Yup, that’s basically what the argument states. Arriving at it on your own is damn good work. It’s not simple stuff.
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Just to be clear, I have very briefly looked at WLC, Keller, Ravi, and others. So, I’m sure there’s some help, if you will, in organizing my own thoughts.
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Can you summarize this for me? I am aware of it, but I don’t want to take someone else’s summary and assume it is yours, and I know like with the Kalam, people have slightly different versions of it (see WLC).
I see a lot of swing and miss too. Stuff like getting the name of the savior wrong. Describing a savior much different than how Jesus is described. Additionally, I think if you have a popular holy book predicting a savior, that there is a high probability eventually someone is going to claim that they are the one.
Where is paradise? You make an assumption here.
If you are saying there are some factual errors and contradictions in the Bible, I would agree with you. We talk about the Bible as it is a single book and it is, but it’s also many books, which in itself has a deeper meaning.
That does not mean it’s false, it depends on the context and the point of a particular parable or story. It may not be a factual account, but a story to illustrate a particular truth. I usually tell people, when they ask that the Bible is a book of truth, not a book of facts. It’s not a history book, or a math book,or a science book. The number of troops in the army of Judah are recounted differently by different authors, but the points are illustrating a ‘truth’. Also, many of the books were written accounts of oral tradition.
It’s a good question as to why they just didn’t write the shit down when it happened, I do not know the reason.
LOL! That’s a fair point too, or you can look at it as if there was no Savior, there would be no Bible. There are lots of intricacies to play with…
Good conversation, I appreciate it, I really do.
If I don’t answer for a while, I am not ignoring you, just off to do other things. I will get back to you…
All strong intellectuals… They certainly debunk the ‘dumb Christian’ myth. One may not agree with them, but they are damn sure not dumb.
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Hmm, I mean you’re right, heaven wasn’t specifically stated, but it’s a strange hill to die on, for me. Paradise, I would assume to be some form of heaven. Maybe he got an all expenses paid trip to Hawai’i?
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Do you take this verse to mean something other than heaven? It isn’t explicitly stated, but it does seem like logical conclusion to think that is what Jesus was implying.
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I don’t think they are dumb either. Let me ask this though. Am I right to assume you thought WLC beat Hitchens in the debate? I did not see it that way. I thought Hitchens pointed out a few assumptions by WLC that could not be proven to be true, and thus sunk his argument.
WLC keeps going and doing seminars, debates and such in which he uses these assumptions which he has been shown to be unsubstantiated, without telling the audience that they are unsubstantiated. I still think he is smart, but I think he needs to admit what he doesn’t know (I think he is being a bit dishonest).
Just a heads up @mnben87, pat has been down this road before. If you want entertainment this is the “philosophical” discussion that pat referenced, although it’s hard to read as it’s from the old forum format: Proof of God, Continued
This one is amusing where the confusion from pat was the difference between a negative number and a negative statement. Really entertaining at around 300 posts: What's Your Religion and Why? - #318 by pat
Anyway, not to take wind out of your sails if you want to continue, just giving you a heads up where it leads.
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That is indeed quite the read. I sure hope this doesn’t take 300 posts. I’ll most certainly give up by then. I do have trouble staying focused, and go on tangents.
LOL! If you want to read a 6 year old thread go ahead. This drew guy has some weird obsession with me. He’s followed me from thread to thread, just to drag me. And yep, I had a gotcha moment on me in that thread.
I still say I did pretty well considering I was on an opiate cocktail that could stop a charging rhino in it’s tracks after a major back surgery…
We were discussing PSR, if I remember correctly and I botched an argument. 1 mess up in many years is a pretty good track record, I think. I must have some celebrity status for it to still be remembered and apparently celebrated. Anyway, onward and upward…
I can tell your specifically why I think WLC won the debate. He stayed on topic, consistently hammered away at the points and Hitch had no answers.
Hitch was all over the place talking about the Bible or Mother Teresa, but he never really tackled the argument. I think Hitch would have conceded he lost that one, he gave up his last rebuttle opportunity. And that was the moment I thought he lost.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t like Hitchens, I actually liked him despite his atheism. He was a hell of an orator and writer and he made good points on lots of other things, too. He wasn’t a mean guy, his best friend was a baptist minister. He wasn’t militant like Dawkins. He actually butted heads with Dawkins quite a bit.
I can take you to meet him if you want and you can challenge him yourself. He teaches a class in Atlanta every week for free. Don’t think he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or what the pro’s and con’s of an argument is. He’s written extensively about that topic and he can defend his points, well, trust me. That’s what I got from challenging him.
Keep in mind, in a debate format, he’s there to win. If his opponent doesn’t force him to defend premises then he won’t bother. He doesn’t have to self-challenge on a debate stage, that’s what the opponent is supposed to do. Few have, which is why you won’t see him do it much in a debate. He did do it to the now disgraced, Prof. Kruass in the Australian series. It’s 3 days of debates. When they got to the definition of what “nothing” means is when they get to the nuts and bolts.
Agree here. He did have issues staying on topic, and IMO should have just stuck with flaws of the Kalam.
I would really like to see Dillahunty debate WLC. Dillahunty does better at staying on topic than Hitchens IMO, and is better at formal debate IMO. I guess WLC will not debate him though, so that is probably not going to happen.
Agree on this. His brother (Peter) is a Theist, and has debated Christopher. Hitchens was all for open debate, and seemed for the most part to respect his opponents. I think the respect for the opponent and openness to debate is true for Matt Dillahunty too.
As far as the Kalam, the issue I have is the assumption that everything that begins to exist has a cause. I don’t know if that is true or not. It is possible that somethings always were. That possibility destroys his argument. Hitchens should have just kept pointing out that Craig was talking about stuff he doesn’t know is true or not, and that he is assuming (which makes is argument invalid).
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Sorry I didn’t get this to you earlier. Here is a good link for you… Keep in mind it’s not my argument, I wish I had come up with it, but I didn’t. People have often referred to “your argument …”. It’s not mine, I just defend it. I don’t make it.
If you want to go strait to the argument, it’s at the top of the ‘Answer’ portion.
Ah, and that’s the meat of the question… Yes it’s possible for things to have ‘always been’ in a temporal sense. Math, for instance, (yes I use the example all the time) is eternal, it has no beginning and no end. But does it exist for no reason? That’s the sticky bit, because to say it does has vast implications. For instance, If math, why math? Why not English?
It all boils down from the most profound question ever asked, “Why does anything exist, instead of nothing?” Dead-man Liebiniz asked it and it’s a very good question.
We don’t know if matter always existed or not. Big Bang could have been a collapse of a universe, and then a rapid expansion. We just don’t know. I am not asserting that is what happened. Just that we have lots of possibilities.
So his second point about the universe having a beginning isn’t necessarily valid. If we don’t know if the premises are true, we can’t determine if the conclusion of the argument is correct or not.
That exists, but it was a panel with WLC, Dillahunty, Dawkins, Zacharias and a few others. It wasn’t a great format, though. The moderation was kinda terrible, but it exists if you want to see it.
It’s kinda ironic considering Dawkins was apparently terrified to debate WLC.
WLC would debate anyone anytime, it was kind of his trademark. But he is no spring chicken. He clearly has some ailments and he now wears a metal leg brace. It may be possible that his debate days are behind him. If a debate didn’t happen, it was because the opponent didn’t want to. He may have a couple more in him, but his tour de force is largely done.
They could pass for twins. Peter is just as sarcastic and pompous as his brother. I remember somebody asked him if him and Chris got along, the answer was short, “No!”. lol
Well science seems to think so, that the universe had a beginning. I am aware of Inflation Theory and the Multiverse theory. The multiverse theory, dare I say, does require a lot of faith. It’s hardly scientific, there is not a shred of evidence of it. It’s a mathematical possibility from an incomplete theory of inflation and nothing more.
And sure the universe could have always existed, temporally, but why? Does it exist for no reason? Did it pop into existence out of nothing and if so, how?
He didn’t prove God exists. He can’t prove God exists. So he can’t win a debate in which he needs to prove God exists. In fact, a Christian trying to prove God exists misses the whole point of what faith is.