Where to start?
Ah, hell: may as well start in order since your rebuttal is a complete mess otherwise.
Argument from Authority
WLC is not citing anyone as an expert when he quotes members of society. Rather, he is pointing to their output as proof of where their stated lines of thought ultimately come out.
The proof, or authority, of the quotes is that they show the results of a certain type of thinking. Nothing more, nothing less.
False Dichotomy
You complain that WLC has set up a false dichotomy, but have failed to replace it with anything else. Certainly in ANY thinking person's mind, there is no place between God and atheism, no alternative reality that both allows for and rejects the existence of God.
Non Sequitur
This is used to compare two unlike items, a result or outcome which simply cannot arise from a particular action or situation--- usually with comedic and/or non-nonsensical undertones. If a situation as was described by WLC were true, the conclusions he states are the only ones that would make sense, the only ones that would logically follow.
Ad Hominem
An attack on the person. Nothing within the test quoted from WLC is remotely close to an attack on the atheist, just the atheistic position.
See you in church.
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Originally posted by VoidSpiritHere was googlefudge's personal response to his life's meaning.
craig's argument boils down to:
"i can't think of any reason for living without god. in conclusion, there is a god."
Does it confirm or negate what William Lane Craig said was the absudity of life without God ?
Craig:
If death stands with open arms at the end of life’s trail, then to what end has life been?
Is it all for nothing?
Is there no reason for life?
Is there no purpose at all for the human race?
Or will it simply peter out someday lost somewhere in the oblivion of an indifferent universe?
Googlefudge:
And my response to "Why do you exist then ?" is simply that I have no reason for existing,
nor need a reason for existing, other than that which i make myself.
I exist because my parents decided to have kids, as their parents before them ect, back to the start
of evolution with first life, and then before that because conditions for life to form were possible in this
part of the universe, and that this part of the universe came to be like this in the first place.
None of which has, or needs, any reason... it just is.
I think he pretty much just confirmed the lecture's point.
Especially when he agrees with Craig and admits " ... that I have no reason for existing, ..."
Originally posted by jaywillFunny how you quote him, then proceed to quote him out of context. Its as if you are begging to be called out on it.
I think he pretty much just confirmed the lecture's point.
Especially when he agrees with Craig and admits [b]" ... that I have no reason for existing, ..." [/b]
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Originally posted by googlefudgeMy cat asks why all the time, so do the aliens who live in the pinwheel galaxy.
“He’s the only creature in the universe who asks why.
Other animals have instincts to guide them.
So do we. Man follows his instincts a lot more than people realise.
But man has learned to ask questions
Actually, we learn by asking questions, but we are not unique in this regard.
Well ever since the enlightenment when modern man threw off the shackles of religion he’s tried to answer those questions without reference to god.
Funny how many people are convinced that Western English history is 'the past'. Where I come from, 'the shackles of religion' were only put on relatively recently and are yet to be thrown off. Many parts of the world have never put them on in the first place.
Modern man thought that in throwing off god he’d freed himself from all that stifled and repressed him.
Huh? What gave him that idea? Does he find god stifling and repressed? And who is this 'modern man' character in the first place? Does William Lane Craig see himself as ancient man?
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Originally posted by twhitehead
Funny how you quote him, then proceed to quote him out of context. Its as if you are begging to be called out on it.
Funny how you quote him, then proceed to quote him out of context. Its as if you are begging to be called out on it.
No need to beg for anything. I quote in full context.
Then I quote emphasizing what I think are the most important words.
I don't think there is anything in googlefudge's paragraphs there that was not explained by Craig as an attitude of modern man trying to make sense of life, void of God.
But I would have to double check on one part about so-called - "no need for meaning". This I think is the only move the dispairest can make to make the absurdity bearable. Since he cannot detect any meaning, he embraces the void and proclaims, even proudly, "There is no need for a reason or meaning" in this absurd existence.
This is like "If you can't beat it, join it."
I think VoidSpirit is a great one at this as his tag suggests. He seems proud to just accept the bleak emptiness of the absurdity - to love the Void as Winston in Orwell's 1984 finally learns to love Big Brother.
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Originally posted by twhitehead
My cat asks why all the time, so do the aliens who live in the pinwheel galaxy.
[b]Other animals have instincts to guide them.
So do we. Man follows his instincts a lot more than people realise.
But man has learned to ask questions
Actually, we learn by asking questions, but we are not unique in this regard.
Well ever since the en ern man' character in the first place? Does William Lane Craig see himself as ancient man?
My cat asks why all the time, so do the aliens who live in the pinwheel galaxy.[/b]
This is just wishful thinking without any evidence that I know of.
You might call it a "faith" of your own in there being aliens in outer space.
Sure, we can hope that they are there, and like us they ask "Why?"
It might make us feel more at home in the lonely vastness.
Originally posted by jaywillBut you quote them - and interpret them - out of context. Its like me quoting the Bible and saying "There is no God but Jehovah"
No need to beg for anything. I quote in full context.
Then I quote emphasizing what I think are the most important words.
Ha, the Bible agrees with me, we both say "There is no God!"
I don't think there is [b]anything in googlefudge's paragraphs there that was not explained by Craig as an attitude of modern man trying to make sense of life, void of God. [/b]
The difference being that googlefudge has no problem makeing sense of life void of God, Craig thinks it is indicative of the existence of God.
But I would have to double check on one part about so-called - "no need for meaning". This I think is the only move the dispairest can make to make the absurdity bearable. Since he cannot detect any meaning, he embraces the void and proclaims, even proudly, "There is no need for a reason or meaning" in this [b]absurd existence.[/b]
Why is it absurd? Why is your existence any less absurd? All you do is hide the lack of greater meaning in a sugar coated layer in the hope that nobody will notice.
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Originally posted by twhitehead
My cat asks why all the time, so do the aliens who live in the pinwheel galaxy.
[b]Other animals have instincts to guide them.
So do we. Man follows his instincts a lot more than people realise.
But man has learned to ask questions
Actually, we learn by asking questions, but we are not unique in this regard.
Well ever since the en ern man' character in the first place? Does William Lane Craig see himself as ancient man?
Where I come from, 'the shackles of religion' were only put on relatively recently and are yet to be thrown off.[/b]
Africa has had moocho religion, big time for a long time. What's this "Less Religious Then Thou" stuff ?
And judging from your belief in questioning aliens in spiral galaxies, without a shred of scientific evidence, it sounds like your shackles are quite up to date and modern.
Originally posted by jaywillThat depends on what you mean by religion, and what you mean by "a long time". In Zambia they didn't get Christianity until the 1900s. Prior to that most beliefs centred around ancestors and witchcraft. Not what one would generally call religion.
Africa has had moocho religion, big time for a long time. What's this "Less Religious Then Thou" stuff ?
And judging from your belief in questioning aliens in spiral galaxies, without a shred of scientific evidence, it sounds like your shackles are quite up to date and modern.
It is no less valid (or scientific) a belief than Craig's. He thinks he knows about the whole universe, I am only make a claim about one of billions of galaxies.
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Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]The logical fallacies and other flaws in WLC’s arguments.
The purpose and point of a logical argument is that if properly formulated you start with premise A and through your logical reasoning deduce that IF A Therefore B.
In other words given your starting premises IF the logical argument is correct then the conclusions MUST also be co ...[text shortened]... isrepresent what rationality is.
There is more, but it's late, and I can add more later.[/b]
Well by far the most prevalent logical fallacy that riddles then entire thing is the theists favourite...
Argument from authority.
WLC uses an inordinate number of quotes from various notable literary and philosophical figures to support his ‘arguments.
None of these quotes contain any actual arguments or reasoning but are simply conclusions stated without any reasoned backing.
For example he cites Fyodor Dostoevsky as saying “if there is no immortality, then all things are permitted.”.
How would googlefudge suggest any lecturer present a lecture and resort to extensive quotation of a person's entire book or play?
I see no logical fallacy in ANY lecturer supplying selected portions of other's works to develop his own points.
It is desireable that such a speaker do so liberally rather than sparsely. It is true that he could always be called to defend if he is taking the quotation to mean something OTHER than what that person meant.
He is not saying Godot argued for the existence of God. He is saying Godot wrote a play strongly implying the absurdity of man's life as if waiting for NOTHING.
How is Craig's reference to Godot's point in his play an "Argument from Authority" ? And how could googlefudge object to Craig refering only to a most relevant portion of Beckett's prose without first requireing the audience to review the whole body of Beckett's's prose. The goes with the other references.
This first cirticism of Craig's talk I find very weak. Graig's point ? Lots of thinking modern minds agreed to the absurdity of life.
Maybe a more effective criticism would be to demonstrate that life with God was also portrayed as absurd, by supplying evidence of some other people. Let googlefudge do that homework. But the book of Ecclesiastes would have been, I think, a good place to go for that point.
Godot, who to be expected to come but remains eternally absent, probably is God. The absurdity is largly due to this relentless absence of the main character.
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Originally posted by jaywillExcept that Craig states his points as facts, and uses the works to try and make his claims look more substantial when he has not in fact made any argument. He finishes off a whole lot of quotes with the conclusion:
I see no logical fallacy in ANY lecturer supplying selected portions of other's works to develop his own points.
Thus if there is, no god, then life itself becomes ultimately meaningless man and the universe are without ultimate significance.
Yet despite the "thus" he has failed to provide any argument to back this up. All he has is people that agree with his conclusion. It does look more like an argument from authority than the use of supporting quotes to develop his own points. He doesn't really have any points. He just has an unsubstantiated claim.