I Found An Intelligent Atheist, But He's Still Wrong

[james bond]

"Yet my first philosophical thoughts came in childhood, at the age of 8 when my cousin and I were trying to find two clover leafs that were exactly the same. It gradually dawned on me that our search was futile since no two objects, clover leafs or whatever, could be exactly the same, i.e., have all their properties – including being in the same place at the same time – in common. As I learned later, I had discovered Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles for myself.

Since that time, much of my thinking has centered on issues to do with the modal distinctions between what must be the case (e.g., that 2 objects must have dissimilar properties), what cannot be the case (e.g., that 2 objects cannot have all the same properties), and what is merely contingent (e.g., that no two clover leafs that we could find even looked alike when viewed up close).

At age 10, modal issues raised their head again in the form of problems about God's foreknowledge and my freedom: How could I do other than what God knew I would do? Reading the volumes of systematic theology that had been bequeathed to me didn't help with that one. Neither did it help answer a question which continued to haunt me throughout my teen-age years, and eventually helped lead to the abandonment of my faith: How is it possible for a perfectly good God knowingly to create an evil world?"

It seems to me that he misunderstands how things work. Basically, he takes a black and white view of issues presented in the Bible and then loses faith in God. It was his goal to become like his grandfather who was a minister. God knew he was going to disavow his faith, but it was he who made that decision from free will. It didn't have anything to do with what God knew. It takes enough work to find what we know about ourselves, so it doesn't make sense to do other than what God knows. He knows the mind of people, but we do not always know the mind of God. Sometimes, the answers do not come immediately.

Still, he's interesting to me in that we both share a love of skiing and are accomplished racers. He's way above me in that regard as he's won many times and seems unbeatable in his class.

Dr. Ray Bradley, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Philosophy
Dr. Ray Bradley - Department of Philosophy - Simon Fraser University

 

[james bond]

Dr. Bradley was in a debate with Dr. William Lane Craig on "Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?"

We know from the Bible that he is both loving and can sentence people to hell, but the debate has raged on throughout time and still rages on.

Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? The Craig-Bradley Debate | Reasonable Faith

Youtube version

 

[icehorse]

Craig is a really fine debater. But in the end he's a purveyor of cleverly disguised fallacy arguments.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Craig is a really fine debater. But in the end he's a purveyor of cleverly disguised fallacy arguments.

Not too clever by my reckoning. Here's an argument from Craig, which has got to be one of the two worst arguments ever. Here is his version of the Kalam cosmological argument (condensed):

• Like everything that comes into being, the universe has a cause.
• If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
• Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful

Really? Talk about leaping to unjustified conclusions. I vote for the multiverse. Right or wrong, he cannot justify ruling that possibility out and insisting his god exists.

Here's another argument from Craig

"The explanation of God's existence must be that he exists simply by a necessity of his own nature. - Wm Lane Craig http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s4-2#ixzz2uXRkC1BV

Nice argument. He exists because he must. How about this rebuttal: He doesn't exist because he can't.

Those are among his intellectual failures. Sam Harris held Craig's feet to the fire for his moral failings in the debate at Notre Dame university.

From the transcript from Harris' rebuttal to Craig there entitled “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? / Is Good from God?"

“Please notice the double standard that people like Dr. Craig use to exonerate God from all this evil. We’re told that God is loving, and kind, and just, and intrinsically good; but when someone like myself points out the rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust, because he visits suffering on innocent people, of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, we’re told that God is mysterious. “Who can understand God’s will?”

“And yet, this is precisely - this “merely human” understanding of God’s will - is precisely what believers use to establish his goodness in the first place. Something good happens to a Christian - he feels some bliss while praying, say, or he sees some positive change in his life - and we’re told that God is good. But when children by the tens of thousands are torn from their parents’ arms and drowned, we’re told that God is mysterious. This is how you play tennis without the net. And I want to suggest to you, that it is not only tiresome when otherwise-intelligent people speak this way, it is morally reprehensible.

“Given all the good, all that this God of yours does not accomplish in the lives of others, given - given the misery that’s being imposed on some helpless child at this instant - this kind of faith is obscene. To think in this way is to fail to reason honestly, or to care sufficiently about the suffering of other human beings."

Ouch!

That reminds me of the second post on this thread: We know that god is good because the Bible says so, so building a torture pit, staffing it with demons, and gratuitously keeping souls conscious just to torment them forever to the benefit of nobody but a sadist must be good.

By that reckoning, if we had the power to free these souls in perdition and take this god and stick it in its own hell to suffer forever, we'd be justified - good, even. We'd have more cause to do that. If this god would do it to us for nothing worse than unbelief, we would be justified in doing it back for its indefensible crimes against humanity.

 

[sun rise]

The problem with such debates is that they are limited to a traditionalist, literalist view of the Bible and exclude other views from a Christian frame-of-reference as well as excluding other theologies such as Buddhist and Hindu.

Just one example: hell could be looked at as a literal hell. It could be interpreted as being emotional hell with the subjective feeling of unending pain. I'm aware of dedicated Christians who have the later view.

 

[icehorse]

Sam Harris held Craig's feet to the fire for his moral failings in the debate at Notre Dame university.

Yup.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Just one example: hell could be looked at as a literal hell. It could be interpreted as being emotional hell with the subjective feeling of unending pain. I'm aware of dedicated Christians who have the later view.

Is there any difference? Is a "cyber" bully who makes someone's life a misery online for example much different to a "physical" bully who pulls her hair and calls her names in the playground? You don't need to physically harm a person to inflict trauma.
Human experience tells us that the human mind often goes "mad", it is "lost" when the body (or the mind) is exposed to prolonged trauma. Sometimes this does not mean a disturbed unhappiness for the individual, sometimes it can mean an altered state of reality that generates personal happiness. The individual is deluded, but happy in his or her delusions.
What does the deity do about that? Can't have people "happy" in hell right? So does it keep the mind teetering on the brink of sanity, just so it can keep on the enduring trauma? The deity sounds like a real charmer whatever angle you come at! Just something to think about.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Just want to say I do not at all endorse this kind of slandering of people who say they are atheists. Sometimes I'm not eloquently in support of atheism necessarily, but I think it has its role to play in society. I don't think atheists are evil. I also think that sticking to Biblical fundamentalism requires not categorizing people as believers and unbelievers. I think Christianity is about how you live not what you believe, and in this mostly (about 60% I would guess) American forum we are talking about Christianity plus other religions. I also think this thread is about Christianity for the most part, rather than it really being about atheists.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Just want to say I do not at all endorse this kind of slandering of people who say they are atheists. Sometimes I'm not eloquently in support of atheism necessarily, but I think it has its role to play in society. I don't think atheists are evil.

Thank you sir! I would point out that I was once a Christian, I haven't become "smarter" or more "evil" since then, I continue to live by a moral compass that values humanity, that values all life for that matter. All in favour of more inclusive and more 'grown up' dialogue.

 

[sun rise]

Is there any difference? Is a "cyber" bully who makes someone's life a misery online for example much different to a "physical" bully who pulls her hair and calls her names in the playground? You don't need to physically harm a person to inflict trauma.
Human experience tells us that the human mind often goes "mad", it is "lost" when the body (or the mind) is exposed to prolonged trauma. Sometimes this does not mean a disturbed unhappiness for the individual, sometimes it can mean an altered state of reality that generates personal happiness. The individual is deluded, but happy in his or her delusions.
What does the deity do about that? Can't have people "happy" in hell right? So does it keep the mind teetering on the brink of sanity, just so it can keep on the enduring trauma? The deity sounds like a real charmer whatever angle you come at! Just something to think about.

To me there's all the difference in the world if you believe that the purpose of life is learning. If I'm trying to learn to be a champion skier or a gymnast, for example, falls and pain are part of the process. Otherwise, where's the feeling of satisfaction when you finally overcome tremendous obstacles to accomplish something. Good parents give their children the freedom to explore and learn knowing that sometimes suffering is inevitable to really enjoy the accomplishment.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

To me there's all the difference in the world if you believe that the purpose of life is learning. If I'm trying to learn to be a champion skier or a gymnast, for example, falls and pain are part of the process. Otherwise, where's the feeling of satisfaction when you finally overcome tremendous obstacles to accomplish something. Good parents give their children the freedom to explore and learn knowing that sometimes suffering is inevitable to really enjoy the accomplishment.

Yes, but we are not talking about life here are we? We are talking "anti-life", dumb cold punishment, no intelligence or understanding required, that is what hell is about wouldn't you agree? It cant be dressed up as anything constructive or meaningful, because it isn't. As for a "literal" hell where I undergo physical torture, compared to a hell where I undergo mental torture, I think it is just semantics. Hold me down and burn my feet with a blow torch, I'm likely to be suffering a lot of mental trauma as well. You can send somebody mad with physical torture or mental torture, both "techniques" are reprehensible and immoral.
I do hope religion grows out of the idea eventually.

 

[Revoltingest]

An intelligent atheist?
That's like finding a unicorn who's also a fiscally conservative Democrat.

 

[james bond]

Craig is a really fine debater. But in the end he's a purveyor of cleverly disguised fallacy arguments.

We agree on the former.

It's not fallacy arguments, but Christian apologetics.

Do you know the advent of today's atheism? Dr. Craig explains that Western culture is post-Christian and product of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment thinkers were theists who preached "free thought," i.e. the pursuit of knowledge by means of unfettered human reason alone. Some western intellectuals came to the erroneous conclusion that theological knowledge to be possible. This took hold in the 1800s, but in recent decades fundamental Christianity has come roaring back.

 

[icehorse]

Some western intellectuals came to the erroneous conclusion that theological knowledge to be possible.

I suspect a typo in this sentence, but regardless, can you clarify this sentence?

 

[james bond]

The problem with such debates is that they are limited to a traditionalist, literalist view of the Bible and exclude other views from a Christian frame-of-reference as well as excluding other theologies such as Buddhist and Hindu.

Just one example: hell could be looked at as a literal hell. It could be interpreted as being emotional hell with the subjective feeling of unending pain. I'm aware of dedicated Christians who have the later view.

That's got nothing to do with the debate. The question is how can a God be all loving and also send people to hell of burning torture 24/7? Craig argues that it's people who send themselves to hell with the free will choices they make. Bradley argues that a loving God and one who sends people to hell are logically inconsistent.

Craig argues, that God's nature is perfect justice and perfect love. Everyone will get fair judgment when brought before Jesus. However, Craig continues, God's justice exposes man's inadequacy of being of sinful nature. They have failed to live up to God's moral law and thus everyone is guilty of being in a state of sin and the wages of sin is death. Yet, we were saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus and thus be saved. In order to receive forgiveness and God's mercy, we need to place our trust in Christ as our Savior and the Lord of our lives. Yet, it's logically impossible to make someone freely do something.

Finally, Craig talks about what hell is like. He thinks the fire and brimstone hell is reserved for Satan. OTOH, Bradley wants to use this version of hell in order to make his arguments against God being all loving. Gulp. You reap what you sow. Will Bradley be doomed to what he believes (sarcasm)? Craig thinks there are other metaphors for hell in the Bible such as outer darkness and separation from God. He argues the fiery metaphorical image of hell is one among many others.

Bradley argues that a God can't both be all loving and just when he sends people to an eternity of fiery damnation. It's part of the reason why he disavowed Christianity and lost his faith.

 

[james bond]

I suspect a typo in this sentence, but regardless, can you clarify this sentence?

Some of them rationalized that theology is not a source of genuine knowledge and therefore is not a science.

 

[james bond]

Yup.

>>Sam Harris held Craig's feet to the fire for his moral failings in the debate at Notre Dame university.<<

Will have to listen when I get a chance.

 

[james bond]

Just want to say I do not at all endorse this kind of slandering of people who say they are atheists. Sometimes I'm not eloquently in support of atheism necessarily, but I think it has its role to play in society. I don't think atheists are evil. I also think that sticking to Biblical fundamentalism requires not categorizing people as believers and unbelievers. I think Christianity is about how you live not what you believe, and in this mostly (about 60% I would guess) American forum we are talking about Christianity plus other religions. I also think this thread is about Christianity for the most part, rather than it really being about atheists.

That was not in the debate. It was more a slandering of God by Bradley had you listened to the debate. He ended up concluding God was evil.

 

[icehorse]

Some of them rationalized that theology is not a source of genuine knowledge and therefore is not a science.

I would say that one can study theology as a soft scientist, as one would study sociology. But of course the ideas espoused by theology cannot be considered scientific. Theology is ultimately about faith correct? Faith is a real thing, but it ain't science.

 

[PureX]

It's no more right or wrong to choose atheism than it is to choose theism, because neither choice is based on ascertainable knowledge. And both are based on subjective reasoning.

I choose theism because it affords me positive possibilities that atheism denies, and I see no logical reason for me to reject and deny myself the benefit of these possibilities based on nothing. But I understand that an atheist might find personal benefit in doing just that. What's right for him does not have to be what's right for me.