The manipulative tactics of William Lane Craig.

[Jehanne]

I would encourage everyone to listen to this debate between William Craig & Professor Bart Ehrman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhT4IENSwac

Even though it was 8 years ago, Craig has changed very little since then.  Note the tactics that Craig uses in the debate; clearly, his goal is to "win" the debate, which means, first and foremost, throwing his opponent off balance, by ridiculing and demeaning them.  Then, Craig loves to build pitiful strawmen and make dubious claims, which most of his conservative Evangelical audience will never bother to verify anyway.

However, Ehrman takes Craig down; it takes him awhile, but in the end, Craig is demolished and shown for the fraud who he is.  By the time he gets to Lawrence Krauss in 2013, he is shown to be completely without credibility, and with Professor Sean Carroll in 2014, Craig is completely humiliated and exposed as a total charlatan.  He has only debated publicly one time since then, a debate in Germany which is not even in English.  Perhaps he is trying to find more "fertile grounds" overseas?

[dyresand]

Of course he is a lying sack of shit he is a conman.
I mean religious people invented "Truth"

---

descriptive manipulating lying.

---

The actual truth is that it's true and has facts.

[GrandizerII]

Humiliated according to whom? Those who already see the tricks for what they are?

No, sorry, the only person who ever knew how to humiliate William Lane Craig in a debate/discussion was Shelley Kagan, and that's because Kagan showed expertise in good rhetorics and not just good logic.

And Lawrence Krauss was an embarrassment against WLC.

[Jehanne]

Humiliated according to whom? Those who already see the tricks for what they are?

No, sorry, the only person who ever knew how to humiliate William Lane Craig in a debate/discussion was Shelley Kagan, and that's because Kagan showed expertise in good rhetorics and not just good logic.

And Lawrence Krauss was an embarrassment against WLC.

I guess that "humiliation" is in the "eye" of the beholder.  If you go out to Craig's website, his first debate with Krauss isn't even available; they have a link to it instead.  I agree that Kagan dragged Craig all over the floor; Craig sounded like a whining incoming freshman who was complaining about his grade.  He was no match for a true intellectual such as Kagan.

[GrandizerII]

Humiliated according to whom? Those who already see the tricks for what they are?

No, sorry, the only person who ever knew how to humiliate William Lane Craig in a debate/discussion was Shelley Kagan, and that's because Kagan showed expertise in good rhetorics and not just good logic.

And Lawrence Krauss was an embarrassment against WLC.

I guess that "humiliation" is in the "eye" of the beholder.  If you go out to Craig's website, his first debate with Krauss isn't even available; they have a link to it instead.  I agree that Kagan dragged Craig all over the floor; Craig sounded like a whining incoming freshman who was complaining about his grade.  He was no match for a true intellectual such as Kagan.

Well, you have to always look at it from the perspective of the majority in the audience, not just from one's perspective as an atheist. We all can see as atheists here how manipulative WLC is, but we don't exactly represent the general population of those who view these debates.

I've seen all the debates between him and Krauss that have been made available on YouTube, and Krauss utterly failed when he lost his temper in front of everyone in one of the debates/discussions. While that may be understandable, it came off as pretty damn whiny and showed that just because someone like Krauss is highly intelligent doesn't mean he should just simply go up there and debate a master debater like WLC. I may not be a fan of Dawkins, but at least he was sensible enough to avoid having a debate with WLC. Krauss' ego was just too huge that he thought he could own WLC by just opening his mouth. When that didn't happen, he lost it and embarrassed himself big time.

[Time Traveler]

My problem with Craig, and debates like these in general, is that the entire goal is to "win." Disingenuous tactics, half-truths, outright deception, anything goes and is fair game for apologists in these kinds of debate forums. Scientists, like Krauss and Carroll on the other hand, are used to defending different hypotheses - but to be professional, they must expose everything about their theories - including the good, the bad, and the unknown.

Apologists are under no such obligation.

Craig feels free to pull statements from scientists, often completely out of context, knowing full well that neither the theory nor the scientists that came up with the theory support Craig's conclusions, all in an effort to misdirect the audience. I've also seen apologists rattle off a dozen or more quotes in a debate by scientists and atheists which seem to support their position, but without the time to examine each claim independently, the opponent has no recourse but to let all these things slide. Naïve audience members scratch their heads and think the apologist must really be onto something!

Honest scientists know that answering, "We don't know yet," is a valid response to many questions, whereas apologists assert complete knowledge in areas where they have nothing to back up their claims other than dubious syllogisms and unjustified conclusions. So without a doubt, I agree that WLC and other apologists uses manipulative tactics to win debates because their goal isn't truth, but victory at any cost.

[Jehanne]

I guess that "humiliation" is in the "eye" of the beholder.  If you go out to Craig's website, his first debate with Krauss isn't even available; they have a link to it instead.  I agree that Kagan dragged Craig all over the floor; Craig sounded like a whining incoming freshman who was complaining about his grade.  He was no match for a true intellectual such as Kagan.

Well, you have to always look at it from the perspective of the majority in the audience, not just from one's perspective as an atheist. We all can see as atheists here how manipulative WLC is, but we don't exactly represent the general population of those who view these debates.

I've seen all the debates between him and Krauss that have been made available on YouTube, and Krauss utterly failed when he lost his temper in front of everyone in one of the debates/discussions. While that may be understandable, it came off as pretty damn whiny and showed that just because someone like Krauss is highly intelligent doesn't mean he should just simply go up there and debate a master debater like WLC. I may not be a fan of Dawkins, but at least he was sensible enough to avoid having a debate with WLC. Krauss' ego was just too huge that he thought he could own WLC by just opening his mouth. When that didn't happen, he lost it and embarrassed himself big time.

I guess that this is a reason why eyewitness testimony should not be completely trusted.  I saw the same debate that you did, and I thought that Krauss was great!  Yeah, he was angry, but he stayed on point and make his case that Craig, even if his motives are sincere, is still tantamount to a conscious lying charlatan.  Take Craig's three commentaries on the movie "The Unbelievers"; it hadn't been released yet, and so, how did Craig see it?  Turns out that Craig, after the first debate, apologized to Krauss, saying that he had only heard an audio recording of the movie.  Krauss has a YouTube video on this, by the way.

[dyresand]

The one thing craig does that i hate he pulls so much shit from out of his ass that the person debating him tries to refute everything he says
this is why craig as a debater is manipulative to his audience. He will throw out so much junk that the he person he is debating against can only
answer so much of his false statements. A good example would be him trying to take on physics and the speed of light he doesn't know shit
and still debater had to literally argue with him that the speed of light is a constant.

[abaris]

I'm certainly not a Craig fan and I'm not a big fan of Ehrman. He's a theologian too, although an atheist one. When he tries his hands on history, his mistakes are as expected, since he doesn't know the methodology employed.

The most glaring mistakes happen when he's one of the few reasoning that Jesus actually existed. The best we can know is that we don't know if he existed. There's no evidence one way or the other outside of scripture. The other glaring mistake is to take what was called history in the classical age at face value. It was a completely different term than our contemporary one. Facts were only important as long as they fit the agenda of the one telling a story. History was a means to paint an ideal or to issue a warning. Hugo the butcher told me something could already be considered history. Ehrman obviously ignores the change in definition.

So, no. I certainly ain't interested in two persons I don't admire having it out over some theological tidbit.

[Brian37]

Humiliated according to whom? Those who already see the tricks for what they are?

No, sorry, the only person who ever knew how to humiliate William Lane Craig in a debate/discussion was Shelley Kagan, and that's because Kagan showed expertise in good rhetorics and not just good logic.

And Lawrence Krauss was an embarrassment against WLC.

I doubt that seriously. There is no apologist of any religion that is defending anything factual, they are merely slick snake oil used care salesmen.