Switch89

You know, when you put it like I really see what you mean.

We can all forgive our local pastors, who probably are honestly mistaken.

But the truth is, Craig is probably smarter and more educated than most of the people on FRDB. He has degrees in history and philosophy. He has been publishing peer reviewed articles in philosophy journals for decades. And yet look at how fallacious his arguments are. Look at how dishonest his debating style is.

show_no_mercy

He probably knows his argument is circular (you can know Christianity is true with an internal experience of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit doesn't appear to those who are not willing to enter into a loving relationship with them), but he knows that it works.

I think that's called sophistry.

Steven Carr

What is Craig's internal experience of the Holy Spirit?

We could be uncharitable and say it is no more a conviction that his beliefs are right, and other people are wrong.


It would be equally uncharitable to say Craig's internal experience of the Holy Spirit, is him hearing voices in his head.

But it would be more charitable to draw upon Craig's own testimony, where he describes himself crying a lot and then seeing a big number of stars.

After Craig cried a lot, he felt a great deal better.

Many people, untrained in the ways of the Holy Spirit, would snatch at some explanation involving 'endorphins', for why a person would feel better after crying a lot.

Don't listen to such people. It was the Holy Spirit, who lovingly arranged there to be stars in the night sky for Craig to look at.



http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...rticle&id=6651

'I read Christian books; I sought God in prayer. Finally, one night I just came to the end of my rope and cried out to God. I cried out all the anger and bitterness that had built up inside me, and at the same time I felt this tremendous infusion of joy, like a balloon being blown up and blown up until it was ready to burst! I remember I rushed outdoors—it was a clear, mid-western, summer night, and you could see the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon. As I looked up at the stars, I thought, “God! I’ve come to know God!”'

As Craig says 'That moment changed my life'.

Well, it would, wouldn't it?

What with all that crying, which is the gateway for the Holy Spirit's witness.

blastula

OMG THAT GUY SUCKS! WHY DOES HE KEEP BLOWING HIS NOSE IN MY EAR!!!! DISGUSTING!

Craig is lame too.

AtheistGamer

Anybody care to debunk craig's four historic facts that he relies upon?

Toto

You can find a lot of detail, but briefly -

I think there were originally more facts, but these seem to be the current four, from here

The first objection:

Craig may be right that a majority of "NT scholars" accept these as facts, but that is a comment on the confessional stance of most NT scholars, not an indication that a body of disinterested scholars has examined the evidence and concluded that it is reliable.

The second main objection: these alleged facts do not appear to be very reliable.

The first two "facts" have as their source the gospels - and nothing else. Craig and others claim that these bits of gospel stories are reliable facts because they are embarrassing. But there is no validation of these claims from non-Christian sources, or for that matter any source that can be dated before 70 CE; the criterion of embarrassment is a very weak principle at best; and these claims have all the indicia of story telling, along with the rest of the gospel narrative.

We don't know anything about Joseph of Arimathea; his name appears to be based on a literary scheme in Mark, where outsiders replace Jesus' followers and family. The entire crucifixion scene in Mark is implausible, from the idea that Jesus would have died in a mere 3 hours, to the idea that Pilate would have released his body to be buried, to the idea that a high class member of the Sanhedrin would have asked for the body to be buried, and Pilate would have agreed. When you have one implausible assertion after another, you need more than an ancient, undated, anonymous religious document as "proof."

As far as the women discovering the empty tomb, Craig tried to claim that women were so low in status in the Roman Empire that no one would invent the idea that women were the first to discover that Jesus had risen. Craig claimed that women's testimony was not accepted in court; Carrier said that was not correct. But I fail to see that whether women could testify in court is even the issue.

As for [3] - that followers experienced the risen Jesus - this is another factoid that can only be derived from Christian literature. Unlike the first 2, the story is not confined to the gospels; it appears in Paul's 1 Cor 15 as a formula handed down from tradition. But this is still very unreliable "evidence." Robert Price has argued that all or part of this letter is a later interpolation, and the passage does not inform us when Jesus died, or how long after he died that he appeared to any of these followers.

[4] claims that the followers then believed that Jesus rose from the dead, in spite of Jewish teaching not preparing themselves for the idea that anyone could rise from the dead (forgetting Lazarus, I guess.)

In the first place, we don't know what early Christians really believed about resurrection, or the resurrection of Jesus. It seems most probable that they thought of the resurrection as a spiritual event.

But the real problem with Craig's whole argument is that you could assume these four facts for the sake of argument, and still not agree with Craig that a supernatural resurrection is the best explanation. Craig tries to claim that all of the naturalistic explanations have holes in them, but there is no hole as big as requiring divine intervention. And the best explanation of these "facts" is that some creative religious entrepreneur wrote them up.

Craig tried to argue that the only reason anyone could reject his 4 facts argument is a refusal to believe in God. But this is just silly. There are lots of people who believe in god who don't believe in the Resurrection. Carrier tried to argue that if god wanted people to believe in him, he would have appeared to everyone everywhere, not just a few followers in first century Palestine. (Craig then accused Carrier of trying to argue theology in what was supposed to be a history debate. Oh the irony. )

Anyhow, Craig is a skilled debater who shows up the limitations of debate. Watching him is like watching a lawyer demonstrate that his client can't be convicted by eyewitness testimony because that destroys his presumption of innocence.

blastula

Ha.

"Presumption of innocence is supported by scholars John Vandamme, Larry Storch and Harry Martin, so this presupposition is also well supported."

Steven Carr

Would you like some genuine facts?

Unlike Craig, I will only use facts undisputed by anybody.


Fact 1. Hitler never signed a document ordering Jews to be liquidated in Europe.

Fact 2. No German ever recorded hearing Hitler say orally that all Jews were to be killed.

Fact 3. The building now known as gas chamber 1 in Auschwitz was an air-raid shelter in 1944.

Fact 4. After the war , trained historians like David Irving and clergymen like Bishop Williamson testified that there was no systematic killing of 6 million Jews.

Now these are all genuine facts, unlike Craig's claim that it was a fact that a person called Joseph of Arimathea (where's that) buried Jesus.

And we should insist that Craig produce a theory that *BEST* explains those facts and those facts only. He should not be allowed to use other facts, even if they are genuine facts.

Remember, it must be the *best* explanation of those 4 cherry-picked facts.

After all, the very basis of the 4-fact apologetic is that opponents have to explain the 4 cherry-picked 'facts' and not use other facts which tell against them.

But what is the BEST explanation of those 4 cherry-picked facts?

Does Craig's 4-fact approach ring any bells in terms of debating techniques?

Perhaps Craig-supporters can give us one person who named himself as seeing the BVM, Mary Magdalene,the other Mary, Judas, Lazarus, Nicodemus, Bartimaeus, Thomas, Joanna, Salome, Joseph of Arimathea, Simon of Cyrene, Alexander.


Perhaps Craig-supporters can give us one person who named himself as meeting anybody who he named as seeing any of the BVM, Mary Magdalene,the other Mary, Judas, Lazarus, Nicodemus, Bartimaeus, Thomas, Joanna, Salome, Joseph of Arimathea, Simon of Cyrene, Alexander.

They will be allowed to use the New Testament....

AtheistGamer

Wait. I was under the impression that the four facts of Craig's don't rely on the Gospels. If Craig's facts *do* rely on the Gospels being true then how the fuck did carrier lose the debate? I mean shit, all they have for the Gospels being true is "the church fathers said so". I'd have tore Craig a new asshole showing how the Gospels aren't reliable at all. But let me guess. Craig filled the debate with red herring issues and talked forever in order to kill Carrier by way of time restrictions.

So do I have this right? I'd listen to the debate myself but I can't seem to find an audio where I can hear Carrier clearly.

P.S. I've noticed that a lot of apologists do like to use technicalities in order to win their arguments. My favorite one is: "Saying that there is no evidence for God/Supernatural therefore he/it doesn't exist is a non-sequiter." My response to that is "Well in that case saying there's no evidence for unicorns is a non-sequiter".

Toto

Ha - gotcha there. Craig's arguments don't rely on assuming that the gospels are inerrant. But when you delve into his reasons, they come down to the gospels, plus the "criterion of embarrassment." When Carrier tried to mention the unreliability of the gospels, Craig acted as if this issue had nothing to do with the debate.

Close. Craig has a lot of arguments that depend on referring to the "scholarly consensus." And then he attacked Carrier for not replying to each of his arguments.

The youtube version may be clearer.

It's not a non sequitur, it's an argument from silence, or from the absense of evidence. There are times where this is a valid argument.

I wouldn't say that Carrier lost the debate. His problem was that he knew too much, and had an argument that was too complex and sophisticated for the debate format.