Dr. Craig is a liar.

[SteveII]

To your first point, what topic are you suggesting that have been "long discredited" and what "distortions of and lies about valid research"?

To your second, I did not bring up his teaching posts. I brought up the fact he has 2 doctorate degrees and written over 30 books.

Firstly, every single point he makes has been either long discredited nonsense or lying manipulation of other's research.

On the second point, from the way I read it I thought you were talking about the teaching posts, so I'm sorry for misreading your post. If you were indicating his intelligence from his degrees, well an appeal to authority (especially when the authority is in a subject whose conclusions are unverifiable and unsupportable by evidence) doesn't get you far. People can be brilliant in one area while still being absolute idiots.

"Firstly..." not an answer. You seem to be just parroting what others say. Look over this list and tell me what of the 100+ non-christian philosophical and/or scientific journals have characterized WLC as "either long discredited nonsense or lying manipulation of other's research" and refused to publish his papers? http://www.reasonablefaith.org/william-l...blications

[SteveII]

Not even close.

WLC's formulation is 

(1) Everthing that begins to exist has a cause. 

As to the charge of being vague, it leaves the question of efficient or material causes to the arguments in support of the premises (which he has literally written books on).

Says who?  Dr. Craig?  A communications major from Wheaton College who studied Biblical history in graduate school?  Does Craig have a single paper in any physics journal?

Clifton claims that our experience tells us: 

That the Earth is motionless at the center of the Universe...

(1*) Every physical thing that begins to exist has a material cause.

And, that heavier objects fall faster than do lighter ones.

In his published and peer reviewed work, WLC outlines 3 arguments for (1):

(i) Something cannot come from nothing.

Says who?  The "infallible" William Lane Craig???

(ii) If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing. 

Probably, because only complex things can be formed by simpler things, such as oxygen being created in a supernova explosion.

(iii) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise (1).

Common experience, yes; scientific evidence, uh, no.

He goes on to point out that only the third is an inductive reason so the main grounds in support of the premise are metaphysical. Clifton's support for (1*) seems to be (iii), but if all the eggs are in that basket though, that might even be on shaky ground because of current cosmological theories (most don't allow for "stuff" to be available for use in creating a universe)

Premise (2) The universe began to exist, does not seem to be challenged by Clifton.

So how about the cause?

(3) The universe had a cause. 

Says who?  The "infallible" Craig?  Gee, where is his Nobel Prize?

(3*) The universe had a material cause (stuff from which it was made). 

You will get an infinite regress of events if the cause of the universe was a material object. In addition, the scientific evidence supports an absolute beginning of all matter and energy, space and time a finite time ago. WLC concludes: 

"So we have really good grounds for affirming the immateriality of the First Cause. The origin of the universe requires, then, an efficient cause of enormous power which created physical time, space, matter, and energy. It is an instance of efficient but not material causation. If this is thought to be metaphysically impossible, then some compelling, overriding argument needs to be given for that conclusion. I have yet to encounter such an argument."

Yeah, well, who created god, then?  Oh, wait, god is a "necessary being" who needs no "creator", even though he/she/it is an "enormous power"?!

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/must-ever...z45XfsH9uk

LOL. Perhaps you should stick to your "WLC is a liar" whining. Don't try to understand what he is saying, you might hurt yourself.

[Jehanne]

I would suggest that interested readers read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-of-light/

[Jehanne]

LOL. Perhaps you should stick to your "WLC is a liar" whining. Don't try to understand what he is saying, you might hurt yourself.

As far as I can tell, Craig's last math class was in high school.

[Cyberman]

LOL. Perhaps you should stick to your "WLC is a liar" whining. Don't try to understand what he is saying, you might hurt yourself.

Yeah... you can tell that the game's over when the ad hominem card is the best in your hand.

[SteveII]

I would suggest that interested readers read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-of-light/

In support of what? Virtual particles are not nothing.

[SteveII]

LOL. Perhaps you should stick to your "WLC is a liar" whining. Don't try to understand what he is saying, you might hurt yourself.

Yeah... you can tell that the game's over when the ad hominem card is the best in your hand.

No, Jehanne seems to have a blind hatred for WLC. He starts out calling him a "communications major that studied Biblical history in grad school" in a thread name Dr. Craig is a liar. Can't come up with anything substantial in support of that. The best objection seems to be the one he repeated: "Says who?  The "infallible" Craig?  Gee, where is his Nobel Prize?" Says his last math class was in high school and any other 10 stupid statements that don't have bearing on any of the topics discussed. I got tired of the juvenile whining.

[Jehanne]

I would suggest that interested readers read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-of-light/

In support of what? Virtual particles are not nothing.

Who say's that they were (or, are)???  Point is that fields create energy and energy creates fields and fields create particles and particles create fields.  Consider this:  You're sitting in a lab and on your lab table is a test charge; you measure the magnetic field and get nothing, no magnetic, only an electric field.  I come running through your lab, and while passing your test charge, I measure a magnetic field.  Which gives???  You see no magnetic field, whereas, I do see a magnetic field.  Is one of us right and the other wrong?  How could there be a magnetic field present for one of us and not the other?  Well, it's just the way Nature works!

Back to the Universe -- it created itself, it is its own cause; it's a "necessary entity" -- it came from nothing, by nothing, of its own accord; perhaps "abstract objects," such as numbers created it; who knows?  We may never know; to say that "God did it" is just an endless variation on the "god of the gaps" argument.

[Jehanne]

Yeah... you can tell that the game's over when the ad hominem card is the best in your hand.

No, Jehanne seems to have a blind hatred for WLC. He starts out calling him a "communications major that studied Biblical history in grad school" in a thread name Dr. Craig is a liar. Can't come up with anything substantial in support of that. The best objection seems to be the one he repeated: "Says who?  The "infallible" Craig?  Gee, where is his Nobel Prize?" Says his last math class was in high school and any other 10 stupid statements that don't have bearing on any of the topics discussed. I got tired of the juvenile whining.

He's "making money," and for that, I admire him!

[SteveII]

Even if the logic worked (it doesn't) it is still speculation without any evidence to confirm it.

It relies entirely on the premises being absolutely 100% accurate and exhaustive. "Close enough" and "from what we observe" aren't anywhere near sufficient. Since no method of checking this is built in at any point, we're left with no idea whether the conclusion has any relation to reality or not. WLC is exploring a heavily simplified version of reality in his imagination. That's why stuff like this never returns anything at all useful, ever.

It is nothing but a pat on the back to make believers feel better about what they already believe.

http://youtu.be/inw1fNItjdU

Sufficient for what? These arguments for the existence of God do not return a 100%, ever. That is setting the bar way too high. Arguments where more evidence may not be possible are more appropriately measured "more plausible than its negation".