Hitchens was wildly overrated as a thinker/debater

[Rise]

I am done with the liar so maybe he will debate with you.

You have failed to meet the burden of rejoinder, committed an ad hominem fallacy, and admitted to conceding the debate.

You were unable to meet the challenge of proving any argument Carroll gave refuted anything Craig argued.

 

[Rise]

Oh, I did not watch the video, but I did digest the paper that was posted by Carroll. So that’s all I was referring to.

It is still not clear to me why that would be relevant to my response to @Justanatheist.

Are you saying you are referring to other posts in this thread which you believe give reasons why Carrol’s arguments refuted Craigs?

Whether or not that may be the case would not be relevant to the issue I was taking with justanathiest’s posts.

I challenged him personally to prove his claim is true that he thought Carroll’s arguments refuted Craigs. I challenged him to meet his burden of proof for his claims with valid logical reasons why we should believe his claims could be true.
He wasn’t able to do it.

Whether or not someone else offered an argument in support of that claim is immaterial to the fact that justanatheist has been unwilling to meet the burden or proof for his claims.

If someone truly did offer an argument on his behalf then it should have been easy for him to go copy that and relate it back to me in defense of his own claim. But he wasn’t even capable of doing that much.

 

[Meow Mix]

It is still not clear to me why that would be relevant to my response to justanatheist.

Are you saying you are referring to other posts in this thread which you believe give reasons why Carrol’s arguments refuted Craigs?

Whether or not that maybe the case would not be relevant to the issue I was taking with @justanatheist’s posts.

I challenged him personally to prove his claim is true that he thought Carroll’s arguments refuted Craigs. I challenged him to meet his burden of proof for his claims with valid logical reasons why we should believe his claims could be true.
He wasn’t able to do it.

Whether or not someone else offered an argument in support of that claim is immaterial to the fact that justanatheist has been unwilling to meet the burden or proof for his claims.

If someone truly did offer an argument on his behalf then it should have been easy for him to go copy that and relate it back to me in defense of his own claim. But he didn’t even try to do that.

Right, I'm saying I didn't know completely what you were asking for. Just that a paper had been posted, that I read and digested it, that the paper indeed concludes that Craig's assumption is unjustified, but not that you were looking for evidence of some original claim I haven't been keeping track of. So basically nevermind, I didn't know what was being said.

However it is true that Carroll's paper does make conclusions that aren't friendly to Craig's line of reasoning anyway, for what that's worth.

 

[Justanatheist]

Right, I'm saying I didn't know completely what you were asking for. Just that a paper had been posted, that I read and digested it, that the paper indeed concludes that Craig's assumption is unjustified, but not that you were looking for evidence of some original claim I haven't been keeping track of. So basically nevermind, I didn't know what was being said.

However it is true that Carroll's paper does make conclusions that aren't friendly to Craig's line of reasoning anyway, for what that's worth.

As we can see the liar does not want to debate you on your 2nd premise, this is about the liars deflection. Good luck.

 

[Rise]

Right, I'm saying I didn't know completely what you were asking for. Just that a paper had been posted, that I read and digested it, that the paper indeed concludes that Craig's assumption is unjustified, but not that you were looking for evidence of some original claim I haven't been keeping track of. So basically nevermind, I didn't know what was being said.

However it is true that Carroll's paper does make conclusions that aren't friendly to Craig's line of reasoning anyway, for what that's worth.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. At no point in my replies to @Justanatheist did I ever claim that no one in this thread has offered specific arguments of why they think Carroll’s arguments refute Craig’s arguments.

I was dealing only with justanathiest’s claims specifically when I pointed out that he personally had made claims about Carroll’s arguments which he personally could not back up with reasons and evidence. Thereby failing to meet his burden of proof that fell upon him personally for his claims.

I am still working my way through the thread and intend to address each individual’s arguments according to what they present. I know some others here will pose a significantly more interesting challenge because they are presenting actual reasons for their conclusions and not just fallacious arguments by assertion. I look forward to that.

 

[Meow Mix]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. At no point in my replies to @Justanatheist did I ever claim that no one in this thread has offered specific arguments of why they think Carroll’s arguments refute Craig’s arguments.

I was dealing only with justanathiest’s claims specifically when I pointed out that he personally had made claims about Carroll’s arguments which he personally could not back up with reasons and evidence. Thereby failing to meet his burden of proof that fell upon him personally for his claims.

I am still working my way through the thread and intend to address each individual’s arguments according to what they present. I know some others here will pose a significantly more interesting challenge because they are presenting actual reasons for their conclusions and not just fallacious arguments by assertion. I look forward to that.

I understood -- when I said "so nevermind," I didn't mean that dismissively. I meant it in the way that folks do when it would take a while to explain why you should just ignore the last thing that they had said, haha. ^.^

 

[Rise]

The truth is, Hitchens dismisses his arguments pretty quickly.

There is a difference between dismissal and refutation.

Trying to dismiss someone's argument without refuting it is the logical fallacy of either "appeal to the stone" or "handwaving", or as some simply call it “argument by dismissal”. Ie. Instead of offering a valid counter argument you simply pretend that no counter argument is necessary to give. But you never give any logical reasons as to why one should accept that there is no burden on your to offer a valid counter argument (Ie. Such as pointing out why it would not be relevant).

But if you do that then you have failed to meet your "burden of rejoinder” in a debate. Which means that if Craig puts forth a positive argument in support of a claim then, if you want to dispute that claim, the burden of rejoinder falls on Hitchens to offer a valid counter argument to refute Craig’s argument by showing why either it’s premises or logic are in error the evidence it is based on is false.

It would be accurate to say that Hitchens fallaciously tries to be dismissive of Craig's legitimate and valid arguments because Hitchens is unable to provide a valid counter argument to Craig's arguments.

As to actual counter arguments, you could not point out any attempt HItchens made to offer a counter argument to the following
1. That the universe had a beginning.
2. If the universe had a beginning then it's cause must be timeless and causeless.
3. That there is evidence of design in the universe.
4. If there is design in the universe then it means the cause of the universe must have a mind capable of designing.
5. That if we must conclude the designer of the universe was a mind then they must also have unfathomable power to take what was in their mind and create the universe, bringing reality to their intention.

He simply ignored them outright, as far as I recall.

But you can’t ignore them because if they are true then you are forced to conclude that atheism is false.

Which, in that case, Hitchens’ entire worldview crumbles and he’s got nowhere else to go but theism.
So on that basis Craig utterly refuted Hitchens entire position that atheism could explain what we know about reality.

That leaves Hitchens with no frame of reference from which to attack Craig's belief in theism because Hitchens cannot propose any alternative to the evidence but theism.

We can go down the list of arguments further:
6. Objective morality exists.
7. Objective morality can't exist unless there is a God.
8. Therefore God must exist.

Hitchens did not, as I recall, try to dispute that objective morality exists. Most atheists don't. They just try to justify why it can exist without God. Or if they do acknowledge it doesn't exist in a literal sense, but they try to pretend it doesn’t matter because other forms of subjective morality are supposedly good enough.

The problem is; you won’t be able to pull out any argument Hitchens made that would demonstrate why we don’t need a source of objective morality to navigate the issue of morality as a society. At least, not any argument that Craig wasn’t able to refute.

That brings us to point #7. You can't point to any argument Hitchens gave which would demonstrate that objective morality can logically exist without God.

So on that basis, Hitchens did not refute point 7 and he did not seem to even try to dispute premise 6. So Craig's conclusion remains logically proved that on the basis of objective morality’s existence we are forced to conclude that God must exist.


Without even needing to get into the arguments about self evident experience and the historicity of the New Testament as evidence for Christianity specifically, Craig has already logically dismantled the entire platform upon which Hitchens worldview rests. And with that being done, Hitchens has no basis from which to attack theism as untrue. Nor does his undermined platform even get him a reasonable basis from which to attack Christianity specifically as an untrue type of theism.

For instance: Hitchens tries to claim Christianity can't be true because God can't be moral based on what the Bible says - but Hitchens' worldview logically has no objective basis from which he could accuse anything or anyone of being immoral.

Hitchens argument in that sense is actually self-defeating because the only way you have grounds to accuse God of being immoral is if you are first willing to admit objective morality exists - but by admitting objective morality exists you logically prove God has to exist.

In which case you can't logically call God’s standard immoral because He is the one who defined what is moral by the act of having intention behind His creation (Ie. Only God could be the one who decided how things were "suppose to be" because he was the only one who could have an intention in mind behind the creation as it's creator).

So it's logically and essentially impossible to accuse God of being immoral if we already agree He is the ultimate creator of the universe.

We are therefore left with no other conclusion to draw other than Hitchens must be misconstruing God's behavior as immoral based on the fact that Hitchens simply doesn't understand why God has done what He has done. Hitchens is choosing to presume the worst conclusion about that which he doesn’t understand – but he has no logical basis for that assumption, because logically it cannot be true.

 

[Rise]

He explains that Craig is expecting Hitchens to provide evidence for God's non-existence (33:04 and 41:56 again at 1:20:00). I would be surprised if any Christian in this forum thinks evidence for the noon-existence of anything supernatural needs to be provided before you should dismiss the claim of its supposed existence. It's such a strange misunderstanding of basic burden of proof for positive claims, especially when its coming from an educated person. This is an obvious illogical position.

You are misunderstanding what exactly the burden of proof is and how it would play into this debate, chiefly because you are not aware of the concept of “the burden of rejoinder”.

Hitchens failed to meet his logical “burden of rejoinder” in the debate.
Argumentation theory - Wikipedia

• "In a debate, fulfillment of the burden of proof creates a burden of rejoinder. One must try to identify faulty reasoning in the opponent's argument, to attack the reasons/premises of the argument, to provide counterexamples if possible, to identify any fallacies, and to show why a valid conclusion cannot be derived from the reasons provided for his/her argument."

Craig gave positive affirmative arguments that would lead one to conclude God does exist. That is to say, Craig met the burden of proof for his claims (Meaning, he gave logical proofs to establish his conclusion as true).

Hitchens therefore has the burden of rejoinder to offer counter arguments in an attempt to refute Craig’s argument.

The only way Hitchens would not have a burden of rejoinder is if he did not want to disagree with Craig’s conclusion that the evidence shows God best explains the evidence we see of reality and atheism is unable to do that.

Well, obviously we can all agree that Hitchens is indeed trying to disagree with that conclusion. If he wasn’t then there would be no debate. Hitchens would just say nothing, or say “I agree”, and walk off the stage after Craig’s opening statement.

But Hitchens didn’t do that. He tried to argue against that conclusion. So he has a burden of rejoinder to meet.

The only other way Hitchens would not have a burden of rejoinder is if Craig never offered any arguments in support of his conclusion (ie. If he just said “God is real”, and then said nothing else about why we should believe that to be the case). But Craig obviously did offer supportive arguments for why we should believe his conclusion is true - which is why Hitchens then has the burden of rejoinder to either offer counter arguments to them or to concede they are true.

He goes on to explain why all of Craig's arguments are unconvincing.

There is a critical flaw in your statement:
“Convincing to Hitchens” is not the standard by which the truth or falseness of a claim is determined.
Persuasion is not the same as proof.
Just because you are unconvinced by an argument doesn’t mean the argument is not logically proven to be true.

Example: I can give logic and evidence to prove conclusively the earth is round.
Your expression of disbelief (ie. “I’m just not convinced”) doesn’t logically refute the truth of my conclusion.

I notice atheists on this forum do this a lot. I think they learned it from Hitchens, who seems to make this a centerpiece of how he tries to debate.

The funny thing about it is you don’t really see people in other debate contexts try to use this kind of fallacious argument. “Ie. I’m not convinced, therefore it’s not true”. It’s almost exclusively the domain of atheists arguing against theism.

I don’t think there is an existing term for this fallacy, so I will dub it “The Hitchens Fallacy”

It seems to have it’s roots in the phrase he likes to quote and therefore popularized amongst atheists; “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Sounds reasonable at first, right? Well, it’s actually a fallacious logic if you examine the implications of that statement fully.

Problem 1: Who defines the definition of extraordinary? Extraordinary to you may be ordinary to someone else.

Problem 2: It’s fallacious logic. Because logically something is either proven true by the evidence or it is not. There is no qualifier in logic that demands the evidence be “extraordinary” in order to prove something is true.

So who defines extraordinary? Hitchens.
Thus the fallacy comes full circle.

The fallacy works by getting you to accept two premises that aren’t true:
1. That Hitchens gets to declare what constitutes an extraordinary claim.
2. That Hitchens gets to declare whether or not your evidence for a claim constitutes being extraordinary enough.

So there is no objective logical standard here by which the truth or falseness of a claim can be determined.

It’s just Hitchen’s opinion about whether or not he thinks it’s true.

Which is why that phrase by Carol Sagan was a fallacy. We could call it “Sagan’s Fallacy”.

All Sagan’s Fallacy does is try to find a clever way to justify why you think your opinion gets to determine what is true and false about reality.

So that's probably where Hitchens is getting this fallacious idea that "I'm not convinced" is a valid refutation of someone providing a logical argument in support of a conclusion. Because he presumes to set his opinion up as judge over every fact and conclusion, which absolves him of the need to have any burdens of proof or rejoinder for anything.

And those who have modeled their atheist debate points after him have continued to commit the Hitchens Fallacy/Sagan Fallacy without realizing how illogical their behavior is.

The reason he gives is based on the fact that Craig is a Christian and he is arguing for a deist position (which is even less available for scientific evidence, since there is zero interaction with the physical world). The deist position Craig is arguing for, is not the position Craig actually holds.

You are committing the logical fallacy of a strawman.
Hitchens tried to commit that fallacy and Craig refuted already it.

You either did not catch the refutation or did not understand why Craig’s counter-argument refuted Hitchen’s strawman.

Craig’s argument is not for a deist god because of the arguments he makes for design in biology (because this would have to involve the deity infusing information into creation after the initial creation of the universe) and the resurrection of Christ as a historical act of God interacting with His creation (something a deist deity, by definition would not do).

"Retrospective Evidentialism" as Hitchens called it, is just presuppositionalism. He quotes a line directly from Craig's book: (46:24)

"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the holy spirit to the truth of the Christian Faith and beliefs based on argument & evidence, it is the former that must take precedence of the later, not vice-versa."

You are committing both a strawman fallacy and a genetic fallacy.

1. It’s a strawmn because a presuppositionalist by definition doesn’t believe in using neutral logic and evidence to prove the existence of God.
Presuppositional apologetics - Wikipedia

Craig uses both neutral logic and evidence to prove the existence of God, appealing to the common ground he believes he shares with atheists.

Therefore you have no basis for claiming he is a presuppositionlist.


2. It’s a genetic fallacy because you are trying to attack what you think are the source of Craig’s arguments instead of attempting to refute the validity of his arguments themselves.

Logically, it wouldn’t matter even if he were a presuppositionalist – because that wouldn’t refute the validity of his arguments nor disprove the truth of his conclusion.

Trying to make an issue out of that just becomes a type of ad hominem attack that aims to avoid having to deal with Craig’s arguments on their merits and offer a valid counter argument to refute them.

That says it all. This is a dishonest discussion right out of the gates. A Christian, who does not value evidence over faith, is pretending to provide evidence for a position he doesn't really hold, expecting Hitchens to provide evidence for a positive claim (god does not exist) that he is not actually making.

I just refuted all three of your claims in my response above - so I guess that tells us your entire reading of this debate was wrong in every way.

Confirmation biases cause most to only listen to the person you agree with, which is probably why you missed it.

What makes you think you’re not doing that?

If you can’t outline the logical process by which you would prove one side to be right or wrong then you have no way of knowing if your perception of the debate’s outcome is accurate or not.

And since I have exposed many logical flaws in your perception of the debate, you will need to re-assess your conclusion of it.


*EDIT: I think I mistakenly just responded to the same post for a second time. There's so many to respond to over such a large thread I forgot I had already responded to this post. But I'll leave it up because I actually put some new information and arguments into here that I think are still beneficial.

 

[Yazata]

The truth is, Hitchens dismisses his arguments pretty quickly. He explains that Craig is expecting Hitchens to provide evidence for God's non-existence (33:04 and 41:56 again at 1:20:00). I would be surprised if any Christian in this forum thinks evidence for the non-existence of anything supernatural needs to be provided before you should dismiss the claim of its supposed existence. It's such a strange misunderstanding of basic burden of proof for positive claims, especially when its coming from an educated person. This is an obvious illogical position.

I'm not a Christian, but I'm going to argue against both you and Hitchens there.

In situations where we don't know whether or not some proposition is true or whether or not some hypothetical being exists, the default position is NOT to "dismiss the claim of its supposed existence" . It's to accept that we simply don't know whether or not it exists.

Hitchens would be well within his rights to say that he isn't personally convinced of the existence of anything supernatural, but if he wants to convince anyone else, whether believer or agnostic, that nothing supernatural exists, then the "burden of proof" is squarely on him to do so.

The "burden of proof" always lies with the one trying to convince somebody else of something. That's just basic rhetoric.

 

[Rise]

I'm not a Christian, but I'm going to argue against both you and Hitchens there.

In situations where we don't know whether or not some proposition is true or whether or not some hypothetical being exists, the default position is NOT to "dismiss the claim of its supposed existence" . It's to accept that we simply don't know whether or not it exists.

Hitchens would be well within his rights to say that he isn't personally convinced of the existence of anything supernatural, but if he wants to convince anyone else, whether believer or agnostic, that nothing supernatural exists, then the "burden of proof" is squarely on him to do so.

The "burden of proof" always lies with the one trying to convince somebody else of something. That's just basic rhetoric.

We can take it further than that.

Logically you aren't within your rights to dismiss something by saying "we just don't know" if one side has provided logical arguments and evidence that would demonstrate we can reasonably conclude what the answer must be.

In order to make a valid claim to there being no way to draw conclusions about what is true you would need to demonstrate why their arguments either aren't conclusive or show examples of other arguments that could lay equal claim to being potentially true.

That's why a lot of people are wrong when they try to dismiss an argument by saying "Well, we just can't know", or "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree" - because usually they are just doing it to get out of having to offer a valid counter argument to support why they think they can disagree with the other person's conclusion and arguments.

Now, Craig never postulated his argument as a claim to be conclusively proven true - but he couched his argument in terms of saying the weight of the evidence clearly shows that theism is a better explanation for what we see in reality than atheism. And he did conclusively establish that claim by showing why materialism as a philosophy is incompatible with various pieces of evidence we know to be true about reality.

That's why even some professionals like Krauss are being intellectual dishonest when they try to attack Craig's conclusion on the basis that it's premised on the idea that the universe had a beginning. The reason it's intellectual dishonest is because Krauss himself admits in the debate that he believes the universe most likely had a beginning and, in fact, all the evidence we currently have suggests that it did. So he has no logical grounds for attacking Craig's argument that since, to the best of our current knowledge, the universe had a beginning, we can therefore conclude that based on the evidence God must necessarily exist based on the logical arguments he outlines for that conclusion.

You can't argue against Craig's conclusion by saying we can't know with absolute certainty the evidence won't one day point in another direction. Especially when Craig doesn't even claim his conclusion is proven beyond question.
Even science doesn't regard their own modeling that way - At some point the weight of the evidence leads them to conclude they are safe to call things true and stop referring to them as merely probable. Although they might technically admit something could one day come along to undo all their understanding, it's not useful for them to always put the word "probable" in front of everything they talk about which to the best of their knowledge has been demonstrated to be true.

At least Carroll doesn't actually believe the universe had a beginning - so he's not intellectual dishonest by trying to dispute Craig's conclusion.
But even Carroll would have to admit that all the evidence points in that direction and we don't currently have reason to believe otherwise.
Carroll just has faith he'll eventually find proof of an eternal universe that isn't contradictory or doesn't result in a beginning point that is just pushed further back. But none of the models have been able to do that.

So Craig is perfectly within his rights to start drawing conclusions based on the evidence we currently have - and there is no logical basis for his opponents to say we can't draw conclusions based on his arguments if they aren't going to try to dispute the premises.

 

[Rise]

I did not set out to, so your accusation is unwarranted.

If you did not set out to make a claim of truth then you are merely expressing your opinion.

But going back to what you originally said, you were not merely stating your opinion but were making a claim that what you were saying was true:

Craig? Logic? Craig got demolished when arguing his silly cosmological argument with an actual cosmologist (Sean Carroll). He only impresses those that don't understand or care about the concept of evidence.

You claimed:
1. That Craig’s argument got demolished.
2. That Craig’s argument doesn’t hold up if you understand or care about evidence.
3. And you imply the claim that Craig’s logic is somehow faulty.

None of your claims are ones you can prove with logical arguments.

Therefore you can’t claim your statements are true.

They just represent your unsupported opinion – and can then simply be dismissed as such.

I find it entertaining that your mere assertion that Craig is a logical superstar, etc., is to be taken at face value, no extraction of information. required. Always seems to be the case with creationist-types.

You don’t quote any specific claim I made. I can’t respond to what you fail to identify.
Therefore you have no proof of your assertion that I made an assertion without support.
Which makes you guilty of the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

Says you. Where is the extracted information to support your adulation?

You are committing the logical fallacy of a non sequitur.
Your conclusion doesn't follow logically from your premises.

The quote you are responding to involves me concluding that Craig did well in the debate.
But then you are asking for proof of “adulation”. There is no logical connection between concluding Craig did well in the debate and “adulating” Craig.

In order for your question to be valid you would first be required to demonstrate why you think there is a logical connection between saying Craig did well in the debate and meeting the definition of “adulation”

Adulation definition:
To praise or admire excessively; fawn on.

Therefore, you would need to demonstrate why you think you can assert that it would be excessive praise to say “Craig actually acquitted himself quite well. Far better than I would have expected”

The only way you could begin to demonstrate a logical connection is if you could demonstrate why you think Carroll “destroyed” Craig and why it should be so obvious that he did that it would be unreasonable for anyone to conclude Craig could have done well.

But you can’t demonstrate that.
You can’t explain logically why you think it’s true to say Carroll “Destroyed” Craig in the debate.

It’s just your baseless opinion.
Then you fallaciously take your baseless opinion and try to use it as the basis upon which you try to accuse others who say Craig did well of engaging in “adulation”.
Which could only be true if your opinion about the debate were true.
Which you can’t prove it is.
Because it’s not actually true.

Sure, if one accepts the notion of the fallacy of the false dichotomy. You do you.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You merely assert that you think I committed the fallacy of a false dichotomy, but you give no logical arguments or evidence to support why we should believe your claim could be true.

It’s not proven to be true just because you assert it is.

Sure, but where is your extracted information to support your position? Keeping in mind that literalists and Craig acolytes need only toss out opinions and hero-worship, and voila! Case closed.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and ad hominem.

You cannot demonstrate with logical arguments or evidence that anything I have claimed would constitute merely an opinion, let alone hero-worship.

Merely asserting it doesn’t make it true just because you assert it is.

You are engaging in a type of ad hominem to distract from the fact that you are unable to support your original claims that “Carroll demolished Craig”.

What an amazing coincidence! Those "self evident truths" just happen to coincide with your apparent beliefs!

There are two critical flaws with your response:

1. Logical fallacy, appeal to mockery.
Your statement doesn’t contain a valid counter argument against the argument I presented about self evident truths.
Merely expressing mocking tones about my argument does nothing to disprove the validity of what I argued nor the truth of my conclusions.


2. Your attempt at mocking doesn’t even make sense – because it would imply that you don’t believe any of those self evident truths are actually true.

Unless you want to dispute the truth that you exist then you’re not in any position to claim that isn’t a self evident truth - and therefore you aren't in any position to even try to mock the idea of self-evident truths.

Those are not self evident to me - well, a couple of them are,

Then your attempt at disputing what I argued fails.
Because by admitting that any self evident truths exist my point about self evident truths remains valid.

You cannot demonstrate any reason why my argument would require every self evident truth on my list to be undisputed by you in order for my argument to remain valid. Because my argument never depended on you accepting the entire list as self evidentially true.

But some are silly and circular, and I am sure so great an intellect as you had to have known this, but trotted them out anyway.

You are engaging in the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.

Whether or not you could dispute any one thing on the list as not being a self evident truth doesn’t change the conclusion or arguments I made concerning the nature of self evident truth being a reality.

You are also engaging in the fallacy of appeal to the stone and argument by assertion.
You merely claim those examples are either too absurd to warrant a response or merely claim they represent circular reasoning without giving any evidence or logic to demonstrate why your claim would be true.

You're hilarious, and your "logic" isn't. Which is why I shan't waste time on long-winded circle-talkers such as yourself.

Logical fallacy, “appeal to the stone”.

Merely asserting that my arguments are illogical or absurd doesn’t refute the validity of my arguments nor disprove the truth of my conclusions.

You are not capable of offering any valid counter arguments to show any fault in my logic.

Which is why you try to distract from that fact by using the fallacy of appeal to stone, hoping you can get away with simply dismissing the argument without anyone noticing you never offered a valid counter argument to refute it.

The "logic" is just amazing folks! A regular Aristotle in our midst!

Logical fallacy, appeal to mockery.

Being unable to refute the logic of my arguments, you have nothing left to turn to but ad hominems.

 

[Rise]

LOL! "My God is the true God, and I know this because my God is the TRUE God, and that's that. LOGIC!!"

Logical fallacy, strawman.
You are misrepresenting the logical structure of my argument because you either did not understand it or because you are intentionally being dishonest.

I said:

But even that argument by you would be logically wrong - because you can’t claim God’s defined truth is not the standard by which truth is judged unless you can say either there are other gods equal to him also creating in the same way or unless you can say that there exists something above god which created him and subjected him to a higher truth.

You can see here that your strawman involves a misrepresentation of the conclusion in my argument.

The purpose of my argument you quoted was never to argue that “My God is the one true God”.

The purpose of my argument was to establish that, if we start from accepting the premise that God created the universe, that you then have no logical basis for claiming God’s Truth is subjective truth rather than objective truth.

I will outline the logical structure of that in a more overt format so it will be more clear to you:

Premise 1: God created the universe.

Premise 2: Objective truth exists.

Argument 1: God defines what is objective truth by virtue of being the one who created everything.

Argument 2: There is nothing else above him which could give any other definition to what is true about reality other than the definition which God himself gives to it. And there is no one equal to God who can create an alternative truth that has equal claim to being truth,

Conclusion: You therefore can’t accuse God’s Truth of being subjective, rather than objective, if you accept the premise that He is the sole creator of the universe. The only way, therefore, you could accuse God’s truth of being subjective rather than objective is if you could argue that there is someone above him or someone equal to him (which then wouldn’t make him God by the Abrahamic religions definition of God).


So we can see your strawman is false because you are misrepresenting what my conclusion actually was.

This is in contrast to your strawman, which would look like this:
Premise: God is the one true God.
Argument: God is the true God because God is the true God.
Conclusion: Therefore God is the true God.

So you either have a serious deficit of understanding how logic works to not be able to spot the differences between my argument vs your strawman argument, or you are being intentionally dishonest in trying to misrepresent what I argued.


In conclusion: You are not able to find fault with the validity of my logical arguments.

Isn't it curious that these self-proclaimed logic experts do perfect 10 double-flip backwards somersaults off of the Logic Train when it comes to propping up their preferred deity? This guy is all 'that is false due to logical fallacy X' all day, but then busts out the Fallacy of Begging the Question at the drop of a hat!

So pretentious...

I have just demonstrated above why you were false to accuse me of committing the logical fallacy of begging the question.

You cannot demonstrate any genuine logical fault with the arguments you are quoting.

You seem to be using appeals to mockery and ad hominems as a way to distract from the fact that you know your fallacious attempts at counter arguments have no valid substance to them.

I did. That is what they do.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot prove your assertion is true that either I or Craig have engaged in any kind of avoidance or red herring fallacies. You can quote note examples as evidence backed up with logical reasons as to why that would constitute an avoidance fallacy of some type.

It’s not proven true just because you assert it is true.

'Arguments' that 'seemingly' do things when viewed uncritically are not the same thing as evidence or proof. Maybe that is why?

Craig doesn't come off so well in terms of 'evidence' or 'science' here... Sure, the cheerleaders say otherwise, but that is because they are cheerleaders for a grifter.

You’re committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.
Because you have exposed no specific fault with any argument Craig or I put forth.
Merely asserting there is fault with it doesn’t prove there is just because you assert it is so.

It’s not even clear to me in your post what you’re trying to assert - which makes your post a particular incoherent form of argument by assertion.

You seem to be claiming by assertion:
1. That a critical view of Craig’s arguments will reveal them to be false.
2. That Craig’s arguments are not logically proved.
3. That Craig’s arguments don’t have evidence.

But you have no logical arguments or evidence in support of your claims.
Therefore you can’t claim your assertions are true.
You’re just committing the fallacy of argument by assertion.

And all you do is assert Carroll did not win. What is YOR logical basis for THAT?

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
You aren’t quoting any specific claim I made and then showing why I did not give valid logical reasons for my claim.
Your assertions about what you claim I did aren’t proven to be true just because you assert it did.

You will certainly find no such support for your claim in the post of mine you were quoting.

The only way Craig "wins" is if it is "logical" that cause/effect relationships cease at an arbitrary point (that point being at the will of the deity Craig so wants to be immune from logic).

You are engaging in the fallacy of non sequitur. There is no logical connection between your premises and your conclusion based on your argument.

It’s not clear what exactly you are trying to argue because it’s not logically coherent, but I’ll try to break it down:
Premise 1: Craig is arguing that cause/effect ceases at an arbitrary point
Premise 2: That arbitrary point is the creation from God of the universe.
Argument: Craig wins if he starts from his two premises.
Conclusion: Craig wants to be immune from logic.

I think what you meant to argue, but failed to do so in a logically coherent way, was that you think Craig is contradicting himself by trying to appeal to cause and effect up until the point of creation but then not saying God has to be subject to cause and effect.

That would be the closest thing to attempting a valid counter argument you have offered so far - even if your presentation of it was logically incoherent.

The problem with it is that it just comes out of you misunderstanding both what Craig is arguing and what the issue of the debate involves. I will explain why:

Craig has logically demonstrated that it is necessary that the cause of the universe’s creation must itself be uncaused and unbound by time. Because to do otherwise would violate logic by resulting in an impossible situation of actual infinite regressions of causes and time into the universe’s past.

Materialists don’t dispute this conclusion either. They recognize that you can’t logically have an actual infinite regression of the space-time universe. Which is why they are trying to find a model of how an eternal quantum existence prior to the space-time universe that doesn’t itself have to have a beginning point or is not logically contradictory by claiming to be both eternal and then changing to create the space-time universe. They haven’t been able to find one yet. Which is why they say they don’t know whether or not the universe had a beginning or was eternal.

And, in fact, materialists are also trying to argue for an uncaused causer with their attempts to find eternal models. They want an uncaused eternity to cause space-time to be created, becuse they know space-time can't be eternal. They just can’t find a workable basis for such an uncaused causer to exist under the confines of their materialistic worldview.

Therefore, when Craig says that God as the cause of the universe could not himself be subject to having to be caused, he is stating that as a necessary logical conclusion from what we know about how the universe works. Because the alternative would be a logical impossibility.

So, your personal incredulity about the idea of God being causeless doesn’t change the fact that we are forced to logically conclude He must have been uncaused because there is no logical alternative.

 

[Yazata]

Let's look at what may or may not be Craig's argument. (I'm taking this from Rise's post #247.)

1. That the universe had a beginning.

We don't actually know that, though the Big Bang cosmology makes it likely.

In my opinion, it's a deeper question than the idea of beginnings suggests. Imagine a universe that extends infinitely into the past with no temporal beginning at all. (Ancient Indian cosmology imagined time that way.) It's possible. But while that eliminates the idea of temporal origin, we can obviously still ask why a universe that extends infinitely into the past exists, instead of nothing at all. Getting rid of the temporal origin doesn't get rid of the ontological problem of accounting for why reality exists.

So I'm inclined to think that this #1 might be stronger than even Craig suspects. Looked at the way I just suggested, Krauss' and Carroll's sort of objections from speculative theoretical physics kind of evaporate. Theoretical physics or no theoretical physics, we are still left with the fundamental ontological question. To his credit, Vilenkin acknowledges this. I would guess that Sean Carroll does too, he's a very smart and philosophically literate guy.

2. If the universe had a beginning then it's cause must be timeless and causeless.

Maybe if we assume that the beginning of the universe was also the beginning of space-time. If there's no 'before' before the origin event, and if our explanation is to avoid circularity, then whatever accounts for the origin event will have to be separate from and outside space-time. Krauss and Vilenkin accept this explicitly by appealing to the "laws of physics" which they seem to imagine have some kind of timeless subsistent reality even apart from the physical universe.

So I'll give Craig that one too, even if it's getting excessively speculative, given that we don't really have a clue how reality came into existence.

3. That there is evidence of design in the universe.

There's certainly evidence of order. (Mathematics, logic, laws of physics etc.) Leaping from 'order' to 'design' might be an unjustified move. How does one distinguish between order that is and order that isn't evidence of 'design'? (Teleological arguments usually make their appearance here. Arguments from natural selection would be possible counter-arguments.)

4. If there is design in the universe then it means the cause of the universe must have a mind capable of designing.

This one seems to me to depend on #3 and hence can be no more convincing. Even assuming that we can distinguish between order and design, do we really know that only "minds" (whatever that word means) are capable of producing design? What's more, the idea of attributing "mind" to some hypothetical unknown timeless reality seems problematic to me. If it's outside time, how could it be anything even analogous to the things that display mind-like behavior here on Earth?

5. That if we must conclude the designer of the universe was a mind then they must also have unfathomable power to take what was in their mind and create the universe, bringing reality to their intention.

Sure, whatever explains the existence of existence, assuming that anything does, must operate in unknown and as yet unfathomable ways. The attribution of "mind" and psychologistic predicates like "intention" to it would seem to be kind of gratuitous at this point. The most honest thing would be for us to admit that we don't know what the answer is to the most fundamental ontological question.

So I don't think that this argument works as designed. It does succeed in raising some interesting metaphysical questions, but it shamelessly jumps to conclusions in trying to answer them.

6. Objective morality exists.

The evidence would seem to me to be just the opposite. So I think that #6 is probably false.

7. Objective morality can't exist unless there is a God.

Why? That one can't just be assumed and it needs argument.

8. Therefore God must exist.

6 through 8 seem to stand on their own as a moral argument for the existence of God, separate from the cosmological argument that preceeded it. If 6 and 7 are true, then 8 would have to be true too. The creator of this list seems to want to pile these arguments together so as to arrive at something like the Christian God that he believes in, as opposed to some abstract metaphysical principle (whatever explains why reality exists).

There is some value in that I guess, since it might show how the traditional theistic arguments from natural theology were designed to work together in concert so as to arrive at the revealed God of scripture.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Watch his debate with William Lane Craig.

You’ll notice that throughout the entire debate he really doesn't even attempt to present a real logical argument of his own that God doesn’t exist. He also never even tries to dispute Craig’s logical arguments for why God does exist.

So what does Hitchens fill all his time doing? Trying to slander God’s character by calling God’s behavior bad or pointing to bad things and blaming God for it. It’s the logical fallacy equivalent of an ad hominem. That makes up basically the entirety of Hitchens time. Which logically has nothing to do with disproving God’s existence even if you assumed the slander were true.

I think the only reason he had gotten away with that for so long and gained admiration for it is because the eloquent manner in which he speaks makes him sound far smarter and more poignant than what the logical substance of his argument actually is.

This exposes the root of what I have noticed with most militant atheists - their objection to God is not based on logic, but anger. Anger at God. They don’t want to believe He is real, not because the evidence is in their favor but because they don’t like Him or don’t like the implications of His reality being true.

Hitchens displays unbridled anger and resentment at God, but puts forth no logical arguments or counter arguments against the reality of His existence.

Here is what you do. Die and come back from the dead and tell the rest of us, that there indeed is a Heaven. Don't just rely on some saying it will happen. Do it in fact.

That is all there is to proving God in the Christian sense.
Now as an atheist I don't believe in gods. As an agnostic I don't know if there are any gods or no gods.

 

[Rise]

Let's look at what may or may not be Craig's argument. (I'm taking this from Rise's post #247.)

You have no reason to dispute what I outlined were an accurate representation of Craig’s arguments.

You also aren’t disputing the conclusion of my post that you are referencing.

My conclusion in that post was that Hitchens did not refute those arguments Craig made. Pointing out why people are wrong to think Hitchens did so.

You are trying to argue about whether or not Craig’s arguments are actually true - which would not be relevant to what I was saying in my post about how Hitchens failed to refute Craig’s arguments.

If you want to argue about whether or not Craigs arguments are true then that can be done but that would be a separate topic from the post are you responding to.

 

[Rise]

Here is what you do. Die and come back from the dead and tell the rest of us, that there indeed is a Heaven. Don't just rely on some saying it will happen. Do it in fact.

That is all there is to proving God in the Christian sense.
Now as an atheist I don't believe in gods. As an agnostic I don't know if there are any gods or no gods.

So you are saying if someome died and came back to life with an account of Heaven being real then you would believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior and obey Him?

 

[Yazata]

You have no reason to dispute what I outlined were an accurate representation of Craig’s arguments.

True. I remember reading Craig's argument some time ago, but I don't remember the details. (I do remember being distinctly underwhelmed.) I only meant that I didn't bother to compare your numbered points with Craig's. I do seem to recall that his argument was more complex than the one you posted, but I might be misremembering or maybe he has published different versions of the argument.

You also aren’t disputing the conclusion of my post that you are referencing.

I wasn't trying to. I already agreed with you that I think that Hitchens was overrated as an intellectual.

My conclusion in that post was that Hitchens did not refute those arguments Craig made. Pointing out why people are wrong to think Hitchens did so.

Ok. I never saw their debate.

You are trying to argue about whether or not Craig’s arguments are actually true - which would not be relevant to what I was saying in my post about how Hitchens failed to refute Craig’s arguments.

We seem to be talking past each other. I'm not really interested in whether Hitchens refuted or failed to refute Craig.

If you want to argue about whether or not Craigs arguments are true then that can be done but that would be a separate topic from the post are you responding to.

I don't really want to argue with you at all. I just found Craig's argument interesting and wanted to post a few comments about it.

I find it exceedingly weak. I agree more or less with Craig's 1 and 2. 3 and 4 are where I think that he goes off the rails. He just inserts the idea of design in 3 without justifying it. 4 introduces claims about mind, again without argument. 5 is ok if all it's saying is that whatever the explanation for reality itself is, assuming that there is an explanation, that it must operate in unfathomable ways.

6,7 and 8 are basically a separate argument that appears to move from a false premise 6, through a completely unjustified assumption 7, to a conclusion 8 that does indeed follow from 6 and 7. In logical terms, valid but not sound.

 

[Rise]

True. I remember reading Craig's argument some time ago, but I don't remember the details. (I do remember being distinctly underwhelmed.) I only meant that I didn't bother to compare your numbered points with Craig's. I do seem to recall that his argument was more complex that the one you posted, but I might be misremembering or maybe he has published different versions of the argument.

That is why I had to point out that you were missing the context of my post.

For example: You tried to dispute point #7 by saying there was nothing in the argument that would allow us to conclude that.

Of course there wasn’t anything in my post that would allow you to conclude point #7 was true because I wasn’t posting with the intention of giving a full recitation of every argument Craig made related to point #7 - because it wasn’t necessary to do so to prove the point I was trying to make about Hitchens failing to refute Craig.
It wasn’t necessary for me to recite Craig’s entire argument verbatum in order to make the point that Hitchens failed to refute it.

Therefore, you cannot try to argue against Craig’s arguments based on nothing but the post you quoted as though that represents the entirety of what Craig had to defend his conclusion with.

You are acting as though the arguments don’t exist simply because they weren’t expressed in the particular post you were responding to. When that particular post was not intended to, nor needed to, contain the fullness of those arguments.

To say nothing of Craig’s actual arguments which give the supporting reasons why he concludes that; I myself have written a great quantity of material in this very thread across many posts outlining why we cannot logically say objective morality exists without saying God exists. I could point you to them if you’d like to deal with them.

Your post runs into similar problems with other points if you are assuming all that I wrote represents the fullness of what arguments Craig gave on each subject. That is not the case at all. I did not intend to present a full recitation of his arguments because it was not necessary to do so in order to explain why Hitchens failed to refute Craig.

That is why I suggest if you want to try to refute the actual arguments I or Craig have used then you would do better to go quote a post that deals specifically with trying to defend those arguments because then you will find a more full explanation within it. The post you were responding to was never intended to have that kind of full explanation because it didn’t need to.

 

[tas8831]

If you did not set out to make a claim of truth then you are merely expressing your opinion.

Blah blah blah.
Hiding behind walls of verbiage will not change the fact that your primary form of argumentation is bare assertion.
And Wikipedia, which creationist @Wildswanderer mocks.

Waiting for your SCIENTIFIC response here:

Evolution has been observed... right?

 

[tas8831]

You claimed:
1. That Craig’s argument got demolished.
2. That Craig’s argument doesn’t hold up if you understand or care about evidence.
3. And you imply the claim that Craig’s logic is somehow faulty.

None of your claims are ones you can prove with logical arguments.

They are empirical ones, which trumps this sad reliance on labeling everything a logical fallacy which you employ. Along with bare assertions.

Waiting for your SCIENTIFIC response here:

Evolution has been observed... right?