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Debate: Is God a Delusion? [UPDATED]

The debate last week at Auckland University between Dr William Craig Lane and Dr Bill Cooke on Is God a Delusion is available for viewing at MandM

Being Frank has a their impression of the debate. EyeWitness says:
I was a little disappointed the atheist doctor (I’m sorry I cannot remember his name) could not present better rebuttal to Dr Craig’s arguments. He didn’t really argue on the debate topic of proving God does not exist.
You can't prove that God does not exist. Hence, that's probably why Cooke did not go there.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that Ian Wishart went along. Sounds like it was crowded in there!

And now for an edifying excerpt from Touchstone that I came across a couple of weeks back through a Insight Scoop article.
“Is there anything more?” is the scientific question, but as Pascal asks it, the “scientists” vanish.

The agnostics ski down the mountain into the woods, searching for hard evidence on the basis of which to decide whether God exists—which is very odd, given that a moment ago they were standing here with us, ready to climb as declared skeptics. Agnostics, plainly, are wafflers in their skepticism: As the team gets going, they U-turn back to the foothills, where every true skeptic says there is nothing to find. They do not care about the truth.

But even more astonishing than that, the atheists have just gone home. They are not down in the valley looking for evidence; they are not looking at all. They have packed in the science without lifting a boot, as if the summit were already taken, the question answered.

The atheist is the team-member who was always talking up the loftiness of the mission, but after all his fervid urgings to “search for what is true, even if it makes you uncomfortable,” to go on no matter how hard and painful the going gets, he is the chap who grandly announces, without bending a knee, that victory is ours: “God should be readily detectable by scientific means.” “Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” We now “rule out the God worshipped by most Jews, Christians, and Muslims.” The climb is done, and the atheist scampers back to town to meet the press.

Hattip: Put Up Thy Sword

Comments

  1. "You can't prove that God does not exist" Dare I :)

    You can't prove that a tribe of tea drinking Albanian talking Elephants do not lead a civilisation in a planet near Andromeda.

    You can't prove that human beings weren't a species transported a million years ago to Earth for observation from afar by an alien species which is seeking to return at some distant point.

    You can't prove that I didn't eat a sandwich in Cardiff around 2 weeks ago.

    You can't prove every negative that is conceivable.

    Next...

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  2. Bill Cooke's inability to engage with Craig was a little disappointing but I have no doubt that another speaker, or Cooke on another day, could have faired better.
    As far as debates go, Cooke pretty much rolled over and surrendered as soon as it was his turn to step up to the mic. I spoke with a certain atheist/agnostic university lecturer afterwards who was able to show with ease the fallaciousness of at least one of Craig's arguments. Even myself, as an untrained agnostic theist, found objections to some that were never voiced ('fined-tuned universe' - why didn't anyone bring up multiverse hypotheses, e.g. Bubble theory?) Author of confusion also did a good job of giving some reasonable objections to Craig's points: http://authorofconfusion.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/william-lane-craig-bill-cooke-public-debate-palmy/

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  3. Ben, hate to burst the multiverse bubble but that's, like, so last century.

    I took it to pieces in The Divinity Code, as have others.

    Multiverse is just an appeal to faith under another name.

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  4. Liberty

    "You can't prove every negative that is conceivable."

    Really, so you can't prove that there is no planet between mars and earth. You can't prove that there are no 1,0000, 0000, mile high African elephants. You can't prove that there are no new Zealanders that have 15 arms and are 2o feet tall... etc.

    I strongly suggest you not justify atheism with absurd and false claims like this.



    Oh and btw if it’s the case that (a) you can't prove a negative, and (b) in the absence of proof for a positive existential you are rationally required to deny this claim. Then there is a good argument for the existence of a creator.

    Consider

    [1] There exist physical objects which were not created by God

    This is a positive existential claim so if what (b) says is true, then, in the absence of proof for [1] we should believe its denial. However, seeing atheism is a negative claim and negative claims can’t be proved ( according to (a)), it follows that one cannot prove that [1] is true.

    So presumably following the “something can’t be proved therefore we should believe its denial logic” one must believe

    [2] Its not the case that there exist physical objects which were not created by God


    Which, of course entails that every physical object that exists was created by God?

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