When an argument is wrong, that should be proven with refutations ...

... not with gas about how easy self deception is, as if that did not apply to you and your collective as much as to anyone of us or to us taken together!

Lawrence Krauss embarrasses William Lane Craig in this debate
Yon Choi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-A_SU3m5c

I

Krauss said it would never happen with a Christian group to provide him with whisky (or whiskey?) before a talk. But what about Catholics?

I gather, William Lane Craig is, though doctrinally a modernist, confessionally Catholic as opposed to Evangelical, and thus he might not be against the whisky.

II
Krauss on « why not Islam ? »

Only one of them can be right ... Islam and Christianity both profess in some sense to believe what Jesus said.

Gospels give us eyewitness and earwitness accounts of what He said. Quran gives us Fifth Surate. Which is more believable?

III a debate

of some sorts …

louisrr01

Folks...LOK...you can "believe in God" all you want...if it makes you feel good. But with computers, technology, mass communication...YOU ARE proving yourselves VERY moronic.

Best to keep the "historical Jesus" to yourselves. You have NO clue about the "history of jack."

HGL

I find that comment about as moronic as Piggy in LotF (Golding, not Tolkien, Tolkien is LotR).

Exactly what in a computer is it that makes you believe there is no God? Exactly what in technology and mass communication (except some prominent content of the latter) is it that makes you believe Jesus was not true History, with Miracles, Resurrection and the Founding of the Church and all?

Piggy said "if there were ghosts, TV and elevators and refrfigerators wouldn't work" and only got the halfwitted reply "what if they don't do here?"

But the real reply is "barring a ghost acting as a kind of poltergeist and deliberately upsetting technology, what is it in ghosts that would make TVs and so not work?" And the obvious answer is: "nothing."

louisrr01

+Hans-Georg Lundahl What I am suggesting my friend is that with mass communication and with improved technology, for example the ability of a computer (programmed of course) to determine complex mathematical formulae, logarithms, etc, with the processing of statistics and data sets, it appears that "simple" (from simpletons), "answers" to complex riddles...can NO LONGER be taken at face value. And people can now communicate, and therefore are not subject to silly fables and aggrandized explanations of "people" events and meanings.

In other words, folks are increasingly LESS subject to fantasy, and more apt to apply science. With that information comes the KNOWLEDGE that NO god exists.

6,000 YEAR OLD Earth? How do you morons explain

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/12/18/neanderthal-genome-shows-evidence-of-early-human-interbreeding-inbreeding/ *?

Or the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event? Can't be done Miss Piggy.

HGL

I am not either Miss Piggy or Piggy of LotF ...

Human - Neanderthal interbreeding means simply that Neanderthals in the pure shape are an extinct human race type, unlike Alpine race type or Mediterranean or East Baltic or Nordic race types which are not extinct in their pure i e typical forms.

The so called extinction event more or less presupposes there are LOTS of places where you find dinosaurs below a certain level (in Cretaceaous layers) and Palaeogene usually land fauna above same level (in Palaeogene layers).

As far as my USE OF MODERN MASS COMMUNICATIONS (like wikis in this case) is concerned, there is NO such place.

In Yacoraite in Argentina you find Cretaceous and Palaeogene layers, but the fossils in either are typically neither dinos nor sabre toothed tigers, rather more or less same fauna.

I have tried to get in touch with people over there, I have NOT heard on what grounds part of the Yacoraite site or of its layers is called Cretaceous Maastrichtian and part Palaeogene Danian.

There are questions that are in their nature very complex, like "how does the light signal get from environing objects seen by it to the brain". There are other questions which in their nature are very simple and which require a simple answer, like "how does a signal arriving into the brain turn to a visual sensation" and the simple answer is we do not just have a brain but also a soul capable of receiving visual impressions.

"In other words, folks are increasingly LESS subject to fantasy, and more apt to apply science."

As far as you have shown that is not so, but "science" is your new mythology or magic.

louisrr01

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You keep thinking that genius.

"... and the simple answer is we do not just have a brain but also a soul capable of receiving visual impressions." ???

HOW DO YOU KNOW? Oh yeah, "the simple answer."

You don't live in a real world. "In other words, yes." People are less subject to fantasy, how about you?

HGL

Fantasy may be the label you give to spiritual realities.

As for me, it [=fantasy] is one of the interior senses or faculties: the faculty to visualise absent things.

OK, so what is your COMPLEX answer as to why the brain is able after whatever decoding to actually SEE the picture in the light beams?

Just calling your little bluff.

louisrr01

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Fine, as I said previously, you can think anything you want..."as for me" you say. Whatever works for your life. But, to suggest "fantasy may be a label that you..." is FIRST to require and agreed understanding of the meanings of "fantasy" and "spiritual" That will not happen.

And "reality?" Who determines that? You?

For example, I believe that when someone says "Jesus spoke to me," is a RAVING lunatic, arrogant, or deluded. You may suggest such and experience is "real," or "spiritual." I could discuss numerous REAL reasons why "Jesus speaking," (in one's head) is a sign of dysfunction, but I will not waste my time.

You know. Instead someone like you will suggest the "faculty to visualize ABSENT things."

[Red. comm.: Anything speaking "in one's head", whether Jesus or Elvis Presley singing a song is "in fantasy" i e in the faculty to visualise absent things. Whether either of them - both as absent in time or space - has personally a causal connexion to their images being in anyone's head is quite another matter. I was simply explaining what the word "fantasy" means./HGL]

You see that as TRUTH. I see it as supposition. We will NEVER agree on the subject of religion. Most subjects anyway. For example, I will agree that religions exist, and for many peoples, religion helps them identify, socialize, and provides meaning and comfort.

But...faith does not PROVE truth.

HGL

Excuses, you took the word spiritual somewhat wrong.

I did not intend it to include only DISEMBODIED spirits accessed in our experience only by the inner voice William Lane Craig speaks of.

I intend the word to mean ALSO EMBODIED spirits, i e ourselves.

And no, I am NOT saying that this is a complex subject. It is precisely here that I disagree with neurologists and say the reason we can see is ULTIMATELY very simple. Precisely as the reason we can know. Namely that we are not just matter, but matter coupled in subtle ways with spirit.

The reason why I asked you to give the complex reason why we ultimately can see is that you refused to believe this simple one.

louisrr01

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Enough, you faithful do not know when to admit you do not know what you are talking about OTHER THAN your own belief system...when it comes to the subject of religion.

There is no point discussing fact or evidence with the likes of you. Feel good about it there are MANY of you. Who cares? If you do not want to admit that your belief system is ALL the fact you have...well then DON'T.

No one is going to change your mind or make to investigate yourself, in a few paragraphs on You Tube. You are right (in your mind) and you will continue to banter in order to prove it to YOURSELF.

You say:

"ALSO EMBODIED spirits, i e ourselves." Again how do you know and how to you speak for other? Pretty complex COMMENT, hey? Sounds like propaganda. You have NO WAY of proving this comment.

"DISEMBODIED spirits accessed in our experience only by the inner voice William Lane Craig speaks of."

Who cares what you or Craig think? "Inner voice?" Tell it to yourself...YOUR "inner voice." If you want to call thought and "internal discussion," "spirit or god" by all means do so, YOU and Craig...but DO NOT speak for others. That is ARROGANT.

"It is precisely here that I disagree with neurologists and say the reason we can see is ULTIMATELY very simple. Precisely as the reason we can know. Namely that we are not just matter, but matter coupled in subtle ways with spirit."

You are KIDDING, right? You don't agree with neurologists? OK expert, don't. "Ultimately very simple?" OK omniscient grand know-it-all. Think what you want.

Again, ANYTHING to support (in your mind) YOUR, I repeat YOUR faith. Means NOTHING to me, sorry.

"The reason why I asked you to give the complex reason ...?"

NOTHING you have said to me is complex. You want to think that, by presenting as you say "the simple answer."

Practice your English on someone else. Your conversation is saying NOTHING.

HGL

It is not arrogant in the least to analyse the human mind as resulting from a spirit being life principle of a biological body.

Nor is it arrogant in the least to point out that what you have offered and what neurologists offer is NOT a valid alternative theory of why we have a mind.

I did not ever claim to offer something complex either. I pointed out that YOU had bragged about preferring complex explanations to simple ones. And then that it does not work very well for the human mind.

IV more debate

luvdomus

Krauss is at least honest and straightforward when he argues. Craig tries to disguise his supernatural beliefs as logic, as if his religion isn't good enough to stand on its own.

HGL

What exactly do you mean by "logic"?

[Obviously, see later down, luvdomus is taking Krauss' word for what is logic and what isn't, since he has no education in logic on his onw. "Why don't they teach logic in these schools?"]

What exactly do you mean by a religion "being good enough to stand on its own"?

Sure that Krauss honesty and straightforwardness is not simply his saying the kind of things you are accustomed to hearing?

IamaFreeWillOffering

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
It was a ruse for lying through his teeth. atheists are so arrogant, they want to pretend that every aspect of the truth of God's Word is all a fantasy of people's imagination.. because they are void of integrity and character.

luvdomus

+IamaFreeWillOffering Krauss is merely asking to see physical evidence of God's existence. That is not 'arrogant," that is sensible.

HGL

No, Krauss is seeing physical evidence of God's existence all the time and denying it is evidence.

By his "warning" against syllogisms, he is simply forbidding the public to learn more about logic, which is about distinguishing "evidence" from "non-evidence". It was very dishonest.

DerEchteSenf

Craig's personal believe has nothing to do with the topic of the debate, so if Craig would argue from his personal religion, he would be off topic. It would be silly to presuppose Christianity is true and then conclude from that believe in God is rational.

Given people watch these only for entertainment purposes and not to learn about arguments, maybe that would be fitting, though.

HGL

"It would be silly to presuppose Christianity is true and then conclude from that believe in God is rational."

What about Krauss presupposing his scientism to be true and arguing from that that belief in God is irrational?

luvdomus

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Science is merely the best description of how reality works based on observation, experience and honest, rational thought. Science is knowledge, but it never pretends to be absolute, as new data can shine new light on a situation. Religion is many things, but fundamentalist religion is superstitious doctrine based on lazy minded ignorance and you can't equate that with scientific fact.

DerEchteSenf

+luvdomus
Science and scientism are not the same thing.

luvdomus

+DerEchteSenf "Scientism" is a propaganda buzzword invented by religious ideologues to undermine science as part of a larger culture war aimed at replacing reason with religious doctrine. It failed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Not with me.

No, it is NOT a buzzword. There is such a thing as science, for instance a science that studies the properties of discreet quantities like 1, 2, 3 (numbers), and a science that studies the properties of proportions, rational or irrational (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:3, 3:2, 3:1, 2:1 or pi, phi, e, sqrt(2), sqrt(3)). There is a science that studies where planets and stars will be as relating to angle of observation from earth (planar astronomy). There is a science which studies similarities and differences between animals or plants (zoology, botanology) or functions of life (cellular biology, digestive biology ...) and a few more.

There is also a scientist ideology which comprises Heliocentrism, Acentrism, Big Bang, Darwinism, Abiogenesis and a few more, and in which God and angels are for instance seen as "superfluous explanations" to be cut out of all scientific discourse. You and Krauss are heavily into that one.

"Science is knowledge, but it never pretends to be absolute, as new data can shine new light on a situation."

The simplest explanation for day and night is God turns the Heavens around us. The simplest explanation for movements of heavenly bodies relative to the overall movement of heaven is angels pushing planets in their orbits around a sun which is also pushed in an orbit, and angels also pushing certain stars in other movements, as those considered parallaxes.

Once upon a time Heliocentric Newtonianism (which Krauss basically still believes in) was thought to be simpler. New observations have made that scenario more and more complex, so that now Occam's razor clearly favours the explanation in vogue before Newton (which he never bothered to refute, btw). But the scientists are still hanging on to it with further and further and more and more complex adjustments, like relativity, like quantum, like dark matter, and God knows what more. THat is NOT letting new data shine new light on the situation.

DerEchteSenf

+luvdomus
That's a funny conspiracy theory, but scientism is simply a philosophical terminus technicus and it does not have any implications regarding the need or suggestion to replace science with something else.

It's simply the idea that all meaningful question can be answered by science. Something you most definitely do not need to believe to do proper science, so it is a different thing from science itself.

luvdomus

+DerEchteSenf Religious fundamentalists see education as their enemy, and rational thinking as a barrier to fundamentalist domination of our culture. Reasonable conclusions based on observations of physical phenomena are not subject to ecclesiastical authority, so they must, in the minds of religious zealots, be undermined-- in favor of 'divine revelation' and holy writ.

DerEchteSenf

+luvdomus
It's trivial that such persons exist. That is not why people discuss science and scientism.

luvdomus

+DerEchteSenf Only right-wing fundamentalist Christians discuss "scientism" or even use the word. Likewise, fundamentalist Muslims hate Western education because it gets in the way of their desire to control minds through supernatural beliefs.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+luvdomus , you seem very much more eager to denounce as evil and stupid and deceitful a group that you do not belong to, than to accept even any criticism of your own group.

If you call me fundie, I am not offended. If you call me rightwing, I am not offended.

But if you say rightwing Christian fundies want to control the mind of the future generation and that they attack rationality and education with buzzwords like in "scientism is just a buzzword", then I am offended and I do consider that you are guilty of spreading buzzwords. Like the phrase rightwing, fundamentalist Christian. And of course, calling scientism science, calling Darwinism only and Heliocentrism only (no teach the controversy allowed) education in the classroom and rationality at the university, that is also a prime example of buzzwords.

+DerEchteSenf , it is sad when people like you do not oppose such abusive language with anything better than "it is trivial that such persons exist".

V

Scriptures being inconsistent with "what we know about science".

Scenario a) what you think you know about science, for instance Heliocentrism, is wrong (heard of The Principle?)

Scenario b) Scripture is being misunderstood. Nowhere does it use, for instance, the word Flat about the Earth. And the four corners of the Old World are still there - SE and NW corners cut off like islands, both under Elizabeth II (UK and Oz), as is or was recently the SW corner (Cape Town), but not the NE one, Sachalin. Americas and most of Oceania would then count as a kind of Earthsea, off the mainland, and the four corners of the Earth are in a phrase where the word for earth can also mean mainland or even country. Like Latin Terra rather than Tellus.

VI

"All the stories about Jesus have occurred elsewhere" ... you will not ever find any one in which all occurred. Or even most of them. And you will even find stories which did NOT occur in any sense even just mythologically elsewhere, like Crucifixion and Resurrection.

somewhere else : What a blooper, Dan Barker from Atheist League!
[his blooper being an "argument" against the testimony of five hundred on resurrection.]
short link: http://ppt.li/rrxn

VII

William Lane Craig tries to warn of syllogisms.

[Update: Krauss tries to warn of them, sorry. Against William Lane Craig's.]

THEN he makes an example by using a quaternio terminorum.

• All mammals exhibit homosexual behaviour.
• William Lane Craig is a mammal.
• Therefore ...

What he meant by the first was presumably not "all individual mammals" etc. but:

• Some individuals of each mammal species exhibit homosexual behaviour.

Now add:

• William Lane Craig is an individual of one mammalian species.

If you know something about syllogisms, you will know you cannot form a syllogism that goes:

• Some mammals are homosexual.
• X is a mammal.
• Therefore X is homosexual.

That is not how syllogisms work. One can demonstrate that in diverse ways.

The two premisses are particular. Technical question : are they, is the second so? But, presuming it is, de mere particularibus nil sequitur. You have to have a general, exceptionless statement involved if you want a syllogism. Not that both premisses need to be, but at least one needs to be.

Question is of course whether "individual" counts as particular because it is not all of its species or exceptionless because it contains no one individual which is an exception to the truth about this individual.

Here is a better one: the middle term is "mammals" and it is undistributed in both premisses.

It is undistributed in "Some mammals are homosexual," because it comes afer "some". It is undistributed in "X is a mammal" because it is an affirmative predicate.

Such usually do not mean "X is every mammal there is". But distributed predicates are available in negatives. "X is not a turtle" means "X is not any turtle at all of all the turtles there are."

So, in order to "warn against syllogisms" Krauss is actually warning against undistributed middles.

Of course, his initial statement is a parody of the fact that premisses need to be true for the conclusion necessarily by logical necessity to be so too.

"Checking for internal consistency" ... Krauss, that is exactly what syllogisms are for. Not your parodic fallacious example, where premiss 1 is misstated from the syllogistic terminology of "some" and "all" (supposing it is not a lie and invented to discredit heteronormality), but real and valid ones.

VIII

Animal suffering - Krauss has a point against Craig.

A compassionate God would not allow animals to suffer UNLESS it was for compassion for someone He loved more : man. Animals (at least vertebrates) did not suffer in paradise. One of the first things after being driven out of Eden that signalled to Adam and Eve they had done something wrong, even before knowing of Cain killing Abel was: animals were suffering. That had not happened before they ate of the forbidden fruit.

"Oh boy, God is warning us death which we earned will be something like this."

Except Adam hardly said "oh boy" to Eve, and Eve did not do it to Adam, but this is how Kent Hovind would have told this.

IX
(Krauss had said Christianity is shoved down throat of little children)

There are many or few different reasons why people are atheistic science believers.

One very plain one is science belief being "forced down the throat" of very young children.

I was not feeling forcefed when told the earth revolves around itself and that that is why the sun seems to go up and down, which I no longer believe, any more than I felt forcefed when told the earth was round and its roundness being so large it seemed flat when seeing only a very minute part of it, which is still do believe. And I did not feel forcefed when told about us being evolved from other animals either, which, once again, I no longer believe.

BUT I was about three when being told of "basic astronomy" (one of the facts being faulty, in my mature view) and I was five or six when discovering what evolution meant in a kindergarden book on it.

Face it, science belief is really very much given to very small children. AND factoids (which you would call facts) incompatible with Christianity are also told along with it.

Including the Averroist or Avicennist error of thought being a kind of byproduct of the brain (not meaning it can occurr successfully when brain is impaired, but why that is can have other reasons than epiphenomenality - and these make better sense).

X
Back to Theory of Knowledge

"That is what science is trying to overcome ... those natural predelections of believing" ... ok, I believe this is your programme, but does that mean it is reasonable? Does it mean it is reasonable to suppose technological efficaciousness of science receives its validity from that?

No. One economist pointed out that sailors used magnetic compasses centuries before there was a theory of magnetism accepted today. Of course, their idea it is a property conferred by the stars (or at least it was the idea of academicians back then) may be the true one ... but if so modern science may be false or inadequate. Either way technological prowess is not even proof of complete understanding, let alone of being correct on a level more concerned with programmatic statements than understandings of details. And above programmatic statement is not only counterintuitive, but even probably antihuman. Without being in the least divine or as superhuman as it pretends to.

When an argument is wrong, that should be proven with refutations, not with gas about how easy self deception is, as if that did not apply to you and your collective as much as to anyone of us or to us taken together!

"A theory is only as good as its assumptions."

Not quite, logically that is true (a theory is logically no good if based on faulty assumptions not parallel to the real ones), but factually it may be right in spite of wrong assumptions.

"We know that when we go far enough back in time ..."

We know that you are not going back in time and looking at what was there, but guessing what it was, based on your assumptions.

The more they are counterintuitive, the less suspect is your guess of being right in our eyes.

XI

I think a comment of mine was removed.

When Krauss enumerated things that no longer needed supernatural explanations, one of them, actually the first one, was like:

"We had angels pushing planets in orbits - Newton removed that".

I think I did cite it and reply: did he now? He never bothered to refute the other explanation, and since it was standard he had it for free. AND, when it came to optics, the experiments with prisms, he was even constructing an alternative explanation and checking that it was wrong, before concluding his own one was right. So, he never refuted the angelic view of stellar and planetary movements in relation to the overall heavens. Just like he never refuted the God based explanation of Heavens moving around Earth each day and night.

I also misunderstood the reference to biochemistry "refuting the divine spark" (are biochemists really looking for it correctly?) as a reference to God based only abiogenesis. And I mentioned that we have not seen phospholipids form in Miller Urey like experiments.

Wonder what happened to those comments. Btw, here I am repeating that.

XII

56:02 Krauss: "There are many assumptions that make these [theories?] look artificial, that does not mean they are wrong!"

Special pleading is allowed if on behalf of atheism?

I think one or two other comments of mine were removed as well.

Krauss said that it would have been much more surprising if we had evolved in a universe in which we cannot live. I pointed out the bad logic in that.

In a Universe in which we cannot live, we would not live, except perhaps by a continuous miracle. If we could not live, one argument of Theism would indeed be logically refuted, but we would not be there to enjoy the refutation.

He is gratuitously presuming that we evolved rather than were created. He is also gratuitously presuming that the fact which is to be explained by evolution, our being there, provides and explanation for the evolution, when it does not.

Yon Choi

Hi Hans. I just want to let you know that I have never removed any comments posted on any of my videos. I'm all about free speech.

Hans Georg Lundahl

OK, quite possible.

In that case, there are two other possibilities.

I have been hypnotised to do so and to forget it is one. Someone has abused admin privileges either as overruling what happens on screen of my computer or as stealing my password. I recently changed it again, btw.

Thanks for letting me know, I just found your comment after sending you what would otherwise have been construable as an accusation.

Yon Choi

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Although I am an atheist, I really do like reading comments from Christianity's point of views. I don't post on my channel because I don't want to get trapped in getting into a debate on my channel, but I see no reason why I would want to remove any comments. It would not be a fair forum if I did that. There is something that I cannot control. When I'm away from the computer for hours. and when I return, I notice that sometimes on the comments settings, there are usually between 10-30 comments under "likely spam". I don't know if those comments get posted right away, but I always approve them all without reading any of them. I personally don't care what anyone comments on any of my videos.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Oh, thank God.

Then, hopefully me not being under hypnosis, one may suspect admins over here. Thank you!

* Went there, looked, I found a quoteable thing:

Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. At various times over the past 50,000 years, three different groups of early humans – Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans – lived in the cave. Copyright Bence Viola.

OK, race types like Denisovan and Neanderthal have disappeared. So ? How does that contradict the Biblical time scale ?

Because a scientist says it was during 50,000 years ? Well, is not that exactly what I mean by using « science » as a magical amulet !

What was it that was said in another context :

If you want to call thought and "internal discussion," "spirit or god" by all means do so, YOU and Craig...but DO NOT speak for others. That is ARROGANT. … You don't agree with neurologists? OK expert, don't. "Ultimately very simple?" OK omniscient grand know-it-all.

Now, why not apply this « do not speak for others » to the belief in dating that cave 50,000 years back ? Why not accuse the ones who did that of being ARROGANT and omniscient grand know-it-alls ? Perhaps, precisely, because « louisrr01 » is using « science » as a magical amulet./HGL