This is a split from the Atheism Is A System Of Belief(Religion) thread. As Lion expressed, he did not want to derail the thread so I decided to make a new one to address this:

Lion IRC wrote:

Bribase wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:Every single one of WLC's claims have been refuted.
They are nothing more than misinformation, logical fallacies and outright lies.

Hardly any of William Lane Craigs' claims have been refuted.
They are very informative, logical and truthful.

Could you give us a brief run down of the ones that have been refuted the the ones that have not? It's vital for people on both sides of the debate. Just give us a quick list: KCA,fine tuning, historical jesus, objective morality e.t.c.

I'd be happy to except someone else can have the credit for that derail if they want. MrFungus420?

I would like to invite Lion IRC to give us a quick list of which of William Lane Craig's claims as evidence for god have been refuted and which have not been.

Have you drawn this thread to his attention by pm?

Onyx8 wrote:Have you drawn this thread to his attention by pm?

Yup!

I was reading about Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday speech today. Apparently: "Prof Hawking reflected on his life as a "glorious time to be alive" and said he was happy to have made a "small contribution" to our understanding of the universe."

A physicist who understands how the universe works and (probably) came about better than most humans on the planet, and spent his life doing actual work trying to answer the most important questions about existence is just happy to have have made a "small contribution" to human knowlegde.

But then comes along big old Bill Craig with the undeniable truth™ about the universe, with little to no humility at all. Prof. Hawking practically wasted the last 50 years of his life considering the answer to life, the universe and everything was staring at him right in the face this whole time. Yaweh of course! He is the only logical answer to any question regarding the big bang, morality, evolution, physical laws of the universe ect...

So, which of Craig's five arguments haven't torn to shreds in these forums and elsewhere?

This will be good. (thanks Uncle Orph)

xtraordinaryevidence wrote:This will be good. (thanks Uncle Orph)

Only if he shows up!

I dare say that they're all sound in the sense that they're valid syllogisms. It's just when it comes to demonstrating whether the premises have any grounding in the reality which we inhabit that he's been rather slack.

Shrunk wrote:

Matt_B wrote:I dare say that they're all sound in the sense that they're valid syllogisms. It's just when it comes to demonstrating whether the premises have any grounding in the reality which we inhabit that he's been rather slack.

Validity does not equal soundness. In a sound argument, not only is the structure of the argument logical, but the premises of the argument are true.

That much I'm aware of.

However, his premises are always carefully worded to be true enough to the fundie followers who buy his books and cheer at his debates. And he has the chutzpah to go on at length about how unreasonable you'd have to be not to accept them too.

Because it's not just atheists that can refute his claims. Plus they've been refuted over and over for decades, seeing as they're the same arguments.

Matt_B wrote:I dare say that they're all sound in the sense that they're valid syllogisms. It's just when it comes to demonstrating whether the premises have any grounding in the reality which we inhabit that he's been rather slack.

I seem to recall addressing this in the past ...

Bribase wrote:

xtraordinaryevidence wrote:This will be good. (thanks Uncle Orph)

Only if he shows up!

Well I'm here. But I suspect you meant our friend Lion.



(Uncle Orph'sTM popcorn - "Available 24/7" )

Bribase wrote:This is a split from the Atheism Is A System Of Belief(Religion) thread. As Lion expressed, he did not want to derail the thread so I decided to make a new one to address this:

Lion IRC wrote:

Bribase wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:
Hardly any of William Lane Craigs' claims have been refuted.
They are very informative, logical and truthful.

Could you give us a brief run down of the ones that have been refuted the the ones that have not? It's vital for people on both sides of the debate. Just give us a quick list: KCA,fine tuning, historical jesus, objective morality e.t.c.

I'd be happy to except someone else can have the credit for that derail if they want. MrFungus420?

I would like to invite Lion IRC to give us a quick list of which of William Lane Craig's claims as evidence for god have been refuted and which have not been.

MrFungus420 seemed to be saying every single claim Mr Craig ever made has been refuted - his arguments for the existence of God, his theological (Christian) doctrines and his general blogging opinions about contemporary issues too. All lies?

If you think that was typical, angry New Atheist hyperbole and want to look at his specific, often-repeated debate contentions how about we start with the historical Jesus one first? (Actually, that has a long running thread here already - I think its the biggest single thread anywhere on rationalskepticism. Has the historical Jesus been refuted yet TimO'Neill?)

Refute : Prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; disprove by argument or evidence.

I would argue that the "historicity of Jesus" argument is the most compelling and uncontroversial in WLC's portfolio. Has someone, somewhere ever undeniably "refuted" the historical Jesus? You cant refute His existence with syllogism. And one historian can't argue against another's historical evidence for Jesus by producing ...."evidence that He never existed." At most, the Jesus skeptic historian is only ever going to be able to talk about how they see the probability.

William Lane Craig is on very solid, factual ground when he says the majority of Jesus historians - theist or otherwise - accept that Jesus existed and that He did things which observers genuinely found miraculous.

In other words, you have a real Jesus and you have real people who saw Him do "stuff". Now, that is NOT a "Jesus = God" theology claim. That is something you would hear in a history class. And the person you would need to refute is the archeology your history teacher was relying on - the same archeology Bart Ehrman uses.