The ethics of a scientist.

Science has no ethics.  The ethics have to be imported from outside science.

It seems that the best proof of this is found in the example offered by Lawrence Krauss in his debate where he altered the evidence.

In debate, this is a serious offence.  In law, it is a crime.

For physicist Lawrence Krauss, apparently, it's just strategy.

A case study in the intellectual poverty of atheism - debate division.

A couple of days ago, I posted an excerpt from a philosopher who performed an "the emperor has no clothes" analysis on the arguments presented by atheists in debates with theists. Robert Hutchison wrote:

Recently, I’ve begun to systematically record all of the debates on the Existence of God that I can lay my hands on and listen to them at my leisure, usually while driving.

In the process, I made a shocking discovery. It turns out that the atheists are really, really good at insults but are actually quite poor debaters. The atheists insult Christianity, Judaism and religion generally with a nastiness that is almost breathtaking. They belittle. They demean. They insinuate. But the one thing they don’t do is offer intelligent arguments that disprove the existence of God.

In fact, they don’t actually reason at all.

By chance, I happened to listen to this William Lane Craig v. Mike Begon debate on "Is God a Delusion?" Begon's performance is like a case study in what Hutchinson wrote about.

Begon starts his presentation by defining a "delusion" as a belief for which their is either no evidence or which is not "axiomatic." While he spends a lot of time discussing what he means by an "axiom," he never defines what he means by evidence. He argues that the belief that potatoes on the moon are blue is "delusional" because there is "no evidence" that there are potatoes on the moon. He spends the entire 20 minutes of his initial speech without ever providing an argument tending to show that the belief in God is false, as opposed to unsupported by "evidence," whatever that means.

Well, this is lame. As Craig points out, delusions are false beliefs. In addition, we would hold that a belief that potatoes on the moon are blue is delusional because we have evidence that there are no potatoes on the moon.

After Craig presents arguments based on Aristotelian reasoning from premises - based on the current state of scientific knowledge - to conclusions, Began concedes Craig's premises, but then calls the conclusions "assertions," thereby demonstrating that he doesn't understand the fundamentals of logic.

Began also clearly doesn't understand the basic Aristotelian argument concerning the first cause because he ignores the problem of infinite regress by asserting that God needs a creator. (More importantly, he ignores Craig's actual argument.)

As Craig points out, by conceding his premises Began is conceding that the universe had a creator and a designer, but Began never offers any kind of explanation as to who/what this creator/designer might be if not God. Began never attempted to explain this incoherence on his part.

Began never addresses the self-refuting nature of his fundamental claim, i.e., since his view that any belief which is not supported by evidence or axiomatic is delusional is itself not supported by evidence or axiomatic, then his belief is delusional. In fact, the first question to Began - asking him if he is delusional for believing that his children is delusional since Began hasn't had them genetically tested - underscores the problem in Began's position, and the ambiguity of the term "evidence."

Began's final speech is devoted to a series of assertions about the dangers of non-evidential thinking and how the world is at risk because of non-evidential thinking. Began offers nothing but assertions, no evidence for his position, and simply attempts to "poison the well" by linking Craig's position to Islamofascism terrorism.

At no time does Began acknowledge that Craig offered scientific evidence to support his cosmological and design arguments.

Listen to the debate and tell me what you think.

Dawkins v Craig.

Andrew Brown from The Guardian:

William Lane Craig was last month's story, but I am still puzzled by one of the attacks on him. Let's suppose for a moment that Richard Dawkins was telling the truth when he said that it was Craig's attitude to genocide which meant he would not debate with him. Let's further move the debate away from the revenge fantasies of the book of Joshua – because I don't believe the stories there and can't see why I should. The world is full of real acts of genocide or ethnic cleansing without worrying about the probably fictional bits of the Old Testament. The question is whether it is morally outrageous to suppose that the innocent victims of such crimes go to heaven.

The attack on Lane Craig does not just maintain that he is wrong to believe in heaven, but that his belief renders him so morally repulsive that no decent person should share a platform or shake hands with him. And I don't see why.

In all the fuss about Craig there are two things mixed up. The first is whether God commands genocide. The second is whether he is able to take innocents to heaven. It is possible, and perhaps necessary, to get morally outraged about the first question. That's the Euthyphro problem. But I think there is a transference of outrage to the second question, too.

The first thing to say is that there is genocide in our world. More generally, innocents suffer, and injustice is rewarded. If God does not exist, he is not to blame for this. If he does exist, he is in some sense responsible, and there is some mechanism, clearly not of this world, by which he can be forgiven. I don't accept that our present state of comfort somehow justifies the sufferings of people who were sacrificed for it. We can't, I think, forgive God or the universe for the horrors of the world that other people suffer. That would be precisely the sin of the Pharisees, or, as Swift put it, "When we are lashed, they kiss the rod, obedient to the will of God."

There are two possibilities. Either the suffering of the innocent is meaningless, and goes unredeemed. Or it is eventually understood – and accepted – by them as meaningful, and so redeemed. It seems obvious that the second of these two possibilities would be better. That, on its own, is not grounds for believing it is true. But it is clearly more desirable.

We're raising a sissisified crop of nihilistic, materialistic, deniers of evil these days...

...when they won't debate a Christian for fear of contaminating themselves over a story they don't believe in.

Rabbi Moshe Averick on Dawkins' lame excuse for not debating William Lane Craig:

What makes this entire melodramatic episode even more curious are the rather questionable moral stances of Richard Dawkins himself. Consider the following: In an article in Scientific American (November, 1995) Dawkins informed us in blunt, raw language his existential view of reality, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” This of course is an honest and candid expression of the atheistic worldview. In a purely materialistic universe there is no room for metaphysical realities like good and evil. As atheistic philosopher Joel Marks has pointed out, “The religious fundamentalists are correct; without God there is no morality…atheism implies amorality, and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality.” This echoes the disturbing observation of another famous atheist, Sigmund Freud: “The moment a man questions the meaning and value of life, he is sick; since objectively neither has any existence.”


In an article written for Edge in 2006, Dawkins explained that in a materialistic, deterministic universe, “blame and responsibility” [emphasis mine], “indeed evil and good” are nothing more than mental constructs and “useful fictions,” that are “built into our brains by…Darwinian Evolution.” Atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse heartily agrees: “Morality is an illusion put in place by your genes to make you a social cooperator.” If there is no metaphysically existent good and evil, if atheism implies amorality, if morality is a useful fiction and an illusion, if in objective reality life has no meaning and no value; why exactly is Dawkins so morally indignant about a war that took place 3,300 years ago and a modern Christian theologian’s rather dispassionate and thoughtful attempt to understand the meaning of that war? Dawkins also conveniently ignores that the greatest mass murderers in the history of mankind have all been atheists; Josef Stalin: 20-30,000,000 Mao Tse Tung: 50-70,000,000 Pol Pot: around 2,000,000. It’s worth noting that these men committed their atrocities, not 3,300 years ago, but in middle of the 20th century! I am not even remotely suggesting that Dawkins is capable of mass murder, but one would think that this simple historical fact might temper his righteous indignation just a bit.

All of this leads us to the conclusion that the accusation which Dawkins has hurled at Craig is not the reason for his refusal to engage in the debate, it is the excuse. The real reason why Dawkins will not debate Craig is the same reason why he refuses to debate Dr. Stephen Meyer, of the Discovery Institute, about the Origin of Life. He is afraid. He is afraid of debating opponents of the caliber of William Lane Craig and Stephen Meyer. Atheist author Sam Harris has observed that Craig is “the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into my fellow atheists.” Even a non-believing blogger for The Guardian, Daniel Came (“As a skeptic, I tend to agree…regarding the falsehood of theism.”), writes that, “Hence, it is quite obvious that Dawkins is opportunistically using these remarks as a smokescreen to hide the real reasons for his refusal to debate with Craig.” C’mon Professor Dawkins, you’re not fooling anybody; it’s time to come out of the hen-house and fight like a man.

Flowcharting the William Lane Craig - Stephen Law Debate.

Thrasymachus uses "argument maps" to provide a visual guide to the recent Craig-Law debate.

Great idea!

Dawkins favors infanticide in the present day but won't debate William Lane Craig because Craig defended the killing of babies that happened four-thousand years ago.

Wintery Knight points out the irony found in this clip:



Dawkins has become a parody of the socially autistic atheist.

William Lane Craig on "Is Mormonism a Cult"?

Link here.

Craig makes a sound argument and has many sensible point.  I would pick a nit with him about equating "cult" with "non-orthodox Christian."  I would understand that when the word "cult" is not used in its strictly accurate sense of a group of people organized around a particular devotion, it implies people who are under the extreme, excessive and/or unhealthy control of some person or institution. There can be non-orthodox Christian "cults" in that latter sense, such as the "Heaven's Gate" cult, which was, after all, a "UFO cult."  On the other hand, it is not at all clear that Mitt Romney or any given Mormon is a "cultist" in the same sense that a member of "Heaven's Gate" was a cultist.

That's because "straw men" don't fight back.

British atheists seem to be afraid to debate William Lane Craig, aka "The Machine."

 American Evangelical theologian William Lane Craig is ready to debate the rationality of faith during his U.K tour this fall, but it appears that some atheist philosophers are running shy of the challenge.


This month president of the British Humanist Association, Polly Toynbee, pulled out of an agreed debate at London’s Westminster Central Hall in October, saying she “hadn’t realized the nature of Mr. Lane Craig’s debating style.”

Lane Craig, who is a professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, Calif., and author of 30 books and hundreds of scholarly articles, is no stranger to the art of debate and has taken on some of the great orators, such as famous atheists Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Harris once described Craig as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists”.


Responding to Toynbee’s cancellation, Lane Craig commented: "These folks (atheists) can be very brave when they are alone at the podium and there's no one there to challenge them. But one of the great things about these debates is that, it allows both sides to be heard on a level playing field, and for the students in the audience to make up their own minds about where they think the truth lies."

But David Silverman, president of the American Atheists, believes the reason behind the cancellation is much simpler.

"The fact is some people get tired of debating Christians because of the same arguments over and over again. And sometimes it’s a lot like arguing with a wall," he said.

Others have refused to challenge Lane Craig, too, including Richard Dawkins, one of the Four Horseman of the new Atheist movement, which include Hitchens, Harris and Daniel Dennett.

Dawkins, who has labeled the Roman Catholic Church “evil” and once called the Pope “a leering old villain in a frock,” refused four separate invitations, extended through religious and humanist organizations, to take part in debates with Lane Craig during his fall tour.

The controversy wafted into the British press after fellow atheist and philosophy lecturer, Daniel Came, accused Dawkins of simply being afraid, saying, "The absence of a debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your CV and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part."

Dawkins responded by saying, "I have no intention of assisting Craig in his relentless drive for self-promotion."

"I've had a few conversations with Dawkins. He doesn't do debates,” said Silverman who defends Dawkins' decision not to challenge Lane Craig. “He doesn't like those staged debates, which is why he doesn't do much. ... And he gets rather frustrated with the quality of responses."

Craig argues that science and faith are connected. In his writings, he states: "I think we are living in a time in human history where physical science is more open to the existence of a creator and designer of the universe than at any time in recent memory."

In his debates he suggests that the question to ask is not whether science can prove God's existence but rather the philosophy that "science can establish a premise in an argument leading to the conclusion that God exists."

But there many in Britain who would not agree and want to debate that. And they're welcome to do it, because apparently the position is open.

The problem for the atheists is that Craig has been showing them the rationalism that underlies theology.

This is probably how Socrates felt after talking to the Sophists -

"You people can't be either (a) serious or (b) so dense."

"Richard Dawkins is so popular because people are so unsophisticated in their thinking." (William Lane Craig)

Craig v. Harris Debate.

My spot analysis:

Harris doesn't reply to Craig's arguments. Of course, Craig doesn't reply to Harris's arguments. The difference is that Craig is making philosphical arguments against Harris' philosophical arguments and Harris is just playing to the atheist base by villifying the Bible.

A much more in-depth analysis from Randy Everist:

Harris’ rebuttal was a strange, 12-minute diatribe where he offered literally zero arguments for his position. I do not mean he offered zero arguments which I found compelling or good. Just zero arguments altogether. He spent the time presenting the problem of evil and criticizing Christian particularism, both of which were irrelevant to the debate. Harris started to look angry during this portion of the debate. He also seemed to have given up the actual debate topic from here on out.


Craig pointed out that not only were no arguments offered for the naturalistic hypothesis, but that no criticisms of any of his arguments were offered as well! Craig did refer the audience to look into the critiques of Harris through Paul Copan’s book, Is God a Moral Monster?. Craig contended the point of Christianity was not eternal well-being, as Harris alleged earlier. Rather, the point is to worship God on account of who he is! Harris had mentioned in his diatribe that Christians are lunatics, and Craig dismissed this as “stupid and insulting.” I don’t know that I would have said it was “stupid,” but Craig did not come off very mean-spirited (but rather annoyed).

In Harris’ second rebuttal, he accused Craig of misrepresenting him, but did not offer any explanation. Harris defaulted to claiming that if you grant him certain axioms, then his account of morality is true, in much the same way as logic or math. The problem is that people generally don’t view morality to be transcendently true based on “nothing;” further note what this is asking the audience to do: just take his word for it. Take it on faith. He relies on objective morality’s being true, but then his argument just begs the question!

In Craig’s closing, he pointed out that none of his arguments had been addressed throughout the entire debate (which is truly astounding). He also mentioned that taking objective morality on faith doesn’t get us atheistic objective grounding of morality, it just gets us morality itself! We literally have no reason to believe naturalism can account for morality’s being objective.

In Harris’ closing, he again attacks Christian particularism. He states that Craig’s arguments could be given to any God. At this point, however, he’s virtually conceded the topic (and by extension, that a morally good God exists); he’s just demanding to know which one. Both Krauss and now Harris seemingly admit to deistic views in implication; it’s just the Christian God they don’t like (along with others, no doubt).

What we see time and time again is how vacuous the new atheists are in actually defending their position.  They are great at attacking and ridiculing the target rich environment offered by a fallen world, and comparing that to the fantasy world of atheism where all men are short and all women are beautiful, but actually defending their claims, not so much.

How you can tell who lost the debate.

Lawrence Krauss explains how William Craig is a "liar" and how he was too nice to Craig:

I believe that if I erred at all, it was in an effort to consider the sensibilities of the 1200 smiling young faces in the audience, who earnestly came out, mostly to hear Craig, and to whom I decided to show undue respect. As I stressed at the time, I did not come to debate the existence of God, but rather to debate about evidence for the existence of God. I also wanted to demonstrate the need for nuance, to explain how these issues are far more complex than Craig, in his simplistic view of the world, makes them out to be. For this reason, as I figured I would change few minds I decided also to try and illustrate for these young minds the nature of science, with the hope that what they saw might cause them to think. Unfortunately any effort I made to show nuance and actually explain facts was systematically distorted in Craig's continual effort to demonstrate how high school syllogisms apparently demonstrated definitive evidence for God.


Let me now comment, with the gloves off, on the disingenuous distortions, simplifications, and outright lies that I regard Craig as having spouted. I was very disappointed because I had heard that Craig was more of a philosopher than a proselytizer, but that was not evident the other evening.

Of course, he offers his candor to the amen corner at P.Z. Myers' blog.
Rather than claim that he was bested by Craig's Jedi mind-tricks, Krauss would be well advised to take a step back and listen to what he was saying.

For example, Krauss started the argument arguing against "logic."  Myers has tweaked Krauss's argument for him - Krauss wasn't arguing against "logic" as such, he was arguing against the idea that one can ascertain empirical truths purely from logic.

OK, fair point, that was kind of the argument that Krauss made, but Krass wanted to stretch the cash value of the argument to indict all metaphysics, which put him in the silly position of sounding like he was saying that only scientifically provable statements count, which, of course, isn't scientifically provable.

Hello, contradiction.  Worse still, he apparently doesn't understand that when he says things like that he is actually doing metaphysics, not science. 

Second, Krauss argued that we really can't know anything until we go out and check it scientifically because reality is strange and you never can tell what the truth is. 

Krauss' cash value here is to argue that Craig's argument that nothing can't cause something can't be accepted because it hasn't been scientifically proven, and, hey, reality is strange.

First, how stupid is this.  If there is one thing we can be sure of it is that "nothing cannot cause something."  Even Krauss knows this because everything he called "nothing" and said "caused something," he had to admit was actually "something."

Which makes him look rather much like someone trying to deceive to score debate points.

Second, notice how the "reality is stranger" claim gets jettisoned when it comes to a bit of strangeness that Krauss doesn't like.  Hence, when it came to the resurrection of Jesus, we don't get Krauss saying "well, heck, that could have happened because, you know, reality is strange and who am I to say that there couldn't possibly be one case of 'spontaneous ressurection' among trillions of deaths."  Nope, there we get told that we shouldn't believe that kind of thing because we know that kind of thing doesn't ever happen and we need "extraordinary evidence to prove extraordinary claims."

But remember he thinks that "nothing could cause something," which would certainly count as one heck of an extraordinary claim.

So, he strains at gnats and swallows camels, and he thinks he's the rational one.

Craig v. Hitchens.

William Lane Craig permits Christopher Hitchens to hoist himself on his own petard.