Posted: May 07, 2012 2:50 pm
IMO, the best thing you can do very easily is point out that his arguments rest on taking a variety of assumptions and definitions on unresolved philosophical topics (the nature of time), and that despite his claims, science does not support his arguments, it merely doesn't outright disprove them, and he relies on quite literally "scientific unknowns" to further his case.
Specifically point out that his use of the work by Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin to show that any universe that is expanding could not have been expanding forever into the past does not support the idea that the Universe could not be infinite. It just means that the expansion of the universe could not have been happening infinitely into the past, it does not imply that literally all matter, time, and energy had to be created ex-nihilo as his arguments attempt to show.
Another good critical take on him was posted Here.
One last bit to point out - when it comes to debates, he will refuse to vary his format. See this video here by Bill Cooke, someone who debated him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbClnWrUF2Q
His public debates are effectively shows for him, where he can use the exact same well prepared script to present his side of the case, and his script is tailored to give him every advantage - the main one being that he can rattle off 3-5 "arguments" for god in his opening 20 minutes, and to debunk each one would take an equal amount of time, and doing a cursory "quick rebuttal" of each would leave many avenues for Craig to come back and give counters in his time, where it then takes more time for an opponent to show where he's wrong. In public literature, none of his arguments are compelling, and he admits this.
I'll try to find an article by him where he states as much, his goal is to merely give believers a way to reinforce themselves, and he admits that if one stays purely rational they'll end up atheists or at best agnostics.
Specifically point out that his use of the work by Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin to show that any universe that is expanding could not have been expanding forever into the past does not support the idea that the Universe could not be infinite. It just means that the expansion of the universe could not have been happening infinitely into the past, it does not imply that literally all matter, time, and energy had to be created ex-nihilo as his arguments attempt to show.
Another good critical take on him was posted Here.
One last bit to point out - when it comes to debates, he will refuse to vary his format. See this video here by Bill Cooke, someone who debated him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbClnWrUF2Q
His public debates are effectively shows for him, where he can use the exact same well prepared script to present his side of the case, and his script is tailored to give him every advantage - the main one being that he can rattle off 3-5 "arguments" for god in his opening 20 minutes, and to debunk each one would take an equal amount of time, and doing a cursory "quick rebuttal" of each would leave many avenues for Craig to come back and give counters in his time, where it then takes more time for an opponent to show where he's wrong. In public literature, none of his arguments are compelling, and he admits this.
I'll try to find an article by him where he states as much, his goal is to merely give believers a way to reinforce themselves, and he admits that if one stays purely rational they'll end up atheists or at best agnostics.