Oct 29, 2014

The Resurrection sequence

The Resurrection Sequence.
Four reasons why it doesn't work. 
 
1) In three Gospels, other women accompany Mary Magdalene while going to the burial place of Jesus.
 
The catch is, in chapter 20 of the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene goes alone.
Isn't that nice?

 2) In chapter 20 of the Gospel of John again, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb entrance to find that the large stone has been rolled back. No one else is there.
 
The catch is, in chapter 28 of the Gospel of Matthew, Mary Magdalene and another Mary--thus two together--see an angel sitting on the rolled-away stone!

 Thus, in the Gospel of John, no angel sits upon the big stone outside!
Isn't that nice? 

3) In chapter 20 of the Gospel of John again, Mary Magdalene--alone--looks in the tomb and hurries off, to tell about its being empty.
 
The catch is, in chapter 16 of the Gospel of Mark, three women including Mary Magdalene, look and see an angel inside. Afraid, they run off, but don't tell anyone.
 They tell nobody. Isn't that nice?
 
The further catch is, in chapter 28 of the Gospel of Matthew, the angel in the tomb tells them to hurry and tell the disciples what they've seen. And so they do it--
Matthew 28:6 "He is not here; he has been raised, just as he said. Come here and see the place where he was lying. 7 Go quickly now, and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from death.' ... 8 So they left the tomb in a hurry, afraid and yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples." 

The Gospel of Mark has said that they didn't tell anyone!
Isn't that nice? 

4) In chapter 28 of the Gospel of Matthew again, the women hurry away from the tomb and encounter Jesus on their way to the disciples’ place! They go tell the disciples that they saw him, and the angel sitting outside.

 The catch is, in chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke, the women go tell the disciples that they saw two angels in an otherwise empty tomb. That's all they say!

 Thus, you see, in the Gospel of Luke,
they didn't tell the disciples they saw and talked with the risen Jesus!
I guess it must have slipped their mind.
In fact, this Gospel failed to report that Jesus met them on the path going back.
I guess it wasn't very important.
Isn't that nice?

Oct 24, 2014

Where does morality come if not God?


Where Does Morality Come If Not God
Why it's a superficial question. 

A question from a debate:
Matt Dillahunty and J.T. Eberhard vs.
John-Mark Miravalle and Mark Miravall
@ 53:30 "Where does morality come if not God?" 

Bible believers assume that their God knows morality when they ask where moriality comes from.
For example, they say God commands things. The catch is, though, it isn't axiomatic that the commands have anything to do with morality. That is, theists are unable to demonstrate that the commands are moral.
Because commands and morality are two different things, they don't have any assurance that morality itself comes from God. 

Where does morality come from if not God?
From people.
It comes from people, the way people are. 

Again, there's no way for Bible believers to verify that morality comes from God. 

It comes from people.
Morality is often relative. It stems from the way people perceive the world.

Oct 20, 2014

Jesus as history

Jesus as History.
Why Jesus of the Gospels Isn't Historical. 

Christians say that most secular Bible scholars agree that Jesus was a real person.
But what the secular scholars actually mean is, Jesus was an ordinary man; he didn't do miracles.
That is, he wasn't the Jesus of the Gospels.
Jesus wasn't divine is their view; the Gospel writers spun yarns about a supposed miracle man.
 
A Christian view is that the Gospels satisfy all the scholarly criteria of reliable historical documents.
Well, modern historians don't place their trust in claims of miracles; so the Gospels fail to meet all of the criteria, after all. 
 
No scholarly view can show that the Jesus of the Gospels is real and not fiction.

Oct 18, 2014

W.L. Craig argues God does what he wants


W.L. Craig Argues God Does What He Wants.
Why his argument flops.
 
@3:00 W.L. Craig, Christian apologist, responds to atheist Sam Harris, who mentions biblical barbarisms.
@4:00 Craig says, "Those things can't show that God doesn’t exist; they might show “the Bible isn’t an accurate record of what God is like. In writing the narratives, the ancient Israelites got it wrong about God." 
 
Dobbie says: Well, then, for one thing, W.L. Craig should abandon the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.
Earlier, he allowed for Bible inerrancy. Later, however, he explains that "in writing the narratives, the ancient Israelites got it wrong about God."
W.L. Craig hasn't decided his mind.
 
Moreover, in behalf of God's actions in the Bible, @5:45 Craig says, “God is not bound by the same moral duties that we are.” 
 
Dobbie says: So then God causes destructions, after all. How typical of W.L. Craig to turn his own statements around.
Besides, one wonders why God commands warriors to destroy city populations when he could hurl a lightning bolt, thereby doing the job himself. 
 
I ask, Will the real W.L. Craig please stand up.

Oct 14, 2014

W.L. Craig argues fine tuning of cosmos proves God

W.L. Craig Argues Fine Structure of Universe Proves God.
Why his argument doesn't work.  

Fine structure of the cosmos concerns the precise energy forces of the cosmos. W.L. Craig says that science postulates that, for example, if gravity strength was universally changed by a tiny fraction, the result would be chaos or a much different cosmos. 

Craig says the fine-tuning isn't due to physical necessity or chance, either; so our life-supporting cosmos is the only possible one. 

Well, I say that until he observes a different cosmos, he can't know if his conclusion is sound.
Besides, it's been postulated that our universe is almost flat in shape, and such flatness causes the fine tuning of the forces. So the fine tuning is due to a physical necessity, after all. For example, gravity strength has to be the way it is now, owing to a flat universe.
Yes, it's only speculation.
Meanwhile, W.L. Craig thinks he brings closure to the matter, as if he has the one and only answer.
But, a news flash for him--he hasn't got the one and only answer.

Oct 12, 2014

W.L. Craig argues that the Holy Spirit is real


W.L. Craig Argues That the Holy Spirit is Real.
Why he doesn't know what he's talking about. 
 
W.L. Craig says the witness of the Holy Spirit is real evidence that Christianity is true--
“I think Martin Luther correctly distinguished between what he called the magisterial and ministerial uses of reason. 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. ... 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.”
Source:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2931

I say that it sounds as if he doesn't value critical thinking very much. Put reason aside and serve the Gospel.
In fact it doesn't sound to me like "a ministerial (reason serving the Gospel) use of reason," either. Instead, it seems as if reason is to be tabled altogether. 

Somehow I doubt that the Roman Catholic Church agrees with W.L. Craig where he says that Martin Luther is a good reference. It was the Roman Catholic Church that branded Martin Luther as an outlaw in 1521.
Imagine the Roman Catholic Church saying Martin Luther was in touch with the Holy Spirit. It almost seems as if I'm supposed to believe that both sides had the witness of the Holy Spirit, yet opponents.
Perhaps it's an instance in which Christians are supposed to table reason and simply accept that the Roman Catholic Church and Martin Luther both communed with the Holy Spirit. 
 
Thus W.L. Craig gives an unconvincing argument for the reality of the Holy Spirit. And gives an equally unconvincing argument that reason should be tabled in favor of his version of the Gospel creed.
His perspective is anything but convincing.

Oct 9, 2014

W.L. Craig's rhetoric is scrambled


W.L. Craig's Rhetoric.
Why it's scrambled.
 
The Existence of God, a podcast by W.L. Craig, Christian apologist, is the long version of his Ontological Argument (his so-called proof of the existence of God).
 
As in either version--long or short--of his argument, his basis is to agree with the premise of a certain scholar; then he treats the premise as true, simply because he agrees. 
 
I, Dobbie, say that, naturally, mere agreement doesn't equate to truth. 
 
He also says that postulating about a universal designer might lead to plausible truth, not absolute truth; he says that reasoning alone isn’t enough. 
 
But he overlooks that his postulations, which are plausible to him, might not be plausible to others. 
 
In the podcast, his classroom students ask challenging questions. But he often answers that “God did it” is a logically plausible answer more than anything else is.
He doesn't say why it's more logically plausible. Nor does he ask the class whether it thinks it's plausible.
 
Other ineffectual statements of his podcast--
Podcast: Existence of God: part 4 by W.L. Craig.
 @31:00 He says that atheists believe the cosmos came from nothing at all.  

Dobbie says: No they don't. 
 
Existence of God: part 10.
@22:00 He says the cosmos came from absolute nothing. 
 
Dobbie says: Who says? Physicists say it came from nothing they know about, and often refer to the unknown as “nothing.” Unfortunately, when they talk like that, physicists cause confusion since the standard understanding of "nothing" is "nothing whatsoever and no potential."  
 
In Existence of God: part 6
@09:00 W.L. Craig knows that when physicists talk about the nothing, they mean a quantum flux field.
Earlier he said one thing about "nothing." Now he said the opposite. 
 
He argues that a premise needs to be true, but then argues that a premise needs only to sound plausible.
Thus, he sends mixed messages and seems to keep his fingers crossed that the audience won't catch on to his glib statements.
 
sources:
Craig’s classroom lecture.
Part 1

Part 2, etc. 

Oct 6, 2014

W.L. Craig argues for one God only

 
W.L. Craig Argues For One God Only.
Why his argument is arbitrary.  

W.L. Craig, Christian apologist, explains why there’s only one God.
The Existence of God part 13
Criag: "On the basis of this argument [Ockham’s Razor] alone, it doesn’t prove monotheism, but on the other hand, I think Ockham’s Razor would say that you would be unjustified in inferring anything more than one personal Creator of the universe."
 
Ockham’s Razor states that in order to keep things simple, don’t multiply entities, don't add elements unnecessarily.
Craig, by calling on Ockham’s Razor, says that there's one God, not many gods.
 
But I say that he can't validate his God; so there's really no difference between a claim of the existence of one God or a thousand. 
 
 Moreover, anyone can evoke Ockham’s Razor. For example, if I use it as my guideline, I say (on a lark) that there was one creative day, not six.
Further, I can say that, in order to keep things simple, it prevents the existence of angels. Where the Bible talks about angels, I can say that it merely uses language people can understand, while according to the principle of Ockham’s Razor, there aren't any angels. And what's more, Ockham’s Razor works against the existence of the trinity.
 
Thus W.L. Craig is arbitrary.
It's an easy thing to be arbitrary.

Oct 3, 2014

W.L. Craig argues for the existence of God


W.L. Craig Argues for the Existence of God.
Why his approach doesn't help. 

Existence of God debate.
W.L. Craig, Christian apologist, tells atheists who they are. He says--
@05:00 “Typically atheists say the universe is eternal and uncaused.” 

He doesn't ask them, he tells them. How wonderful. 

The deal is, the secular view teaches a caused universe, not an uncaused one; part of the Big Bang model says the known cosmos had a beginning and wasn't eternal.

W.L. Craig says, “But there are good reasons scientifically to think that the universe began to exist.”  

Did he figure that out all by himself?  

About infinite causes, he says @5:35 “Mathematicians recognized that the existence of an actual infinite number of things leads to self-contradiction.”
But he can't say what exactly an infinite number of things is.
Besides, infinity is a notation in math, not a number. 

He says “For example what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically you get self-contradictory answers.”
 
He doesn't know what he's taking about. Infinity isn't a number to begin with. Mathematicians use the notation of infinity to denote an indeterminate numerical value.  

Even W.L. Craig says, “This shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind but not something that exists in reality.”
Okay. But God is supposed to be infinite. So, by the same token, an infinite God doesn't exist in reality; it's just an idea in your mind.  

Pursuing this business of infinity a little further, Craig says, @6:00 “David Hilbert ... wrote, ‘The infinity is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinity to play is solely that of an idea.’
"But that entails that since past events aren’t just ideas but are real, the number of past events must be finite.” 

Well, the Big Bang theory already says that the observable universe had a beginning. But what was responsible to make it come, we don't know.
 
Empirical events are observed in terms of General Relativity theory, which has a speculative limit (it's what's called the Planck unit, a really tiny measurement.) General Relativity can't account for empirical events beyond the Planck unit.  

W.L. Craig intimates that a reality can't exist prior to the Big Bang as it would be unknown to science.  
He doesn't make sense there. 

Craig says, @7:00 “What makes the Big Bang so startling is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing.” 

No it doesn't.  

Science says that its origin is from nothing we know about; physical laws, as we know them, break down before the advent of the Big Bang. Scientists are trying to come up with new physics for it; quantum physics, for example, postulates the existence of a force field prior the Big Bang.
The Big Bang model doesn't say that there was nothing. 

He says, @7:00 that the late British physicist Paul Davies stated that the Big Bang had no cause. 

Well, in an interview, Paul Davies said the cosmos came from literally nothing, sounding as if he meant nothing at all. But Davies also said: "You push it further and further back until you reach the point we call the Big Bang, and naturally enough you want to ask, ‘Well, what made the big bang go bang? What caused it? What was there before it?’ And the scientific answer is – nothing! And by ‘nothing’ I don’t mean empty space. I mean, no matter, no energy, no space and no time. In other words ‘no thing’ in the normal sense of the word ‘thing’. In particular, there simply was no before for anything to happen in, because time itself began with the big bang.
(source)

 There was "no thing" in the normal sense of the word thing. It's what physicists have been saying all along.
But, W.L. Craig, out of ignorance, or disingenuousness, misspeaks himself.  

W.L. Craig quotes astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler, both Christians. They say that the cosmos came from nothing whatsoever.

http://debunkingwlc.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/wlc-quotes-john-barrow-and-frank-tipler/

Hitchens vs Craig: The existence of God part 3
@00:00 Craig: "At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo. (John Barrow & Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 1986, page 442)." 

Ex nihilo translates to “out of nothing.” W.L. Craig claims this quote represents “contemporary cosmology” while he quotes from a book that's about twenty-five years old.
(Besides, the authors speculate on "if the universe orginated at such a singularity.") 

Craig writes, “[T]he scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the origin of the universe was absolute in the sense that all matter and energy, even physical space and time themselves, came into being a finite time ago. So we have really good grounds for affirming the immateriality of the First Cause.” 

Something immaterial (transcendent) causes something material.
Um ...
I get this feeling that he simply makes things up.

Oct 1, 2014

W.L. Craig on the impassibility of God


W.L. Craig on the Impassibility of God.
Why he made up a rule as he went along.  

W.L. Craig says that God isn’t impassive, isn't emotionless. Craig, without explaining why, rules that an emotional being is better than a non-emotional being.

Therefore, God has emotions.
 
"[I]t is a weakness for a person to be unmoved by human suffering and a strength to feel emotions, including pain, indignation, compassion, etc. In fact, think of the etymology of the word “compassion”: to suffer along with. As the greatest conceivable being, God must be compassionate and share our sorrows and joys. Impassibility is actually a weakness, whereas compassion redounds to God’s greatness."

Thus W.L. Craig says that God has emotions like us.

A different theological view, however, says that God doesn't have emotions like us. Moreover, it says that it's necessary that God doesn't--
"The doctrine of God's impassibility states that God does not experience emotions (as humans understand them). That is, God is 'impassive' in the face of events. God is not surprised, alarmed, chagrined, amused, charmed, angered, happy, frustrated or saddened by events the way we humans are. God isn't, like us, affected by events. If God were affected by things then God isn't Transcendent and omnipotent. You can't 'touch'--physically, causally, or emotionally--God. This doctrine is simply the logical outcome of God's omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. If God knows all things from the beginning of time then he can't properly be surprised by the outcome of events. True, the Bible does suggest that God experiences emotions, even strong and violent emotions. And God even seems to regret some of his choices. But according to the adherents of divine impassibility all this is just metaphor and anthropomorphism." 

It's one thing to take a side. But it's another thing to show it's true.
W.L. Craig takes a whimsical rule and tries to pass it off as reliable.


But it simply doesn't go the distance.