by Mark Smith Dedicated To Our Favorite Living Christian Apologist Dr. William Lane Craig
Christian Advocate of Self-Induced Insanity Check out the reason why Craig will soon start losing debates:
Welcome to Contra Craig- a site devoted to dissecting & disemboweling the arguments of Christianity's #1 living apologist: Dr. William Lane Craig In Craig's Universe, FACTS are outranked by FAITH, and FAITH by FEELINGS I welcome all to submit their best arguments and articles or links to such, in this endeavor. All articles must be in English- I can't translate PhD philosophical geek-speak, and neither can 99.99% of Earth's population. There are other sites for those tongue speakers. For articles submitted, please keep cheap shots and ad hominem attacks to a minimum- after all, we don't want to sink to the level of mere Christians, do we? (was that itself an ad hominem attack? If so, sorry.) We want to deal with the arguments; not the man behind the arguments. I have no personal animosity towards Craig; he has always seemed to me "a gentleman and a scholar". This site is not about bashing Craig- it's about his ideas and arguments. And as Craig has made an inconsistent policy to only debate those with PhD's, this web page will probably be as close as I'll ever get to debating him (though I'd blow him out of the water, given the chance). So, please stick with bashing Craig's arguments, not Craig himself. Christian apologists may come and go depending on the latest bedroom or bankroom scandal; arguments last forever (or at least it seems to those of us who've been married before!).
Editorial by Mark SmithCraig and I have something in common: we both have a background in debates- formal and otherwise. He was on debate teams all the way thru High School and College. Myself, I debated "cultists" (which is what we Church of Christ'ers called just about everyone else) starting from my early 'teens. I remember one living room debate when I was maybe 15 or so wherein I got the Mormon missionaries so flustered via good arguments that they burst into tears and (intellectually) ran for cover to their old standby knee-jerk bleating "I know Joseph is a prophet of God..." routine. They never came back. I got into formal debate in college, joining Phi Rho Pi and the college debate team (at the time one of the best in the nation, run by Dr. James Marsh at Manatee Community College, Bradenton, Florida), taking second place in Lincoln-Douglas debate in Florida JUCO state finals. After college, I continued debating (as opportunity presented) any Jehovah Witness or Mormon or "cultist" that was foolish enough to take me on. As far as I know, I never lost a debate. I remember one debate in my early 20's I was having with some Jehovah Witnesses at my home. This was back when the Witnesses were ALLOWED to debate others! Now they're all on a short leash, not even allowed to read non-Witness literature, a loss to both Christian and Atheist alike. I got the man to the point of being at a loss for words, having blown out of the water each and every pro-JW argument he had. But rather than offer to quit the JW's as I had expected, he instead pleaded with me along the lines of "But where else would I go? Where would I take my family? Who else besides the Witnesses even comes close to being the True Church? If the Witnesses are not it, I don't know what is." Since studying myself out of Christianity via my intensive research into The Second Coming, I have continued to debate. I have had dozens of debates via email with Christians, usually ending with the Christians declaring victory while executing a hasty retreat! In general, Christians are not good at sequential structured logical thinking (they have little use for it in church), and are also not used to Atheists who can out-Bible them. And for some reason, they have a hell of a time sticking to a topic- they are what in debating circles we used to refer to as "greasy". I have had two formal Christian-vs-Atheist debates, before audiences of mostly Christians. One was on January 14, 1995 in San Luis Obispo, California. I debated Rev. Bob Illman on the topic: "Resolved: Jesus Christ was a false prophet, as the time limits on his second coming expired long ago." There were maybe 50 people present. The other debate was against Tom Dervartanian on October 15, 1998 in the Logos Building (next to and owned by Rev. Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel) in Costa Mesa, California. The topic was: "Resolved: Jesus was a false prophet, as he failed to return within the time limits laid down within the New Testament." There were about 300 people present, which includes the maybe 6 non-Christians who showed up! I gave a 45 minute slide presentation, completely documenting my case mostly from the Christian's own books. In the opinion of myself and many others, I won the debate hands down. Having met with Tom just a few days prior, and having laid out before him what I was going to be saying, I was very surprised at his poor performance in the debate. He should have done better. One thing he did was waste about 20 minutes of his opening speech in ad hominem attacks on me. Many in the audience were visibly perplexed, wondering "what the heck does all this have to do with the topic being debated?" My winning is also evidenced by the fact that, before the debate, Tom (who worked for a Christian video company) was excited about selling videos of the debate. After the debate, Tom quickly changed his mind! Tom is a very nice man and I wish him well in life; but at that debate he came unprepared, disorganized, and was possibly victimized by bad advice. I have also attended several Christian-vs-Atheist debates. One of these was on March 10, 1995 at UCLA between Duane Gish and Michael Shermer on Creationism. I apparently managed to piss off Shermer to quite an extent, as he even wasted his time on the clock in a (failed) attempt to publicly humiliate me for having passed out leaflets, on a public sidewalk, before the debate began. And years later he was STILL having a hissy fit, for in one of his books he trashed me again but not by name! Talk about carrying a grudge! Anyway, it just wasn't my night, for I also got in hot water with my fellow Atheists for daring to point out after the debate that Gish had blown Shermer out of the water. They were telling me that I should be "supporting our side" even if I think "our side" had lost. I'm sorry, but I'm not on anybody's side- I call 'em as I see 'em. I had taken meticulous notes during the debate (a habit from my collegiate debating), and showed people how Shermer had messed up by ignoring Gish's arguments over and over, and going off on stupid tangents. Even Shermer must have noticed he was losing, as he tried to excuse his poor performance by labeling the entire debate a "meta-debate", implying that he was somehow superior to mere mortal debate. Well, meta or no meta, Shermer got his ass kicked in public, though I'm sure none of his boot-licking side kicks would ever be honest enough to tell him to his face. What's even funnier is that Shermer has the audacity to try to pass himself off as some sort of "debate expert". He's written a paper he sells for $5 called "How To Debate A Creationist". (http://www.skeptic.com/b7pb.html) Maybe before trying to teach others how to debate, he should teach himself, lest he gets meta-skewered by Gish again. I have seen Craig in action several times, both on tape as well as in person. He usually wins his debates. However, he wins his debates usually due not so much to being a great debater (which he is), but rather from debating people who haven't the slightest clue how to debate. He usually goes up against some bumbling university professor, a "Dr. Blowhard", who has been locked in a broom closet for the last 30 years working on the latest scientific concoction. The poor professor has no skill in debating, and even less in public presentation. Craig delivers his "Five Points" boom boom boom cramming in as much material as possible (a standard debating tactic called "dumping" designed to smoother an opponent) and then the professor gets up with a deer-in-the-headlights look and slowly and incoherently starts a rambling speech about who-knows-what (usually ignoring most of Craig's points), and ends in a bumbling rush as he realizes he's only got 60 seconds left to cram in his 30 minutes worth of remaining material. In fact, it's downright funny to see these bozo's sweating, loosing their arrogant composure, as the clock runs down. Debating is a skill that has to be learned and requires experience to perfect. Dr.Craig is a PROFESSIONAL debater- he has both 8 years of debate experience and training from High School and college, and has probably gotten in dozens upon dozens of debates each and every year since then. He could probably show up for a debate suffering a major hangover, unshaven, unslept in 24 hours, and still kick the other guy's ass. Compare this to who he usually goes up against: some academic recluse schlub who couldn't debate his way out of a wet paper bag, having had no training or experience in debating, and to make matters worse, arrogantly underestimating the opposition (Craig) as evidenced by the usual lack of preparation. Time after time after time, Craig blows these people out of the water, and any non-Christians who think otherwise are just being loyal to the party flag. Freethinkers have GOT to get over their naiveté in thinking that all it takes to win a public debate, is being right. Putting up some professor who's had little or no debate experience to debate against Craig is like taking someone who's never even ridden a bicycle before and entering him to race next week one-on-one against the winner of last years Tour De France. It's not really a long shot to predict who's going to win, is it? In support of my contention above, I ran across the following in one of my web searches. It was written by a professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Edwin Curley ( http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emcurley/backgrnd.htm ) who had gone up against Craig in a debate on February 5, 1998. Dr. Curley writes Early in January one of my former students - a Christian, who had taken my introductory course in the philosophy of religion - came by my office to ask if it was true that I was going to engage Dr. Craig in a public debate on the existence of God. When I replied that it was, he asked whether I had any previous debate experience. I said "no." My student had had considerable experience as a debater in high school, and had seen transcripts of some of Dr. Craig's previous debates on the internet. He knew that experience in debating can give the debater who has it a powerful advantage over the inexperienced, and that careful preparation is essential. Out of a desire to see each side make its case as effectively as possible, he provided me with valuable advice about the tactics I was likely to encounter and with information about how to find transcripts of Dr. Craig's previous debates. Even though Dr. Curley admits to having zero experience in debate, he nevertheless went up against Craig. Would Dr. Curley have done likewise in a boxing competition against Mike Tyson- having maybe never boxed a day in his life? Of course not- he (I hope, at least) would have the common sense to know that boxing is a skill that takes years to learn, plus a whole lot of natural talent to boot. To even pretend that an average man, inexperienced in boxing, has even a snowball's chance in hell of going a few rounds against Mike Tyson (and live to tell about it) is pure utter idiocy. Lunacy. Stupidity. And yet "us Atheists" continue to send sucker after sucker into the ring to face the "Mike Tyson of Theological Debate" and "us Atheists" continue to pretend that 98 lb weaklings stand a chance against Craig. Please! Wake up, fellow Atheists! Get your head out of your ass long enough to be able to see clearly what the hell is happening here. If we expect Christians to be honest about anything, we as a group need to be honest as well, and honestly face the fact that Craig is kicking our collective ass and we're apparently too dumb (as a group) to even know it! Hell, we're so dumb we'll continue to send in our Herkels against their Mike Tyson, and expect a miracle. Hey! We're Atheists, remember? We don't believe in miracles!!! (For a full transcript of the debate between Dr. Curley and Dr. Craig, go to http://sitemaker.umich.edu/emcurley/craig-curley_debate ) Only one time out of maybe the dozen or so Craig debates I have seen or read, have I seen Craig clearly lose a debate, and that was when he went against attorney Eddie Tabash on February 8, 1999 in Malibu, California. To toot my own horn here, I was one of the people (Jeff Lowder as well) who helped Eddie prepare arguments for the debate- but it was Eddie's show all the way. At the end, Craig looked like he'd gone ten rounds with Mohammad Ali. The Christian Fundies that attended were sore losers, blaming Craig's loss not on Eddie's skill, but on Craig for not taking it seriously enough (Craig did the debate casually, without his trademark suit). Strangely enough, this debate is ONE debate that seems to be lacking from Craig's website! Eddie had a hard time getting Craig to debate in the first place, due to Craig's stupid self-made rule of not debating anyone who doesn't possess a PhD- I guess given that same rule, not one Christian within the New Testament would be "good enough" to debate Dr. Craig, including Biblegod's son, Jesus. As it turned out, Eddie's experience in the courtroom, and his countless debates in the years prior to this, gave him an advantage that most of the people going against Craig don't have. (To purchase this debate: http://www.infidels.org/infidels/products/video/debates.shtml ) Atheists, Agnostics and the Freethinking community will continue to get their butts kicked by Craig unless and until they have the resources and intelligence to sponsor a full-time debater, such as Craig himself is. This debater should be someone with years of solid High School and College debate training and experience behind him. He should also be a former Christian, as it takes one to know one. He also needs to be brought up through the ranks, debating smaller fish for several years, to gain experience, before being set loose on Craig. AND- when the match finally arrives, he needs to be someone who has taken it seriously, prepared for it like a maniac, and has all his arguments and data organized and ready to go. Any academic qualifications take a distant back seat to his skills as a debater. Remember: debating is a SKILL, like plumbing or water skiing. It needs to be learned, practiced, and lived. Having a PhD in some obscure specialty, writing a book, or being good at arguing with one's wife, does not qualify one as a debater. Would you send a PhD, or a plumber in, to fix a leaking toilet? You would send in the person who had the skill to fix it. These geeky inept intellectuals have no business embarrassing the rest of us Freethinkers by trying to pass themselves off as debaters on a stage shared with Craig. ---Mark Smith
Comments on Craig's Book: Reasonable Faith Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics William Lane Craig, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Ill, first pub. 1984 Moody Press, revised edition 1994, ISBN 0-89107-764-2
Above is a photograph of page 37 from my copy of Craig's book "Reasonable Faith" (pardon my scribblings in the margins). I have put this page from his book in here to document to everybody some of what Craig believes. To me and many other Atheists and Freethinkers, some of what Craig writes in this book of his, especially pages 36 & 37- it's hard for us to believe that he really believes it. Maybe it was a giant typo, maybe the publisher messed it up, maybe "Satan" snuck a virus into Craig's computer, or maybe Craig got into a fight with his wife the day he wrote it. In short, I wanted to give Dr. Craig the benefit of the doubt, and give him a chance to backtrack on some of this crazy crap. So I went to him in person, to dialog with him face to face about this book of his. Rather than admit he had made a mistake, he cheerfully endorsed his writings, in the presence of several witnesses, with a signed and dated signature (visible above) that states: "I still agree with what I wrote on page 36 & 37" X William L. Craig Date: 26Aug98" I would also like everyone to know that I paid my dues in getting this signature on Wednesday, August 26, 1998. I had to suffer thru an excruciatingly long & boring lecture of his (sorry, Craig!) on "Time" at Calvary Chapel, in Costa Mesa, California, just for the chance of asking him about these pages. And as some have doubted that the above signature is authentic, I'd like to present an email from someone who was there: Cary Cook}
In my twenty minute discussion with Craig, in the process of getting his signature, I asked him about his views on evidence (which to me seem very close to self-induced insanity). In short, I set up the following scenario:
I asked him, given this scenario, would he then give up his Christianity? Having seen with his own eyes that there was no resurrection of Jesus, having been an eyewitness to the fact that Christianity has been based upon a fraud and a lie, would he NOW renounce Christianity? His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected. He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the "holy spirit" within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me. Dr. William Lane Craig, double PhD protector and promoter of
Christianity- he'd rather discount his own objective experience as an
eyewitness, and instead go with his inner feelings- yet
he wants everyone else to go with what he claims are eyewitness accounts to the
supposed resurrection. Given the chance via a time machine, he would discount
the objective reality
**************
Is Craig Coming Out of The Closet... in Magic Mormon Underwear??? What Craig has written on page 37 of his book "Reasonable Faith" reeks to high Kolab of Mormon horseshit. It is hard for me to believe that Craig's fellow Fundies have let him stray this far out on his theological leash. I think maybe I'll reel him back in using his fellow Fundies. You see, his Fundy Christians have had a grand old time trashing the Mormons for their subjective way of "proving" the Book of Mormon. But read over some of these Anti-Mormon quotes I pulled off the internet, and substitute "Craig" for Mormon. Hell, I'll just go ahead and do it myself here and there with Green Type like this. You'll soon see that when the Fundies shoot down the Mormons for their subjectivity that William Lane Craig gets caught in the cross fire. And what better place to start than with a quotation... right from Craig's own cyberspace backyard- "Leadership U", where he's in their list of faculty. Craig's own people condemn him when they condemn the Mormons, for Craig is 100% guilty of the very faults of subjectivity the Mormons are condemned for.
*****************
*Leadership U: The
Many sincere seekers fall for this ploy, being ignorant of the warnings set
forth by the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible ever direct the believing Christian
to take any religious book and pray about the truthfulness of its
contents. ...Why should subjective
feelings be suspected? Because we are sinful creatures and can be swayed
by our emotions and sinful desires. ...To believe
that something is true merely because you
feel it to be so or because you are sincere in your belief
does not make it true
11. Instead, the Bible warns that
feelings can be deceptive and that the sincere truth-seeker must
base decisions on more objective means.
...God, *(Leadership U. is a project of Christian Leadership Ministries, part of Campus Crusade for Christ, International, and is ALSO the ones who sponsor Craig's very own web page!!!) (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/michaeldavis/docs/mormonism/feeling.html)
*****************
Christian Research Institute:
Hank Hanegraaff} First, it is important to recognize that
*****************
Christian Research Institute:
Robert Bowman} The
*****************
Mormonism Research Ministry}
A more standard
*****************
Christian Research Institute:
Latayne C. Scott} If one asks
Freethinker Debate StrategyIn light of what Craig admits to here in his own damn book, as well as the thought experiment I put him thru regarding the time machine, why in the hell haven't the debaters going up against Craig in public been beating him relentlessly over the head with his own comments??? Craig is only feigning rationality for the express purpose of deceitfully luring suckers into the Kingdom. There is no need to quibble with Craig over minor petty details such as
when he has already confessed in writing, AND SIGNED HIS JOHN HANCOCK TO, the fact that he just doesn't believe in objective reality. Craig has all but publicly admitted that he's in favor of insanity as a lifechoice, and he's all for detaching oneself from outside reality in order to concentrate on the inner feelings and mysterious voices he apparently hears within his own head. In light of the recent movie "A Beautiful Mind" along with the Andrea Yates* trial in Texas, Craig's unabashed enthusiasm for self-inflicted schizophrenia is rather disgusting. *(Yates drowned her five children because "god told her" to do it.) These are some comments from Newsweek's cover story on schizophrenia (Newsweek, March 11, 2002, p. 46+). Read them over and see if there's a nickel's worth of difference between Craig's theology and rampant untreated schizophrenia.
Craig's preference for subjective inner voices over objective reality should be the ONLY topic a Freethinker lets Craig debate in public. They should grab onto this with both hands, and speak of nothing else. This man has provided his own rope for us to hang him with- and any debater going up against Craig would have to be a major dumbass not to oblige him. So, given the history of most of the people who HAVE gone up against Craig, don't get your hopes up.
Is Craig's "Debate Only PhD's" Just a Ploy???
I received the following email from Doug Krueger on September 2, 2002. It appears that Craig's policy of never debating anyone unless they have a PhD may just be a ploy used to filter out people he'd rather not face in public. Read what Doug has to say regarding his experiences with Craig. *********************
Mark, Long time no see. I like your antiCraig site, but you have a minor error. You wrote:
Yes, Craig claims to have a policy of only debating those with Ph.D.'s but this is a lie. Here's the scoop:
There have been at least three xian organizations that have tried to arrange a debate between me and Craig. Once it was a xian campus group in Knoxville, another time a xian campus group in Champagne-Urbana, and then a Jesuit priest named Tacelli from Boston College tried without success to get Craig to debate me. Each time Craig declined to debate me on the grounds that I don't yet have my Ph.D.
Now, you and I know that Craig
has debated folks without Ph.D.'s in the past. He debated
Frank Zindler, who has no Ph.D., and that is perhaps his most widely known
debate. When he was turning me down, Craig stated to the xian
organizations that in the past he has debated other opponents in addition to
Zindler who did not have Ph.D.'s. However, Craig stated, his "must have a
Ph.D." policy was a new policy and did not apply to people such as Zindler. The most recent time of which I am
aware that Craig declined to debate me was roughly November of 1999. In
January of 2000, Craig debated
Ron Barrier of American Atheists.
Barrier has no college degrees at all.
After Craig had turned me down for the third time, and before the Barrier debate
would take place, I contacted Tacelli in Boston and asked him to double-check
with Craig about his policy because Craig had just turned me down for a debate
engagement because I only have an M.A. and now he was going to debate Barrier
who only had a
high school diploma. Tacelli apologetically (!) informed me that
Craig was going to proceed with the Barrier debate and was still refusing to
debate me. I told several people at the Internet Infidels site about this
too, and they demanded that Craig either agree to debate me or refuse to debate
Barrier, since Craig was being inconsistent about his policy. Craig
wouldn't budge, and he claimed that he wasn't aware that Barrier did not have
any college degrees when he agreed to that debate. I find that hard to
believe. Whenever I was asked whether I would debate Craig, the organizers
requested some sort of curriculum vita (resume) listing my credentials and
publications. I'm sure the same thing was done with Barrier, and it would
be especially likely that such a request was made if Craig really did have a
policy of only debating those with Ph.D.'s. Wouldn't he want to make sure
that his opponent had one before agreeing to the engagement? Surely Craig
was aware that Barrier had no Ph.D., or even a B.A. And in case he didn't,
I and the Internet Infidels made him well aware of this. Craig said that
his "hands were tied" and didn't seem interested in enforcing his policy. I am also suspicious of Craig's
alleged policy because NONE of the three organizations that were trying to book
me to debate Craig were aware of this policy despite having been in contact with
him. Furthermore, earlier this year Craig himself initiated negotiations
with Jeff Lowder of the Internet Infidels to see about debating Lowder, and
Lowder does not have a Ph.D. either. And Craig is well aware of this.
So Craig cannot plead ignorance in this case when he contradicts his own policy. Craig's policy is obviously a
sham. Why would Craig decline to debate me? I've debated a Craig
clone (more than once) who has been in contact with Craig, and I suspect this is
how Craig came to know about me. I performed very well in those debates,
and I think Craig suspects that I'd whip him in a debate. Doubtful? We can ask ourselves,
since Craig's "Ph.D. only" policy is not being enforced by Craig himself, it is
obviously not the real reason that he will not debate me. But if Craig
refuses to debate me, and it is not because of this alleged policy, why wouldn't
he give the real reason for refusing to debate me? If the reason is
legitimate, he would give it. But the reason he gives is only pretended.
Thus, he must want to hide the real reason he won't debate me. The only
such reason I can think of is that he's afraid that he'd lose-- big time.
If he is not ashamed of the real reason he won't debate me, let him stop hiding
behind a fake policy and just tell us why he's ducking me. I'd like to hear it.
_________________________________________
Author, _What is Atheism? A Short
Introduction_
Craig Makes Evidence Absolutely Irrelevant This is taken from a Google discussion group, which brought up this site you're on now. The author made some excellent points about Craig's selective use of evidence. (Source: Google Discussion Group )
"Jason Steiner" <jason@gaydeceiver.com> wrote in message news:ls02na.9vm.ln@shell.gaydeceiver.com... > Michael Martin <baltezaar2001@yahoo.com> wrote: > > "Jason Steiner" <jason@gaydeceiver.com> wrote: > > > > > Craig claims that his beliefs are self-evident and require no > > > evidence, which puts him firmly in the presupposationalist camp. > > > He even goes so far as to claim that it is self-evident for everyone > > > else too, and that those who don't agree are in denial. > > > > Can you cite any text for your interpretation of Craig's stance? Granted, > > my exposure to Craig has been limited, but I have yet to read anything where > > he does not at least attempt to use evidence and reason. I know you don't > > agree with his arguments and conclusions, but I don't recall him saying that > > Christianity requires no evidence. > > "The magisterial use of reason occurs when reason stands over and > above the gospel like a magistrate and judges it on the basis of > argument and evidence. The ministerial use of reason occurs when > reason submits to and serves the gospel. Only the ministerial use > of reason can be allowed. ... Should a conflict arise between the > witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the > Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it > is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice > versa." (p. 36) > > Evidence is only allowed when it supports his presupposed conclusions. > Which makes evidence absolutely irrelevant. If evidence doesn't have > the power to change or challenge one's theories, then there's no point > gathering or presenting evidence. > > Actually, there is _one_ point to presenting evidence. > > If you know that other people respect evidence, and you want to get > their respect, then you may use evidence when convenient - and only > when convenient - in order to deceive them into believing that you > hold the same standards they do.
OK, after reading your post and posting my initial reply, I did some online searching and found this site (I am sure you are familiar with it): http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm What I found extremely interesting is the Website author's comparison of Craig's statements with Mormonism. While I think Craig would disagree with Smith's take on Craig's statements, there is a lot of what Smith observes and says that I agree with. When talking with friends over the years, and doing the "odd questions" game, whenever the question of using a time machine came up, I have always answered the same: Jerusalem, circa 30 AD. I want to know. I want to see. And, if (and it is a might big IF) I were to observe nothing "for weeks," as Smith says, then I would not be swayed by some inner voice. Resurrection means the body is gone and not stolen, not decomposing. Without getting into a line by line take on Smith's writings, I think I am somewhere between Smith and Craig. I sure don't have the reliance on subjective warm fuzzies that Craig SEEMS to support; but I also don't insist on lab-replicable, empirical evidence for everything. "Evidence" is necessary and useful, but not the end-all, be-all of finding what to believe. I don't expect an agreement from you Jason, but included the last paragraph for any other lurkers/readers of the thread. -- Michael Martin http://www.stormraven.com "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return." *************
The
End of Christian Apologetics How Christian Apologists "embrace insincerity as a structural principal"
Taken from the web site: http://www.freechristians.com/Nikita_Ballas/Why_Apologetics_is_the_enemy_of_truth_and_of_faith.htm
Apologists use "rational" and "scientific" arguments only when it suits them. When all else fails, they fall back to the nebulous area of the supernatural. Again, there is deception involved because they assume as true what they seek to prove, ie that their spiritual experiences or "revelations" are authentic. For example, one of the leading Christian apologists, Dr. William Lane Craig blatantly states that "as long as reason is a minister of the Christian faith, Christians should employ it... I once asked a fellow seminary student "How do you know Christianity is true?" He replied "I really don't know." Does that mean he should give up Christianity till he finds rational arguments to ground his faith? Of course not! ...The fact is we can know the truth whether we have rational arguments or not..." ( Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics by William Lane Craig, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Ill, first pub. 1984 Moody Press, revised edition 1994, p. 36-37) Mark Smith, an atheist critic of Craig, makes the following comments: "The word "minister" means "to serve". So what Craig is saying here is that as long as reason serves Christianity, Christians should use it; the implication being that when reason turns against Christianity, Christians likewise should turn against reason. And after Christians have rejected using reason, then what? With what will it be replaced with? UN-reason? Insanity? Illogic? Subjective emotional outbursts? The DARK AGES???... For Craig, reason, argument, and evidence seem to be just "bait" to fool people into swallowing the Christian hook. Once everyone is hooked, such tools will no longer be needed, and could easily be discarded and outlawed." (see: Contra Craig by Mark Smith) As to Craig's advice to the seminary student, Mark Smith remarks: "Craig is admitting here to something most of us already knew, that is, people become Christians FIRST, then try to find rational reasons for having done so LATER (if at all) to justify that decision. This clearly goes against any and all principles of clear thinking. Imagine inheriting a million dollars, and then handing over every penny of it to some guy who showed up at your door seeking investors for his "anti-gravity machine" company, only because you liked the way he presented himself? You would be called a total idiot by all your friends, yet THIS is the EXACT same behavior that is encouraged by Craig when it comes to religion!!! Craig's whole approach to religion is: Don't think, just DO IT- worry about facts, reason and common sense later- just give your heart to Jesus because IT FEELS GOOD. Do first, think later. Contrast THIS philosophy of "do first, think later" with how most ex-Christians become Atheists: we thought it thru, weighed the evidence, and made a reasonable and logical decision. Atheists think FIRST- we don't just "accept Atheism" because it feels good... Listen again to the words penned by Craig, "We can know the truth whether we have rational arguments or not". Scary, isn't it? Words such as these usually come from an Islamic Mullah preaching to the Taliban, not from an American scholar..." (ibid) Craig offers another typical example of why the whole Apologetics business is unethical. In the same book (Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 48, 49-50), he argues how apologetics works: "My friend, I know Christianity is true because God's Spirit lives in me and assures me that it is true. And you can know it, too, because God is knocking at the door of your heart, telling you the same thing. If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will give you assurance that the gospel is true. Now, to try to show you it's true, I'll share with you some arguments and evidence that I really find convincing. But should my arguments seem weak and unconvincing to you, that's my fault, not God's. It only shows that I'm a poor apologist, not that the gospel is untrue. Whatever you think of my arguments, God still loves you and holds you accountable. I'll do my best to present good arguments to you. But ultimately you have to deal, not with arguments, but with God himself.", and "unbelief is at root a spiritual, not an intellectual, problem. Sometimes an unbeliever will throw up an intellectual smoke screen so that he can avoid personal, existential involvement with the gospel..." (emphasis mine) To this sort of reasoning, Craig's "nemesis", atheist author Robert M. Price (who quoted the above excerpts from Craig's book) replies: "Craig, then, freely admits his conviction arises from purely subjective factors, in no whit different from the teenage Mormon door-knocker who tells you he knows the Book of Mormon was written by ancient Americans because he has a warm, swelling feeling in his stomach when he asks God if it's true... let no one who can read doubt from his words just quoted that, first, his enterprise is completely circular, since it is a subjectivity described arbitrarily in terms of Christian belief (Holy Spirit, etc.) that supposedly grounds Christian belief! And, second, Craig admits the circularity of it..." it is obvious from the same quotes that he admits the arguments are ultimately beside the point. If an "unbeliever" doesn't see the cogency of Craig's brand of New Testament criticism (the same thing exactly as his apologetics), it can only be because he has some guilty secret to hide and doesn't want to repent and let Jesus run his life. If one sincerely seeks God, Craig's arguments will mysteriously start looking pretty good to him, like speaking in tongues as the infallible evidence of the infilling of the divine Spirit..." "...Craig's frank expression to his fellow would-be apologists/evangelists is revealing, more so no doubt than he intends: he tells you to say to the unbeliever that you find these arguments "really convincing," but how can Craig simply take this for granted unless, as I'm sure he does, he knows he is writing to people for whom the cogency of the arguments is a foregone conclusion since they are arguments in behalf of a position his readers are already committed to as an a priori party line?... His is a position that exalts existential decision above rational deliberation..." "...I do not mean to make sport of Craig by saying this. No, it is important to see that, so to speak, every one of Craig's scholarly articles on the resurrection implicitly ends with that little decision card for the reader to sign to invite Jesus into his heart as his personal savior. He is not trying to do disinterested historical or exegetical research. He is trying to get folks saved..." "...His characterization of people who do not accept his apologetical version of the historical Jesus as "unbelievers" who merely cast up smoke screens of insincere cavils functions as a mirror image of his own enterprise. His apparently self-effacing pose, "If my arguments fail to convince, then I must have done a poor job of explaining them" is just a polite way of saying, "You must not have understood me, stupid, or else you'd agree with me." His incredible claim that the same apologetics would sound better coming from somebody else (so why don't you go ahead and believe anyway?) just reveals the whole exercise to be a sham. Craig's apologetic has embraced insincerity as a structural principal. The arguments are offered cynically: "whatever it takes." If they don't work, take your pick between brimstone ("God holds you accountable") and treacle ("God still loves you"). (see: By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus by Robert Price).
Contra Craig Web Page Ranks High in Search Engines On Thursday, *January 22 of 2004, I did web searches for the
phrase "William Lane Craig" in all the major search engines of the web. To my
surprise, the web page you're currently reading- CONTRA CRAIG- was right up near
the top in many of the searches. What that means is that when someone conducts a
web search to check out William Lane Craig, up near the top of the list, a
link to this here web page your looking at right now will be staring him in the
face. For example, on www.alltheweb.com
my web page is 7th out of a total of 24,648. So while Craig
continues to remain an Atheist regarding the CONTRA CRAIG web page and the
problems it raises, everyone else is becoming a believer in my web site, and a
heck of a lot of people are getting their information about Craig
from this, my "Contra Craig" web site.
Cognitive Dissonance and True-Believer Syndrome The amazing continuation of beliefs after they've been overwhelmingly
disproved or should have, by all reasonable logic, died off owes its existence
to a well-understood psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance. The
most famous example of cognitive dissonance regarding end-times prophecy in
our modern society are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They've made so many failed
predictions about the end of the world that it's hard to take them seriously
by now (most notably, the one about the world ending in 1914), but their
organization did not die when all of them were disconfirmed. Many of those are
outlined at the article about failed prophecy I linked to above.
Ex-Christian.net Forums
I doubt many Christians can think of anything that would show to them Christianity is false and the ones that I have encountered usually conceive of evidence that is so ridiculously unlikely to exist or be discovered (i.e. "If I saw the body of Jesus, dead, that would convince me"). Many times I get the impression that it's almost impossible for them not to believe. An atheist named Mark Smith once talked with William Lane Craig and asked Craig that if he was to be put in a time machine and taken back to the first Easter morning at the tomb and they witnessed the whole morning with nothing happening, if that would be enough to show him that the resurrection didn't happen. According to Smith, Craig replied that he would still believe that the resurrection happened and that some trick had been played on him. When asked why..Craig replied that he had the witness of the 'Holy Spirit' in his life. In other words..historical evidence doesn't matter to Craig. No amount of historical evidence contrary to Christianity- Bible contradictions, errors, anachronisms, myths, legends- none of that would convince Craig. Hell..if you showed him the actual body of Jesus...Craig would probably believe that the body was anatomically or genetically engineered to look like Jesus. I have come to the conclusion that it's simply impossible for an evangelical like Bill Craig to not have faith in Jesus Christ. No evidence to the contrary can convince him when he thinks he has the witness of the 'Holy Spirit'. How's that for a rational human being?
Misc Postings About Contra Craig from Here and There
Michael Martin <baltezaar2001@yahoo.com> wrote: > > OK, after reading your post and posting my initial reply, I did some online > searching and found this site (I am sure you are familiar with it): > > http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm > > What I found extremely interesting is the Website author's comparison of > Craig's statements with Mormonism. While I think Craig would disagree with > Smith's take on Craig's statements, there is a lot of what Smith observes > and says that I agree with. Hahahahaha! That's great! I hadn't seen that site before. I like the comparison of Craig's theology to paranoid schizophrenia. > Without getting into a line by line take on Smith's writings, I think I am > somewhere between Smith and Craig. I sure don't have the reliance on > subjective warm fuzzies that Craig SEEMS to support; but I also don't insist > on lab-replicable, empirical evidence for everything. "Evidence" is > necessary and useful, but not the end-all, be-all of finding what to > believe. Then what is? jason NOTE: As of September 7, 2004, the page (link below) has
been AWOL for several weeks. Note on my Note Above: It is now February 26, 2005 and the website below is STILL dead. ContraSmith- A Response to my ContraCraig Website www.geocities.com/uponthisrock247365/contrasmith.htm The above link will take you to an entire website devoted to combating the present website you are visiting! Some Christian fans of Bill Craig have decided to come to his rescue, maybe having seen how Craig himself can't seem to dignify CONTRA CRAIG with a reply. The authors are, as best I can tell, Frank Walton and Corey Washington. Corey lives in the Los Angeles area, and claims to be veteran of Grenada, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia AND the Persian Gulf War! They both appear to be big fans of Rush Limburger, as well as those inarticulate prophets Van Til and Greg Bahnsen. They are good fundy right-wingers, and will most likely vote for Bush no matter how many soldiers die from his lies. They've done some amusing things with my image (how dare they! ha ha ha) and it really was a hoot reading thru the entire LONG website. I enjoyed it, and I think you'd enjoy it too. They have made a few factual errors regarding me and my website Contra Craig, but rather than point them out to you at this time, I'll wait for you to find them yourselves- they're not that hard. You may be asking yourself, why is Mark linking to a site that hopes to prove Mark is full of crap. Good question. I do so so that all may see the weakness of the Christian arguments. I do so so that all may realize that "Hey, if THIS is the best they can come up with to refute what Mark has written, maybe what Mark has written is true after all." You see, REAL truth doesn't need to run and hide from those who disagree with it, nor does it need to censor the opposition. What I have written in Contra Craig is the truth, to the best of my ability, and if anyone can show via evidence and argument where I've gone wrong, have at it! I've changed things in this site before due to what some have pointed out to me, and I can change them again. I'm not married to any of the views here, but you'd better have a damn strong argument to back up your complaints. Unfortunately, the college students that put up ContraSmith do NOT have any strong arguments, just more philosophical hot air that basically says that if Craig CLAIMS to have had a religious experience, that's all the evidence these college boys need, yessireebob. Mere subjective feelings without facts or evidence are more than enough for these boys to be willing to join a religion and, if need be, die for the same. These hot-air armchair intellectual arguments always leave me asking "Where's the beef?", the line Clara Peller made famous as the old lady who did the Wendy's commercials back in the 80's. Some burger place would try to talk her into thinking they had great hamburgers, but the one thing always missing was... the damn meat itself!!! Likewise, these P.R. people when they talk about Jesus. The geek intellectuals can huff and puff all they want in excusing their lack of any good evidence, but it still won't fly. So whenever religious con artists try to talk you into "seeing" their invisible god, let us ALL instead utter that famous line, Where's the beef???
As I wrote in another essay of mine, the best evidence FOR a miracle IS a miracle. Stop the hot air, stop the unfounded claims, stop the damn "five good reasons..." and just give us the damn meat! According to the Old Testament, when Biblegod needed to prove he existed, he didn't call forth all the philosophers of the land and have them try to bamboozle people into believing in him. Rather, he sent down fire- ZAP! Short and sweet, and it didn't require a 180 IQ to comprehend. It's all there in 1st Kings 18. And since Christians say that Biblegod is the same yesterday, today, and forever, if it was the way he chose to prove his existence back then, it's still his way today. Massive amounts of HOT AIR from intellectual WIND BAGS hardly qualifies as "fire from on high". Are modern day Christians up to the challenge? Hardly. For several YEARS now, I have made a public challenge (How To Prove The Existence of God), that has yet to be accepted. I am willing to BET MY LIFE that I am right when I say "There is no god". I am willing to RISK DEATH I am so confident. I have yet to find even ONE Christian willing to do likewise. Chickenshits. They are ALL nothing but hot air chickenshits. For further reading exposing the empty claims of Christiandumb, please read these other essays in my website: Message to Christian Apologists Damn The Truth- Full Speed Ahead Notes to Christians Battling Atheists
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of the real world, in favor of warm subjective inner voices and fuzzy
feelings. In short, in order to close his rational mind off entirely from the
objective outside world, he would rather practice self-inflicted insanity- i.e.
deliberately putting himself out of touch with reality. Some ancient Christian
monks took a vow of not talking- Craig is taking a vow of not thinking. I would
expect such subjective drivel, and have experienced such, from Mormon
missionaries with their "burning in the bosom" crap (see section "Is Craig
Coming Out of The Closet?"). Hearing it come from Dr. William Lane Craig
saddened me more than anything, proving that "Christianity
Causes Brain Death" is more than just a slogan. Having been a Christian
for twenty years, I can't help but feel for Craig that somewhere deep down in
his heart he knows it's all horseshit and he's just looking for a way to
transition out of it (like so many other Christians have already done) without
destroying his income and social life. 
