Has Anyone Noticed Neopolitan's "Craig's Top Errors"?

[Philip Rand]

whateverist...

Like neopolitan & your sprinter you have hit a brick wall...

You don't even know where to start do you?

Never win a race that way!

[john doe]

whateverist...

You don't even know where to start do you?

This seems on the edge of disrespectful to me.  Rather than escalate, I'll leave you to it.

[HIJ]

I don't read clickbait, so I haven't read anything titled "Craig's Top Errors," as it likely--like clickbait in general--is not sophisticated.

[Friendly Banjo Atheist]

whateverist...

Like neopolitan & your sprinter you have hit a brick wall...

You don't even know where to start do you?

Never win a race that way!

Philip, with all due respect, you are cluttering this thread. Perhaps you could do what I am doing, just sit and observe a bit, and hopefully learn?  Give it a try?  Please.

[john doe]

Agreed.

Lion, Neo: the stage is yours if you want it. 

Not another peep out of me on this thread.

[Lion IRC]

Hey, this threads open to everyone.
Banjo Atheist, whateverist, Phillip Rand, me...anyone.

I just want to work through my complaints about neopolitans blog articles one-by-one.

And neopolitan has agreed not to haggle about biblical theology.

[Lion IRC]

LionIRC,

Does this mean that you don't want to take on the challenge of proving the existence of your god without using the bible as an authority?

No, it does not mean that.

[neopolitan]

Ok, LionIRC.  I'm just waiting for you to take the next step, whatever that is.  To continue with the morality argument, to wrap up the morality argument,  to start on a new argument (in which case I will wrap up the morality argument) or to commence defending your god without appealing to the bible.  I'm flexible.

[HIJ]

I confess: I took a look at what he had to say in regards to the "taxi cab fallacy." Here's something worth noting: I skimmed the article, and a few of his links, but only saw references to debates--it is not clear whether this person has actually read any of WLC's scholarly work. Hence it is not clear whether or not he ought to be taken seriously.

So Neopolitan: have you actually read WLC's scholarly work? If so, what have you read? Next question: why do you only reference debates if you have read his scholarly work?

[Lion IRC]

I've stayed gender neutral in referring to zir posts. Not too sure about neo's gender.

The taxi cab articles appear to be more of a fixation on who first coined the term rather than whether such a fallacy exists - and if so, whether WLC is justified in claiming that it is a valid rebuttal.

I think many atheists do commit this fallacy - however you name it.

It's the equivalent of saying who cares how we got here, or belittling "why" questions as irrelevant.

It's also rather pertinent to neo's hand-waving dismissal of the bible as persuasive evidence of anything as far as bible skeptics are concerned. How we got the bible is as much a part of the evidence as what's IN the bible.

The Jesus Seminar uses the so-called historical critical method to write off much of what's in the bible about Jesus, but where then do the Gospel/NT writers get their material from if not real historical events?

So imagine if the Christian were to say...ignore how we got to this point, don't worry about the role played by the history of the early Church - just accept what the bible says here and now. THAT would be the taxi cab fallacy.

And yes neo, I can argue for God's reality without the bible. Noah didn't have a bible. Job didn't have a bible. Abraham didn't have a bible. People had reasons to think God exists long before the bible was written.

And FYI, if I argue without reference to the bible, it's mere theism which is all I need to defend.

And it's a LOT easier to argue that.

[neopolitan]

I confess: I took a look at what he had to say in regards to the "taxi cab fallacy." Here's something worth noting: I skimmed the article, and a few of his links, but only saw references to debates--it is not clear whether this person has actually read any of WLC's scholarly work. Hence it is not clear whether or not he ought to be taken seriously.

So neopolitan: have you actually read WLC's scholarly work? If so, what have you read? Next question: why do you only reference debates if you have read his scholarly work?

The thing that annoyed me, having listened to a few WLC debates (curse the person who suggested that I listen to Sam Harris, curse also Sam Harris who is responsible for sparking my interest in the WLC juggernaut), was that WLC trots out the same handful of abysmal arguments over and over again and yet his opponents appeared to be unprepared for them.  Some did better than others (Maudlin I think was the best, but memory might be failing me), but no-one seemed to anticipate WLC's tactics and come prepared with canned responses to his canned arguments.  I might be cynical but it seemed to me that they all just wanted to sell their new books or get a moment in the limelight.

I was particularly incensed by what I saw as the towering stupidity of WLC's moral argument, enough to write something about it (The modified William Lane Craig moral proof - but originally as a comment at JW Gray's Ethical Realism blog) to place it on a new created blog and then follow it up with commentary on WLC's debating tactics (Debatable Theism).  Then I was off and the next step was to systematically rip apart each of WLC's staple arguments - as raised in debates.

That I focus on his debates should be of no surprise to anyone.  And I have no interest whatsoever in purchasing (or encouraging a local library to purchase) any of his "scholarly" works.  I do use his puff pieces on Reasonable Faith from time to time and he is welcome to be as scholarly as he wants there.

If he uses fallacy in his debates, which reach far more people than his "scholarly" work ever will, but he doesn't in his "scholarly" work, then that's his lookout.  Being honest with his academic colleagues (if indeed he is) doesn't redress any duplicity with the general public.

[neopolitan]

And FYI, if I argue without reference to the bible, it's mere theism which is all I need to defend.

The best of my knowledge, WLC only has one canned argument that goes beyond mere theism and that's the resurrection one.  Many of them go no further than deism.  I'm willing to grant you deism because it's functionally indistinguishable from atheism, you just replace the intellectually honest answer to "how did the universe begin?" with "god" (the intellectually honest answer, just in case you're not sure, is "we don't know").

So, I'm ready for your defence of mere theism.  Enough circling, let's hear it.

[Language-Gamer]

I confess: I took a look at what he had to say in regards to the "taxi cab fallacy." Here's something worth noting: I skimmed the article, and a few of his links, but only saw references to debates--it is not clear whether this person has actually read any of WLC's scholarly work. Hence it is not clear whether or not he ought to be taken seriously.

So neopolitan: have you actually read WLC's scholarly work? If so, what have you read? Next question: why do you only reference debates if you have read his scholarly work?

The thing that annoyed me, having listened to a few WLC debates (curse the person who suggested that I listen to Sam Harris, curse also Sam Harris who is responsible for sparking my interest in the WLC juggernaut), was that WLC trots out the same handful of abysmal arguments over and over again and yet his opponents appeared to be unprepared for them.  Some did better than others (Maudlin I think was the best, but memory might be failing me), but no-one seemed to anticipate WLC's tactics and come prepared with canned responses to his canned arguments.  I might be cynical but it seemed to me that they all just wanted to sell their new books or get a moment in the limelight.

I was particularly incensed by what I saw as the towering stupidity of WLC's moral argument, enough to write something about it (The modified William Lane Craig moral proof - but originally as a comment at JW Gray's Ethical Realism blog) to place it on a new created blog and then follow it up with commentary on WLC's debating tactics (Debatable Theism).  Then I was off and the next step was to systematically rip apart each of WLC's staple arguments - as raised in debates.

That I focus on his debates should be of no surprise to anyone.  And I have no interest whatsoever in purchasing (or encouraging a local library to purchase) any of his "scholarly" works.  I do use his puff pieces on Reasonable Faith from time to time and he is welcome to be as scholarly as he wants there.

If he uses fallacy in his debates, which reach far more people than his "scholarly" work ever will, but he doesn't in his "scholarly" work, then that's his lookout.  Being honest with his academic colleagues (if indeed he is) doesn't redress any duplicity with the general public.

So to answer pch's question, no you have not read his scholarly work. I'm sure he would have found it more helpful if you wrote that at the beginning instead of going on your endless spiel.

[HIJ]

I confess: I took a look at what he had to say in regards to the "taxi cab fallacy." Here's something worth noting: I skimmed the article, and a few of his links, but only saw references to debates--it is not clear whether this person has actually read any of WLC's scholarly work. Hence it is not clear whether or not he ought to be taken seriously.

So neopolitan: have you actually read WLC's scholarly work? If so, what have you read? Next question: why do you only reference debates if you have read his scholarly work?

The thing that annoyed me, having listened to a few WLC debates (curse the person who suggested that I listen to Sam Harris, curse also Sam Harris who is responsible for sparking my interest in the WLC juggernaut), was that WLC trots out the same handful of abysmal arguments over and over again and yet his opponents appeared to be unprepared for them.  Some did better than others (Maudlin I think was the best, but memory might be failing me), but no-one seemed to anticipate WLC's tactics and come prepared with canned responses to his canned arguments.  I might be cynical but it seemed to me that they all just wanted to sell their new books or get a moment in the limelight.

I was particularly incensed by what I saw as the towering stupidity of WLC's moral argument, enough to write something about it (The modified William Lane Craig moral proof - but originally as a comment at JW Gray's Ethical Realism blog) to place it on a new created blog and then follow it up with commentary on WLC's debating tactics (Debatable Theism).  Then I was off and the next step was to systematically rip apart each of WLC's staple arguments - as raised in debates.

That I focus on his debates should be of no surprise to anyone.  And I have no interest whatsoever in purchasing (or encouraging a local library to purchase) any of his "scholarly" works.  I do use his puff pieces on Reasonable Faith from time to time and he is welcome to be as scholarly as he wants there.

If he uses fallacy in his debates, which reach far more people than his "scholarly" work ever will, but he doesn't in his "scholarly" work, then that's his lookout.  Being honest with his academic colleagues (if indeed he is) doesn't redress any duplicity with the general public.

So, in summary: no you haven't read any of his scholarly work (why the scare quotes? I think it's generally accepted that articles published in philosophy journals are scholarly...or were you doing that just doing that for the purpose of rhetoric?). You do realize that he simplifies his material for debates given the press for time and the non-scholarly audience. So it isn't at all clear to me why anyone should take your critiques seriously given that you have not actually read his scholarly statements of whatever argument you are saying does not work. That's like if I read A Brief History of Time and said that Stephen Hawking's reasoning is poor. Anyway, buy the books used if you don't want to support him, but know that you are going to be missing crucial information if you just go off debates, and hence should not be taken seriously.

[Friendly Banjo Atheist]

Perhaps it would be helpful let Neo know what exactly it is in the scholarly articles that would make a difference in the substantive discussion here.

I get the there are times when focussing on someone's lack of reading in a particular area is relevant, and other times when it is just a ploy.  I cannot tell which it is here.  Maybe y'all can help?