{"id":4283,"date":"2013-02-10T19:01:38","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T00:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=4283"},"modified":"2013-11-20T00:26:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T05:26:37","slug":"craig-wins-again-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/craig-wins-again-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig wins again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4284\" style=\"border: 11px solid white;\" alt=\"craig - that's your argument\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument.png\" width=\"312\" height=\"312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument.png 312w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/craig-thats-your-argument-90x90.png 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px\" \/><\/a>This post is <strong>a commentary on the<\/strong><a title=\"whole debate on youtube\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=bhfkhq-CM84\" target=\"_blank\"> Craig-Rosenberg debate<\/a>. Most of my comments are in italics; factual reporting is in regular text.<\/p>\n<p>In short, Craig undeniably wins. I felt bad for Rosenberg, and could hear naturalistic philosophers of religion face-palming throughout the debate.<\/p>\n<p>Debaters: there&#8217;s<strong> a lot you can learn<\/strong> from here.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>8:00 The debate has judges?<em> Yet no philosophers? Or rather, one who used to teach it?<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>17:14 &#8211; Debate finally starts<\/strong>. C comes out hitting on all cylinders, with a clean argument for a self (an &#8220;unembodied mind,&#8221; &#8220;a consciousness,&#8221; or &#8220;person&#8221;) which exists <em>a se<\/em> (he hedges with talk of &#8220;a personal being&#8221;) (person etc. &#8211; before 24 min). (<em>See comment re: 37:00 below<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li>25:30 It is clear that C has read some of Rosenberg&#8217;s work.<\/li>\n<li><em>C keeps his arguments <strong>simple, short, and understandable<\/strong> &#8211; though philosphers and other pros might prefer more detail. But this is effective communication; he knows his audience. His pace is conversational, and not a word is wasted. It is clear that C has <strong>tailored his arguments to his opponent<\/strong>, even while using mostly his standard arguments &#8211; and he points out some of the most ridiculous things R has said follow from naturalistic atheism.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li>28:00 <em>&#8211; I don&#8217;t at all understand C&#8217;s comeback to the multiple cosmoi objection to the fine tuning argument. A rare mis-step in C&#8217;s debate performance<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>37:00 C: God &#8220;can be personally known.&#8221; <em>Never mind that God is NOT literally a self\/person, or C&#8217;s controversial Trinity speculations, which he habitually presents as &#8220;the&#8221; doctrine of the Trinity. But, this does nothing to hurt him in this debate.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>38:00 Rosenburg starts his case, <\/strong><em><strong>and is hilariously rude<\/strong>. He falsely implies <!--more-->that<\/em> C doesn&#8217;t listen, is not paying attention to others. <em>This is a major debate mistake &#8211; contempt only works in small doses. For example, see Craig&#8217;s face in the meme above. (Thanks to Australian Philosophy major Anthony Bigg for that.) R riduculosuly declares a debate to be the wrong format, then misdefines &#8220;faith&#8221; around 40:00. Note to Rosenberg: if you really think that debates are useless when it comes to getting at the truth, <strong>don&#8217;t particicpate<\/strong>!\u00a0 No debates are not a genteel discusion, nor are the how we really think deeply through a subject, but they are a useful exercise.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li>42:00 R <em>commits an <strong>appeal to authority<\/strong> fallacy<\/em>, appealing to the membership of National Academy of Sciences. Clearly, whatever the majority of those blokes believe, we should believe. They&#8217;re scientists, after all.<\/li>\n<li>43:00 &#8211; R thinks that theists need a &#8220;principle of sufficient reason&#8221; which implies that all events are caused<em>. He doesn&#8217;t realize that since the 70s, cosmological arguments don&#8217;t suppose that all facts are explainable, or that every event has a cause. So, he flails at a straw man.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>45:00 <em>R doesn&#8217;t seem familiar with careful versions of the fine tuning argument, at least, by what he says in this debate.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>46:00 &#8211; R: Craig is 400 years out of date in invoking purposes! <em>Poor jerk. How out of date! C must be red in the face!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>48:00 &#8211; <em>R shows the <strong>&#8220;something from nothing&#8221; confusion<\/strong> Craig has been correcting, in print, for, I don&#8217;t know, at least two decades. Sigh.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>48:00 Plato refuted that only God can underwrite objective values. Suggests that Craig never heard of it, tries to saddle Craig with an implausible Divine Command Theory <em>which C has repeatedly, clearly, denied.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>R has a prickly, acid, needlessly, hostile manner, like he&#8217;s trying to explain things to <strong>idiots and knaves<\/strong>. Not helpful.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>52:00 &#8211; R points out that many moral theories are compatible with naturalism, and that none of these are refuted by C; nor does he show that g the best explanation of moral realism. <strong>Point Rosenberg<\/strong>; he lands a couple of blows here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/look-out.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4294\" alt=\"look out\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/look-out.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/look-out.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/look-out-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/look-out-90x90.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>53:00 &#8211; R is &#8220;gobsmacked as a philosopher&#8221; that C argues from the New Testament. He compares to this to Joseph Smith &amp; his 11 sworn witnesses, Muhammad&#8217;s night journey, Scientology&#8217;s Xenu, weeping Mary statues. <em>This argument by R is a <strong>crude instrument<\/strong> &#8211; it is unclear what these have in common, other than that R finds them incredible. R seems to suggest we all know miracles don&#8217;t happen, eyewitness testimony is in general unreliable. But we should not be guessing; he&#8217;s flailing here.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li>56:00 &#8211; R asserts that <strong>the <a title=\"my lecture on Mackie's argument\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AjglKOHS6L0\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;logical&#8221; argument to atheism from evil<\/a><\/strong> is a &#8220;killer&#8221; argument. God&#8217;s existence logically implies\u00a0 no suffering.\u00a0 This is &#8220;theism&#8217;s problem from hell.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Oh noes!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>57:00 &#8211; R opines that many responses to problem of evil are morally offensive. He&#8217;s a child of holocaust survivors. <em>Not clear how relevant<\/em>.<em> For all he&#8217;s said to this point, R seems unaware of the Free Will Defense, and seems to labor under the assumption that believers in God can and will only appeal to mystery.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>59:00 &#8211; Craig&#8217;s 12 min rebuttal<\/strong> starts. (He was ready with slides!) Patiently explains why the logical argument for atheism is widely rejected. This is a killer point. Argues that naturalism really the issue, and distinguishes <strong>epistemological naturalism (scientism) vs metaphysical naturalism (physicalism)<\/strong>. 1st doesn&#8217;t imply 2nd. C argues that if you accept the former, you should be a theist. (<em>A gesture at his argument from the applicability of mathematics to the cosmos?<\/em>) R doesn&#8217;t argue for metaphysical naturalism. And this refuted by args for God&#8217;s existence, which R hasn&#8217;t effectively rebutted.<\/li>\n<li>1:04 C gives <strong>a series of argumentss vs. metaphysical naturalism<\/strong>, each starting with a premise from R&#8217;s book &#8211; to the effect that\u00a0 metaphysical naturalism rules out intentionality, meaning, true sentences, moral responsibility, free will, purpose, planning, endurance through time, my own existence \/ existence of selves. Ergo, &#8220;Naturalism is absurd.&#8221; <em>One has to agree: IF all these consequences hold, then he&#8217;s right that metaphysical naturalism flies in the face of reason and experience. Of course, most other naturalistic philosophers will NOT agree that naturalism really implies those things! In a sense, Rosenberg is an extremist from the naturalistic side.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>1:08 C points out the inadequacy of R&#8217;s responses, e.g. something out of nothing vs. something out of a &#8220;quantum vacuum.&#8221; <em>Yes, C has been making these points for many years! Maybe, then, R should have carefully addressed his published points.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>1:10 C shows the inadequacy of R&#8217;s silicon-life-based response to fine tuning arguments. Goes on to sketch his 3rd way between euthyphro dilemma, and urge that this is better than moral nihilism \/ error theory.<\/li>\n<li>1:11 &#8211; C contrasts the New Testament with the lies of Smith, legends about Muhammad, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>1:12 &#8211; C sums up his case so far. <em>He is way ahead at this point<\/em>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>1:12:40 &#8211; Rosenberg&#8217;s 12 minute rebuttal<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>1:13 &#8211; R concedes that &#8220;Science&#8221; implies all the absurd things C says! Not atheism &#8211; rather <strong>&#8220;Science&#8221;<\/strong> implies these things. R stakes it all on &#8220;Science,&#8221; whereas he urges that C stakes his monotheism on his interpretations of science. (<em>Wrong<\/em>!)<\/li>\n<li>1:15 &#8211; R tries to distance himself from met. naturalism, and even from his book. Says these are irrelevant to whether or not it is reasonable to believe in God. <em>Well, they&#8217;re relevant to the truth of naturalism, which is in the mind of many the chief worldview in competatition with monotheism<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>1:16 &#8211; R addresses the intentionality problem &#8211; this is &#8220;a profound mystery in philosophy&#8221; and a problem for neuroscience. This irrelevant to atheism vs. theism.<\/li>\n<li>1:18 &#8211; R flails around re: C&#8217;s argument from mathematics, calls this an arg from ignorance. C&#8217;s arg &#8220;beggars the imagination.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>1:20 &#8211; <strong>Logical arg from evil again<\/strong>. R asserts, over-boldly, that theists have flailed around <em>ad hoc<\/em> since Leibniz. Mentions free will defense or theodicy, mystery-mongering, concludes there is no satisfactory answer. He bizarrely ignores Plantinga&#8217;s famous Free Will Defense, and asserts, implausibly, that C must explain why God needed the holocaust in particular.<em> In other words, R <strong>demands an all-encompassing theodicy<\/strong>. Doesn&#8217;t seem to understand the idea that defense is enough, or for that matter the open theist, or skeptical theist responses to problems of evil. R is <strong>out of his areas of competence<\/strong> here; h<\/em><em>e doesn&#8217;t know things which a grad student half-trained in philosophy of religion must know.\u00a0<\/em> On his high horse, R professes to be offended by theists. And he promises to become a Christian if a good answer is forthcoming. <em>Not too risky, of course, if he&#8217;s going to hold out for an all-encompassing theodicy<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>1:23 &#8211; C points out (<em>exagerating a little<\/em>) that basically no one defends &#8220;logical&#8221; arguments &amp; C explains why that strategy is unpopular &#8211; even with philosophers who are atheists. C effecively quotes atheist Paul Draper to this effect. C explains Hick&#8217;s old point, that if God exists, his aims would go far beyond just our own comfort or pleasure.<\/li>\n<li>1:27 &#8211; R still has no response to argument that only God explains where there is any cosmos at all, and no answer re: the usefulness of mathematics, fine tuning &#8211; basically to most of C&#8217;s arguments.<\/li>\n<li><em>Still, C is way ahead. R doesn&#8217;t even know what he has to accomplish; <strong>he thinks disdain and appeal to &#8220;Science&#8221; are enough<\/strong>. C urges that met doesn&#8217;t follow from epist nat, and met nat the most plausible form of athesim. But he points out that R is merely biting the bullet re the absurd consequences of physicalism. At this point, C is badly beating R. And C plainly knows he is too<\/em>. But instead of insulting R, he kindly invites him to embrace belief in God.<\/li>\n<li>1:32 &#8211; R has effectively been <strong>knocked out<\/strong>. How can he possibly recover in this debate? He&#8217;s reeling, and reaches for insults &#8211; that C is repeating himself, claims that c hasn&#8217;t answered his points, foolishly complains about the format, <em>to which R agreed. Boo!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>1:33 R demands to know why C insists on a Leibnizian &#8220;Principle of Sufficient Reason&#8221;, which of course C does not defend.<em> R doesn&#8217;t know that he&#8217;s swinging at a straw man.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>1:35 &#8211; R opines that &#8220;where I come from&#8221; the logical problem is still a problem. R bizarrely praises, then insults Peter van Inwagen, telling us <em>that<\/em> the argument of van Inwagen&#8217;s 2004 book is embarrassingly bad, but not <em>how<\/em>.<em>\u00a0I guess we&#8217;ve just supposed to take Rosenberg&#8217;s word for it. Why even bring it up, though, if you&#8217;re not even going to say what it is, much less explain its lameness?Boo!<br \/>\n<\/em><\/li>\n<li>1:36 R FINALLY tries to address a <strong>free will theodicy\/defense<\/strong> (he doesn&#8217;t know the difference) but he doesn&#8217;t go a millimeter beyond Mackie&#8217;s 1959 article, and again ignores Plantinga much-discussed defense! (R demands to know why God couldn&#8217;t ensure that we all always freely do what is right.)<\/li>\n<li>1:38 &#8211; Again, R is badly out of his area. R tells us that New Testament scholars tell us that 75% of the NT is forged. He asserts that the NT or some of it written in <strong>Aramaic<\/strong> (!) and that the Greek NT full of mistakes. And of course, we can&#8217;t accept <em>Christian<\/em> scholars writing about <em>Christian<\/em> subjects. <em>Why, the very thought!<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>1:40 C&#8217;s closing statement<\/strong> &#8211; still polite, but hard hitting. He points out that R is missing the point regarding the free will defense. Appeals to the controversial concept of transworld depravity, without using that phrase. Again highlights the absurdities of naturalism, as R understands it.<\/li>\n<li>1:44 C&#8217;s personal testimony, being &#8220;captivated by the person of Jesus,&#8221; walking in this for over 40 years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>1:46 &#8211; R&#8217;s closing statement<\/strong>. Says he&#8217;s been saving his <strong>best argument<\/strong> (<em>drum roll please<\/em>): &#8220;Science&#8221; has no need for the hypothesis of God because it makes to contribution to predictive power, and explains nothing. <em>A textbook case of <strong>begging the question<\/strong>, I&#8217;m afraid<\/em>. R goes on to compares God to the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Santa. Appeals again to membership of the National Academy of Sciences.<em> I guess if he&#8217;d lived in 1700, he&#8217;d just poll the members of the Royal Society, and then on that basis believe in God<\/em>. R rambles on, compares God unfavorably to the number 2.<\/li>\n<li>1:49 R responds to C&#8217;s testimony &#8211; basically ridicules it as unreasonable. Sarcastically endorses Tertullian&#8217;s &#8220;I believe because it is absurd.&#8221; R: &#8220;You cannot accept that faith is reasonable.&#8221;\u00a0 Passive-aggressively suggests this as friendly advice.<em> In essence, he ends by insulting believers in God. Learned insults are still just insults. Basically gives C and his side <strong>the finger<\/strong>. Boo!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>[debate over by 1:51:30]<\/li>\n<li><strong> Q&amp;A period<\/strong> starts at 1:55. Just a few highlights:<\/li>\n<li>2:02 C clarifies that he never committed to a Leibnizian Principle of Sufficient Reason, i.e. one which implies that every event has a cause. He doesn&#8217;t assert that. Rather, if the cosmos began to exist, it must&#8217;ve had a cause (outside itself).<\/li>\n<li>2:03 &#8211; R admits he finds some deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics to be the most plausible. But <em>still<\/em>, he pushes that cause-less micro-events show that the universe could&#8217;ve come into being from nothing.<\/li>\n<li>2:22 Channeling Alston, C tries to clarify his version of Divine Command Theory.<\/li>\n<li>2:31 &#8211; C politely asks R <strong>why he didn&#8217;t argue for metaphysical naturalism (aka physicalism)<\/strong>.<em> Good question! See what you can make of R&#8217;s answer. In short, he thinks that &#8220;Science&#8221; has shown atheism to be true. The exchange seems to end in misunderstanding<\/em>, <em>tense joking<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>2:41 &#8211; R <strong>bites the bullet<\/strong> on his claim that if physicalism is true, then sentences &#8211; even his &#8211; have no meaning. But the he seems to engage in special pleading for his own statements. Gets angry at questioner, appeals to his paper &#8220;Eliminativism [about mental events] Without Tears.&#8221; <em>Bad form, R. Give the answer, don&#8217;t angrily gesture at it. Have some respect for the questioner.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>2:44 <strong>The verdicts are in<\/strong>: the judges pick Craig, 4-2. (<em>Absurd. Should&#8217;ve been 6-0; any professional philosopher would pick Craig as having the better arguments.<\/em>) Purdue audience picks Craig 3 to 1, though most abstained from voting. Online audience overwhelmingly picks Craig. <em>Correct, all<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Update<\/strong>:<a title=\"Victory Lap discussion\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=endscreen&amp;NR=1&amp;v=4XevDj2tKWY\" target=\"_blank\"> victory lap<\/a>. What &#8211; Rosenberg was coached? He should sue!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is a commentary on the Craig-Rosenberg debate. Most of my comments are in italics; factual reporting is in regular text. In short, Craig undeniably wins. I felt bad for Rosenberg, and could hear naturalistic philosophers of religion face-palming throughout the debate. Debaters: there&#8217;s a lot you can learn from here. 8:00 The debate&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/craig-wins-again-dale\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Craig wins again<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,54,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-debates","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5257,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4283\/revisions\/5257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}