A suggestion for Dr. Dawkins

If you’ve seen Richard Dawkins’ response to William Lane Craig, you know that he really does not need my help. I can’t resist making one suggestion, though. If Craig goes through with his intended stunt, and puts an empty chair on the stage at Oxford to represent Dr. Dawkins’ non-appearance, Dawkins should respond in kind. But he shouldn’t waste his time on the small fry. Dr. Dawkins should challenge God to a debate. There should be an empty chair on a stage somewhere, and Dawkins should stand up beside it and say, “Well then, I believe that according to William Lane Craig’s rules of engagement, I am now entitled to declare that God is afraid to face me because He knows He’s wrong.”

Not only would God’s failure to show up make great blog material, but the Christians would fall all over themselves explaining why a refusal to show up does not mean you’re running away scared.

The set of all facts

Jayman raises an interesting point regarding Leibniz’ cosmological argument (as summarized by Pruss).

Pruss’ second point is: “there is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts.” Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the material universe is not contingent. Nonetheless you seem to admit that there are contingent facts. This entails that there is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts (the union of all contingent facts).

I’m not sure what point Jayman thought he was proving by that, but it does suggest an interesting line of philosophical inquiry.

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The complete schedule of Dawkins’ non-appearances

William Lane Craig is really hyping Richard Dawkins’ refusal to debate him on-stage in Oxford. But, as Dr. Dawkins himself points out, this is not just Craig’s, um, “victory.”

In the interests of transparency, I should point out that it isn’t only Oxford that won’t see me on the night Craig proposes to debate me in absentia: you can also see me not appear in Cambridge, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, if time allows, Bristol.

I’m sure that believers ought to be able to find any number of opportunistic evangelists, in each of those cities, to stand up and boldly declare that they’ve out-argued the famous biologist on that night. Could be the most “successful” night apologetics has had in nearly 2,000 years.

And just by the way, is William Lane Craig as afraid to debate John Loftus as he pretends Dawkins is?

Godless govt. prevents Biblical justice

Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the Dallas First Baptist Church, turns to the Bible for advice in how to deal with Harold Camping and his failed end-times prophecies.

Jeffress confirmed with The Christian Post on Thursday that he is still condemning Camping.

“The Bible says that if someone makes a prophecy that doesn’t come true he is to be considered a false prophet and stoned to death,” he told CP. “Harold Camping has made at least three false prophecies about the day of the Rapture. And so, if he’s not going to be stoned to death, he at least needs to be muzzled.”

Yeah, it must be really frustrating for a Bible-believing Christian to live in a godless nation that won’t even let you carry out Biblical commandments on how to treat your fellow Christians.

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Leibniz’ proof of Alethian deity

Our friend from last Monday, the “brick through the window” guy, has taken me to task for getting Leibniz’ cosmological argument wrong (though he’s really blaming William Lane Craig, who made the argument I was critiquing).

You (Craig?) misrepresent the Leibnizian cosmological argument. It should be summarized as follows (taken from Alexander Pruss’ chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology):

(1) Every contingent fact has an explanation.
(2) There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts.
(3) Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact.
(4) This explanation must involve a necessary being.
(5) This necessary being is God.

The cool thing about being an Alethian is that Christian philosophers have a habit of setting out to prove the existence of God, and end up proving the existence of Alethea instead. Take Anselm’s ontological proof, by which he attempts to prove God’s existence by calling Him “something than which nothing greater can be imagined.”

And certainly that than which a greater cannot be imagined cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is at least in the understanding alone, it can be imagined to be in reality too, which is greater.

Did you catch that inadvertent reference to Alethea? Alethea is just another name for Reality, and in order for God to be real, He must exist “in Reality.” Reality is therefore greater than God, or at least the Christian God, because if God were real, then Alethea would comprise all that God is, PLUS all real things that are not God. The Christian God, therefore, is not “something than which nothing greater can be imagined,” but rather Alethea is.

Isn’t that awesome? Anselm, in trying to prove his God, ended up proving mine instead. And Leibniz does the same thing, without meaning to.

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God’s “simple” mind

The “brick through a window” guy from last Monday has got me thinking some more about William Lane Craig’s rendition of Leibniz’ cosmological argument. Here’s what Craig has to say about God.

 As a pure mind without a body, God is a remarkably simple entity. A mind (or soul) is not a physical object composed of parts… Certainly such a mind may have complex ideas…but the mind itself is remarkably simple.

The more I think about it, the more I think he’s right about God’s simple mind.

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Physics and Philosophy

Over at the other blog, my coverage of William Lane Craig’s cosmological arguments has attracted the attention of a commenter whose URL is biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com. He has at least one comment on each of my posts starting with the one I published three weeks ago, and part of his first comment is this:

I see no reason to believe that the cause must occur before the effect. For example, if I throw a brick through a window, the brick does not pass through the window before the window breaks. At the precise moment the window breaks the brick is acting upon the window. Cause and effect are simultaneous.

He’s responding to my argument that time (and thus the material universe of space-time) must exist before cause and effect is possible, because cause and effect exist in a chronological order, and the cause has to happen before the effect. I know what I want to say in response, but perhaps some of you who know subatomic physics could comment on whether or not I’m on the right track.

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