Hello People
So I was watching the Hitchens v Craig debate again (I was greatly disappointed) and came up with my own rebuttal to some of Craig's points and in between comments. I will only share a couple. Please feel free to let me know of any loopholes in my logic. Devil's advocates welcome.
Thanks,
Joseph
Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8MzPmkNsgU
Craig stated that he's belief in Christianity and specifically, his denomination of Christianity, is a result of his assessment on what doctrine is most logical. Well his logic didn't go far. In fact, I presume that it didn't go past his childhood home. If you're going to decide what doctrine rules your life based on what the most logical religion is, it's only logical to ensure that you have considered every religion that is, at the very least, known to man before arriving at a conclusion. He may be a theologian, but I doubt he has studied every religion out there). That's every religion and every denomination of each religion.
Which brings up the case of "brethren" in his religion which he mentioned. He stated he may not agree with Calvinists and believes their teachings are wrong, but they are all brothers despite - implying they will all go to heaven regardless of which kind of Christian they are. Now I know for a fact that it is stated amongst at least most of the individual denomination's Book of Revelations that any emends made to their Bible is equivalent to a sin against the Holy Ghost and I also know that the law that states false teachings are sins against God is general knowledge. If these are the cases across all the denominations, then they each believe the other will surely burn in hell. Why would Craig believe that his God will overlook the false teachings (whether knowingly or unknowingly it was false) and allow them into the same heaven as he? I observe that he believes his God is an understanding god; one that, therefore, approves of their skeptic nature, if you will. Well I would like to know why the permitted maximum degree of skepticism is set so low. My mistake. There are actually no specifications set forward to endorse the idea of a permitted maximum degree of skepticism. And if your rebuttal is along the lines of "acceptance of Jesus Christ as Earth's Savior and the Son of God is all that is required", does that make being a skeptic to an unspecified and impossibly attainable degree not a sin and therefore those that indulge in such way of thinking are not doomed to hell (that would arguably consist of everyone, ever). If you claim it is still a sin, then I argue that your God permits non-repenters into heaven contrary to general belief. If you say it isn't a sin, then I conclude that there is no such thing as sin sanctioned by God that we can ever have knowledge of as there is neither a way to determine what else is not a sin nor one to determine for what is.
In the event that you say false teaching is a sin, I hysterically consider the scenario for the Calvinists, Baptists, e.t.c. where they commit the sin of "false teaching" and God forgives them, but they never repent so they sin immediately after - and thus the cycle begins. Eventually, God will decide to end the world as we know it and what side of the coin of forgiveness and sin is faced upwards at this time of reckoning will determine the fate of the aforementioned sects of Christianity. If I were in the shoes of one of the cults and it were my fate to burn in hell, I would argue that such abstract elements like probability and time, which had majority roles in the game of sin and forgiveness, were out of my control and not properties that existed in the realm of "free will" that he granted me. Therefore, I should not be held accountable.
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If god actually care about what happens to a human if they follow the wrong teachings then why doesn't he come a teach us the right one? Why is there great punishment for growing up with the wrong beliefs? That why i dont even bother
If there is really god who can control the world, we will not experience chaos.
If god doesn't forgive worship to the wrong god, then statistically there is little chance of going to heaven, no matter what god you pray to. Especially if each denomination makes a difference.
If god does forgive not worshipping him, but instead judges each individual for the kind of person they were, then almost all atheist will go to heaven.
And if the atheists have gone to heaven, how could that be heaven for William Craig and all those reality denying, hypocritical theists?
"So I was watching the Hitchens v Craig debate again (I was greatly disappointed)"
well Hitchens understood his audience(mostly Christians) and did not fall for the trap set up by Craig.
what trap?
Simple, you do not let you opponent dictate what to argue about.
Apart from that this was a debate about the existence of god, not just a christian god.
So your rebuttal does not really fit in this debate.
Craig was trying to make a sound case for a deistic god(which was wrong btw) and then trying to assimilate a theistic idea in. (with flawed logic)
So Hitchens first reasoned that to challenge everything Craig said, some degree of philosophy and science was needed, which his audience lacked. He knew that if it comes to believe him or his opponent on those matters, his opponent would surly be chosen.
So he started by pointing out the credulity of believers in trying find understanding of their god through:
- First denying and then accepting evolution.
- The wastefulness and randomness of such a thoughtful god they assume he is.
- The appeal to their self evaluation of humbleness to think that all this was done with them in mind.
- The concept of being created sick and demanded to be well by a thoughtful god.
-"Seek and you shall find", pointing out that they(theists) ARE trying to find a way that their god exists.
- Religion first attempt and because it is the first it is outdated and hinders progress.
- The arrogance of Craig regarding assumptions in the cosmological argument
- All the destruction hindering the fine tuning idea.
The idea here is to instigate the concept of doubt USING things they have accepted already.
If I had to do a rebuttal of Craig without the christian audience and more time, it would be like this:
Craig is a wanna be philosopher or at least a disabled philosopher lol
Cosmological argument:
He first starts by making a False Dilemma fallacy.
Basically he claims that the universe is not infinite because making infinity - infinity is undefined.
He is assuming that those 2 things are related.
Then he makes a LIE that infinity does not exist in reality but "just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in reality" (17:00 in the debate)
We all know that infinity is part of reality, 1 can actually be divided in an infinite divisions.
You can cut a circle in an infinite number of divisions.
(This fallacy may also be referred to as the fallacy of the excluded middle, the black and white fallacy or a false dichotomy.)
So he starts by putting the audience in a wrong position that no real scientist of philosopher holds today by quoting people that where wrong making an "Appeal to Irrelevant Authority" Fallacy.
Again, he says that , "the series of past events cannot go on forever" just because the universe we can see had a beginning.
Assuming again that what we can see is the whole universe, that no scientist or philosopher holds today.
The big bang is not the origin of the universe but the theorized origin of the universe we can see, in fact there are confirmed objects in the universe that are considered older or as old as the age of the known visible universe.
How? because the big bang could be just 1 of multiple big bangs that happened before and some remains of the previous or farthest away big bangs could have entered into the zone of this big bang.(there are several more hypothesis on this)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDs4ViCnFOw
The big bang explains the origin of the stars we see but the "empty" space(which has INFINITE energy) has still no known date and Craig is equating the 2 as the same making an other 'Affirming the Consequent Fallacy'.
Again at 18:00, he is wrong, space itself did not come from nothing since we have not yet experienced what nothing is.
The quote is to say, that from no matter, matter appeared from the big bang and he is assuming a lot of things too, which Craig did not list.
So under all those wrong claims, the rest of what he says is just flawed and fallacious at best.
The theological argument:
The odds of life permitting universe by chance is by far possible from recent discoveries since space itself could build the building blocks for life, on asteroids in the harshness of space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g7AKVZ3HC4
So with enough time the chances are clearly much greater then Craig is calculating, even more if we assume an INFINITE universe.
The moral argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGuVZmUVwcM
If there is any doubt about anything else, just think that if we knew that killing people in a certain way, gave a good result like them resurrecting and becoming immortal, we would most likely kill people everyday.
So morality is subjective to knowledge and there has been no one that even hinted at showing the objective morality exists.
No, not even Craig.
Then I would go on what Hitchens pointed out and add a couple more.
You have to understand that you just have 20 minutes to do all this with an audience which does not have a concept of doubt with regards to their religion or their preachers(including Craig).
In my view hitches handled it the best he could in that situation.
I need to find a way to get back my 2 hours, 27 minutes and 49 seconds of time and attention back. I may have actually lost IQ points listening to Dr. Craig.
Okay, it wasn't a total loss. Hitchens' rebuttals may have been diplomatic and non-offensive, but they were none the less intellectual and logical.
Many of us love a good Hitch-slap, but there was once a gentler Hitchens who dearly wanted to show theists the error of their ways in a compassionate and non-offensive manner. This is the Hitchens that drew me in to his universe to begin with.
And though it doesn't make me love him any less, it was a bit painful to watch him become more jaded and calloused after years of banging his brilliant head against the brick wall of theism.
Sometimes it's waste of time listening to two religious arguments that are both declaring mythical reasoning.