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Premise 2
 Because of the nature of time, it cannot be said that time, or the universe, began to exist. The second premise of Craig’s kalam argument is, he feels, “the more controversial premise”: The universe began to exist.
Personally, I don’t view this as controversial. It is simply incorrect. My overarching objection to this entire section of the chapter can be summed up by saying: “There was never a point in time at which there was no time.” Because of that fact, the Universe cannot be said to have begun to exist. Nor can it be said of time. This is a point that Craig comes so close to making himself, but I’ll come to that shortly. Continue reading…
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Richard Price dated January 8, 1789
Democracy demands a well-informed electorate. As a citizen, I am expected to weigh in on numerous issues every year. Doing that effectively demands not simply that I know my feelings on the issue, but also that I understand, or can at least recognize, the perspectives of my fellow citizens. This is one reason we have a public school system in this country; not merely to familiarize our children with the Three Rs, but also to ensure that they are comfortable with their fellow students. Any child should feel secure in speaking her mind and be respectful when others are speaking theirs. Without that skill, a democracy can never fulfill its potential. Continue reading…
Craig’s third chapter of On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (my second installment) is mercifully short. A scant ten pages. And in that ten pages, as will become clear, Craig believes that he conclusively demonstrates that there is no way God does not exist. Seriously. Ten pages!
 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, world-class mind who proved God's existence, or clinically retarded? Read on to find out! Why Does Anything at All Exist?
This is an excellent question. Why existence? There could have been void. No Universe. No consciousness, no light, no matter, no stars, nothing. I have one problem right off the bat: Why do we always assume that ‘nothing’ is the default state? Of course, if there were nothing, there would be no one to wonder “Why is there nothing rather than something?” But that is neither here no there. We do exist. In a Universe which exists (although I’m aware of some compelling math which suggests that the internal forces of the universe all cancel each other out so, from the outside, it may appear we do not exist, but that’s a discussion that’s way over my head). This Universe has a boundary; a furthest extent. Now, this fact implies (it does not demand) that something lays on the other side of that boundary. It remains to be seen whether we have the ability to even contemplate what that might be, let alone describe it, since our Universe’s laws of physics and logic are null and void beyond that boundary.
But Craig’s going to take this on anyway and manage to sew it all up in ten pages. He’s either brilliant or making some incredibly stupid arguments. Care to wager which? Continue reading…
So I elected to work my way through On Guard in order. I’m skipping the first chapter, which is just an introduction to apologetics and not really worth my time.
As a side note, I’m writing quotes from the book by hand, as there doesn’t appear to be any digital format of the book available (perhaps to prevent exactly what I’m doing. Who knows?), so if I make mistakes in my quotations, I apologize and will endeavor to correct them where I find them.
And hang in there, because this is really long. The headings all correspond to the subheadings in the book, in case you were wondering.
What Difference Does it Make if God Exists?
Craig opens the second chapter, titled ‘What Difference Does it Make if God Exists?’, with an anecdote from the former Soviet Union. He was speaking with Andrei Grib about the nature of the Russian people’s return to religion after the fall of the U.S.S.R. According to Craig, Grib responded: Continue reading…
Okay, no, on the whole I’m very little like Sisyphus. I don’t kill travelers and guests for fun or seduce close family members. In a way, though, by pointing out the failures of the gods, we anti-theists are all Sisyphus, punished to eternally push the boulder of credulity back up the mountain.
Which is [...]
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