Tonight in Brisbane. Tickets sold out six days ago.
Krauss, called by Scientific American “one of the few top physicists who is also known as a “public intellectual,“ is perhaps best known currently for his position that everything can be got from nothing , a message that, one suspects, sums of public life today. And, … wait a minute, wasn’t that Krauss grousing a while back about how rottenly Craig had behaved during their previous debate?:
LK: Yeah absolutely meaningless and disingenuous in the extreme. The use of those pseudo-equations at the beginning shocked me and it was only after the fact that it really upset me because it really indicated that he had no interest in explaining anything but rather hoodwinkin the students who were there.
Well, he’s back for more anyway, this time in a round table rather than a debate, discussing the question: has science buried God?
Lane Craig, you will recall, recently noted that ID theorist Michael Behe is better known as a theistic evolutionist than Francis Collins, which would be nice if it were true because it would establish a benchmark for honesty on this topic in Christian intellectual circles. Craig is perhaps best known outside Christian communities for the lengths to which Richard Dawkins was prepared to go to avoid debating him.
Anyway, from the promo material:
In his piece, Krauss argues just because it seems like that the world we live in has been created by design doesn’t mean it was. He makes the argument that we’ve often held wrong assumptions about the universe, and it’s likely our current knowledge will be trumped before long. “Everywhere we look,” he writes, “it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.” But that’s the so-called “illusion” we need to fight.
William Lane Craig’s article attacks the notion of materialism or naturalism, wherein the physical world is all there is. In it, he argues using philosophical and scientific logic there must be a reality beyond the physical world. It is a much longer, detailed piece of rhetoric.
It will be interesting to see how the Professors fare in conversation with each other, given they come from different disciplines (science and philosophy) and have faced off in the past, but in a format Krauss refused this time around–debate. City Bible Forum is hoping the conversation style events promote more open discussion and less of a point-scoring approach.
Here’s a previous encounter:
Will UD be streaming this??? 🙂
Can we?
William Lane Craig is like Maximus in Gladiator. No matter what you throw at him he always manages to bounce back and win the day.
Dawkins was clever to hide, Krauss will have to learn the hard way.
Craig is a beast that Darwinists absolutely hate. But, I infer that the more Darwinists hate somebody, the more that somebody is telling the truth.
Craig did a great job in the first debate of exposing how Krauss redefined the word “nothing”. That is the tricky thing with Darwinists and how you can’t have a fair debate with them because, since for one, they don’t believe in truly objective morality, they can redefine terms anytime they find it convenient to do so.
“Truth” is probably the biggest example of this. “Science” has also been redefined to look a certain way to them. That is why they can feel justified in claiming that ID is not scientific. It’s not that it is not truly scientific – it’s just the Darwinists have, once again, redefined what the word means to suit their worldview.
It’s crazy. This is the the type of world we live in.
humbled, Dawkins didn’t hide, he just didn’t want to share a stage with a man who thinks genocide can be a moral act.
5for, perhaps you should check your facts a bit more carefully in the future:
Many times atheists, even though they cannot ground objective morality within their worldview, will try to claim that God, as He is portrayed in the Old Testament, is morally evil. In fact Richard Dawkins, in his cowardly refusal to debate William Lane Craig, upon Craig’s tour of the UK in the fall of 2011, said he would not debate Craig because Craig supported genocide/infanticide in the Bible. This tactic, to try to cover his cowardice to debate Craig, backfired terribly for Dawkins!
Richard Dawkins Approves Infanticide, not William Lane Craig! (mirror: drcraigvideos)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmodkyJvhFo
(Is God a Moral Monster?) Peter J Williams on New Atheists & Old Testament (incl. The Canaanites) – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCbh_1SlwE
5for: you’re referring to objective evil, right?? Genocide would be morally wrong Craig. Dawkins does not even believe in objective good or evil. He has clearly come out about this. Genocide to him would NOT be evil – just less evolved.
And I believe Dawkins said he didn’t want to debate Craig because he is a philosopher. He said the same thing about Meyer too. Except Meyer actually was a physicist for several years. I think it is safe to say Dawkins was thinking about his survival…
Dawkins has mentioned he won’t debate non-scientists as well. Even though Meyer doesn’t fall into that category..
The people who suggest that Christians support genocide and/or infanticide based on the Bible have either:
(a) not read the Bible
or
(b) not clearly understood what they read.
Usually, it’s “b”.
I thought under atheism morality is merely an illusion? Sure, Richard Dawkins may not have thought destroying the Caanites was “good”; but under atheism, how can he opine as if some existential moral framework exists outside of his personal preference?
Should we hold the statements of naturalists on a higher “goodness” scale because they are “men of science”?.
I’ve watched this guy on youtube and he seems very angry type etc etc.
Easy out here for the good guys.
the point is to gain audience and so don’t clobber him too much. if he feels he didn’t do bad he will give another show. they are the ones bringing the audience. they are useful for this reason.
Creationism(s) just need audiences. we have truth on our side already.
5for, another atheist making a philosophical argument against the reality of God, all the while attacking ID and creationist inquiry as being unscientific. The irony is overpowering.
OldArmy, I’m not making a philosophical argument against the existence of God, I’m simply commenting on WLC’s morals. I thought he said that if God commanded him to commit genocide he would, and that it would be moral by virtue of God commanding it. But maybe I got that wrong?
DinoV I don’t know where you got the idea that under atheism, morality was an illusion. What an unusual thing to think.
5for, does it not strike you as the least bit strange that there is always an air of arrogance about Atheistic claims against God? For instance, besides Atheists having the audacity to proclaim, without an objective moral basis, that God as portrayed in the O.T. is evil, their arguments for Darwinism, many times, also turn out to be along the lines of ‘no sensible God would have designed such and such that way’ (insert vestigial organ of choice here), even though Atheists cannot even account for the origination of a single functional protein by purely material processes.,,, Most sensible people would be, and are, a bit more humble in their judgements about what God would and wouldn’t do in this universe. Especially before rushing off to condemn the God of all creation who holds the fate of each man’s soul in his hands.,, Maybe it does not strike you as arrogant, but that superior attitude of Atheists has always struck me as severely misguided to put it mildly!
‘DinoV I don’t know where you got the idea that under atheism, morality was an illusion. What an unusual thing to think.’
Why, 5for? Perfectly logical. If you all have your own idea of what constitutes morality, as atheists, you have no objective morality. Period.
Dawkins doesn’t beat about the bush on that subject. It’s just that, like all of you, he comes over all querulous when, anomalously, he changes tack and inveighs against what he imputes as moral outrages on God’s part.
Axel, do you think genocide would be moral if god commanded it?
5for @ 15:
It’s not unusual when you consider that atheists truly have no objective moral standards to adhere to. Morals are developed by the culture and society to which one finds oneself born into. There are no moral absolutes.
No 5for, I don’t think it would be moral. But then you see, my belief in God’s superior virtue and justification do not rest upon a few things things I find puzzling and disturbing, but on a welter of heavily countervailing evidence, both written and through communion with God in prayer.
Consequently, not presuming to pass judgement on God, I put such questions on the back-burner, since I know that one day, it will all be made plain to me. However, should you wish to learn the answer now, perhaps before it’s too late for you, why don’t you listen to William Lane Craig’s YouTube videos. I believe in one debate he does go into the matter, though all I remember is that the peoples that the Israelites massacred used to burn some of their children as human sacrifices.
Read the new thread on a book by C S Lewis. A materialist inveighing against genocide or any moral outrage is a nonsense. It’s as if a huntsman were to call a hunt saboteur a delinquent or a thug, and read the riot act to him for trespassing (on a farmer’s land, which he and his crew are trespassing on).
A trivial comparison with a tremendous outrage, but in principle, no different, since you have NO rationale whatsoever for claiming an objective morality. One man’s massacre is another man’s ‘defence of national security’ (or perhaps ‘a pre-emptive strike against terrorism’, since any survivors might just be tempted to engage in a little asymmetric warfare.)
So, my answer is simple, but with an important rider. With my limited, human understanding, my answer is, no. But don’t tell God, will you. I certainly won’t presume to.
I think when we talk about what God commands in the Bible, we’ve crossed over into a area where one needs to have a biblical worldview to understand it. And this will be very difficult for someone who doesn’t. All Christians (including Craig) believe that God did command the Israelites to mass slaughter certain people groups in the Old Testament. These were isolated, descriptive acts of justice against these people groups. And this is where the biblical worldview makes sense and must be understood.
God is morally perfect. He is righteous. Holy. Makes no mistakes. He defines the objective moral standard and keeps it perfectly. Everyone (including Atheists) admits they fall short of keeping an objective moral standard. That is why we all can say “nobody is perfect”. Since God’s standard is a perfect standard, God is perfectly just and righteous to eternally punish those who disobey, even once. It makes perfect sense – not that we can relate to a perfect God (because we all fall WAY short) but logically, it makes sense that one mistake would condemn us forever before a perfect God -since by one mistake we can never uphold the perfect standard ever again.
These people groups were child sacrificing, pagan worshiping, heavy in immorality cultures. God decided to execute his wrath (which was perfectly just and right) on these people groups. God did no wrong in commanding the mass slaughter. Now, if these people groups had never broken the perfect moral standard – then one could accuse God of being injust. But no, no, and no. That is not what happened.
In actuality, from a biblical worldview (which I believe makes the most sense of the reality we live in) ALL of us, including yours truly, deserve eternal punishment and pain because we have not just broken the objective moral standard set by God once, or twice, or ten times. No, everyday I fall way short!
That is why Jesus Christ came to earth to die for our sins and live the perfect life that we should have lived. By faith in Christ – God sees the righteousness of Christ inside of us and our disobedience is completely paid for. So God’s perfect justice is satisfied by what Christ did on the cross, and we are viewed as living the perfect life he lived on our behalf. God views the believer under grace. If God gave us all justice none of us would be able to survive. But, thankfully, God is a God of mercy and grace..