What do you think of William Lane Craig?

[Huggy Bear]

Was I even fucking involved in that argument?

yep.

I really can't remember, so I'll leave it to the sad obsessive.

That's called having a selective memory, seeing how you were making the same argument a few days ago.

---

Since you brought it up Huggy, I put you on ignore because of your obsession with derailing threads with irrelevant garbage, exactly like you've done here. And dragging up pointless squabbles no one cares about, like you've done again, twice.

Allow me to provide a rebuttal.....
http://atheistforums.org/thread-32244-po...#pid903630

Tu quoque fallacy. Doesn't work because atheism is not an organisation.

I know you guys like to say that, but you do realize there are atheist churches right? Not to mention many atheist organizations. "Atheism" may not be an organization but "Atheists" are just as organized as any christian group.

No. They are not Huggy. Maybe in your head, but I live in reality. I have no affiliation with anyone due to atheism. I don't worship a book full of horrors like you do, and clearly you have no defence because you're trying to deflect onto atheists. I'm getting so tired of your dishonesty, I'm one more stupid post away from ignoring you completely.

I'm saying it's hypocritical to come down on one person for exhibiting a certain behavior, but not come down on another for the exact same behavior, do you agree?

And by all means, please put me on ignore, that would just mean it's one less person I'd have to respond to.

---

---

Goodbye Huggy.

How exactly is my responding to your original point derailing the thread?

[athrock]

Craig is a dishonest, self-serving cunt.

Athrock is an intellectually insulting, extremely disingenuous, intentionally irritating, and probably sadistic little psychopathic troll cunt-hair. There is simply no redeeming value in pretending otherwise with this one at this point!

Athrock, I know you've had me on ignore, but "discussion" does not mean intentionally fucking with other people. All you can do is launch your fallacious attacks against other people's ideas and attempt to displace them with the default of your own fantasies, in your twisted attempts at self-gratification, and that is beyond shameful. You need to fuck with those who disagree with your ideas in order to fool yourself into believing you are right on anything, which you have not been on anything you have tried to "discuss" here. If you want a real and honest discussion, you can either play by the rules or go fuck yourself with your shit.

Had you on ignore?

When did I do this?

[athrock]

I'm a rock star now, I don't have to listen to this.

I'm raising it to 200,000%. What you got now?

I already know how you love to plug your ears when confronted with truth... kinda like how you threw a fit and put me on ignore when I brought up the fact that atheist churches exist.

Yep.

He has "formally ignored" me. Whatever that means given that he's a mod.

[athrock]

Again, you leap to the assumption that I don't have one, despite me making it clear last time that I did, in fact, attend university. This isn't based on any actual evidence- you still don't even know my real name- but on your need to attack me as a person, rather than engage with the argument I presented the first time I posted here. Your naked, baseless aggression is noted, but does not, in itself, constitute an actual refutation of what I'm saying.

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

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.

That you can't see the difference isn't surprising, since you strike me now as a particularly insipid fellow, but I'll show you: of the two of us, I started out with an actual argument beyond ad hominems, and in fact offered to provide a more substantial criticism of WLC's ideas and philosophy if you wanted to provide those parts of that set you felt were particularly effective; I came into this discussion in good faith, willing to engage with whatever ideas you wished to bring to the table. I was the one of us who retains a standing offer to do so. The difference between us is that I've actually attempted to engage with the subject matter, rather than the person.

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.

But I can only serve back the ball that's tossed into my court, athrock. In response to my offer, you opted not to actually present a WLC argument, but to attack my credentials (despite having no way to know what they are) and to puff up Craig's, as though an argument from authority will carry any weight here. Since you brought up Craig's tenured position as though it were some great achievement, and you seemed to want to focus on that instead of Craig's arguments, I refuted your "argument." This wasn't something I came to all on my own, after all.

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.

And now, since your sacred cow has been slaughtered and his superficially impressive position dismantled, you rush to shift the goalposts to Craig's education, rather than his current employment. But you didn't mention his education at all in the last post, your sole jibe at me there was that Craig was a tenured professor, author, and speaker, so I should shut up. It's hardly "duplicity" for me to address the contentions you actually made, rather than ones you neglected to and apparently only want to focus on now because your first ones were so comprehensively drubbed. Is replying to the words you said truly so dishonest to you?

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? 

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.

But let's not forget who moved the goalposts, Esq...you did in this paragraph taken from post #84:

But before we even afford that dubious accomplishment any degree of respect, let's compare: Talbot's ridiculous presuppositions aside (and for entertainment value, there's even a threat of hell right there in the doctrinal statement, because all good philosophers know the best way to convince people is through threats, not argument or evidence  ) it's a very small school, hosting less than two thousand students. Now, my university, which has no statement of faith at all, nor gears its subject matter around presupposing a certain position, had over sixteen thousand students last year, international campuses, and regularly turns out notable politicians, academics, and so on. Talbot's notable alumni is little more than a cavalcade of pastors and christian speakers, with not a single person of note outside of theology graduating from there. 

Oh, and by the way? I studied philosophy when I went to my real university, as a focus of my degree. So maybe don't make assumptions about what is and is not within my wheelhouse. 

So, right there, you began a side by side comparison (another ad hominem attack, really) of where Craig teaches with the school you merely attended. Equivocate much? Why did you try to hide the names of the universities he attended? So, yeah, I then went apples to apples comparing his education with your education, etc.

It was just a train wreck for you after that... 

Again, I only brought up Talbot's relative size because you seemed to think his working there was some impressive achievement; I worked with what I was given, and now you're acting like I came up with this all on my own and had no prompting from you, which is weird given the quotations from you all over my last post. If you had actually stayed on topic instead of running your mouth in an attempt to attack me, we would be talking Craig's arguments now, not his education. This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't started it, there's no use getting arch at me because the shit you said turned out to be severely unimpressive.

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???

Regarding education... it's nice, but it's not the be all and end all. It's what you do with that education that matters to me, and that's where Craig falls down, regardless of his (heretofore not even mentioned) pedigree: I took my education and turned it to helping underprivileged people with their literacy skills to give them a leg up in their professional lives, turning my linguistic skill to helping those that needed it most learn to read, on a mostly volunteer basis. Craig took his (far greater) opportunities and turned them into a means of enhancing his own wealth, he took his skill with words and used them to make his anemic ideas seem feasible with mealy-mouthed excuses and tarted up presuppositional tactics, and he took a position at a college where everyone already agreed with him and presupposing faith is a high enough requirement to be on literally every page of the website. That's the difference between an education used for good, and an education misspent.

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.

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

Before you (hypocritically) accuse me of not engaging with Craig's ideas in favor of attacking the person again, I'll ask you just like I did the first time: present an argument of Craig's that you find to be particularly impressive, and I'll engage with that. Don't continue to attack me and puff up Craig's education like you think "he's real smart tho!" isn't just a fallacy, and maybe we can get somewhere.

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

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?

That advances our discussion exactly how?  

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.

... Or not. It's possible, since you did literally use the phrase "nanny nanny boo boo," so maybe you aren't here for an actual discussion.    

I did. In mockery.  Like you do every time you insert:    

You spent the entirety of your response to me mocking me as a person instead of responding to what I'd said. If you don't think that's an ad hominem, I really don't know what to say to you.

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?

Regarding Craig though, I don't happen to think that what I said discredits his position, which stands or falls on its own merits. Everything I said was within the context of your own baseless bragging about the man to avoid actually engaging with what I said. If you can't handle people responding to your senseless puffery, might I suggest providing something of actual substance next time? Like, maybe, the things in Craig's position that you find meaningful?

blah, blah, blah

How do you know my university was a public one? I never so much as mentioned the name of it; you've got no way of knowing where I went. Hell, you don't even know what country I'm from (I'll give you a hint: it's not America) nor the acceptance standards for universities in that country. You wrote this entire long paragraph and all you ended up doing was showcase your willingness to leap to baseless, bad faith assumptions about a person you've never met in order to discredit them.  

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.

For the record, I posted the student number stats not as an argument from popularity, but to demonstrate the obvious differences between a real university, and a seminary tarted up to look like one. You've conveniently omitted it, but I went on to talk about the campuses and notable alumni from both schools too, but I guess those are harder to dishonestly dismiss as fallacies than the pure numbers I started out with.

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.)

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

Given your inability to follow this logic, I think the answer to that question is abundantly clear.

Oh, and  

[Cyberman]

I already know how you love to plug your ears when confronted with truth... kinda like how you threw a fit and put me on ignore when I brought up the fact that atheist churches exist.

Yep.

He has "formally ignored" me. Whatever that means given that he's a mod.

It likely means he previously had you on his ignore list but now cannot due to his Staff duties. If you wish to suggest anything else, please drop the insinuations and make an official complaint.

[Esquilax]

That's called having a selective memory, seeing how you were making the same argument a few days ago.

No, the argument I was presenting a few days ago was that you're an obsessive twat whose creepy preoccupation with hoarding "victories" and bringing them up at irrelevant moments to make yourself feel smug by reminding everyone else of "losses" years earlier is a perpetual source of irritation, and that your derailment will not pass me by without me pointing out just how ridiculous it is for you to be bringing these up, years later, in threads that aren't even tangentially related to them.

I mean, fuck, man. Have you even considered how completely petty and shitty what just happened makes you look? We were having a completely separate conversation that wasn't about you at all, someone paid me a compliment, and you simply couldn't stand it, could you? You had to rush in minutes later to try and negate that by reminding people of an irrelevant issue raised years ago that I'm still not totally convinced I was ever involved in, and doesn't matter anymore. You just had to stick your fucking nose in where it wasn't wanted, and for... what, exactly? Was the thought that someone might want to compliment me on my argumentation so completely painful to you that you had to swoop in? Could you not stomach even the idea that I might feel some momentary goodness about myself due to the kind words of another? Or are you just allergic to positivity, so you were desperate to turn everything negative again, like it always has to be when you're around?

What the fuck reason did you have for seeing someone be nice to someone else, totally apart from you, and thinking "shit, I'd better put a stop to that"?

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I don't even recall this "Huggy" prior to this post, but that sort of pettiness is typical of the sort of dude who beats on women and children, or worse. Pettiness is the mark of the true bully!

[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.

[Esquilax]

I don't even recall this "Huggy" prior to this post, but that sort of pettiness is typical of the sort of dude who beats on women and children, or worse. Pettiness is the mark of the true bully!

... There's really no need to insinuate something like that. I just got out a post chastising someone for making presumptive statements about others based on no information, it'd be inconsistent of me not to call it out here too.

[Huggy Bear]

That's called having a selective memory, seeing how you were making the same argument a few days ago.

No, the argument I was presenting a few days ago was that you're an obsessive twat whose creepy preoccupation with hoarding "victories" and bringing them up at irrelevant moments to make yourself feel smug by reminding everyone else of "losses" years earlier is a perpetual source of irritation, and that your derailment will not pass me by without me pointing out just how ridiculous it is for you to be bringing these up, years later, in threads that aren't even tangentially related to them.

I mean, fuck, man. Have you even considered how completely petty and shitty what just happened makes you look? We were having a completely separate conversation that wasn't about you at all, someone paid me a compliment, and you simply couldn't stand it, could you? You had to rush in minutes later to try and negate that by reminding people of an irrelevant issue raised years ago that I'm still not totally convinced I was ever involved in, and doesn't matter anymore. You just had to stick your fucking nose in where it wasn't wanted, and for... what, exactly? Was the thought that someone might want to compliment me on my argumentation so completely painful to you that you had to swoop in? Could you not stomach even the idea that I might feel some momentary goodness about myself due to the kind words of another? Or are you just allergic to positivity, so you were desperate to turn everything negative again, like it always has to be when you're around?

What the fuck reason did you have for seeing someone be nice to someone else, totally apart from you, and thinking "shit, I'd better put a stop to that"?

First of all, robvalue's statement simply wasn't true, that being said, no one is stopping your enjoyment of having smoke blown up your backside.

Secondly when someone has a case of amnesia and act like atheists on here are always on the winning side of arguments, that is a perfectly relevant moment to show that isn't exactly the case.

It's not like I just bring those situations up out of the blue with no context.


Besides, Rob is the one that brought up Denmark....

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I don't even recall this "Huggy" prior to this post, but that sort of pettiness is typical of the sort of dude who beats on women and children, or worse. Pettiness is the mark of the true bully!