tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post798046534031666422..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: William Lane Craig's Christian Philosophy: A Tale of Exploitation and BetrayalBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-84828119017101821782013-09-06T16:50:06.025-04:002013-09-06T16:50:06.025-04:00Hmm, that question reminds me of the debate betwee...Hmm, that question reminds me of the debate between Jerry Coyne and PJ Myers about whether theism is falsifiable. Coyne says no because miracles could always be interpreted as effects of superintelligent aliens' technology, as opposed to being supernatural. Arthur C. Clarke says they're precisely the same thing. In other words, if God were to raise someone from the head, he'd be using some advanced technology that would seem like magic to us, and God would be nothing more than an extraterrestrial alien--except that the theist wants to have it both ways, by saying that God is the ultimate subject and object. Aliens are all natural, whereas the eternal God is supposed to transcend nature.<br /><br />The other relevant point here is Hume's take on the evidence needed to prove a miracle. He says there could be no such evidence, since natural explanations would always be more likely. This is really the key point, which makes your thought experiment something of a fantasy. We'd have to ask what the evidence would be to compel belief that a miracle happened. Suppose a time traveler dropped off a video of the event and we saw Jesus die and then rise again a few days later. Maybe there was a bright light in the tomb from God's resurrection technology. But if the light showed up on video, God's technology would have had to be halfway natural, and that would lead us to think mere aliens rather than God was involved. <br /><br />So I think what would actually be involved in coming to believe in miraculous resurrection isn't a rational assessment of the evidence, but a leap of faith originating likely as a defensive reaction to a cognitive breakdown, as the person "hits rock bottom" or whatever. If that happened to me, my problem would be that I'd still remember everything I know about atheism, naturalism, and so on. That knowledge would prevent me from evangelizing like the garden variety, apparently-insane theist. I might not fit in with fellow Christians or with naturalists. <br /><br />Actually, this touches on what I'm writing about for this Monday's article, tentatively called "The Comedy of Theism." I think the proper reaction to belief in miracles is flat-out insanity and overload of cognitive dissonance. So those theists who fit easily into the modern, secular world are all loathsome, existentially inauthentic fakers. They're actually masters of performance art since their whole life is an act, which means atheists should assess their every move in aesthetic terms, as opposed to engaging with their statements on a rational level. <br /><br />The issue isn't whether theistic statements are empirically true (since theistic myths, like most metaphysical or otherwise philosophical statements are speculations/fictions/artworks), but whether the performance of a theistic lifestyle after the Age of Reason is sufficiently entertaining for jaded atheists. Is that too condescending? ;)Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-16324433915952115632013-09-06T14:54:09.701-04:002013-09-06T14:54:09.701-04:00I don't believe this but, if you could be conv...I don't believe this but, if you could be convinced that the resurrection literally occurred, what would be your reaction? Matt Siglhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18192264713975819929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-89099046427335685582013-08-22T23:40:45.346-04:002013-08-22T23:40:45.346-04:00Actually, Cosmic Voyeur, I'm not your typical ...Actually, Cosmic Voyeur, I'm not your typical new atheist. Check out, for example, my article called "Theism: Does its Irrationality Matter?" where I go through the typical refutations of theistic arguments and then argue that the rational case for atheism is irrelevant, since our deepest concerns are usually irrational--and that goes for atheists too.<br /><br />For example, as I point out, atheists normally have a sex life which involves all sorts of irrationality, and atheists engage in the mating rituals to make themselves happy. So why shouldn't people fool themselves with theism for the sake of their happiness? As I argue in numerous places on this blog, new atheists like to pretend they're ultrarational, like Data from Star trek.<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2011/08/theism-does-its-irrationality-matter.htmlBenjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-52061587879121320482013-08-22T18:29:12.232-04:002013-08-22T18:29:12.232-04:00Interesting essay. But while I share Ben's vie...Interesting essay. But while I share Ben's view of Christianity, I suspect in 30 years or so he'll look back in wonder that he would have taken the time to try and refute it with logic. <br /><br />Nearly half a decade ago I majored in Philosophy, and got into many long debates with a couple different former Jesuit professors. It was my first encounter of truly intelligent people who bought into the mythology, and I was dumbstruck by it. <br /><br />For me Heidegger was the light, and I later thought Desmond Morris made the most convincing conjecture on why, besides denial of our mortality, humans were so drawn to creating various gods. For we Primates are quite wired to function within a rigid male hierarchy. One dominant male whose authority within the group is absolute. But when we became hunters on the Savannah splitting off into smaller tribes was necessary and the Alpha males eventually began to lose their control. <br /><br />Considering our history pre-homo erectus was orders of magnitude longer than post, it shouldn't really be surprising there would remain this longing for absolute truth manifested by one supreme authority. So man created his various gods. This may be just one of many elements of our evolution that brought about such superstitions, but likely at least a contributor. <br /><br />I'm grateful those such as Cain, Dawkins and Hitchens are willing to take on the role of debunking the myths, and that I was not smart enough to feel any compulsion to join them in the trenches. It's a tedious, thankless task, and any impact will be way beyond my lifetime. Reason is probably up against a marker in our DNA that goes back millions of years.Cosmic Voyeurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06390238681324813697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-68736746356704205052013-08-07T21:10:14.826-04:002013-08-07T21:10:14.826-04:00Having spent a fair bit of time in other areas, de...Having spent a fair bit of time in other areas, dealing with fallacies - I find that generally someones fallacious statement is often built upon several fallacies at once. Also if we are going to work at the scientific level rather than ad homenim level, we need to break down multiple fallacies down to emperically testable levels - but not only that, emperically testable levels that the audience could test at home in their kitchens (no hadron colliders allowed!).<br /><br />This is HARD to do in real time conversation, I swear to Zues! To identify the fallacies and their found fallacies they are built upon - to dismantle them into regular joe science and so disprove them...<br /><br />Maybe I'm not even describing it very well - heck, that it doesn't just come to me fluidly as to how to describe it - that's part of the problem!Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-25123693271908077722013-08-03T09:38:08.111-04:002013-08-03T09:38:08.111-04:00You're right that there's a difference bet...You're right that there's a difference between rhetoric, in the sense of being able to present some material in an exciting way, and fallacies or sophistry. A critical thinker won't engage in the latter, which could put her at a disadvantage in a debate. Scientists can engage in the former, though, as in the field of popular science books. <br /><br />As for the fallacies, if William Craig engages in those as opposed to just stimulating rhetoric, a critical thinker should be able to call him on it and to do so in an exciting way. So I still think there's a mystery here even if we accept your point, that Craig can take advantage of our biases towards intuitions and certain fallacies. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-59978831454495252542013-08-02T20:13:16.031-04:002013-08-02T20:13:16.031-04:00Sorry for the delay in responce!
Okay, I'll t...Sorry for the delay in responce!<br /><br />Okay, I'll take you at what I understand you to be saying now - But the rhetoric doesn't get cancelled out, Ben!<br /><br />Because the scientificly inclined athiest isn't allowed to just use rhetoric (unless you feel all of science, despite the nukes and dialasis machines, is just rhetoric)<br /><br />When someone uses some feel good mumbo jumbo that's utterly make believe, if you're going the scientific route, you can't just start making crap up! You're at a disadvantage, because you can't just summon mystical, benevolent creatures into existance with a few well intoned words.<br /><br />And we listen for the well intoned words before we listen to 5K repeatitions of a laboratory test. Because the former is our world - or was for so very long. The latter is largely alien to our senses - like a colour we don't really see.Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-9013916872869604652013-07-28T12:33:15.574-04:002013-07-28T12:33:15.574-04:00I see your point, Callan, but what I'm saying ...I see your point, Callan, but what I'm saying is that the point about rhetoric gets cancelled out, since atheists can use rhetoric too. So why isn't Craig simply laughed off the stage time and time again? When I say he "does well," I'm saying that his statements aren't utterly destroyed, and the mystery is that that's precisely what should happen to them (given that the point about rhetoric gets cancelled out). Thus, this article aims to solve that mystery.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-16059107990678227802013-07-27T20:08:40.372-04:002013-07-27T20:08:40.372-04:00Well there's the thing I was detecting - you a...Well there's the thing I was detecting - you agree 'he does well'. To me this is rather like agreeing someone who 'pulls a coin from behind someones ear' does well at <i>actual</i> magic. Further that his opponents should be equally skilled at rhetoric - ie, magic (whether it's the 'actual' kind or illusory kind)<br /><br />Whether Christian theism is false doesn't actually matter to this. If I use rhetoric to convince one audience X is the case (when all evidence is that it actually is the case) yet I use rhetoric to convince another audience X is not the case, it shows I am using something which doesn't care whether something is the case or not, it's instead something which is just about bending other souls to my agenda. Ie, just 'hacking' other peoples minds.<br /><br />To me one can't agree they did well (no more than one can agree the magician did actual magic) unless one actually buys into it all as a valid argument medium (unless one buys into actual magic). If I were to watch someone fall for a ponzi scheme, I wouldn't say the person delivering the ponzi scheme 'did well'.<br /><br />I like your gay designer conspiracy! My own would be that they'd simply like to work with male models exclusively and so inflict their desire onto the surrogate - even, perhaps somewhat in line with your own conspiracy, as a surrogate to punish for being forced to work that way by the industry. I'm not sure about a history of homophobia, I'd buy more into simply being forced by the industry/capitalism to work with female models rather than the male models they'd like to work with is the aggitant for the warped female body image (atleast warped when compared to an average of how women look when you pass them on the street).<br /><br />Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-86524383481760303102013-07-26T09:21:21.953-04:002013-07-26T09:21:21.953-04:00The article agrees with what's apparent: Craig...The article agrees with what's apparent: Craig does well in his debates. Some of the debates he wins, others he ties, some he loses, but the mystery is that because Christian theism should be indefensible in light of modern developments, no such theist should be able to do so well in a debate about theism, even given that such debates reward extraneous skills like being able to use rhetoric in a dramatic way. <br /><br />But you're assuming that if someone does well in a debate, that person's ideas must be true. This is not so, because a sophist or a demagogue can use specious arguments to obfuscate the issues and nonetheless win over the audience. What my article does is try to explain how Craig can do so well in his debates, given that Christian theism is false and given that some of his opponents should be equally skilled with rhetoric.<br /><br />By the way, regarding that comic, feminism and pubic hair are on my list of blog topics. I think this falls under the heading of the feminization of Western men due to a number of factors, including feminism, the shift from an industrial to a more ethereal, knowledge-based economy, and the growing influence of gay men on culture. One result is that women and especially models are supposed to look like teenaged boys with no curves. Mostly, that pleases gay men who are secretly taking revenge against the heterosexual men who are identified with the generations that beat down gay people. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-14345239299092294292013-07-26T07:17:48.162-04:002013-07-26T07:17:48.162-04:00Depends - I was read this comic the other day and ...Depends - I was read <a href="http://www.puckcomics.com/?comic=puck-192" rel="nofollow">this comic</a> the other day and to me it seem to do little to resist the notion it portrays - it even seemed to support it, indirectly. But then the authors comments below seemed quite adamantly against the subject. So maybe it's me - but to me, maybe it's sometimes you can end up supporting a notion (relative to the subjective evaluation of some) that you intend to argue against.<br /><br />Even taking it as a shot against weak assed christian attempts at philosophy, I'm left with the sense that in regard to the people in the room somehow thought the argument was won - well, maybe it's addressed way latter on, but it doesn't seem to get into what the people were actually thinking. Maybe my own thoughts are rather blunt and hardly lofty - confirmation bias, ingroup identification, mob mentality - that's what I'd talk about - or atleast start examining each person that responded possitively. I'm not sure you can disprove someones philosophical attempts without actually looking at the people who were influenced.Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61882882053979636012013-07-22T09:10:28.512-04:002013-07-22T09:10:28.512-04:00And humouring it was too much for you? The article...And humouring it was too much for you? The article is about the mystery of how there could now be even a remotely good Christian debater. Why aren't all Christian philosophers just laughed off the stage? I give two answers: there are problems with postmodern analytic philosophy and Christianity is so flexible or compromised that it can be made consistent with anything, including, say, the materialistic American lifestyle. <br /><br />You might have been more interested in the article's second half than its first one, since there are some zingers against Christianity in the last section. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-66815563643346765742013-07-21T21:28:59.046-04:002013-07-21T21:28:59.046-04:00For what it's worth as to the perception of on...For what it's worth as to the perception of one audience member, it seemed like there was the notion that the christians had delivered a really good argument - and although maybe you were going to disect that, it felt that that idea was being kept alive for a rather long time. It even felt like a method of making folk actually take on that the christians argued well, since the piece asks one (in my estimate) to humour that notion for a long, long length of text.Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-36941881163559244442013-07-19T09:49:57.705-04:002013-07-19T09:49:57.705-04:00I agree that science-centered atheists can lump ph...I agree that science-centered atheists can lump philosophy in with theology, and so their refutation of theism looks like it undermines itself since that refutation is bound to be couched in philosophical rather than just in scientific terms.<br /><br />However, I'm not so sure about your first point. I agree that formal debates aren't ideal for doing philosophy. (Maybe talking over beer is the best method.) But I think any theory can be simplified. Look at the popular presentations of quantum mechanics. Whatever nonphilosophical skills you need to debate well, an atheist could have them just as well as a theist. I think complaining about the format of a debate is a weak excuse. As I say, Craig repeats the same arguments over and over again. An atheist debater could prepare simplified responses to those arguments, in advance. <br /><br />For example, Rosenberg should have talked about the unreliability of our intuitions, since all of Craig's arguments are meant to be intuitive, whereas Rosenberg's science-centered naturalism is an all-out assault on intuition. Rosenberg might have pointed out that at one time we trusted our intuition that the world is flat and rests at the center of the universe, and that diseases are punishments carried out by demons.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-4550520284927739892013-07-19T09:39:51.335-04:002013-07-19T09:39:51.335-04:00Yeah, I got carried away with the length of this o...Yeah, I got carried away with the length of this one. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-7778919197688311902013-07-18T23:22:03.204-04:002013-07-18T23:22:03.204-04:00I've seen most of Craig's debates on youtu...I've seen most of Craig's debates on youtube. One problem is that these debates are a terrible format for doing serious philosophy. Alex Rosenberg's stuff, for instance, can't be expressed properly in such a superficial format. Problem 2 is that Craig often doesn't debate philosphers, but rather scientists. And it is suprising how terrible most scientists are at basic philosophy. In fact, as I've learned, a great many scientists openly disdain philosophy, holding it in the same contempt they hold theism. davidmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61192228883564706772013-07-18T21:00:36.969-04:002013-07-18T21:00:36.969-04:00Couldn't get through it all...
Yes, I've ...Couldn't get through it all...<br /><br />Yes, I've stooped to being one of those posters...Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-2950930191559192372013-07-16T18:17:25.400-04:002013-07-16T18:17:25.400-04:00Heh. I've got several other rants on Christian...Heh. I've got several other rants on Christianity on this blog, including Christian Crudities, Christian Chutzpah, the one on hell, the one on fundamentalism, and now this one of Craig. There will be many more, since my contempt for exoteric Christianity is boundless. <br /><br />I see myself as taking more or less Jesus's side in the debate against the traitors who call themselves his followers. The character Jesus (whether he existed historically is immaterial, not to mention doubtful) was an omega man, an ascetic whose mystical perspective made him loathe the natural world. That's more or less my view too. The difference, though, is that I don't take myths and metaphysics so seriously. They're mainly artworks, for me: whether they're rational isn't as important as whether they're aesthetically powerful.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-53651250077315029432013-07-16T17:57:34.599-04:002013-07-16T17:57:34.599-04:00Quite informative. Quite informative. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61984789967891362562013-07-16T10:33:32.683-04:002013-07-16T10:33:32.683-04:00Why does Christianity make you so angry? A whole b...Why does Christianity make you so angry? A whole blog might be too much, but wouldn't a litte rant here in the comments be fun? ;.)dietlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-23126749647456095412013-07-15T18:39:17.498-04:002013-07-15T18:39:17.498-04:00Thanks, Brian! Christianity does make me very angr...Thanks, Brian! Christianity does make me very angry and has always done so. In fact, I got into philosophy through philosophy of religion, and specifically through the Christianity vs atheism debate. I could write a whole blog of rants against that religion, but that would be cliched. So I prefer to rant against atheism too. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-51057697425633910552013-07-15T15:13:20.432-04:002013-07-15T15:13:20.432-04:00wow. There is some ANGER here in this post, Benja...wow. There is some ANGER here in this post, Benjamin. Bravo! Brian Mnoreply@blogger.com