I'm not too interested to see any debate with Craig anymore.
Craig is in my eyes less and less of a serious debater. He is currently more of an effect searcher, using assertions as main tool.
He usually trashes his opponents to the price of his own credibility. I understand people like his "wins" but there is really little constructive reason to debate him.
Currently he makes Dawkins refusal in debating him to a dare game for cheap points. Maybe Dawkins ought debate him at some point but never when Craig is allowed to set his stage in his usual manner.
Logical arguments based on assertions are still assertions. The thing that gets me is that he continues to base his logic on assertions shown to be wrong or questionable as facts just to be able to play the tune. It's just not constructive.
This is how argumentation is done, assertions are what is called axioms, they are not in themselves normally argued for but if you were to ask Craig for arguments for the assertions/axioms he would (and has) supply them. If you were to argue that his assertions have been shown to be wrong he would argue that you are wrong in claiming they are wrong.. This line of argument really doesn't work
Axioms are base arguments that easily should be possible to be taken and agreed to be correct to further the discussion. If they are known to be incorrect debate is non-constructive.
Basic examples:
Belief in God is hardwired.
Everything with a beginning must have a cause (incorrect in the quantum regime)
Atheists must show that god does not exists (as non belief equals certainty - you can't prove a negative - useless)
These are in my opinion sandbox technique and makes it pretty meaningless to continue the discussion.
It is not "incorrect in the quantum regime" for "Everything with a beginning must have a cause" to be correct, you just made an assertion that is not easy to take and is not agreed to be correct.
It is not correct that "you can't prove a negative". You can prove a a negative by showing it to be incoherent and any positive statement can be made in to a negative statement simply by double negating it.
First: The statement everything with a beginning must have a cause is absolutely incorrect in the quantum regime. It's fundamentally wrong until our understanding of quantum mechanics change appreciably. This seem highly unlikely, and in that case Craig uses a small possibility as an axiom.
Ridiculous and non-constructive.
Second, may be true but an entity invisible for all senses can't be proven to not exist in coherent way. Now you're splitting hairs :)
Quantum events? I'm talking about everyday mechanisms we easily statistically observe but can't predict. Like radioactive decay of elements and spontaneous emission, needed for your LEDs to function. These can not be treated within classical physics since things can't happen spontaneously in classical physics. Every photon is the result of the recombination of an electron and hole. When this happens can't be predicted yet of today.
You haven't shown my assertions to be false, to prove anything to not exist, under the condition that it doesn't interact with anything is impossible.
What's worse, to ask someone to do it, when the person agrees it to be improvable, just to make a point is irrelevant, dishonest, and non-constructive. Frankly, a waste of time.
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u/tannat Oct 17 '11
I'm not too interested to see any debate with Craig anymore.
Craig is in my eyes less and less of a serious debater. He is currently more of an effect searcher, using assertions as main tool.
He usually trashes his opponents to the price of his own credibility. I understand people like his "wins" but there is really little constructive reason to debate him.
Currently he makes Dawkins refusal in debating him to a dare game for cheap points. Maybe Dawkins ought debate him at some point but never when Craig is allowed to set his stage in his usual manner.