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. 

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