The gist of the commentary is: "You, Stephen Law, don't know why the universe exists? Then you can't deny my God exists! I win! You're insane!"
Unfortunately, this way of thinking is very deeply entrenched in the minds of some of Craig's more dimwitted followers (not all of his followers, of course - plenty of them will wince at this).
The truth is an atheist might succeed in showing that Craig's God does not exist, whether or not that atheist knows the answer to the question "Why does the universe exist?", and whether or not they bother to refute Craig's Kalam cosmological argument. That's what I aimed to do in this debate, as I explained several times.
In this clip, Craig insists I need to address his Kalam cosmological argument. It's obvious I don't need to do that in order to show Craig's God does not exist.
There's a moral here so far as reaching this kind of person is concerned. The moral is:
You can never point out clearly enough, loudly enough, and enough times that, just because we don't know why the universe exists, or why it's fine-tuned, and haven't bothered to refute the Kalam cosmological argument, doesn't mean we haven't decisively ruled out their God.
See the Sherlock Holmes fallacy.
Comments
--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
I think this explains Craig's technique fairly well.
For instance, in the past, scientists didn't know about nuclear fusion, but they did the math and realized that the Sun's energy didn't come from combustion.
Yet, they recognized that they didn't know why the Sun shone.
I don't think many (or maybe any) of Craig's supporters would have said that scientists had failed to show that the Sun's energy wasn't from combustion just because they were unable to explain the process.
Similarly, if forensic examiners haven't yet been able to examine the cause of death but explain that it wasn't because of an old bullet wound, that would raise no suspicions from most if not all of those Craig's followers who are so confused on this particular matter.
When I first heard the Kalam argument I found it convincing, and I'm sure many people in that audience would have too. It wasn't until I read Graham Oppy's critique of the kalam argument in his book "arguing about Gods" that I discovered the argument is extremely lacking and not very convincing. For this reason, I think you should have addressed the argument in your debate.
It's amazing that some people think that when scientists, or philosophers, say 'We don't know' it's a capitulation, rather than an expression of the limits of our knowledge at the time. The 'God of the Gaps' will always have a home, no matter how much we learn.
Regards, Paul.
I have to admit if this happened to me, I'd be bloody angry.
Regards, Paul.
I'd be angry about the blatant misrepresentation of your argument.
Regards, Paul.
However, I do think you need to refute the Kalam Argument. Otherwise I'd be entirely in my rational rights to leave the debate as a deist, at least, which would falsify atheism (your position). Also, granting the existence of at least **a** god means we'd have to take the Resurrection and moral arguments more seriously.
This brings me to a question I'd want to ask you about the Evil God challenge. I posted it elsewhere, so I'm re-pasting here purely for convenience, not spamming (though if you disapprove I'll not do it again)!
I'd like you to clarify something about your Evil God challenge:
It appears to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that you invest a lot in the following train of thought:
"look at all these many, many people who think The Problem of Good disproves Evil God. If they're entitled to think that, then I'm entitled to mirror their logic and argue that The Problem of Evil disproves Good God".
But the most important question, I think, rests upon that "if" statement: **IF** all these people are entitled to use TPOG, then I can use TPOE. Because surely, as a philosopher, the most important thing for you to do is not to just rest upon the number of people who happen to hold a view, but actually analyse whether the view itself is sound.
Say we analysed the actual logic of TPOG and found it didn't succeed in disproving Evil God, all we'd be left with is thousands of people using a bad argument, and your basis for using TPOE would be based upon mirroring a bad argument.
Does that make sense? I'm wanting to check whether you appeal to the masses who happen to use TPOG as justification for your using TPOE. If that is what you're doing, then that seems philosophically insufficient because you wouldn't have checked whether or not all these people are using a good argument (indeed it may even be some sort of ad populum fallacy)?
If, on the other hand, you actually do think TPOG is a good argument in and of itself (regardless of how many people use it), from which you can mirror it to TPOE, I'd like to know why that is (after all, people like Bill Craig simply reject TPOG thereby cutting off the attempt to mirror it into TPOE).
Hope that makes sense. Thanks! :-)
Peter
How does the Kalam Cosmological Argument show any god, even deist? It is an empirically based argument about existence and causes. At best, it would say that the physical universe as we experience it has a cause. But what is the cause? Unless someone shows how a god caused it, how can they justify saying it’s a god, even a deist one?
If I can’t find a pair of socks, and I can’t work out what happened to them, can I say that an elf took them? Wouldn’t I need to show evidence that an elf took them? Not just a definition that ‘elves steal things’. More importantly, shouldn't I need to show that elves exist to begin with? How can they simply be defined into existence?
So if the universe is being studied empirically, but a ‘god’ can just be brought in on a definition, where does the KCA really go? How do we know this god didn’t begin to exist? Just from a definition?
The KCA as an argument for a god has the same problem as any issue where we lack knowledge. So many arguments are of the form: we don’t know what caused X, or we can’t explain Y, therefore it must be a god. So how about Craig showing how a god caused X or exactly how Y is explained.
Better still, Craig can start with showing that a god exists. The mystery of X or Y can’t be put as evidence, as the god is being used to explain X and Y. So it would be a very circular argument.
Didn’t miss it. What is being deduced? Craig hasn’t established that such a ‘god’ exists to be deduced to. It’s still only a definition being smuggled in (like elves). Question begging.
What about how it was ‘deduced’ that the sun was drawn across the sky by a chariot driven by a god? Or how I ‘deduced’ that elves took my socks?
He gives 2 arguments about why the cause of the universe would have to have specific properties such as being an un-embodied mind (instead of an abstract object) with the freedom of the will to cause a temporal effect from an atemporal state. He doesn't just place God in there, he uses further argumentation to arrive at the conclusion.
You're simply missing out parts of his argument. It would be as if I formulated Stephen's argument from Evil and missed out the whole chunk about Evil God.
How does Craig (or you) know what a disembodied mind is? Or what it can do? Or how it could have freedom of will? Or how it could cause anything from an atemporal state? These are just claims. Just definitions. It’s elves all over again.
When Craig finds a mind independent of a physical brain, then maybe his ‘argument’ will start to have some semblance of reality.
I am writing a paper on the KCA and William Lane Craig. I would be interested in any thoughts. I have about a dozen weaknesses and outright objections with the argument, which is surprising given it is only 3 short lines long.
Anyway, sorry for the random intrusion, but any feedback would be gratefully received:
http://www.skepticblogs.com/tippling/2012/09/10/the-kalam-cosmological-argument-and-william-lane-craig-1/
It is the first in a series of posts I will be doing.
JP
The Kalam has always been a refuted argument.