What do you think of William Lane Craig?

[Esquilax]

Okay, Esquilax. Since you have made your personal bona fides a matter of relevance, do you have a doctorate in Philosophy?

Oh, for fuck's sake!

I didn't make my education a matter of relevance! I didn't make Craig's education a matter of relevance! I wanted to discuss Craig's argumentation!

Go back and fucking look at my first post! All that I said to you was that I could refute Craig's arguments, and asked you to provide one. My entire commentary in that post was about some portion of Craig's beliefs that I found laughable! You were the one who brought up Craig's education and my own, as a means of deflecting away from that commentary, not me! Hell, you didn't even bring up my education until your second response, to move the goalposts away from your first deflection of talking about Craig's career when I'd first asked about his positions and justifications. I've been trying to get you back onto that initial topic all this time!

Can you seriously not keep the throughline of your own responses straight in your mind?

And honestly, is there really any reason why you can't link us to your published thesis and papers? I can respect your right to privacy, of course, but if you've going to make SOME claims, you're gonna have to provide more than just your say-so.

Because it's irrelevant! It's a side-track way off from what I'd initially asked to talk about that only exists because you wanted to mock me and somehow disqualify me from even discussing the issue of Craig's beliefs from the get-go! If you hadn't wanted to poison the well from step one we wouldn't be talking about this at all! I'll go elbows deep into a discussion on Kalam, on TAG, on Craig's gross presup nonsense, but I've got no interest in getting into a pissing contest beyond responding to your initial, undeservedly dismissive response to my offer to go through this with you.

Are you doing this on purpose, or do you just not remember the post I made that started all this, and how you reacted to it? I'll post a link to it if it's the latter, because you're so profoundly off track right now it's not even funny.

Which sort of puts me in the position of having to play apologist for WLC, a position I am not comfortable with. But that's not the real issue - as will be demonstrated momentarily.

Well, fine: I don't particularly care about the man beyond the positions he holds and espouses either. If WLC didn't say ridiculous things in the public sphere I doubt I'd have much cause to vocally disagree with him; not none, but some. Again, the only reason we're talking about this is because you're either unwilling or incapable of discussing his positions.

You have the sequence well enough. I mentioned that Craig in a tenured professor (Your criticisms of Talbot ring hollow since he is being paid to teach...are you envious?) I also referenced his books, papers, and years of public debate as evidence for the fact that he's no intellectual slouch. You were the first to mention Talbot by name. Should I have the court reporter read the transcript back to you? You did so here.

Yes, I know I mentioned Talbot by name first, something I would have had no cause to do if you'd restricted yourself to discussing the ideas instead of Craig and I as people. Regarding his publishing and speaking record, your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow, which is part of the reason I'm not terribly interested in discussing it further; popular idiots write books and papers and hold speaking engagements all the time. Publishing, as I pointed out in the very post that I first brought up Talbot in, is not in itself an achievement; the content of those published works is what matters, and it's here, I argue, that Craig's oeuvre falls apart.

I mentioned that Craig is a tenured professor. You decided to attack Talbot in an attempt to score cheap debate points. Should I counter by attacking your social work? 

You mentioned that Craig was a tenured professor in an attempt to discount my disagreement with him out of hand, without even hearing what that disagreement is. I, perhaps equally without relevance, noted that the place where Craig holds tenure is not exactly a reputed intellectual institution and is, instead, probably one of those special christian echo chambers they set up so that the grand poobahs of the movement can hold prestige without ever needing to earn it in a peer reviewed setting where the expectation of evidence is higher. My point, in comparing my own alma mater to Craig's, was to show the difference between the simulacrum of intellectual rigor that religious proponents wish to erect, and actual intellectual rigor dealt with in real places of learning. It was a tangent that probably didn't need to be made but, in my defense, I had no way of knowing at the time that it would come to dominate the whole conversation.

Where either of you works is not particularly relevant to what you have learned during your years in the hallowed halls of your respective universities. And since you thought that Talbot somehow tarnishes the credentials of WLC, I felt obligated to point out his sterling training that resulted in TWO doctorates earned from prestigious universities. You won't even name yours.

Is it your position that, were I to hold no degrees at all, this would render my conclusions and arguments wrong automatically, without even needing to hear what they are? If yes, why is this? If no, why is it relevant to what I'd initially asked of you?

So, right there, you began a side by side comparison of where Craig teaches with the school you merely attended. Equivocate much? So, yeah, I then went apples to apples comparing his education with your education. 

You accuse me of moving the goalposts there, but you're forgetting that I was actually answering two different contentions that you'd made: the first regarding Craig's tenure and what that means for his intellectual heft, and the second being the baseless accusation you'd leveled at me that I had no prior training or education in philosophy myself which, as I've pointed out a few times now, you'd have no way of knowing. In context, I feel it's clear that I was addressing both issues there, even if they were contained within the same thought.

I kinda skimmed this in light of all that has been shown above. I mean, you're attempting the "my university can beat up your university" argument? Except that he has better academic credentials than you do? How is this helping you even remotely???

I'm attempting an "being employed by Talbot isn't really a great thing," argument, supported by a compare and contrast between Talbot itself and a university that I happened to be familiar with without the theological bent that Talbot has, which served the dual purpose of correcting some of your misconceptions about me in the process.

You are, by the way, continuing to perpetuate those misconceptions: since I've never established what sort of degree I have, nor how many, your assumption that Craig's credentials are superior to mine falls flat. Part of the reason I'm playing so coy regarding my education and what I'm packing is that your willingness to make wild speculations about people you don't even know demonstrates my point quite nicely: none of what you're saying constitutes anything remotely like a cogent response to what I'd actually asked.

Enhancing his own wealth with his college degree? Isn't that the pretty much the primary purpose for going to college? To get an education, to get a job, to get paid?

I mean, I'm not really in the minority on this view, Esq.

Well, I don't know: I kind of intimated that my education was used to help others... maybe that's idealistic of me, to think that you could share the knowledge and acumen you accumulate to better society.

Damn, son. You wasted your Daddy's money if you didn't learn that in school.  

Esquilax paid for his own education!

Let me get this straight: You want to pick a fight with me over someone else's words?

I don't know if you've noticed, but you're logged into a forum that's here to debate religious issues, right now. In the (increasingly vain) hope that you weren't just talking a big game over nothing I challenged you to engage in this forum's purpose and present an idea from someone you evidently considered a big thinker in your movement so that we could examine it. If all you wanted to do was shitpost and say that Craig's unimpeachable, and we all secretly are afraid of how awesome he is and then leave without ever having to defend that... well, isn't that a tiny bit sad?

And I'm supposed to defend the arguments of a man with not one, but two PhD's in philosophy against a man who "claims" to have - possibly have - a doctorate of his own?

Do those PhD's make Craig infallible? Would my lack of them make me wrong on every point? Then why does this matter?

Are you even aware what an argument from authority fallacy is?

And let's say I accept your challenge but fail miserably? What has been proven? That WLC's ideas really suck? That I suck at regurgitating them? Or both?

Well, it'd demonstrate that, for all your big talk about Craig's ideas, you evidently don't understand them well enough to knowledgeably make that claim... or that the ideas themselves are wrong. Either way, having to endure challenges like that is sort of the price you pay for making big, sweeping statements in forums where you know people who disagree with you reside. If you just wanted an echo chamber then you're in the wrong place.

If you have an issue with WLC, why don't you challenge him to a debate yourself? We'll see whether he considers you a worthy adversary or not. Or get yourself published. Heck, you might even self-publish if that suits you. These days, there's no end to the means of getting the truth out. And if you have the chops to take down WLC, then your glory days will soon follow.

In the meantime, I'll stick to defending my own views and positions...which may or may not include ideas gleaned from others.

So, I just want to make one thing clear, then: your goal here was nothing more than to come into the thread, taunt us about how unbeatable Craig is and how scared we are of him... and that's it? You just wanted to shit stir, without defending the ideas you decided to agitate us with? Seriously?

But THAT was not your accusation. Wow, no wonder you got out of academia. What you accused me of was "beginning" all my discussion with an ad hominem attack. This is a blatant lie which you cannot support. Sure, I attacked you later, but that wasn't at the beginning our our "discussion" was it? Is this ANOTHER of your half-truths?

Oh, right! No, I'm sorry, I forgot what had happened for a moment, that's my bad.

Your taunting, mocking tone aside, you also called me ExLax right away. Like, your very first instinct was to resort to name calling (an ad hominem) before doing anything else. You had, in a very literal sense, began your discussion with an ad hominem. That's not exactly better.

I gathered that you were possibly European (or under the British Crown) when you said you went "to university". Like going "to hospital". Americans insert an article there. I went to the university. I went to a hospital.

Nope! See, that's the problem with assumptions.

Which is pretty irrelevant when you are TRYING to hype your academic credentials relative to his. Where the two of you work today is not at issue. (Though I'd argue that he spends more of his time thinking about Cosmology at his office than you do at yours.)

I could talk for quite a while about Craig's complete failure when it comes to cosmology, but that would require you to actually be interested in a discussion on the ideas, and not simply out to troll us and then evade the consequences of that.

Any mention of Talbot is irrelevant when trying to decide whose education is more prestigious.

And, again, before you decided to make this about academic credentials, my sole claim on that matter was that I'd studied philosophy. The rest was clearly devoted to demonstrating how Talbot isn't nearly as impressive an institute as you think, rendering your bragging about Craig's tenure there a statement that says nothing at all.