Richard Dawkins Again Refuses Debate With Christian Apologist William Craig

[Techne]

If I recall correctly, Craig is not the one who initiates debates, other organizations ask him whether he would like to participate. Craig agreed to a UK tour and apparently he is set up to debate Dawkins' central argument in his book "The God Delusion".

The argument is hopelessly logically flawed, even the chaps at commonsenseatheism agree on that. So if Dawkins does not pitch for the debate then Craig will just advance his criticisms in front of an audience with other critics challenging him (I can't remember who atm).

I am not sure what Dawkins means with "but I don’t take on creationists". All theists are technically creationists as they see God as the creator and "sustainer" of reality. So technically Dawkins has debated creationists before. Perhaps he means "young earth creationists"?

Craig, however, is not a young earth creationist.

So, Craig is a theist and therefor a creationist.
Dawkins has debated creationists before since theists are technically creationists. He just has not debated young earth creationists.
Craig is not a young earth creationist.

I think I agree with Daniel Came that this can be interpreted as cowardice.

 

[Believe]

Richard Dawkins has again refused to debate world-renowned apologist William Lane Craig on the rationality of faith and the existence of God.

Many believe that Craig’s upcoming “Reasonable Faith” tour in the U.K. is intimidating Dawkins, who refuses to engage on a one-on-one talk with the leading Christian apologist, famous for his revival of the Kalam cosmological argument which asserts that God caused the universe to first exist.

But Dawkins, defending his decision, previously shared during a panel that Craig was not a worthy opponent.

Though the author of The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion found Craig’s background insubstantial, many of his fellow atheists have debated with the theologian, including Bart Ehrman, Richard Taylor, and two of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.

In fact, Harris once described Craig as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of [his] fellow atheists.”

Not only a “professional debater” as Dawkins labeled him, Craig has authored or edited over 30 books, and also is the current research professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology in California.

He has made significant contributions to the philosophy of time and religion, and also works as a New Testament historian.

Dawkins’ refusal to debate Craig has become an international issue, with many critics and intellectuals interpreting the British evolutionary biologist’s actions as a sign of cowardice.

“The absence of debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your [cover letter] and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part,” Daniel Came, an atheist and Worcester College philosophy lecturer wrote to Dawkins in a letter, according to the Telegraph.

“I notice that, by contrast, you are happy to discuss theological matters with television and radio presenters and other intellectual heavyweights like Pastor Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals and Pastor Keenan Roberts of the Colorado Hell House.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/richard-dawkins-continues-to-refuse-debate-with-christian-apologist-william-craig-56780/



Dawkins finally met someone with a superior intellect in terms of theology. He is smart for avoiding debate because he knows he would ultimately lose. He saves more face by shying away and claiming his opponent is unworthy than by standing up to him and getting his ***** kicked.

This is old.

 

[Believe]

Thus perfectly illustrating my point.

poppycock is great word, how does its use illustrate your point?

 

[Dywyddyr]

poppycock is great word, how does its use illustrate your point?

Um, because Jan is refusing to accept Dawkin's prior statement for what it is.
He's effectively claiming that it somehow doesn't apply in this case.

 

[Arioch]

@Techne --

The argument is hopelessly logically flawed, even the chaps at commonsenseatheism agree on that.

Actually I disagree with them, as do a lot of people.

The "if everything complex requires a creator then god requires a creator too" argument is entirely valid against claims of first cause or arguments from complexity. It turns their own logic back against them. This is not, as Craig claims, "destructive of science" in the least. It's actually conducive to science because saying that "god did it" tells us exactly nothing. It doesn't tells us how the universe came to be nor the age of the universe nor what physical laws hold true in the universe, it's a meaningless, place-holder of an answer. And the mere fact that there is an answer, regardless of how meaningless it is, will discourage people from investigating further to find actual answers. Far better to admit that we don't know than it is to pretend that we know when we haven't got a clue. This is science.

The second argument they put forward is just specious. It's a straw man argument. Dawkins is merely stating the principle of parsimony in terms that laypeople will understand. Parsimony is central to science and tossing it away, as people always do with god claims, destroys all of science. Both this and their first argument do away with the concept of parsimony.

The third posting in your link is mostly nonsense in the light of what I wrote above, but they did put forward some specious arguments like "most theists don't put forth that god is physical", which is a semantics game at best. Also, I noted a bit of overlap in the various posts meaning that there wasn't really a lot of thought put into this.

All theists are technically creationists as they see God as the creator and "sustainer" of reality.

Not quite. All christians are creationists to some degree, and the same can be said for the other monotheisms, however the same can't be said of all theisms period. The ancient Greeks believed that everything, their gods included, sprang from chaos(funny that they got it more right than most other religions did).

Craig, however, is not a young earth creationist.

Young earth creationism, intelligent design, what's the difference really?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Richard Dawkins has again refused to debate world-renowned apologist William Lane Craig on the rationality of faith and the existence of God.

As James pointed out, William Lane Craig doesn't meet Richard Dawkins' criteria for debating with him, and that criteria was set by Dawkins long before Craig came around.

Many believe that Craig’s upcoming “Reasonable Faith” tour in the U.K. is intimidating Dawkins, who refuses to engage on a one-on-one talk with the leading Christian apologist, famous for his revival of the Kalam cosmological argument which asserts that God caused the universe to first exist.

Your first two words are the problem for those people. The rest of the people understand the simple fact that Craig doesn't meet Dawkin's already well established criteria.

But Dawkins, defending his decision, previously shared during a panel that Craig was not a worthy opponent.

That is correct.

Though the author of The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion found Craig’s background insubstantial, many of his fellow atheists have debated with the theologian, including Bart Ehrman, Richard Taylor, and two of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.

That is correct. Those people have different criteria than Dawkins. Kind of a no-brainer eh?

In fact, Harris once described Craig as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of [his] fellow atheists.”

Sounds like Craig has a talent for appeals to emotion.

Not only a “professional debater” as Dawkins labeled him, Craig has authored or edited over 30 books, and also is the current research professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology in California.

He has made significant contributions to the philosophy of time and religion, and also works as a New Testament historian.

Sounds like a very busy professor of theological philosophy. If you want to compare Richard Dawkins's credentials to him, you should look Dawkins up on google.

Dawkins’ refusal to debate Craig has become an international issue, with many critics and intellectuals interpreting the British evolutionary biologist’s actions as a sign of cowardice.

“The absence of debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your [cover letter] and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part,” Daniel Came, an atheist and Worcester College philosophy lecturer wrote to Dawkins in a letter, according to the Telegraph.

That same thing happend to James Randi when he restricted the criteria for giving audience to crackpot claims of psychic powers / paranormal phenomena. My take is that people who like to point the finger of cowardice have zero respect for Dawkins' time... so why should he (or anyone) in turn have respect for their opinion?

Dawkins finally met someone with a superior intellect in terms of theology. He is smart for avoiding debate because he knows he would ultimately lose. He saves more face by shying away and claiming his opponent is unworthy than by standing up to him and getting his ***** kicked.

As you no doubt know, that is a false statement and a half. The false statement is that he is avoiding debate because he knows he will "lose". The correct reason has been pointed out James, myself, others in this thread, and even by the article you posted. Only you know the reason why you have chosen to lie, but you should expect that when you do so on this site that you will be called out and made to look like a turd sandwich (well-deservingly I might add).

 

[spidergoat]

As if creationists have thought of anything new. They just use the same arguments over and over.

 

[Arioch]

@spidergoat --

Of course they don't have anything new, they haven't had anything new for almost a thousand years.

 

[NietzscheHimself]

Young earth creationism, intelligent design, what's the difference really?

Young earth creationists think the earth was created by god and placed man on it 3000 years ago... Or so...

Intelligent design is an assertion based on the organization of the observed universe that it was made by something intelligent. Basically saying "nature is so beyond our understanding" it must have a designer.

One is quite easy to refute. The other you have to refute by saying " overwhelming complexity does not arrive at the relatively simple suggestion that some being designed it."

 

[Techne]

Not quite. All christians are creationists to some degree, and the same can be said for the other monotheisms, however the same can't be said of all theisms period. The ancient Greeks believed that everything, their gods included, sprang from chaos(funny that they got it more right than most other religions did).

Fair enough. The point of course being that Dawkins has debated creationists before.

As for Dawkins' central argument, is it your opinion that the argument is logically sound? I don't think it is, do you think you would be able to defend it on logical and rational grounds?

 

[Gustav]

what is the "central argument"?

I always said when invited to do debates that I would be happy to debate a bishop, a cardinal, a pope, an archbishop, indeed I have done those, but I don’t take on creationists and I don’t take on people whose only claim to fame is that they are professional debaters; they’ve got to have something more than that. I’m busy. (dawkins)


that?

 

[Techne]

His central argument in his book "The God Delusion".

This one:

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.
2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. In the case of a man-made artifact such as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer. It is tempting to apply the same logic to an eye or a wing, a spider or a person.
3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable. We need a “crane”, not a “skyhook”, for only a crane can do the business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbable complexity.
4. The most ingenious and powerful crane so far discovered is Darwinian evolution. Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that – an illusion.
5. We don’t yet have an equivalent “crane” for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological version of Darwinism, because it makes heavier demands on luck. But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with.
6. We should not give up the hope of a well-grounded explanatory model arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But even in the absence of a strongly satisfying model to match the biological one, the relatively weak models we have at present are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating God hypothesis of an intelligent designer.
7. If the argument of this chapter (book) is accepted, the factual premise of religion -- the God hypothesis – is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist. This is the main conclusion of the book so far.

 

[chimpkin]

Creationists' arguments...don't evolve...

They may get more intricate, but are still ultimately circular.

Edited to add: @ Techne, I read that book, and I fail to see much flaw in Dawkins' reasoning, I just need to believe for irrational reasons. I know they are irrational.
:shrug:
I fully admit it. I wish other people who believe in deity or deities would honestly admit there is no rational basis for their beliefs, acknowledge that they still find those irrational beliefs necessary and meaningful...and just get on with believing.

Perhaps they'd stop trying to tell their non-co-religionists what to do if they admitted this to themselves?

 

[NietzscheHimself]

I guess he thinks the catholic beliefs are the only ones even worthy of debating...

 

[Techne]

Edited to add: @ Techne, I read that book, and I fail to see much flaw in Dawkins' reasoning

Well, if you are seriously looking to understand the argument you should have no problem seeing the flaws.

 

[chimpkin]

Well, if you are seriously looking to understand the argument you should have no problem seeing the flaws.

What flaws do you see with that bulging brain of yours?

 

[CptBork]

Why bother fussing over what Dawkins thinks in the first place? He's just another notable intellectual, another stone in the quarry. Atheism is a lack of belief in deistic philosophies, it's not a belief in whatever comes out of Dawkins' mouth. There's no existential battle between Dawkins and Jesus/Thor, and I pity those who need to live their lives pretending that there ever was.

 

[kx000]

@spidergoat --

Of course they don't have anything new, they haven't had anything new for almost a thousand years.

Theres nothing new to come up with when its already relatively spot on.. only if the church never came along and mucked up peoples minds.

 

[wsionynw]

Dawkns won't debate lots of people, simply becuase it would be a huge favour to them for him to do so while offering him nothing in return.
I support him on this.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Just for funsies I watched a debate video between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens. I took some notes on Craig's debating attributes and analyzed one of his actual arguments (posted below). Most of Craig's assertions are simply incorrect; however, he has a massive logical / emotional intelligence and he uses his intellect to communicate his assertions in a way that make you naturally want to accept them. I had to go back a few times and re-listen to his arguments so I could extract his actual assertions without getting caught up in the experience of his rather fantastic presentations.

VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG'S DEBATING ATTRIBUTES:
* Powerful professional speaker. He ueses a combination of speech, intentional body language, and follow-along media (ex. hand held cards given to the audience to outline his agenda and or specific points he wants them to remember).
* Approaches arguments using strong logic and philosophical notions.
* Extremely well organized.
* Excellent at time management.
* Narrows the criteria of the debate very well.
* Clearly states what his opponent needs to do to beat him in the debate.
* Very very friendly and likable.
* Excellent at using examples.
* Excellent memory.
* Repeats his opponents arguments both correctly and incorrectly. It looks like the incorrect version is an intentional tactic to support his position.
* Connects with people on a personal level.
* Uses science to back his assertions and doesn't mention science that contradicts his assertions.
* Piles on mass quantities of assertions, too many for any particular person separate and remember and this is intentional as they often don't support each other.
* Uses a combination of truth, false assertions, and implied definitions to make arguments.
* Quotes people on appeals to authority and mixes their personal opinion with their scientific opinion.
* Asserts certain things are impossible when it supports him but ignores other impossibilities when they don't support him.
* Uses the label "Fact" to claim that his assertion is a fact (even in cases where it's really not).

EXAMPLE ARGUMENT BY CRAIG FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD VIA THE COSOMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT:
(Note, the Cosmological argument tries to answer the question "why does anything exist rather than nothing?". I will point out where any part of Craig's argument is incorrect.)
* Atheists cannot prove that Atheism is true. [CrunchyCat: Atheism is a label for people who don't accept the assertion 'God exists' as being true. In other words, it's a label not something that you prove as true or false. More importantly, it's a very dishonest method of trying to redefine atheism.]
* Atheists have tried for centuries to disprove the existence of 'God', but none of them have been successful at it. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect, Atheists simply don't accept the assertion 'God' exists as being true and don't even think twice about disproving the existence of 'God'; however, science has resulted in knowledge that directly contradicts assertions made by all mainstream religions... which means they are false. Atheists point that out and why they cannot 'disprove' the existence of a 'God', they can disprove the existence of specific named 'Gods' by showing the assertions surrounding them are contradicted by reality (thanks to the availability of scientific knowledge.]
* Atheists say the universe is eternal and uncaused. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect because atheists utilize many scientific theories about our universe and only a tiny handful of those theories assert that the universe is eternal... and none of them assert that our universe is uncaused. Either way, those theories of an eternal universe (ex. steady state and cyclical universe) are by no means mainstream.]
* The universe began to exist. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. The statement contains a direct implication that at one moment the universe we see today just appeared out of nothing. I strongly suspect that this statement was intended to mean that our universe inflated billions of years ago; however, the statement is incorrect nonetheless.]
* Infinite past seems absurd. [CrunchyCat: I would agree, but that is a subjective judgement and does not support an objective argument.]
* Mathematicians realize that the actual existence of an infinite number of things leads to self- contradictions. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. Mathematics shows that various operations on infinite quantities lead to undefined results; however, the existence of an infinite quantity doesn't mean that it's possible to perform an operation on it that would lead to an undefined result.]
* For example infinity - infinity is contradictory. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. It is undefined, much like division by zero, but it's not a contradiction... that's a different concept.]
* This shows infinity is just an idea. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. While infinity is an idea, we cannot say that there is no actual infinite quantity just because some mathematical operations involving infinities would result in undefined results. It's like saying that a zero quantity cannot exist because an operation to divide by zero would result in undefined results. Clearly zero quantities are supported by reality and reality never tries to divide by zero.]
* The mathematician David Hilbert says we don't observe infinites in nature and it doesn't provide a basis for rational thought; therefore, it's only useful as an idea. [CrunchyCat: This has correct and incorrect components. It is true that we don't observe infinities in nature; however, as mathematics is strongly tied to rational thought and we use infinities in mathematics (which also means infinities are useful beyond being just an idea), it is incorrect to say that infinities don't provide a basis for rational thought.]
* The number of past events must therefore be finite; therefore, the universe must have began to exist. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect, because it means that time cannot be an infinite quantity due to the fact that some mathematical operations exist that produce undefined results when applied to infinite quantities. Again, it's like saying that an empty barrel of apples can't exist because an empty barrel of apples means there are zero apples and mathematical operations exist (ex. dividing by zero) that can produce undefined results when applied to zero quantities. I think the "universe began to exist" statement is just malformed as I stated earlier.]
* The conclusion has been confirmed by astronomy and astrophysics where our universe had an absolute beginning roughly 13b years ago in an event known as the big bang. [CrunchyCat: This has correct and incorrect components. It is true that science has shown that our universe began an inflationary period billions of years ago and today is the current result of that inflation. It is incorrect that time must be finite (for the same reason I pointed out a few times already.]
* The Big Bang represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing (no space-time before that). [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. At present there is no evidence for an objective absolute *nothing* existing -i.e. an absence of everything/anything-. No known scientific theory to date asserts that there was once an absolute absence of everything/anything and then *poof* the Big Bang happened]
* Physicist PCW Davis states that the Big Bang is the coming into physical existence of a universe from literally nothing. [CrunchyCat: I wasn't able to find a physicist with this name so I can't really comment on it.]
* Atheists must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. [CrunchyCat: This is incorrect. Atheists -much like scientists- don't know what started the event we call the Big Bang. We can hypothesize and model theories, but we simply don't know yet.]
* So why does the universe exist? A causeless, spaceless, timeless, immaterial being/mind of unfathomable power. [CrunchyCat: Or a magical super-pickle...]