it.
Since the only explanation is that the man chose to do it, then that is the best explanation, even with no knowledge of his particular psychology.
If you would agree with me here, is there a relevant difference for the FTA?
+Alex Rattee I really don't know where to begin with that kind of analogy. First, to argue from analogy for the beginning existence itself is inherently problematic.
If your analogy was only meant to counter Scharp's objection, I still think it fails. Your example has a hindsight bias which is precisely what Scharp's question was getting at. A more correct example would be: suppose you put a person in a room for 48 hours and leave only a bottle of 2 litres of water, why think the water would be drunken? The fact that your story gives a conclusion betrays a misunderstanding of the objection. The point is you veil yourself from the result, to avoid an ad hoc hypothesis to conveniently fit the data. Craig himself does this for the naturalistic view, he gives analogies like 'imagine all universes as blue dots on a paper, and all life-permitting universes as a few red dots on the paper, you'd have a sea of blue with tiny points of red..." Notice, the point is that if you had to guess, ahead of time, what the odds were, THAT is the question.
The way Scharp means it is: imagine there is just a god, nothing else, just an omnipotent omniscient being. What follows from that? How could you know what that thing would do? This goes towards the problem of divine inscrutability. Craig is trying to say that if naturalism is true, a universe allowing for life is very unlikely, say X% probable, but this only works in his favor if that X is MUCH lower than the theistic probability. If your only answer to that is "God could have a reason", you have totally, completely and utterly failed your argument.
Anyway, tldr: your analogy isn't a good one, for many reasons but I gave what I think is the main one, in relevance to Scharp's point.
+AR333 Yes it was simply to counter Scharp's divine psychology objection as applied to the FTA and not as a separate analogy for the FTA itself.
I think my point is about *capabilities* and not ultimately psychology. If it were the case that an event had an exhaustive list of five explanations and we could show that four of the five are internally incoherent and therefore impossible, this means that there is only one possible explanation and this must be the correct one.
If one agreed that this deductive approach is logically valid and also thought that the concept of God isn't incoherent, then, if one were to have an exhaustive list of explanations for the FTA and none of the other ones are coherent then you would have good reason to think that God was the best explanation of the FT.
Admittedly incoherence, is a strong claim to lay at the feet of competing theories, and from my perspective the multi-verse is not incoherent, but if you thought that all the other options were ruled out then design would be the only answer. Even if you knew nothing of divine psychology.
+Alex Rattee "then design would be the only answer".
Not if the probability of design is less than the other options, and the FTA doesn't give us any reason to think that it isn't. For example, why not think that a perfect being would have no desires, and therefore no will to create anything at all. This would make design even more improbable than by chance. It's not enough just to say that chance and randomness are very improbable and therefore it must be by design, for you need to support the claim that design is more probable than by chance, when all you can do is to speculate about what reasons god might have for designing; i.e. appealing to divine psychology. Design requires will, and will is a psychological feature. To infer that design is the best explanation is to infer something about god's will, i.e. god's psychology.
This is all whilst, as you say, granting that the concept of god isn't incoherent. I.e. an un-embodied mind being able to literally bring things into existence just by thinking about it. The coherence of which, doesn't appear at least to me, to be immediately apparent.
+Jockito
But you would agree with me that *IF* all other options were incoherent (and the God explanation coherent) then design by God would be the only answer, no matter how unlikely his psychology makes it.
You of course might suggest that i) the concept of God is incoherent and ii) the other options are in fact coherent. I just wanted to check that we at least agree that uncertainty over divine psychology doesn't kill the argument in a deductive form.
Even if we're going down a FTA by inference to the best explanation rather than a deductive one. I think typically we assume that a principle of indifference is reasonable to apply to probabilities we are unsure of, so on this we might assume that 50% would be the reasonable figure to apply. Let's even stack it in the FTA-denier's favour and presume that God is extremely unlikely to design even to the degree of 0.00001% likely (which would be a clear departure from the principle of indifference).
Even this low probability is still much higher then the likelihood by mere chance? In such a case the God hypothesis wins out over the chance hypothesis as the best explanation. (I also don't think the multiverse will help you by multiplying your probabilistic resources but I imagine you might want to discuss that!)
At the beginning of the debate Scharp gave a long list of atheists who according to him have proposed objective systems of morality, but when he had a chance to get into detail he just shut up...
(In case you saw my original reply: I misread your comment.) Yes, he did not get into details, but I assume that was only because it would have taken far too long to explain even one of the theories he mentioned. Good luck explaining, e.g., Moore's moral views in a minute or so to an audience that is for the most part completely ignorant of philosophy.
Anybody who has taken an ethical theory course will know that there are objective accounts of morality that don't include God. Craig himself grants that there are obviously such accounts, but Craig thinks that God is the best account of morality.
@@MBarberfan4life Can you give me one possible way in which a person can have an objective moral standard without the existence of a God?
Good discussion.
thoughts under four headings
probability
Dr. Scharp asked what was the numeric value of “the incredibly small probability” that the world would randomly come into being with qualities which allow for diversity of life, proposing an arbitrary figure of one in 10^10 as a starting point for Dr. Craig’s comment. Robert Spitzer has gathered the work of Roger Penrose and others on the anthropocentric universe. With respect to low entropy alone, Roger Penrose calculates a probability of a universe like ours coming into being randomly of one in 10^10^123. Compare this with 10^150 (10^10^2.18), an upper bound to the total conceivable state changes in the universe that we have from its origin to its end. [These figures yield a ratio of 10^(150*(10^56.52-1))]. Hence the concept of a practical impossibility. A multiverse is a purely speculative and necessarily unobservable concept whose sole practical role, beyond flights of fancy for scientifically minded individuals, is to render the mind incompetent to dismiss what it would otherwise relegate.
“God” point in argument
When Dr. Craig said, “We call this being God”, he was not jumping to the conclusion that the source of existence is the God which Christians identify as creator and redeemer; rather he was providing a name by which we could conveniently proceed with the discussion. Whether this source of existence is appropriately identified with the fuller understanding of creator and redeemer as proposed by Christians remained in Dr. Craig’s discussion to be investigated.
assent
Dr. Craig and Dr. Scharp misapprehended each other’s meaning with respect to assent. Assent has two meanings, which John Henry Newman distinguished as notional and real. Dr. Scharp’s discussion of reception of a proposition with a quantified degree of confidence is associated with notional assent, whereas Dr. Craig’s experiential faith is associated with real assent. Dr. Scharp cannot give real assent, both because he has no immanently generated knowledge of or identification with the God proposed by Christians, and because what he does have is an intellectual proposition, which is suitable matter for intellectual investigation and probabilistic consideration; and Dr. Craig cannot recommend notional assent to Christians because it would constitute a lack or failure of integrity for him to pretend that the ground of his identity is no more than an intellectual proposition.
love
Dr. Scharp rightly objects that a God who extorts love is unworthy of response. Dr. Craig’s reply here leaves the enquiry unanswered: an omnipotent God is by definition not limited in his ability to act. The solution which leaves both God omnipotent and eternal punishment intact is to be found in the recognition that the enquiry as stated involves a misapprehension of the terms and their relations. It’s not that God is stuck, and, having no choice, is compelled to cause suffering for those who fail or refuse to comply with some arbitrary requirement. Rather, as further enquiry shows, aseity is not distinct from life, love, freedom, justice, truth, goodness. Being possessed in a contingent manner of being, freedom, life, love, and so on, we choose to act in ways which correspond in greater or lesser degrees, or fail to correspond, in greater or lesser degrees, with our nature. We thus foster or impede right relationship with ourselves and others. To the extent that we impede such development, we impede our ability to recognize, to respond to, and to reciprocate others’ love. Being finite, we possess the competence to render ourselves incompetent to love. This frustration of our nature is separation from God who is love, and involves suffering. A correct understanding recognizes that the ground of my being is wholly invested in my flourishing by providing for my growth, in principle, in all things, including the discovery that my greatest happiness arises as a by product of my loving others.
+Gregory Barrett edit: in paragraph probability, 10^(150*(10^56.52-1)) should be 10^(150*(10^120.82-1)). Thus, 56.52 should be 120.82.
WLC had to think on his feet a little this time so his interlocutor certainly did a better job than previous opponents.
I get why Kevin Scharp's argument wasn't the best but I think he did a great job in not playing the apologetics game and showing what a waste of time that is.
Proving that something is possible does not mean that it is enough proof to believe it.
Sean Carroll showed plenty of possible models outside of the Kalam yet it still gets used as proof.
Kevin Scharp didn't want to play the game and unfortunately since everyone is so used to this game they feel that Scharp lost.
kevin seems like angry
Dr. Scharp seems to misunderstand how we know God's attributes. Scharp objects that even having deduced His existence from the Kalam argument, we still don't have any reason to think that He *would* create the universe and therefore that He should be rejected as a hypothesis.
But this is completely wrong-headed. Just because we don't completely understand all of God's attributes or psychology from a single argument, doesn't mean we should reject His existence. Rather, we deduce that God exists from the Kalam argument, and then we deduce from that fact and that the universe exists, that (whatever God's other attributes) He *would* create the universe--because we know He *did* create it!
+Klaus von Zeit The Kalam argument requires the existence of a changeless mind. Minds depend on change in order to function, so a changeless mind is by definition non-functional - a self-contradiction. Craig says at least this is better than the alternatives, after all, something from nothing is worse than magic. But I don't see how a self-contradiction is an improvement, after all, a self-contradiction is logically impossible. I think this is the weakness of the Kalam argument.
+Jockito I think you're a little unclear on what Dr. Craig means by "changeless." He doesn't mean a mind which never changes in any of its details (a sort of mind frozen in time)--that would be absurd, because clearly, God's mind did at some point make the decision to create the universe. Rather, he means that God's mind is changeless with respect to its fundamental attributes: perfectly loving, truthful, and so on. So there's no contradiction.
+Klaus von Zeit I'm well aware of the difference between God's attributes and how they can be unchanging. "Frozen in time" is a good way of putting it. Time is what separates one state from another state, otherwise the two states coincide which is absurd. Therefore to get from one state of mind to another, you need some form of separation, i.e. some form of chronology. This is how we get a changeless mind according to Craig, as there was no time prior to universe, and therefore no changing of states. However, Craig says that God's creating the universe is causally prior to the creation of the universe but not chronologically prior to the creation of the universe. This means God's state of mind before and after deciding to create the universe are chronologically at the same point, which seems absurd.
+Jockito I don't see any necessary absurdity. What Dr. Craig posits is a mind that still thinks from one thought to the next and makes decisions like the minds we're familiar with, just without the convenience of time to locate these thoughts in chronological relation to one another. The quote you gave from him solves your problem: God's thoughts are causally related to each other--one leads to another, and so on--but not chronologically, since there is no time. The fact that these thoughts occur outside time doesn't compress them into an eternal instant.
And the last case you mention certainly is not problematic: God's state of mind after deciding to create the universe *is* chronologically at a different point than Him deciding to create the universe, because His decision to create the universe is what caused the universe to begin to exist!
+Klaus von Zeit I don't think that is what he is arguing. From Reasonablefaith.org "one way to think about it is to envision God existing alone without the universe as changeless and timeless. His free act of creation is a temporal event simultaneous with the universe’s coming into being. Therefore, God enters into time when He creates the universe. God is thus timeless without the universe and in time with the universe.
Read more: www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles-the-kalam-cosmological-argument#ixzz45aB3bkXF"
Indeed, changeless and timeless go together. What you seem to be imagining in your mind is God is in some sort of "other" time. If you think God can freely function as we do in time, I don't think you appreciate what "timeless and changeless" really mean. To say God is "outside" of time but can still change from one state to another just seems to be giving yourself a free lunch. Craig argues only two states - time and no time; and God transcends both in the sense that he existed changelessly with no time, and also in time once it was created. You seem to posit three states; no time, time, and "outside of time", the third being a realm where you can function as if you would normally in time but with no chronology.
As Craig's quote states above, his decision to create the universe IS temporally/chronologically simultaneous with the creation of the universe. So God existed timelessly and changelessly (not just changelessly in love) prior to the creation of space/time. So the state "universe created" and "God's decision to do so" are chronologically at the same point. This is because there was no time before this point to differentiate between two states.
Again, I hold that minds which cannot change (whether in time or not) are non-functional, and therefore contradict the meaning of what a mind is. I think Craig would disagree, but this is where some of the contention lies in this argument and why it isn't considered a "knock down" argument.
The problem when you don’t play the game, is that not much happens. Kevin avoided confrontation by not having positive arguments for Atheism, but what that left the audience with was nothing in defense of Atheism except his lack of belief in Theism, which pretty much just ends up at Agnosticism.
"I'm not saying it's necessary to be a theist; I'm saying it's necessary for belief."
Welp! *My* dumb anti-theist quote quota is met for the day!
Lol xD
@A Pharmacy Student If you believe (in either) on the basis of personal experience, it's perfectly reasonable. At least so long as there are no good arguments/evidence conflicting with the belief. I believe in a moral realm because I can sense it, and I see no good reason to doubt the veridicality of that sense.
@A Pharmacy Student Of course, none of this counts as evidence *for* what you've experienced. Being rational to believe in something is not the same as having proof with which to obligate others to believe.
@A Pharmacy Student Why do you think it's dumb though? Because it seems to me that I've given my perfectly rational reason for believing (in a moral realm) and you've simply called it dumb. I think what would be "dumb" of me is to abandon my well-founded belief on the basis that you just don't like it...
How is this Kevin Scharp a professor of philosphy at any university? His talking points are so embarrasingly adolescent. No wonder the audience laughed the whole time.
That's a useful question. There is a combination of arrogance and intellectual immaturity on display here and it baffles me that it would pass at any university.
same thing can be said for Craig.
There was nothing adolescent or simplistic about Craig's arguments. Kevin lost the debate.
Phillip Bassman there was also nothing correct about Craigs arguments
Ludvig Burman Even if you don't agree with or accept all of Craig's arguments (as I also don't), you must admit they have a level of erudition, coherence and philosophical ground that you don't find in the other guy's points. He looked like a wiseass teenager who tries to beat the professor at his game with empty gotcha questions and pointless technicalities and nothing else to offer, scientifically or philosophically.
Best argument is your confidence level. It's that the case I know a President that will never lose an debate 😂.
Isn't there a qualitative difference in believing whether someone is more probably alive than dead?
The degree of confidence wouldn't matter. But the response in a life/death situation would be life altering. Millions $ is often spent on probabilities of less than 1%.
I am not sure this how this example holds up logically, but it does adresse the issues at hand.
haha Kevin Scharp is the first atheist to trash Dawkins, the atheists are tuning on each other. brilliant.
+Sarah Clark Yeah and all christians agree with each other right? Hmmm.
robby rensenbrink
Actually Robby it does your case good that someone from atheism has seen the errors (appalling errors in dawkins logic and reasoning.) those who worship dawkins thinks he appeals to their intellect when if they used half the reasoning and logic that Scharp used would realize he was appealing to their ignorance. You will never convince anyone that an hateful ideology is anything other than what it is, unless you are into hate.
+Sarah Clark That is a very good point. Then at the end when he was asked if there was anything that troubles him WLC answered what did bother him and he found answers to. Clearly the same did happen with Scharp but he wouldn't even admit to it.
WaterspoutsOfTheDeep
Thank you Water, what gets me is their appalling lack of critical thinking when it comes to their own reasoning.
Sarah Clark Christianity has 0% to do with critical thinking.
The opposite of belief is doubt. The opposite of confidence is uncertainty. Belief and confidence are synonyms. I believe with 99% of my heart--that is a way to expressing doubt. I have 99% confidence--that is a way to express uncertainty. -------------------- As a Christian, I believe in God with all my heart, and I have 100% confidence that Jesus is my God and savior.
But we aren't voting or sharing our beliefs here! We are doing what Paul did in the book of Acts! We are arguing with all takers for the reasonableness of belief in God with premises agreed upon by atheist scientist With historical facts agreed upon by atheist historians. With philosophical arguments agreed upon by atheist philosophers. (Look at what Sharpe agreed about in this video), reductive naturalism is false, consequentialism arguments against religion (Sam H arris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Coyne, Krauss) are false, etc.
What subjects feel about their beliefs (whether held strongly or weakly) are moot. I could hold that 223 is a prime number very weakly or ab completely agnostic about it. But 223 would still be a prime number. So our confidence or strength of belief doesn't play here.
Uber Genie St. Paul shared his belief with the people of Athens. St. Paul used a reference point of an unknown god. He briefly explained why an unknown god is problematic, then he preached about the true God. He did not do it quietly. St. Paul proclaimed his belief in God.
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Acts 17:22-28 "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: 'People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship-and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 'The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.' And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’"
"Belief and confidence are synonyms." The fuck? Please get a dictionary.
Erwin Müller A thesaurus is filled with synonyms. A thesaurus is a better reference than a regular dictionary for someone who wants to learn about synonyms. Not all dictionaries include synonyms.
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If you find a thesaurus that does NOT include "confidence" as a synonym for "belief," please let me know. I would be interested to see it.
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Please feel free to check dictionaries and thesauruses. "Confidence" has been listed as a synonym for "belief." I will provide references.
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Google the phrase "synonyms for belief" the top of the search results lists "confidence" as a synonym.
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Dictionary.com type "belief" and it lists "confidence" in a definition itself.
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Microsoft Word has a built-in thesaurus. You can use the shortcut feature of Shift F7. Write the word "belief" in a Word document, press Shift F7, and one of the first synonyms to show will be "confidence."
Erwin Müller Someone removed your comment as spam. An error is presently preventing me from restoring it.
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When typing "belief" in Google here is what is shown as second definition for belief (and I will emphasize the two mentions of the word CONFIDENCE).
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"2. trust, faith, or CONFIDNCE in someone or something.
"a belief in democratic politics"
synonyms:
faith, trust, reliance, CONFIDENCE, credence
"belief in the value of hard work"
antonyms:
disbelief, doubt"
how do you measure your confidence from 0 to 100% how do you know that you are in 51%?
Do you believe in unicorns? No? What percentage would you give? Pretty close to zero, right?
Just because you might not be able to put an exact number on it is utterly irrelevant because you have a basic idea and we make these kind of judgments ALL THE TIME, so your attempt at a rebuttal is quite frankly pitiful.
24:34 what is the bad science for the kalam argument? I've heard rebuttals but can't fully grasp any.
+Eclectic Media the shirt says "swag." But you would be correct if it did say yolo. That would be ironic.
+Joel Almloff there is none, some will argue that we can't 'know' cause and effect exist in the q theory, which predecedes the universe...but that is a leap of faith...we have some studies that show there is more than 'coincidence' in quantum models... there is really not even 'science' in the argument..it's only used to support the premises.
*****
What the?!? How is it known a-priori that the Universe began to exist?
*****
Your reasoning is flawed. The Universe subsumes *all of time*. Thus the Universe is not itself in time.
Just like the sum of all space is not itself in space. Just like the sum of all humans is not itself a human. Just like the sum of all land would not itself be situated on land.
Thus we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that reason leads us to. Time is in the Universe, but the Universe itself is not in time.
Both philosophy and science show the Universe is eternal. Nothing else even makes logical sense.
*****
_"Plus an eternal Universe was largely thrown out in the 20th century by scientists"_
Largely? LOL! Not for certain but largely huh?
_"You either have to say that there is a past infinite amount of events within The Universe, or The Universe existed atemporally in some part."_
LOL! Events are still occurring. That automatically rules our an infinite amount of past events. It is rather a potential infinite since it is still going and there is nothing incoherent about potential infinity.
_"Just like the collection of humans couldn't always exist unless humans have always existe"_
No, humans would simply come from something that was nonhuman.
_"requires land to have always been present in order to not have the sum equal zero"_
Why cant it be zero?
Scharp has a kindergartner's understanding of biblical Christianity. It's actually sad. It is like watching a garter snake being predated by a king cobra. Scharp is the garter snake.
That's what you need to tell yourself to protect your weak and fragile mind from doubt. It's no different from the delusional ramblings of Donald Trump.
Craig slowly roasted Scharp, by his reactions and body language. Scharp knew Craig was way out of his league.
That's what Craig does, he is sneaky and dishonest, lol
@@anteodedi8937 roasting someone doesn’t mean you’re sneaky and dishonest. It means you’re right and they’re wrong.
@@Pharaoh126 He is super dishonest. One example is the moral argument he has always used. Even theist philosiphers like Swinburne agree that the argument is flawed. So yes he is dishonest and plays with the audience (reactions, body language, rhetoric etc)
@@anteodedi8937 what’s dishonest about the moral argument?
@@anteodedi8937 You may disagree with a premise in his argument, it doesn’t mean he’s dishonest. It’s not like he secretly disagrees with the argument and tries to convince you of it lol
Also on the topic of the ethics of hell, I think it's extremely close to being an excellent system to deal with evil but that there is one flaw makes it a unimaginably immoral and unethical system. The flaw it seems to me is not allowing the ones that chose to not follow god to chose to not exist anymore, the biblical doctrine it seems, teaches that once you are sent to hell god won't let you die thus forcing ETERNITY of the worst torture possible, which seems like a doctrine that would make even satan blush! In my mind it's impossible that the most loving being that's even possible, could do such a horrid thing. It's quite amazing though because if those sent to hell were allowed to chose to stop existing then it would be completely understandable, God creates people (Who didn't ask to be brought into existence) gave them a choice to follow him and be orderly or be separated with the unorderly, some don't want to follow him (which is disorderly and sucky to exist that way) and decide they just rather not exist at all, that is the most respectful system I can imagine, but bringing beings into existence who didn't ask for it, then saying follow me or I'll send you to a place of torture and not let you die ever, not in 100 years, not in 1000, not in 100 trillion, holy crap that's evil, am I wrong about this? If so someone explain it to me!
You missed the point. God has nothing to do with you being in hell. It was your choice to go there (and by there i mean away from God). Youre there for eternity because the soul is eternal. The soul is eternal because the point of creation is to have the biggest number of people enjoy the presence of God and creation for eternity. But you may choose to stay away from all that if you wanted to. And by that i mean away from God which is love, light, truth, justice, happyness, anything good. The opposite of that is hell. God didnt send you there, He let you go there because youre free to do what you want and He wont stop you. If he did that would mean people didnt have the freedom of choice. Also dont be so sure that eternity in hell is worse then nonexistence, especially since you can find redemption even in hell. Jesus rescued people from hell between his death and resurection, angels rescue people from hell, the apocalypse will release a lot of people from hell...i even heard, from an orthodox priest (high lvl priest who knew a lot of stuff), about two demons that repented...dont know much about that that but you get the point. Youre asking the wrong questions though. If you believe in God , do you honestly think He is anything other than perfect love and perfect justice? Can you honestly say that you know better? Do you know how the univers works? How the soul works? If it can even be destroyed once created? What would the consequences be if that hapened? How about you wake up from this madness of arogance, entitlement and selfpity and take charge of your life, take responsability and trust God to know what He is doing. He DID create the univers after all. And he DID die for your sins, in case you had doubts about His love and justice. Because our sins stink to highheaven there had to be a price to be paid, but because He loves us so much , He paid the price with His suffering and His blood. Get it ? He wanted us to know how grave our sin was , and how much He loved us regardless of that, and that He was God and the afterlife real, so he resurrected the third day, opening the doors to Heaven which were closed to mankind from the banishment from Eden untill the Resurrection.
@@oldscorp I disagree, God existed before anything, he knew what exactly would happen with any possible world he could create and he chose to create one where evil comes into existence (he did create satan after all, even though he knew exactly what he would do). The policy of making people exist eternally in hell with no choice to cease existing isn't moral which is why I think it's incorrect, God's morality is written on our hearts and every fiber of my being recognizes that idea as evil.
Also, a super interesting side question to pick your brain a bit, I've been trying to figure out why God created anything at all. That might sound silly but I think it's one of the most profound questions of theology. So God existed before everything, and he was literally perfect in every way by definition, reality itself was perfection but then he chose to create a world where suffering exists, so he took reality from perfection to imperfection. It really doesn't make sense.
And lastly on arrogance, I'm actually very open on these things, I trust God I just don't trust humans who make stuff up about God or assume their understanding is correct (I'm really not trying to offend you here) but you said I was arrogant then preceeded to tell me the true mind of God, as if your interpretation of scripture and philosophy is correct, that was kinda funny no offense.
I don't like the debate question. The answer is yes, there is evidence for God in the form of testimony and revelation. However, the reliability of the evidence is what needs to be tested.
"There will be coffee and donuts" won the debate!
But in all seriousness, although WLC was terrible as always in terms
of the arguments - not actually 'accounting' for 'objective' moral values -
but merely defining good=God, God=good (which after decades of his
work and thousands of years of philosophy has still not solved the
Euthyphro Dilemma) and his misrepresentation of science and his shifting
of the burden of proof (when his self refuting skeptical theism is pointed out
for example) - as a debater he was still miles better than obnoxious
Sharp who didn't go more than surface deep and conducted himself
absolutely terribly.
Kevin should drop his last name IMO
:P
+ReligionInTheBin
I am a Christian but I agree Craig wasn't very good this time, but Scharp was just awful.
I think I might have done better than Craig *this* time.
I was there in person at that debate and was cracking up because WLC arguments weren't airtight and Scharp did much horribly.
Examining Evidence
Sharp was anything BUT sharp, LOL
Now I know it's easy talking from the sideline and not standing in front of an audience in the middle of a debate (although as a philosopher I expect you'd have had your fair share of it), but Sharp even let things past repeatedly (and even the moderator did a better job questioning WLC and STILL Sharp didn't jump in..)
It looked like Sharp just rehearsed his piece assuming that would be enough (maybe too used to academic written discussions and papers).
+ReligionInTheBin yea, totally agree
+ReligionInTheBin Just a question, why doesn't God==Good / Good==God solve the Euthyphro? God might fail to exist, but it is a valid response, IMHO. Everything must be grounded to be true, the question is in what is Goodness grounded. We can say that Goodness is grounded in God. There is nothing wrong with that.
Man Kevin got destroyed and started getting angry lol.
You must have been drunk when you watched the video.
😂
Even though non of Craigs arguments are coninving. He does show his true colors. Dont worry about the arguments....just believe.
It makes perfect sense...
I’m shocked by these comments, many of them imply that WLC did well in this debate?? Kevin Sharp clearly won this debate convincingly.
More of William Lane Craig, the prime morosoph!
Everytime I watch and listen to William Lane Craig with his "1,2,3..." arguments, I can't help thinking that he starts with an answer and builds all his speeches based on questions that prove that that answer is correct, creating syllogisms as he goes along with therefore's and moreover's... whereas averybody that debates with him seem to start with questions and aim to find, if not THE, at least some answers. - Probably why William Lane Craig refuses to discuss the origin, the contradictions, the absurdities of the Bible which he quotes all the time.
+Paul Dube The Bible doesn't need to be inspired by God, inerrant, or even Holy for the premises that WLC argues for.
You need to rephrase your comment because it doesn't make sense. Who cares how they arrive at their conclusions, and there is nothing wrong with answering questions in an i tellectual matter as Craig does. Yes, Craig is very intelligent and knows how to properly answer an argument based on sound reasoning and logic. Don't worry,
I'm sorry but if you can't see the difference between looking for reasons to prove that what you believe in is true and looking for answers to questions you ask yourself, there's very little I can add. - Having read the Bible twice, seriously looked into all sorts of faiths, religions, dogmas, etc. (and historical FACTS as well as the latest finds in archeology), I just can't help but think that anybody who quotes the Bible and invoke the Kalam argument as is it was logically unquestionable is seriously in need of counselling. - To me WLC is an educated televangelist.
Paul Dube did you really read the whole Bible twice? Did you read Leviticus twice too? And instead of being so broad, why don't you mention by name the "every other" religious thing you read? Just curious.
Yes the entire Bible (I mean the one aproved by the Roman Catholic Chuch which is different that that of the Jewish Old Testament and the Orthodox Church) plus apocryphal texts, the Quran and on Hinduism, Bouddhism, Taoism and countless essays on religions, including mythology. AS A HOBBY, not looking for the TRUTH, For that, I'd rather trust science and maths. - In the words of Borges : How can one compare the wonders created by HG Wells, Edgar
Allan Poe and others to those dreamed by authors who invented a single entity consisting of a father, a son and a holy spirit who lived
lonely out of time before creating us out of love ?
+Joffrey King "We mustn't resort to God every time we don't understand something."
Nor do we. But none of the premises in Craig's arguments require one to believe in a god to agree with. The only reason a person would disagree with any of them, is that they realize that to agree with them all is to be pretty much forced to agree with the conclusions of each argument. And so I'll ask you a *third* time: which of the premises do you disagree with, and why?
Experience can indeed be a strong argument for the individual. But, it usually does little for anyone else. Craig understands this. It would be one thing if that was his sole argument. But, it's not. He makes several objective arguments previously and them concludes with that on as a personal reason he knows God indeed exists. By the way, if God exists, that makes sense. Believing in the true God that created the entire universe should have some personal effect on the believer. It should be life-transforming.
I can't help but cringe and cover my face in embarrassment every time Kevin Scharp finishes one of his long drawn out, contradictory, incoherent and vain babblings. I have respect for many of the atheists that William Lane Craig debates even though I do not agree with them because they at least provide structure to their arguments and attempt to explain their positions using evidence grounded in science or philosophy... but this Scharp is honestly just talking out of his rear end.
Kevin walking around aimlessly is a total nerves distraction. If one moves when they talk, they need to move with a purpose.
There is no purpose without God.
Incorrect. Without god, we get to decide our own purpose.
Osmosis If I decide for myself to make-up something, is it real?
Captain Jack
As real as your "purpose" is, yes.
Osmosis If a person decides to make-up a purpose, that purpose is not real.
The one point where Scharp got the better of Craig was when he brought up love and commented, "How terrible for God that he HAS to accept the human's rejection of Him." This ethical dilemma is truly a dilemma for Craig as it was a dilemma for me, leading to my rejection of Protestantism and becoming a Catholic.
I dont see where the dilema is? God wants our love FREELY given, like any human who isnt a psychopath. Love cannot be forced, if its not free its not love. People who dont understand this dont know what love is, they mistake it for lust and desire and other things that you can take forcibly.
As elaborated on above, this point is really dumb. If you didn't have the choice not to love God then the choice to do so wouldn't mean anything. This isn't exactly 5D chess.
How would a Catholic answer the dilemma, such that it is not an ethical dilemma?
""How terrible for God that he HAS to accept the human's rejection of Him."" - I don't understand why you think this is a dilemma. And I don't understand why you think God has to do anything of the sort. You think God had to create humans? You think God lacks the power to overrule people's will if he wanted to?
Where exactly is the dilemma supposed to be?
Can Scharp really not see the difference between the unlikelihood of the fine-tuning and our lack of knowledge about God's motives? I mean, even in the absence of any knowledge at all about God's psychology, what possible epistemological rule could we use (which we would consistently apply in other situations) to burden that situation with the same enormous unlikelihood?? We have *reasons* to believe the fine-tuning is stupendously unlikely. We have no reason at all to think it is equally (or even nearly) as unlikely that God would design the world. Indeed, if we were totally ignorant about His psychology, and dove into it by leaning so dramatically toward unlikelihood, we would be epistemologically bonkers. What possible justification can there be to saddle something we are just ignorant about with a lean so dramatic (or any lean at all, really)??