William Lane Craig is an idiot.
William Lane Craig has written an article on the Fox News website entitled 'A Christmas Gift for Atheists: Five Reasons Why God Exists.' Let me break it down by responding to each point in his article.
For atheists, Christmas is a religious sham. For if God does not exist, then obviously Jesus’ birth cannot represent the incarnation of God in human history, which Christians celebrate at this time of year.
And with his very first sentence, WLC shows just how ignorant he is. Christmas is not a religious sham. It is a noteworthy and enjoyable holiday. We just don't celebrate the religious aspects of it. Yes, Christians celebrate 'the incarnation of God in human history.' But there is so much more to Christmas. The peace and family togetherness, the beauty of the lights and decorations and music, the comfort of a day spent around the proverbial fireplace with a cup of cocoa... these are all enjoyable and worthwhile aspects of the holiday, no deity needed.
However, most atheists, in my experience, have no good reasons for their disbelief. Rather they’ve learned to simply repeat the slogan, “There’s no good evidence for God’s existence!”
The fact that Craig is able to say something this monumentally brazen and stupid shows just how willfully moronic he is being. We have mountains of evidence that shows the world, the universe as we know it, in fact, all of so-called 'creation,' arose with no need for a supernatural being. Now, any decent atheist will admit the possibility of a god. As has often been pointed out, it's essentially impossible to prove non-existence. We cannot prove that there isn't a teacup orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Saturn. But until compelling evidence exists that demonstrate that there is a teacup in such an orbit, we have no reason to believe that it is there.
So it's not just that we've 'learned to simply repeat the slogan,' it's that the lack of evidence is the very basis of our lack of belief!
But Craig would rather deny the arguments that he's heard so many times and simply write off the objections of atheists as a conditioned response. And then to top it off, he goes further and states that there is evidence for god's existence. Despite every single one of these points having been thoroughly debunked countless times in the past, he continues to trot them out as if they still contain some shred of validity.
And here they are:
1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe. Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning. Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause, there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence. This entity must therefore be enormously powerful. Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.
Here Craig commits the 'god of the gaps' fallacy. True, there is much that we still do not know and much that we do not understand about our universe. Any intelligent individual will readily admit it. The origin of the universe, in particular, is one of the most poorly-understood phenomena in science. We don't know what came before that time. Did it spring into existence from nothing? Was there another universe before ours that collapsed on itself resulting in the expansion of space as observed in current astronomical laboratories? Did time as we know it even exist before the poorly-named 'Big Bang' event?
Any scientist worth his credentials will gladly answer all of those questions with 'I don't know.' But as has been repeatedly stated, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' Just because we don't know what existed before our universe came into being doesn't mean that it therefore had a supernatural cause. God does not provide the best explanation of the origin of the universe. He represents the easiest (and therefore the laziest).
And perhaps most importantly, even if (even if) we accept this point as valid, it does not prove the existence of the christian god. It would only prove the existence of a god. We'd still be left with the task of discerning which god is the real one. Zeus? Odin? Ra? Dagda? Mithras?
2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life. That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range. There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible, given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.
Theists continually claim that the universe was 'fine tuned' to support life. They point to certain scientific constants, such as the speed of light or the nature of gravity, as evidence that the universe was 'designed' with life in mind. This despite the fact that in the entire universe, which is 47 billion light years in all directions just for the observable universe (that's over 400 nonillion -- 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 -- square light years in volume!) with over a septillion stars, contains (so far as we know) a single planet in a single solar system in a single galaxy that supports life. I'd hardly call that 'fine tuned.'
Darkmatter2525 has a very amusing (although NSFW due to language) video dealing with this very topic. I recommend it.
Also, again we find ourselves with an argument that, even if it were valid, doesn't prove Craig's god specifically, but only the existence of some god somewhere. Which god? Craig's argument does not address this point.
3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness, and His commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.
Craig makes two errors here. First, he assumes the existence of objective moral values. There is no such thing as objective moral values. All morals are subjective. What is considered ethical in one culture is not always viewed as ethical in another culture. In fact, the great irony of this statement is that religion most often subverts morals, rather than instilling them. There was a study done in which a number of jewish children were asked ethical questions, and they passed them all admirably. However, when the questions were rephrased to pertain to a sect of muslims who had been persecuting their jewish community, the children no longer displayed compassion for their fellow human, but suddenly felt justified in prescribing all sorts of horrific execution towards their perceived tormentors. Objective morality indeed.
Secondly, Craig claims that god is the best explanation for morals (objective or otherwise). Instead, the truth is that morality is taught to people by their environment. Those who grow up in a family with no strong morality will not learn to be moral people, no matter what happens as an adult. Craig, like many theists, commits the 'composition/division' fallacy, in assuming that something which is true for one part of a whole is true for the entirety. Craig has spent most of his life surrounded by moral people, and assumes that all people are moral, when there are in fact many people who are not characterised by morality. And sadly, more often than not, those who are not paragons of virtue are more likely to be religious than atheist.
Finally, there are very good explanations for morals without needing to invoke a deity. Logic and reason are one possibility. For example, it is logical that if I treat other people in a charitable manner, then those people are more likely to treat me charitably in turn. Therefore, it is in my own best interests, rationally speaking, to behave in a moral manner. Another option is the fact that humans are social animals. Early humans, like modern gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, live in groups and share their efforts, resources, and fruits of labour. The person who did not act in a moral or ethical manner was banished from the tribe (or clan, or group, or pod, or troop, or whatever). The great apes cannot survive independently. They need co-operation with others. So those who did not behave morally did not survive to pass on their lack of ethics.
So despite what Craig says, evolution and social conditioning do provide the best explanation of moral values.
And again, we have an argument that, even if it were valid, would not prove the existence of Craig's god. Just of a god. And still doesn't answer which one.
4. God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Historians have reached something of consensus that the historical Jesus thought that in himself God’s Kingdom had broken into human history, and he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as evidence of that fact. Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary. I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one the original disciples gave: God raised Jesus from the dead.
Now we find Craig falling into some bald-faced deception. Whether it's because he actually believes it or because he doesn't want you to know the truth, he claims that historians accept the existence of Jesus and his anecdotal miracles. The existence of the Christ figure is hotly debated. Some atheists claim that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure on whom the gospels are based. Others claim that there's no evidence to suggest that such a person ever really existed. Certainly, he's not mentioned in any historical documents until many decades after he supposedly lived. Those documents that do mention him are conflicting and contradictory. So if you accept that Jesus was born of a virgin, grew to perform miracles such as turning water to wine and raising men from the dead, only to be crucified and resurrected, then yes, god is the best explanation. But shouldn't we ensure that these facts are not in question before drawing conclusions based on them? I, for one, have seen insufficient proof that the Christ figure existed, or, if he did, that he performed these miracles with which he is credited.
5. God can be personally known and experienced. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Down through history Christians have found through Jesus a personal acquaintance with God that has transformed their lives.
There is a wonderful channel on youtube named Evid3nc3. He was raised as a pentecostal, but after spending time talking to an atheist in university, he lost his faith. He has created a wonderful series of videos describing his deconversion process, detailing the reasons why he found his faith to be lacking upon scrutiny. In particular, chapter 2.5 (personal relationship) was a very informative and interesting examination of the claim that Craig makes in point 5. The chapter was a rather lengthy one, being released as part one and part two, each about ten minutes long. But it is, in my opinion, well worth the time.
My favourite part of these two videos is near the end, at time mark 8:30, when he describes how he realises that all the experiences he's had throughout his life, the voice in his head as 'god' encouraged and promised to support and protect him, the emotions he felt in religious situations, and so forth, were merely his own subconcious, to which he had attributed to the name 'god.'
The proof may be in the pudding, according to WLC, but if that pudding is invented whole-cloth by one's own subconscious, then the proof is hardly worth the trouble.
The good thing is that atheists tend to be very passionate people and want to believe in something. If they would only put aside the slogans for a moment and reexamine their worldview in light of the best philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence we have today, then they, too, would find Christmas worth celebrating!
The sad irony here is that many atheists do celebrate Christmas. I, a 'devout' (so to speak; I'd rank myself as a 6.5 on the Dawkins scale) atheist, find Christmas to be the only mainstream holiday worth celebrating. I put up a tree every year, I decorate my house with lights and a wreath, I spend time with my family. I just don't believe any of the religious nonsense that people like William Lane Craig insist is intrinsically tied up in the holiday.
As I mentioned before, all of these points have been debunked many times in the past. But Craig refuses to acknowledge that. He prefers to continue on as he always has done, insisting that the evidence supports his narrow view of the cosmos, despite the fact that it demonstrably doesn't. It's obvious that he will never be convinced of the truth. I'm not so vain as to think that I can open his eyes.
But as he attempted to give me a gift, the gift of 'five reasons why god exists,' I will respond in kind. I will give him a gift as well: the gift of advice. My advice to you is this: stop ignoring the atheists. We have valid points, which you refuse to acknowledge. You have a warped world-view, and it does nobody any good for you to staunchly defend your delusions.
For atheists, Christmas is a religious sham. For if God does not exist, then obviously Jesus’ birth cannot represent the incarnation of God in human history, which Christians celebrate at this time of year.
And with his very first sentence, WLC shows just how ignorant he is. Christmas is not a religious sham. It is a noteworthy and enjoyable holiday. We just don't celebrate the religious aspects of it. Yes, Christians celebrate 'the incarnation of God in human history.' But there is so much more to Christmas. The peace and family togetherness, the beauty of the lights and decorations and music, the comfort of a day spent around the proverbial fireplace with a cup of cocoa... these are all enjoyable and worthwhile aspects of the holiday, no deity needed.
However, most atheists, in my experience, have no good reasons for their disbelief. Rather they’ve learned to simply repeat the slogan, “There’s no good evidence for God’s existence!”
The fact that Craig is able to say something this monumentally brazen and stupid shows just how willfully moronic he is being. We have mountains of evidence that shows the world, the universe as we know it, in fact, all of so-called 'creation,' arose with no need for a supernatural being. Now, any decent atheist will admit the possibility of a god. As has often been pointed out, it's essentially impossible to prove non-existence. We cannot prove that there isn't a teacup orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Saturn. But until compelling evidence exists that demonstrate that there is a teacup in such an orbit, we have no reason to believe that it is there.
So it's not just that we've 'learned to simply repeat the slogan,' it's that the lack of evidence is the very basis of our lack of belief!
But Craig would rather deny the arguments that he's heard so many times and simply write off the objections of atheists as a conditioned response. And then to top it off, he goes further and states that there is evidence for god's existence. Despite every single one of these points having been thoroughly debunked countless times in the past, he continues to trot them out as if they still contain some shred of validity.
And here they are:
1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe. Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning. Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause, there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence. This entity must therefore be enormously powerful. Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.
Here Craig commits the 'god of the gaps' fallacy. True, there is much that we still do not know and much that we do not understand about our universe. Any intelligent individual will readily admit it. The origin of the universe, in particular, is one of the most poorly-understood phenomena in science. We don't know what came before that time. Did it spring into existence from nothing? Was there another universe before ours that collapsed on itself resulting in the expansion of space as observed in current astronomical laboratories? Did time as we know it even exist before the poorly-named 'Big Bang' event?
Any scientist worth his credentials will gladly answer all of those questions with 'I don't know.' But as has been repeatedly stated, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' Just because we don't know what existed before our universe came into being doesn't mean that it therefore had a supernatural cause. God does not provide the best explanation of the origin of the universe. He represents the easiest (and therefore the laziest).
And perhaps most importantly, even if (even if) we accept this point as valid, it does not prove the existence of the christian god. It would only prove the existence of a god. We'd still be left with the task of discerning which god is the real one. Zeus? Odin? Ra? Dagda? Mithras?
2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life. That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range. There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible, given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.
Theists continually claim that the universe was 'fine tuned' to support life. They point to certain scientific constants, such as the speed of light or the nature of gravity, as evidence that the universe was 'designed' with life in mind. This despite the fact that in the entire universe, which is 47 billion light years in all directions just for the observable universe (that's over 400 nonillion -- 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 -- square light years in volume!) with over a septillion stars, contains (so far as we know) a single planet in a single solar system in a single galaxy that supports life. I'd hardly call that 'fine tuned.'
Darkmatter2525 has a very amusing (although NSFW due to language) video dealing with this very topic. I recommend it.
Also, again we find ourselves with an argument that, even if it were valid, doesn't prove Craig's god specifically, but only the existence of some god somewhere. Which god? Craig's argument does not address this point.
3. God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties. Even atheists recognize that some things, for example, the Holocaust, are objectively evil. But if atheism is true, what basis is there for the objectivity of the moral values we affirm? Evolution? Social conditioning? These factors may at best produce in us the subjective feeling that there are objective moral values and duties, but they do nothing to provide a basis for them. If human evolution had taken a different path, a very different set of moral feelings might have evolved. By contrast, God Himself serves as the paradigm of goodness, and His commandments constitute our moral duties. Thus, theism provides a better explanation of objective moral values and duties.
Craig makes two errors here. First, he assumes the existence of objective moral values. There is no such thing as objective moral values. All morals are subjective. What is considered ethical in one culture is not always viewed as ethical in another culture. In fact, the great irony of this statement is that religion most often subverts morals, rather than instilling them. There was a study done in which a number of jewish children were asked ethical questions, and they passed them all admirably. However, when the questions were rephrased to pertain to a sect of muslims who had been persecuting their jewish community, the children no longer displayed compassion for their fellow human, but suddenly felt justified in prescribing all sorts of horrific execution towards their perceived tormentors. Objective morality indeed.
Secondly, Craig claims that god is the best explanation for morals (objective or otherwise). Instead, the truth is that morality is taught to people by their environment. Those who grow up in a family with no strong morality will not learn to be moral people, no matter what happens as an adult. Craig, like many theists, commits the 'composition/division' fallacy, in assuming that something which is true for one part of a whole is true for the entirety. Craig has spent most of his life surrounded by moral people, and assumes that all people are moral, when there are in fact many people who are not characterised by morality. And sadly, more often than not, those who are not paragons of virtue are more likely to be religious than atheist.
Finally, there are very good explanations for morals without needing to invoke a deity. Logic and reason are one possibility. For example, it is logical that if I treat other people in a charitable manner, then those people are more likely to treat me charitably in turn. Therefore, it is in my own best interests, rationally speaking, to behave in a moral manner. Another option is the fact that humans are social animals. Early humans, like modern gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, live in groups and share their efforts, resources, and fruits of labour. The person who did not act in a moral or ethical manner was banished from the tribe (or clan, or group, or pod, or troop, or whatever). The great apes cannot survive independently. They need co-operation with others. So those who did not behave morally did not survive to pass on their lack of ethics.
So despite what Craig says, evolution and social conditioning do provide the best explanation of moral values.
And again, we have an argument that, even if it were valid, would not prove the existence of Craig's god. Just of a god. And still doesn't answer which one.
4. God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Historians have reached something of consensus that the historical Jesus thought that in himself God’s Kingdom had broken into human history, and he carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms as evidence of that fact. Moreover, most historical scholars agree that after his crucifixion Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty by a group of female disciples, that various individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection despite their every predisposition to the contrary. I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one the original disciples gave: God raised Jesus from the dead.
Now we find Craig falling into some bald-faced deception. Whether it's because he actually believes it or because he doesn't want you to know the truth, he claims that historians accept the existence of Jesus and his anecdotal miracles. The existence of the Christ figure is hotly debated. Some atheists claim that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure on whom the gospels are based. Others claim that there's no evidence to suggest that such a person ever really existed. Certainly, he's not mentioned in any historical documents until many decades after he supposedly lived. Those documents that do mention him are conflicting and contradictory. So if you accept that Jesus was born of a virgin, grew to perform miracles such as turning water to wine and raising men from the dead, only to be crucified and resurrected, then yes, god is the best explanation. But shouldn't we ensure that these facts are not in question before drawing conclusions based on them? I, for one, have seen insufficient proof that the Christ figure existed, or, if he did, that he performed these miracles with which he is credited.
5. God can be personally known and experienced. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Down through history Christians have found through Jesus a personal acquaintance with God that has transformed their lives.
There is a wonderful channel on youtube named Evid3nc3. He was raised as a pentecostal, but after spending time talking to an atheist in university, he lost his faith. He has created a wonderful series of videos describing his deconversion process, detailing the reasons why he found his faith to be lacking upon scrutiny. In particular, chapter 2.5 (personal relationship) was a very informative and interesting examination of the claim that Craig makes in point 5. The chapter was a rather lengthy one, being released as part one and part two, each about ten minutes long. But it is, in my opinion, well worth the time.
My favourite part of these two videos is near the end, at time mark 8:30, when he describes how he realises that all the experiences he's had throughout his life, the voice in his head as 'god' encouraged and promised to support and protect him, the emotions he felt in religious situations, and so forth, were merely his own subconcious, to which he had attributed to the name 'god.'
The proof may be in the pudding, according to WLC, but if that pudding is invented whole-cloth by one's own subconscious, then the proof is hardly worth the trouble.
The good thing is that atheists tend to be very passionate people and want to believe in something. If they would only put aside the slogans for a moment and reexamine their worldview in light of the best philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence we have today, then they, too, would find Christmas worth celebrating!
The sad irony here is that many atheists do celebrate Christmas. I, a 'devout' (so to speak; I'd rank myself as a 6.5 on the Dawkins scale) atheist, find Christmas to be the only mainstream holiday worth celebrating. I put up a tree every year, I decorate my house with lights and a wreath, I spend time with my family. I just don't believe any of the religious nonsense that people like William Lane Craig insist is intrinsically tied up in the holiday.
As I mentioned before, all of these points have been debunked many times in the past. But Craig refuses to acknowledge that. He prefers to continue on as he always has done, insisting that the evidence supports his narrow view of the cosmos, despite the fact that it demonstrably doesn't. It's obvious that he will never be convinced of the truth. I'm not so vain as to think that I can open his eyes.
But as he attempted to give me a gift, the gift of 'five reasons why god exists,' I will respond in kind. I will give him a gift as well: the gift of advice. My advice to you is this: stop ignoring the atheists. We have valid points, which you refuse to acknowledge. You have a warped world-view, and it does nobody any good for you to staunchly defend your delusions.