(August 27, 2012 at 11:15 am)greneknight Wrote:

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(August 27, 2012 at 11:08 am)pocaracas Wrote: Try this one video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfrARBRhwDs

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OK, thanks. I'll see it later. It's 2 hours long. I like any video that has Craig thumped.

Aye, 2 hours of Craig using long words to make any sentence he says impossible to understand, while saying "no, that's not what we're discussing here" and Harris just chilling out and bashing on the premisses Craig uses for his whole argument... and he doesn't even notice it.

I applaud your willingness to question this religion. Never lose that. Question everything. With that said, you are asking a very good question: If Christianity is true, why must Christian apologists lie to win a debate? Years ago, this is what made me question creationism; I knew creationists lied about evolutionists' claims and evidence. If creationism were true, I knew that it should be able to stand on its own feet without having to lie about what the facts are. If a religion claims to promote truth, why would it lie? If all the evidence supports the religion (as it would if the religion were true), why would its proponents need to falsify information to make their points? This should always throw up flags, as it has for you. You are a far more intelligent young man than most. Keep up your search, and I am confident you will be very happy with where it takes you.

(August 27, 2012 at 10:57 am)greneknight Wrote: I'm still in school so I'm not exactly familiar with all the arguments in favour of religion. But I've seen almost every debate on youtube between Christians and atheists and I always go away feeling very uneasy about Christian apologists. The truth is they tell lies.

Currently the most formidable Christian apologist must be William Lane Craig. I must have seen every debate that he has ever fought and there are a lot. Why am I not delighted every time I see him take his opponent apart? I'm not just a Christian but I'm an altar boy in my church so naturally, I should be pleased with Craig.

Craig is a liar and a very good one too. I can sit down and analyse all his debates and in every one of them, I (yes, even I) have spotted huge flaws and worse, deliberate lies but he does it so well that his opponent is none the wiser.

The most recent debate that I saw between Craig and a Muslim chap called Ally was good. Ally was much better and I thought he took the wind out of Craig's sail.

What I have seen of such debates led me to the conclusion that there is no rational argument for God and the Christian faith. Those who want to remain in the faith should be honest about it and admit that faith is totally blind and irrational.

greneknight

Just out of curiosity, given your conclusion, why are you still a Christian?

(August 27, 2012 at 11:27 am)EscapingDelusion Wrote: I have seen several Hitchens debates where he appeared to get flustered, sweat, and stumble. I have also seen debates where he ripped his opponents apart. My best guess is that everyone has good and bad days.

...I would also like to see his debate with Ehrman. I've read much of Ehrman's work, and he is one of the most intelligent biblical researchers I have read. I find it odd that anyone could win a debate against him, as he most certainly knows his stuff inside and out...

No, I didn't think Ehrman lost in that debate but Craig made it seem so. It was whether the resurrection of Christ was a historical fact. Craig came up with a silly equation that made the resurrection a 98% certainty.

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(August 27, 2012 at 11:34 am)genkaus Wrote: Just out of curiosity, given your conclusion, why are you still a Christian?

Religion is largely cultural. Also, it's based on faith and faith is irrational. I know most priests in my church are aware that the virgin birth comes from a mistake in translation. The Archbishop of Canterbury has ruled that new believers should not be made to accept the virgin birth for conversion. But we still say the Creed and nobody amends it to leave out the virgin birth. You can't do that because it's very hard to change religion.

Many Christians today don't accept the existence of hell. But we still say in the Creed that Christ descended into hell. Things don't change much in religion because it's cultural. Truth is not an absolute thing in culture.

Quote:Why must Christian apologists tell lies?

Because reality is against them.

More specifically, every argument for the existence of God is either fallacious or founded on premises most of us would reject as silly. Without that, their only problem would be that there's no evidence proportionate to the claim that God exists to support it. It's simply impossible to argue for Christianity or any other supernaturalist religion honestly. What you can do honestly is what greneknight has done: acknowledge that evidence and reason aren't on their side, and that they trust in their faith because they want to.

Craig doesn't win debates. The opposition loses by agreeing to debate his arguments, which he debates at every debate.

He focuses on areas that cannot be proven nor disproven.

(August 27, 2012 at 11:00 am)frankiej Wrote:

(August 27, 2012 at 10:57 am)greneknight Wrote: Currently the most formidable Christian apologist must be William Lane Craig. I must have seen every debate that he has ever fought and there are a lot. Why am I not delighted every time I see him take his opponent apart?

Where have you seen that???

Quite a few of the more intellectual and learned atheists acknowledge that Dr. Craig wins most of his debates. This isn't an idle claim. Here is a link to an honest reviewer's assessment of Dr. Craig's arguments at Common Sense Atheism.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=392

My personal opinion is that Dr. Craig wins a lot more debates than he would if his opponents stayed professional and didn't get distracted trying to mock and attack Christians and their beliefs. Intolerance, sour attitudes, mocking, and ugly zingers impress those who aren't thinking but don't win debates in the eyes of neutral parties. Having well presented arguments, remaining positive, and being likable goes much further.

I was simply joking, dude. I'm not going to read your link. I don't want to have any part in a religious discussion just now.

I will, however, comment on this:

(August 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm)Atom Wrote: My personal opinion is that Dr. Craig wins a lot more debates than he would if his opponents stayed professional and didn't get distracted trying to mock and attack Christians and their beliefs.

Christian beliefs are just so silly that it really is difficult not to mock them.

(August 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm)Atom Wrote:

(August 27, 2012 at 11:00 am)frankiej Wrote: Where have you seen that???

Quite a few of the more intellectual and learned atheists acknowledge that Dr. Craig wins most of his debates. This isn't an idle claim. Here is a link to an honest reviewer's assessment of Dr. Craig's arguments at Common Sense Atheism.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=392

My personal opinion is that Dr. Craig wins a lot more debates than he would if his opponents stayed professional and didn't get distracted trying to mock and attack Christians and their beliefs. Intolerance, sour attitudes, mocking, and ugly zingers impress those who aren't thinking but don't win debates in the eyes of neutral parties. Having well presented arguments, remaining positive, and being likable goes much further.

I totally agree with Atom. I've seen many of Craig's debates. His arguments for God are always the standard set of arguments which I don't find convincing. And when he argues on the resurrection, he always wants to "establish" his 5 "facts" which he claims are accepted by most New Testament scholars. Some atheists who have debated him tend to talk about things which have no relation to Craig's points and when Craig closes his debate, he simply says his opponent has not answered the points he raised. In the debate with Hitchens, Hitchens talked about the harm that the church had caused in Africa and elsewhere. But that is not relevant to the debate.

In his debate with Ehrman, Ehrman cleverly pointed out that most New Testament scholars were believing Christians so using them to establish his "facts" is not correct. The Muslim Ally did a better job than most chaps. I felt he demolished Craig's "facts" and I could see what a good actor Craig was. When he came back, he looked confident and said what Ally said was agreeable to him because Ally had not countered his 5 facts when Ally already did.

Some other atheists I have seen were terrible debaters. They talked about believing in the "talking snake" and at first, I didn't know what they meant until I realised they were talking about the story of the serpent and Adam and Eve. But that was irrelevant to the debate.

In Ally's debate, Craig made it clear the debate was not about the "alleged contradictions or errors" of the Bible. He does that all the time. I think Craig doesn't like people to highlight errors in the Bible. He probably knows they can't be properly harmonised or defended. But Ally showed why the New Testament was not reliable and he explained the relevance - Craig used the New Testament to establish his "fact" of resurrection.

Ally did a very good job. Far better than some atheists who can only speak of the talking snake which is silly because most Christians in Europe don't believe that story as true. It's just the fundamentalists in the US.

Many Christians are triumphant that Dawkins refuses to argue with Craig and Craig taunts Dawkins for refusing. I think Dawkins should be able to beat Craig flat. Dawkins is the sort who will do his homework so all he needs to do is to look at all Craig's debates and study all his arguments. They are all flawed. It's a matter of sitting down and understanding the flaws and formulating a succinct argument against each of his.