Why Something Rather Than Nothing?

[Esquilax]

You keep using this fancy word: presuppositionalism.

That is because there is a branch of christian apologetics called presuppositional apologetics, wherein the central tenet is, well, the consistently held presupposition that the christian god is real and the bible divinely inspired. William Lane Craig has, in both his books and speaking engagements, affirmed that he holds to this presupposition, that in circumstances in which evidence comes into conflict with his faith, it is his faith that must take precedent. In fact, when asked whether literally traveling back in time and seeing Jesus' corpse not rising from the grave would demonstrate to him that his faith is wrong, Craig responded that no, it would not. Even if he could actually sit there, and see the body of his messiah remain a dead body, if he could confirm that christianity was untrue, he would remain a christian.

He says he has something called the "self authenticating witness of the holy spirit," that means his religion is absolutely true even when it's not.

But to me, it sounds a lot like "the unkown accords with the world view I already have." Do you know exactly how the mind comes into being? No. Do you assume (and vehemently argue) that it must come only from matter? Is that presuppositionalism? Would you argue that all the rational and logical arguments in support of the brain creating mind are invalid if the debater says, "No matter what happens, I'll be arguing that mind is created by matter" ? No. That's that guy's world view, and you naturally expect him to strongly argue for its validity.

It's not a matter of arguing from a worldview, because to a rational, non-presuppositional mind the addition of contradictory evidence is sufficient to change that worldview. That's not the thing I take issue with, and it's also not the thing I've been pointing out here. What I've been saying is that WLC has stated proudly that he will continue holding to his worldview in the face of conclusive proof that it is false, and that he has a history, both in practice and word, of manipulating or outright ignoring facts to conform to that worldview.

I'm not talking about merely arguing strongly for the position you hold, Benny. I'm talking about an active campaign of misinformation that stems from a staunch, faith based pre-drawn conclusion, and refuses all correction, even when experts in the fields being discussed- up to and including the people who wrote the paper that Craig is referencing- say otherwise.

Not if you get to be the judge of whether they're still debating or not. If that were allowed, every debate in the world would last for exactly one sentence.

I woulda thought a debate would include a two way conversation, not merely one guy talking at another while ignoring everything that doesn't agree with him already.

If Craig said that, I will eat my keyboard.

He didn't say that, he said the slimy version. But the fact is, he did utter the sentiment. That's my point; at what level do we allow the prior statements, made outside of the context of the current argument, to influence our reaction to the argument in question?