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 [...]]]> 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.

First Philosophical Argument: An Actually Infinite Number of Things Cannot Exist

All of Craig’s arguments here deal with the paradoxes that develop when you ponder the concept of infinity.

If we are to avoid these absurdities, then we must deny that an actually infinite number of things exist.  That means that the number of past events cannot actually be infinite.  Therefore, the universe cannot be beginningless; rather the universe began to exist.
-p. 79

He raises a possible objection to this line of argument:

For example, the set of natural numbers {0, 1, 2, …} has an actually infinite number of members in it.  The number of members in this set is not merely potentially infinite, according to modern set theory; rather the number of members is actually infinite.
-p. 79

In response:

These developments in modern mathematics merely show that if you adopt certain axioms and rules, then you can talk about actually infinite collections in a consistent way, without contradicting yourself.  All this accomplishes is showing how to set up a certain universe of discourse for talking consistently about actual infinities.  But it does absolutely nothing to show that such mathematical entities really exist or that an actually infinite number of things can really exist.
-pp. 79-80

Craig opens himself up to a massive vulnerability here.  He has argued that God, unlike the Universe, exists by the necessity of his own nature and that this is not special pleading because some suggest that numbers also exist by the necessity of their own nature.  If numbers, which must actually be infinite, do not exist except as an abstract concept, then it really is a massive case of special pleading.  (It was a massive case of special pleading anyway, because numbers do not exist without something to count and someone to do the counting.)

So I think Ghazali’s first argument is a good one.  It shows that the number of past events must be finite.  Therefore, the universe must have had a beginning.
-p. 83

Congratulations.  Past is finite.  Welcome to Big Bang cosmology.  The problem, though, is that while there are a finite number of past events, we cannot say that the Universe began.  We’ll get to why in a moment.  Craig actually outlines it himself in a few pages.

Second Philosophical Argument: You Can’t Pass Through an Infinite Number of Elements One at a Time

When discussing the impossibility of an actual infinite number of individual moments, he states:

This is easy to see in the case of trying to count to infinity.  No matter how high you count, there’s always an infinity of numbers left to count.

But if you cannot count to infinity, how could you count down from infinity?  This would be like trying to count down all the negative numbers, ending at zero: …, -3, -2, -1, 0.  This seems crazy. … You just get driven back and back into the past, so that no number could ever be counted.
-p. 84

This is the crux of Craig’s arguments again and again: in order to reach this moment in time, there must have been a starting point at some moment in the past.  Otherwise there is an infinite amount of time before now and so now would never be reached.  This is, as far as I know, not controversial in any way.  The past is finite.  Time arose an instant after the Big Bang.  There cannot be events before time.  The problem Craig raises here is actually his own, since his God exists always and is outside of time and space.  Except he’s not, because he is transcendent.  If God always existed, then he never began to exist, therefore God never reached the moment when he started up the Universe.  Therefore, by Craig’s reasoning, God must have begun to exist.

First Scientific Argument: The Expansion of the Universe

This argument boils down to simple physics.  The Universe is expanding.  We know this because we can see galaxies moving swiftly away from us on all sides.  Working backward from this observation, the Universe’s expansion must have started from an unimaginably small point with all the energy in the Universe compressed into an unimaginably small space, which Craig states is zero but, in fact, at the first moment of expansion, each particle of energy was a single Planck length from the next.

Notice that there’s simply nothing prior to the initial boundary of space-time.  Let’s not be misled by words, however.  When I say, “There is nothing prior to the initial boundary,” I do not mean that there is some state of affairs prior to it, and that is a state of nothingness.  That would be to treat nothing as though it were something!  Rather I mean that at the boundary point, it is false that “There is something prior to this point.”
-p. 90

This is where, as I mentioned before, Craig comes so close to the truth of the matter.  Space-time arose inside the Universe as a product of the expansion.  It is, in fact, impossible to say that anything occurred prior to that point.  So, at that point, the Universe necessarily existed, since space-time only exist within it.  If there is no point prior to that point, then there was never a point in time in which the Universe did not exist.  At all moments in time, the Universe existed.  For that matter, the same is true of time.  Therefore, it is ridiculous to state that the Universe began to exist.  There was never a moment when the Universe did not exist.  In order for something to begin it must first not be, then be.  Craig’s own argument (silliness about nothingness aside) refutes his second premise.

Second Scientific Argument: The Thermodynamics of the Universe

Given enough time, all the energy in the universe will spread itself out evenly throughout the universe…  The universe will become a featureless soup in which no life is possible.  Once the universe reaches such a state, no significant further change is possible.  It is a state of equilibrium, in which the temperature and pressure are the same everywhere.  Scientists call this the “heat death” of the universe.
-p. 93

Once again, Craig is going out of his way to prove that past is finite.  If the Universe is on its way to a state of equilibrium, then time cannot extend infinitely into the past.  If it did so, the Universe would have reached equilibrium an infinitely long time ago.

He walks his readers through a number of hypotheses that, if verified, would avoid the Universe’s heat death, but none of them really matter.  I’m more than happy to grant his premise.  Yes, there was a first moment in time.  It is by virtue of that very fact that we cannot say that time began.  As I’ve already pointed out, in order for time to begin, there had to be a moment at which there was no time.  But without time there cannot be moments, so there never was a moment in which time did not exist, therefore it did not begin.

Conclusion

On the basis, therefore, of both philosophical and scientific evidence, we have good grounds for believing that the universe began to exist.  Since whatever begins to exist has a cause, it follows that the universe has a cause.
-p. 99

No.  I’m sorry, but your philosophical arguments were facetious.  There was a first moment so all the stuff about infinite moments is spurious.  Plus, your scientific arguments actually refute your conclusion.

Craig considers Daniel Dennet’s view that the Universe created itself to be nonsense.  However, the Universe-as-singularity can, in a sense, be considered the cause of the Universe-as-expanding-space-time

Craig feels that not only does the kalam argument make the case for a creator of the Universe, but that it must be a personal being as well:

Finally, it must be a personal being.  We’ve already seen one reason for this conclusion in the previous chapter.  Only a Mind could fit the above description of the First Cause.
-p. 99

His reasoning here is that something merely infinite could not create something finite.  It requires the addition of will for the infinite to create the finite.  (And as for the one reason we’ve seen already?  He’s talking about where he started adding adjectives with no justification whatsoever.)

For example, water freezes when the temperature is below 0 degrees centigrade; the cause of the freezing is the temperature’s falling to 0 degrees.  If the temperature has always been below 0 degrees, then the water around would be frozen from eternity.  It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago.
-pp. 99-100

Water, in its solid state, forms a crystal lattice.

Actually “the cause of the freezing” is the water molecules lacking the energy necessary to break the crystalline lattice that makes up ice, not simply that the temperature happened to fall to 0.  After all, the temperate frequently drops below zero degrees and yet water can continue to flow.  This is beside the point, though

If the cause of the Universe has always been there, then the Universe should always have been there, right?  The obvious answer is that the laws that describe that which is external to the Universe are different from those inside the Universe, but Craig has never been bogged down my that kind of thing before.

In my view, then, God existing alone without the universe is changeless and timeless.  His free act of creation is simultaneous with the universe’s coming into being.  Therefore, God enters into time when He creates the universe.  God is timeless without the universe and in time with the universe.
-p. 100

But if God, without the Universe, is changeless and timeless, then how does he decide to create the Universe at all?  Using Craig’s language, there was a point at which God had not decided to make the Universe, and a point at which he had made the decision.  This implies 1) a change, which he can’t have done since “without the universe [he] is changeless” and 2) would never have reached the point where he made the decision because he is timeless.  If he makes the decision, then there must have been a time before he made the decision, but there can be no before and after if god is without time.  Otherwise he made the decision always, which leads us right back to there having not always been a Universe.

The kalam cosmological argument is as fatally flawed as the simple cosmological argument, if in a different way.  Premise 1, that everything which begins to exist has a cause, is a massive effort to sidestep a case of special pleading, which fails since the only thing that Craig is claiming did not begin to exist is God.  Premise 2 fails entirely for the simple reason that the Universe cannot be said to have begun to exist.  This, far from being a case of special pleading, stems directly from the fact that the known laws of physics exist only within our Universe.  Therefore, Premise 3, the argument’s conclusion, is unsound.

Furthermore, even were both initial premises true, the argument would say nothing about the existence of a deity.  It would only mean that the Universe occurred as a result of some event.  It does not, in fact, say anything about will, consciousness, transcendence or any of the “omni-”s.  Craig’s kalam cosmological argument is merely a massive waste of time.

Democracy demands a well-informed electorate. As [...]]]>

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.

Public schools must do better to raise good citizens.

Despite all its faults, public education in this country does a decent job at this. Students encounter facts and opinions that they might not agree with. In Social Studies classes, particularly, we learn about governments, cultures, and environments that are alien to us and that while we might find them strange, these different cultures are, generally, just as valid as ours.

There is one arena, however, in which the public schools in this country fall far short: religion.

The United States now is a far more plural society than it has ever been before, and it grows more so every year. While the population of the United States remains predominately Christian of one variety or another (three out of four Americans), that number has dropped by over ten percent in the last 20 years. Well over one in six Americans now profess to having no belief whatsoever. Furthermore, the Buddhist and Muslim populations are slowly growing.

Even within the Christian community, the theology from one denomination to another can be vastly different. One need only ask a Jehovah’s Witness what their birthday plans are, or ask a Mormon what they think of Egyptian hieroglyphs to learn that being familiar with one sect tells us nothing about the point of view of those brought up in another.

It is a safe bet that the school children of today are far more likely than their parents to encounter people with religious beliefs vastly different from their own. If our particular brand of democracy is to function in the century ahead, then on a whole spectrum of issues, we have to understand where our fellow citizens are coming from. How will the views of a Hindu woman differ from those of a Wiccan? An evangelical Christian? An atheist? Is there common ground on which they can be confident that they will agree? An average citizen today will probably answer such a question with either a blank stare or a bewildered shrug.

These emblems represent only a fraction of the religions practiced in the United States.

That has to change. We should be teaching world religions to our high school students. Some districts have gone so far as to offer comparative religion courses as electives. That is not good enough. It is required of our high school students that they pass courses on U. S. and world history, American government, and geography. A familiarity with the beliefs of others is going to be an absolute necessity in the years ahead and we are doing our children a disservice when we do not ensure that they are prepared for the challenges that they will encounter.

Convincing states to change their curricula will not be an easy task. States around the country face budget deficits and shortening school years. Administrators fear lawsuits and a change will require hiring teachers willing to walk the finest of fine lines. Many religious parents will attack state boards of education for even introducing their children to new systems of belief, no matter how objective the approach. On most of these issues, however, the facts are encouraging and I’ll visit each of them in later posts.

What other objections would this kind of policy change face?  Would you be in faovr of it?  Let me know what you think.

The dilemma of modern man is thus truly terrible.  That atheistic worldview is insufficient to maintain a happy and consistent [...]]]> As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m tackling On Guard in smaller chunks now.  The reason for that is best illustrated by this segment from the first part of my critique of Craig:

The dilemma of modern man is thus truly terrible.  That atheistic worldview is insufficient to maintain a happy and consistent life.
-p. 45

No, it’s not.

Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value, or purpose.
-p. 45

Yes, we can.

If we try to live consistently within the atheistic worldview, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy.
-p. 45

No, we won’t.

In instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving lie our worldview.
-p. 45

No, it isn’t.

Each of his statements in this passage really requires more attention than I paid them.  Don’t get me wrong.  He has a total lack of understanding of the human condition and the quotes deserve swift dismissal, but simply leaving it at that the way I did does nothing to really counter his beliefs, beliefs which he is not alone in holding.

For starters, there is no unifying atheistic worldview.  Being an atheist consists of only one thing: disbelieving the statement, “A god exists.”  There are, quite literally, an infinite number of worldviews compatible with that position, just as there are an infinite number of worldviews compatible with believing in a god.  This poses a problem for Craig, since a good portion of the worldviews that include belief in a deity also lead people to be profoundly unhappy.  It is my belief that there is probably no worldview which guarantees a lifetime of happiness.  It may, in truth, be a contradiction, since a lifetime of uninterrupted happiness would be exceedingly boring and probably not fulfilling in the least.

I’ll use my own worldview to provide a counterpoint to Craig.  I take a naturalist position in my outlook on life.  Beyond believing that there is no god, I also believe there is no afterlife.  Humans have no souls, nor does any other creature.  While it’s true that this eliminates the possibility of an eternal reward in the hereafter, it also means I will not spend my one and only life fearing an eternity of punishment.

There are only two ways in which I can achieve immortality, of a sort, and those two ways are not mutually exclusive:

First, I can have children.  I can raise them well and do my best to ensure that they have children which they in turn raise well.  This is a more direct route to immortality since I, in the form of my genes, my essence, what makes me me, will continue long after my body has become food for worms.  For as long as I live, my father will live; my mother will live.  For as long as my children live, my parents will live.  We are the sum total of all those lives which came before.  I’m not being melodramatic.  It is simply a fact.  A piece of the first bacterium lives in me today.  (Interestingly, that little bacterium achieved something simply through having offspring, and therefore achieved immortality through both this method and the next without ever trying.)

Secondly, I can be remembered.  I can achieve something.  Where having children means I live on as half of each and every part of them, achievement grants me an immortality in the mind.  The achievement need not be earth-shattering.  Yes, figures like Galileo, Plato, and George Washington have become almost mythic through their endeavors and they will live on for as long as there are humans to remember them, but I don’t need to found a nation, be the first to see with my own eyes the structure of the solar system, or build the foundation for all of Western philosophy to gain immortality.  It need not be anything so grandiose.  It is enough simply to affect the lives of others.  The man who invented Velcro, even though I do not know his name (and I could, of course, look it up) became immortal through his idea and every child who has not yet learned to tie shoestrings owes him a debt of gratitude.  The slaves who laid the stones of the U. S. Capitol Building, though we do not now and will in all likelihood never know their names, live on with every foot that climbs the steps they laid with their bare hands.

I’m achieving it through the simple act of airing these ideas.  This blog will one day disappear.  It did not exist for a month or so only last week.  And yet I achieve a little immortality by passing these thoughts along.  Is it Julius Caesar’s immortality?  Not at all.  I doubt epic tragedies will ever be written about my life.  (In fact, I hope none ever are.)  But it is immortality nonetheless.  And my life is by no means over yet.

So let me go back to Craig’s first statement about the “atheist worldview”:

The dilemma of modern man is thus truly terrible.  That atheistic worldview is insufficient to maintain a happy and consistent life.
-p. 45

Misunderstandings of what atheism is aside, how can I be happy while also remaining true to my personal worldview-which-happens-to-lack-a-god?  Easy.  Having a family will make me happy.  Being a positive factor in someone else’s life makes me happy.  (I say positive because not all immortality of the mind is necessarily good.  Adolf Hitler gained immortality through his actions since he will likely be reviled for all time because of them.  That’s not the kind of immortality I’m going for.)  Every little good deed I do for someone else gives me a little happiness.  Every little personal achievement, every act that helps me grow as an individual gives me happiness.  Good sex with someone I care about gives me a little happiness (along with plenty of other feelings).  Happiness depends on fulfillment.  If I am not fulfilled, I am not happy.  I don’t think this is in any way dependent on a particular worldview.  Anyone not making progress on fulfilling any of their goals is probably not feeling terribly happy.

I have setbacks of course.  We all do.  If I feel stagnant I start to feel depressed.  This is not in any way a reflection on my worldview.  It’s merely a reflection of the fact that sometimes I’m a lazy bastard.  So I’m actually less happy when I’m not living in a way that is consistent with my “atheistic worldview.”

In retrospect, I did not respond the way I should have to Craig’s next quote:

Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value, or purpose.
-p. 45

I actually agree with this quote when it’s taken out of context like this.  The problem, of course, is that Craig is simultaneously claiming that a worldview like mine has no meaning, value, or purpose.  I think I’ve done a decent job of demonstrating that my life does have meaning, value, and purpose.  My worldview means a better life for myself.  If I live according to my worldview, my life will mean a better life for others.  The value of my life can be accounted for in whether the people I have contact with are better off for that contact.  My purpose is self-fulfillment and achieving immortality by improving the lives of others, and providing my children with the means of their own self-fulfillment.

The last two quotes…:

If we try to live consistently within the atheistic worldview, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy.
-p. 45

In instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving lie our worldview.
-p. 45

…I’ve already dealt with pretty thoroughly.  To the extent that I live consistently with my worldview, I am, in all actuality, profoundly happy.

The fact that Craig believes his statements to be true belies how poorly he understands the idea of happiness, and perhaps even in what low esteem he actually holds it.  He never really goes into what he thinks the source of happiness is, but if, as I suspect it does, his concept of happiness is composed solely of currying favor with an all-powerful deity that blackmails us into bending to his will, I’d much rather go through my life in misery, thank you very much.

Since there is no one atheistic worldview, I’d love to hear others.  Might an average “atheistic worldview” be, in fact, more conducive to happiness than the average theistic worldview?

Along with a [...]]]> It has been nearly three months since my last post and almost exactly one month since the old server was taken down.  I am happy to announce that the new dedicated server is up and running and the demands on my time that kept me from posting have pretty much passed.

Along with a new server, I’ve decided to implement a few other changes:

I have felt, at times, that the site has lacked focus.  The initial purpose of Radical Rationalist was to promote a worldview based on logic and the ethical system I laid out in the first few posts.  Being a political scientist, I couldn’t resist turning frequently to the big political news stories.  These commentaries made for easy work but really only functioned to distract me from the philosophical and big-picture issues I started out wanting to discuss.  I’m no longer going to concern myself with various votes and who Sarah Palin doesn’t like today and why Glenn Beck is a raving loon.  A lot of that is self-evident anyway, which means I end up saying the same thing everyone else is.  That makes me feel like a parrot and a little ashamed to be staking a claim to the term radical.  From now on, I’m relegating these topics to the Twitter feed, where the medium better matches the substance.

The critique of On Guard, William Lane Craig’s tome of idiocy, is going to be completed, but I’m adjusting my approach somewhat.  I’m going to do my best to refrain from attacking whole chapters at once.  This is more for my own sanity than for any stylistic reason.  By the end of a chapter’s worth of commentary, I found myself so annoyed by his lack of any reasoning whatsoever that I would skip past points that deserved some extrapolation.  Plus I felt completely burnt out after about three days of that.

Lastly, there will be some aesthetic changes as I work on implementing and integrating a new forum.  One of the things I want this site to accomplish is the promotion of discussion, and the comments section simply doesn’t cut it for that kind of community participation.  Hopefully a forum will be more conducive to a back-and-forth.

Thanks to everyone who has followed the site for you patience, as well as to all the people who have asked me, over the past too-many-weeks, when or whether it would return.  Hopefully you will be glad you stuck with me.

–G. T. Blackwell

Gottfried Wilhelm von [...]]]> 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?

I remember as a boy looking up at the stars, innumerable in the black night, and thinking, Where did all of this come from? It seemed to me instinctively that there had to be an explanation why all this exists.  As long as I can remember, then, I’ve always believed in a Creator of the universe.  I just never knew Him personally.
-p. 53

Oh, poor Billy.  I hate to break it to you but one doesn’t necessarily follow the other.  Just kidding.  I love to break it to you!  A ‘Creator’ implies something active, some purposeful step taken to reach an end result.  Let me ask you to consider something: Light shines everywhere.  Some of that light is in our visible spectrum.  Sometimes on the surface of this planet (and other objects) there is moisture.  A drop of that moisture scatters the visible light into its component parts and projects this light outward.  This is how rainbows happen.  Does a rainbow have a Creator?  Now, I know that you’ll take the opportunity to trace it back to your God, because you’re sort of a douche and you’ll go out of your way to miss the point, but seriously, that rainbow has a ‘reason’.  That rainbow happened.  It was not Created.  This, as I’ll show you, is the fundamental mistake you make throughout this chapter.

Leibnitz’s Argument

In case you’re wondering, William Lane Craig doesn’t bother to create his own argument for why God exists.  Instead, he grabs hold of Leibnitz’s formulation of the First Cause argument and rationalizes away:

We can put Leibnitz’s thinking into the form of a simple argument.  This has the advantage of making his logic very clear and focusing our attention on the crucial steps of his reasoning.  It also makes his argument very easy to memorize so that we can share it with others.  (You’ll find an argument map it the end of this chapter.)
-pp. 53-54

It helps Craig’s intended audience that the argument is a) simple and b) easy to memorize, because we wouldn’t want any actual thought or analysis to accidentally find its way in.  Oh, and ‘argument map’ means ‘flowchart’, which I guess he thought might be boring or smack of elitism.

There are three steps or premises in Leibnitz’s reasoning:

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.

That’s it!
-p. 54

No, really.  That’s it.  And yes, he did just state that if the Universe has an explanation, whatever that explanation my be, it must be God.  By definition.  And not just any gods, not the Deist’s passive-creator god, but the capital-’G'-God of his Biblical Christianity.

But apparently that’s not it, because he goes on:

Now, what follows logically from these three premises?  [You never took a course in logic.  At least, that's what follows for me.]

Well, look at premises 1 and 3.  (Read them out loud if that helps. [Why in the hell would that help?!  Is he talking to third graders?  "Sound it out if you come to a word you don't know."])  If everything that exists has an explanation of its existence and the universe exists, then it logically follows that:

4.  The universe has an explanation of its existence.

Now notice that premise 2 says that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.  [Yeah, believe it or not, that one did manage to catch my eye.]  And premise 4 says the universe does have an explanation of its existence.  So from 2 and 4 the conclusion logically follows:

5.  Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.

Now this is a logically airtight argument.
-p. 54

Um, no.  No, it’s not.  Craig clearly knows nothing about a logical proof.  This argument may be valid but it is in no way sound.  Premise 2 is clearly not a given.  Our universe might have been caused by a mad scientist in another universe.  (After all, is it so hard to imagine us one day, perhaps not too distant from now, creating little microverses?  Maybe without even knowing we’re doing it?)  Our universe might have sprung into existence when, in a kind of nature-soup of constantly shifting physical laws and in which chaos reigns, a small part of it lined up four different dimensions, the three spacial dimensions and time, creating our universe.

To have a sound argument, the premises, all of them, must first be true and I do not grant your second premise.

To his credit, he does raise as objections most of the arguments I can make against his logic.  This pleased me until I discovered that he actually deals with them in the dumbest ways I can think of.

Premise 1

An Objection to Premise 1:  God Must Have an Explanation of His Existence

At first blush premise 1 might seem vulnerable in an obvious way.  If everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, and God exists, then God must have an explanation of his existence!
-p. 55

Now I’m intrigued.  Has Craig found a way around the special pleading that theists constantly fall into when they make this argument?

Not so fast!  This obvious objection to premise 1 is based on a misunderstanding of what Leibnitz meant by an “explanation.”  In Leibnitz’s view there are two kinds of things: (a) things that exist necessarily and (b) things that are produced by some external cause.  Let me explain.
-p. 55

Please do.  Because so far this sounds a lot like special pleading.

(a) Things that exist necessarily exist by a necessity of their own nature.  It’s impossible for them not to exist.  Many mathematicians think that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way.  They’re not caused to exist by something else; they just exist by the necessity of their own nature.

(b) By contrast, things that are caused to exist by something else don’t exist necessarily.
-pp. 55-56

So let me get this straight: some things have to exist, no matter what, because it is in their nature.  Okay, two questions come to mind.  First, how do we determine their nature?  Second, can you imagine a scenario in which there is nothing but numbers?  You say they exist necessarily, so I want you to imagine no Universe, no God, no matter, no light.  Just numbers.

You can’t.  Wanna know why?  Because numbers cannot exist without two things: stuff to count and someone to do the counting.  Numbers, and any other abstract concepts, are contingent on there being a consciousness to apply them to something else.  Take morality.  I covered this last time.  There is objective morality because a) there is a universe of matter to be acted upon and b) there exists something to act willfully upon that matter.  Namely, us.  Morality, numbers, sets and anything else you want to pick, cannot exist in a void.

Now, if you want to reduce your God to an abstract concept that exists within the human mind, I’m all for that.  I encourage it.  In fact, I think that’s actually true.  But I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to say, because:

So premise 1 could be more fully stated in the following way:

1:  Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

But now the objection falls to the ground.  The explanation of God’s existence lies in the necessity of His own nature.  As even the atheist recognizes, it’s impossible for God to have a cause.
-p. 56

Okay, I for one recognize no such thing.  Why is it impossible for the Christian God to have a cause?  Because it would suck to be you?  That’s not a good reason.

Also, why is it a necessity of His own nature?  This is never explained.  Can you define this nature for me?  Is it ’cause the bible says so?  Because, if so, then I can come up with any concept I want and design it such that it cannot have a cause.  Therefore, by your argument, it must exist!  Even though I made it up!  Here:  There’s a diamond the size of Plymouth Rock under my backyard.  I didn’t bury it there or anything.  It’s always been there.  The matter that now makes up the Universe came from within its walls.  I don’t know how deep down it is, though.  You might have to dig for a while.

My diamond must exist.  It is in its nature to do so.

Defense of Premise 1: Size Doesn’t Matter

Yes, that is his actual sub-heading.

Here, Craig argues that if you find a translucent ball on the ground while hiking, you know it must have some explanation, and whether that ball is the size of a house cat or the entire Universe doesn’t matter.  You still want an explanation.

Which is true.  I do want an explanation.  Plenty of people are looking for an explanation.  But I’d want an explanation for any god, too, since that’s not really an explanation in and of itself.

The Taxicab Fallacy

Craig’s never heard of the difference between logically valid and logically sound, but he feels free to make up his own fallacies when he feels the need:

Premise 1 can’t be dismissed like a hack once you’ve arrived at your desired destination!
-p. 57

Nevermind the fact that he just did that with God by claiming that it’s in his nature to exist without cause.  But I’m not allowed to do the same with the Universe because that’s falling pray to the infamous Taxicab Fallacy.

But the whole thing is beside the point because what William Lane Craig is arguing against is not at all what I’m arguing for.  When I say to someone who throws the First Cause Argument at me, “Why not just stop at the Universe itself?” what’s meant is, “If you’re going to make that mistake, why not make it one step sooner?!  What’s the difference?  You still aren’t explaining anything!”  But that’s longer and more cumbersome.

It would be arbitrary for the atheist to claim that the universe is the exception to the rule.  (Recall that Leibnitz does not make God an exception to premise 1. [Oh that's nice and convenient for you isn't it?])  Our illustration of the ball in the woods showed that merely increasing the size of the object to be explained, even until it becomes the universe itself, does nothing to remove the need for some explanation of its existence.
-p. 57

Doesn’t that also mean that numbers, no matter how big, demand an explanation for their existence?  I’ve actually provided you with that explanation earlier, though.  But doesn’t taking the ball outside the forest in which you found it and arbitrarily giving it special powers also not remove the demand for an explanation?

So Craig’s argument is special pleading plain and simple.  Everything must conform to his rules.  Oh, except for the very entity he is trying to prove the existence of! Ass!

Notice, too, how unscientific this atheist response is.  For modern cosmology (the study of the universe) is devoted to the search for an explanation of the universe’s existence.  The atheist attitude would cripple science.
-p. 57

No shit!  That’s why no atheist who has ever given any serious thought to their beliefs would ever argue that the Universe began to exist without cause.  News flash, Sherlock!  Most cosmologists–far and away the vast majority of cosmologists–are atheists! That statement is self-contradicting!

Now, there are those who argue that the Universe has always existed in some form or another, a theory being pursued by some cosmologists.  I think that argument is subject to its own flaws, namely that expansion is accelerating rather than slowing, which would suggest against any argument for a perpetual, cyclical Universe.  However, that scenario cannot be entirely ruled out.  The forces which began the acceleration may still be acting on the Universe, causing it to continue accelerating.  Imagine a pitcher.  Before the pitch, the ball’s speed is essentially zero.  During the act of throwing the ball, the acceleration is not constant.  It increases as the pitcher’s arm acts on the ball, then slows until it hits zero at the moment the pitcher’s fingers leave the ball.  Then deceleration begins as friction acts on the ball, which would eventually roll to a stop.  While I think it unlikely, it is entirely possible that, in this analogy, our universe is still part-way through the pitch.

Anyway, back to Craig:

Another Atheist Fallacy: It is Impossible for the Universe to Have an Explanation

Here Criag outlines exactly what I’ve just said is the argument no atheist is making:

They say that it’s impossible for the universe to have an explanation of its existence.  Why?  Because the explanation of the universe would have to be some prior state of affairs in which the universe didn’t yet exist.  But that would be nothingness, and nothingness can’t be the explanation of anything.  So the universe must just exist inexplicably.
-pp. 57-58

Again, no one argues that outside the Universe there is an endless void.  I am arguing that, outside of the Universe, there exists a state of affairs which we do now, and may forever, lack the ability to imagine or describe.  Now, I guess you can call that God if you want to, but it isn’t conscious.  It isn’t transcendent.  It certainly isn’t listening to our prayers.

This line of reasoning is obviously fallacious.  For it assumes that the universe is all there is, so that if there were no universe there would be nothing.  In other words, the objection assumes that atheism is true!  The atheist is thus begging the question, arguing in a circle.
-p. 58

No.  I’m sorry, but you have it exactly backwards.  The theist is making a claim: God exists.  So our objection assumes that the claim is false; not that another claim is true but that God is false.  And anyway, that’s not what I’m arguing.

Leibnitz would agree that the explanation of the universe must be a prior state of affairs in which the universe did not exist.  But that state of affairs is God and His will, not nothingness.
-p. 58

Why?  Why, why why!  You cannot simply state that the only two choices are nothingness or an all-powerful, all-loving god who sent his only son to die on a cross thereby removing us from the burden of our sins.  That is patently ridiculous and you are either a stupid or incredibly dishonest man for saying it!

So it seems to me that premise 1 is more plausibly true than false, which is all we need for a good argument.
-p. 58

That statement isn’t a joke.  He actually wrote that.  In concluding a supposedly logical argument.  Ahem.  YOUR PREMISES NEED TO BE TRUE FOR YOUR ARGUMENT TO BE SOUND!  Not plausibly true.  Not more likely true than false.  Jesus Fucking Christ!  Do I really need to demonstrate?  Fine:

1. Typically, murderers are Christian.
2. Murder is a frequent form of violent crime.
3. Many prisoners are guilty of committing violent crimes.
4. The United States imprisons more people than any other country.
5. Therefore, everyone in the United States is a violent, murdering Christian.

How’s that sit?  Ass.

Premise 2

Atheists Agree with Premise 2

So what does the atheist almost always say in response to Leibnitz’s argument?  As we’ve just seen, the atheist typically asserts the following:

A. If atheism is true, the universe has no explanation of its existence.

This is precisely what the atheist says in response to premise 1.  The universe just exists inexplicably.  But this is logically equivalent to saying:

B. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, then atheism is not true.

So you can’t affirm (A) and deny (B).
-p. 59

I’m sorry, but I feel this is necessary:  I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING LIKE THAT WHATSOEVER!!!

Another Argument for premise 2: The Cause of the Universe: Abstract Object or Unembodied Mind?

Here’s where Craig really starts to go a little nuts.

…Premise 2 is very plausible in its own right.  For think of what the universe is:  all of space-time reality, including all matter and energy.  It follows that if the universe has a cause of its existence, that cause must be a nonphysical, immaterial being beyond space and time.  Amazing!
-p. 59

Amazing indeed.  Yes, outside the Universe there is no such thing as time.  Or if there is it could be so vastly different that it’s unrecognizable to humans.  Therefore, the idea of ’cause’ inside the Universe is also likely to be vastly different that ’cause’ outside the Universe.  It is worth searching for answers to the question of how our universe came to be.  But we must accept with that investigation the possibility (I think, the probability) that we will be wholly unable to answer that question.  And that goes for Mr. Craig, too.  Just because we might not be able to ever know the answer, doesn’t mean it must be your particular god.

Now there are only two sorts of things that could fit that description: either an abstract object like a number or else an unembodied mind.
-p. 59

No, it cannot be a number.  I’ve already explained why.  And why is ‘unembodied mind’ the only other option available to us to solve this problem.  I posited earlier an entirely bodied scientist creating our universe in a lab within another universe.  Prove me wrong.  Prove to me that those are your only two choices.  I know you’ve been trying, but you’ve failed at it miserably.

So the cause of the existence of the universe must be a transcendent Mind, which is what believers understand God to be.
-p. 59

Did you see what he did there?  Right there he added the word ‘transcendent’ entirely devoid of justification.  In fact, the laws of physics would suggest that whatever lies outside the Universe must remain outside the Universe.  It is a closed system.  By definition.  By observation.  By the laws of physics.  Even if you do accept the idea of a God-Creator as Deists do, it cannot be transcendent.

Then, in the very next paragraph:

I hope you begin to grasp the power of [the Dark Side!  Oh, no wait...] Leibnitz’s argument.  [Lacks the umph when you put it that way, doesn't it?]  If successful [a big 'if'], it proves the existence of a necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universe.  This is not some ill-conceived entity like the Flying Spaghetti monster but an ultramundane being with many of the traditional properties of God.  This is truly mind-blowing!
-p. 60

First off, all of a sudden he’s tossed ‘personal’ into the mix as well, again entirely devoid of justification.  Plus, God is an ill-conceived entity, a fact quite ably pointed out by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which Mr. Craig also must accept as a possibility.

Um, also, is ‘ultramundane’ really what you want to be calling the guy who’s going to decide whether you roast in a lake of fire for all eternity?  I would not take run-of-the-mill mundane as a compliment, so how is ultramundane any better?  (Yes, yes.  I understand the meaning that Craig is using is different from the meaning of mundane than I am using, but it proves my point.)

Atheist Alternative: The Universe Exists Necessarily!

I kind of thought he already covered this, but I guess not:

The universe exists of its own nature.  For the atheist, the universe could serve as a sort of God-substitute that exists necessarily.
-p. 60

Sure.  When we’re demonstrating how stupid your argument is.

Now this would be a very radical step for the atheist to take, and I can’t think of any contemporary atheist who has in fact adopted this line.
-p. 60

That’s ’cause it’s a stupid argument to make.  And yes, it was quite a radical step for you to take when you decided, based on nothing, that God exists necessarily, especially since that step led directly off a cliff.

As we look about the universe, none of the things that make it up, whether stars, planets, galaxies, dust, radiation, or what have you, seems to exist necessarily.  They could all fail to exist; indeed, at some point in the past, when the universe was very dense, none of them did exist.
-p. 60

Except numbers, right?  You said numbers exist necessarily, even though there’s no matter to count and no one to do the counting?  Numbers only exist without the Universe if there is a god, which is the element you are trying to prove so it is in fact you, sir, who is begging the question.

This ‘necessarily’ distinction is just plain stupid.  As he has defined it, it applies to his Christian, biblical God and to nothing else.  I said good day!

He next goes into a discussion of sub-atomic particles being essential to matter that somehow is related to the necessary/contingent thing he’s got going.  It doesn’t matter, though, because his distinction is fallacious.

Now it seems obvious that a different collection of fundamental particles could have existed instead of the collection that does exist.  But if that were the case, then a different universe would have existed.
-p. 61

..And probably does!  Oh my God.  Dude.  Have you seriously never heard the one about the puddle?  The puddle is sitting in a pothole in the street, and it thinks to itself, “Imagine!  This hole is perfectly shaped for me.  It must have been created just for me.  This means there’s a supernatural digger who cares about my life and how well I manage to fill this puddle!”

Something tells me Mr. Craig doesn’t get it.

To see the point, think about your desk.  Could your desk have been made of ice?  Notice that I’m not asking if you could have had an ice desk in the place of your wooden desk that had the same size and shape.  Rather I’m asking if your very desk, the one made of wood, if that desk could have been made of ice.  The answer seems to be obviously, no.  The ice desk would be a different desk, not the same desk.

Similarly, a universe made up of different particles, even if they were identically arranged as in this universe, would be a different universe.  It follows, then, that the universe does not exist by a necessity of its own nature.
-p. 62

See what I mean?

Analogously, someone might say, various possible universes could be identical even though they’re composed of wholly different collections of particles.
-p. 62

Only if they resorted to as terrible an analogy as you have.

No one thinks that every particle in the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature.  It follows that neither does the universe composed of such particles exist by a necessity of its own nature.
-p. 62

Correct!  Dingdingdingding!  No one says that!

So atheists have not been so bold as to deny premise 2 and say that the universe exists necessarily.
-p. 63

Oh, I’m sorry.  Wrong answer.  You lose everything!

Here.  I’ll be so bold:  I deny premise 2!  Not because the universe exists necessarily, though.  For a refresher, here’s premise 2: “If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.”  Denied.  The Universe has an explanation.  However, the odds of it being God are vanishingly small, not “plausibly true.”

Conclusion

Since no one seriously denies premise 3 (that the Universe exists), Craig doesn’t deal with it.  I’m fine with that.  God only knows what he’d say if he did.  What he does say is this:

Given the truth of the three premises, the conclusion is logically inescapable:  God is the explanation of the existence of the universe. Moreover, the argument implies that God is an uncaused, unembodied Mind who transcends the physical universe and even space and time themselves and who exists necessarily.
-p. 63

No.  Two of the premises (the only ones he explicates) are patently false and the argument doesn’t imply any goddamned thing about what the nature of the cause might be.

Leibnitz has expanded our minds far beyond the mundane affairs of daily life [and into the realm of the ultramundane!].
-p. 63

Okay, I honestly think Leibnitz might have actually been clinically retarded if these were his arguments.  Plus there’s that hair!

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 [...]]]> 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:

“Well, in mathematics we have something called ‘proof by the opposite.’  You can prove something to be true by showing its opposite is false.  For seventy years we have tried Marxist atheism in this country, and it didn’t work.  So everybody figured the opposite must be true!”
-p. 29

A paragraph or so later, Craig states:

Professor Grib’s “proof by the opposite” is also know as reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity).  This label is especially appropriate when it comes to atheism.
-pp 29-30

First of all, no it isn’t.  Grib outlined a nearly textbook example of a false dichotomy.  Since Marxism failed them, many Russians assumed that the Orthodox Church must be the correct choice.  But the correct choice could just as easily be Buddhism, sun-worship or secular humanism.  Secondly, reductio ad absurdum does not apply to atheism.  It applies to what William Lane Craig is about to attempt is his attack against atheism.  What Craig actually goes on to do is attack nihilism, specifically Sartre and Camus: without God, life is absurd!:

Now when I use the word God in this context, I mean an all-powerful, perfectly good Creator of the world who offers us eternal life.  If such a God does not exist, then life is absurd.  That is to say, life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose.

These three notions–meaning, value, and purpose–though closely related, are distinct.  Meaning has to do with significance, why something matters.  Value has to do with good and evil, right and wrong.  Purpose has to do with a goal, a reason for something.
-p. 30

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Remember this quote. It comes up a lot with Craig.

I actually partly agree with Craig here.  Life, in general has no ultimate meaning or purpose.  The Universe is wholly indifferent to our struggles, even our presence.  But Craig is outright wrong to say that life has no value.  Craig is confusing ‘value’ with ‘values’.  Life does have value.  Like everything else, it has value because it is rare.  To our knowledge, it exists solely on a tiny planet orbiting a backwoods star in an unremarkable spiral galaxy.  What Craig is talking about is values, specifically his Christian ones, which are, yes, rendered totally void by the fact that, in all probability, there is no such thing as a god.

Moreover, while life, on the whole, cannot be said to have meaning or purpose, much like rhythm cannot be said to have meaning or purpose (though it, too, has value by virtue of its scarcity), specific lives can and do have purpose.  We give our own lives whatever purpose and meaning we wish.  I, for instance, in applying to law schools, am hoping to use my life to advance the idea of the rule of law (which is greatly in need of defending these days), equality and human rights.  I have a purpose even if life on the whole does not.

If God does not exist, our lives are ultimately meaningless, valueless, and purposeless despite how desperately we cling to the illusion to the contrary.
-p. 30

Yes, I confess!  The Universe is indeed wholly indifferent to us.  One need only point out that our star will eventually die, enveloping this small planet in an unimaginable ball of fire and that our galaxy is on a collision course with its neighbor to see quite plainly that the Universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us and it never will.  I also agree that Craig is desperately clinging to an illusion, though I suspect that’s not what he meant.

The Absurdity of Life without God

If God does not exist, then both man and the universe are inevitably doomed to death.  Man, like all biological organisms, must die. …  This thought is staggering and threatening: to think that the person I call “myself” will cease to exist, that I will be no more!
-p. 31

Yep.  Deal with it.  The rest of us are.

We all learn to live with the inevitable.  But the child’s insight remains true.  As Sartre observed, several hours or several years make no difference once you have lost eternity.
-p. 31

In fact, the opposite is true.  A very wise man once wrote that “If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do.”  If no gods are sitting in judgment than the only things that matter are how we treat the lives around us and what we make of our own.

(That was Joss Whedon, by the way.)

On the eventual heat-death of the Universe:

This is not science fiction:  This is really going to happen, unless God intervenes.  Not only is the life of each individual person doomed; the entire human race and the whole edifice and accomplishment of human civilization is doomed.  Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution.  There is no escape.  There is no hope.
-p. 31

Misused colons aside, my only response is, “Deal with it!”  We have proven ourselves capable of many things.  I am confident that in the epochs yet to come before the sun explodes; before our galaxy and Andromeda annihilate each other; before, even, the Universe dies of heat death, we may find a way around.  Who is to say we could not eventually find a means to move from this universe to another?  Or create our own to our specifications?  In fact, I think there’s an intriguing story to be told in a race that lives on by again and again creating new universes.  Hmm.

If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life?  Does it really matter in the end whether he ever existed at all?  Sure, his life may be important relative to certain other events, but what’s the ultimate significance of any of those events?
-p. 32

Craig never bothers to lay down what it is he means by ‘ultimate’ but from the context I gather he means something similar to when he (in a later chapter) refers to objective values.  He wants a significance from a point of view completely without bias.  So yes, from the point of view of the Universe, no human event or life has any significance.  And really, should it?  When you compare it to events like the Big Bang, the formation of stars and galaxies colliding, does my individual life really deserve to rank anywhere even close?  I can honestly say that I don’t think it should.

It does, however, make every difference what we do with our lives to the people around us and those who will come after.  It is only when thinking in terms of society and human beings that we can make our lives significant.  This is no flaw or tragedy.  It is the honest truth.  And the fact that we are capable of recognizing the fragility of life that our lives are worthy of moral deliberation.

Ultimately, Craig’s view, “This is the horror of modern man: Because he ends in nothing, he is nothing,” is his subjective point of view, and a highly flawed one at that.  It is basically an endorsement of the ends justifying the means.  If it ends in nothing then everything is nothing.

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no ultimate difference whether you live as a Stalin or as a Mother Teresa.  Since your destiny is unrelated to your behavior, you may as well just live as you please.
-p. 33

So, basically, from William Lane Graig’s point of view, if there is no higher power to hold him accountable for his actions, then he has no real reason to consider the interests of others.  He is the only person that matters to him.  I don’t think he meant to, but the point he just made is that whether or not God exists, all William Lane Craig is concerned with (indeed, all any Christian, in Craig’s view, should be concerned with) is he himself.  If there is no god, then he will do whatever makes himself feel good.  If there is a god, then he will act as that deity commands in hopes of feeling good as a reward.  Ultimately, he cares nothing for other people’s well-being.  Ass.

And destiny is simply what we intend to make of ourselves.  What we hope to accomplish.  Our destinies stem directly from our behavior.  Craig, I guess, is suggesting that, if there is a god, then our destinies exist independent from our actions.  That is the case in which what we do is of no consequence, because the end has been preordained by a superior power.

Here Craig quotes Richard Wurmbrand, a paster in the Soviet Union tortured for his beliefs.  I won’t copy the quote here.  Suffice to say that Wurmbrand’s ordeal at the hands of the Soviets was horrendous and excruciating and I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of his account.  I raise only three points: 1) Wurmbrand is a theist tortured by non-theist captors (though the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin, was really a cult of personality.  Stalin, for all intents and purposes, was on the level of a god, so take their non-belief for what it is); 2) his experience may or may not be a representative sample; and 3) this has more to do with the inherent flaws in the Russian application of Marxism than it does with lack of belief in a deity.

Given the finality of death, it really does not matter how you live.  So what do you say to someone who concludes that we may as well just live as we please, out of pure self-interest?
-p. 34

Given the finality of death, it really does matter how you live.  My conscience and my duty to society and my species dictate that I live in a way that fosters growth over decline.

We all know situations in which self-interest runs smack in the face of morality.
-p. 34

Sure, incredibly short-sighted self-interest.  Consider Israel.  The United States bends over backwards to support the state of Israel.  Not because this furthers United States’ interests and not because they deserve it, but because doing so ensures that politicians who support those policies keep their jobs.  That is a perfect example of short-sighted self-interest preventing people from doing the right thing.

Moreover, if you’re sufficiently powerful, like a Ferdinand Marcos or a Papa Doc Duvalier or even Donald Trump, then you can pretty much ignore the dictates of conscience and safely live in self-indulgence.
-p. 34

Or like Pope Pius XII or Ted Haggard or Jim Bakker.  Hmm.  It would seem you can find hideous characters on either side of the argument.  Interesting.

But the problem becomes even worse.  For, regardless of immortality, if there is no God, then there is no objective standard of right and wrong.
-p. 34

Not true.

After all, on the atheistic view, there’s nothing special about human beings.
-p. 35

Richard Dawkins’ assessment of human worth may be depressing, but why, given atheism, is he mistaken when he says, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…. We are machines for propagating DNA…. It is every living object’s sole reason for being”?
-p. 35

Dawkins is correct.  And, as usual, makes his point in the starkest of terms.  But it is from this factually accurate statement that morality springs.  All life, by virtue of it being so rare and so fragile, is valuable.  We humans are special only in that we have the capacity to make ourselves subject to reason and therefore to concerns of morality.  What is ‘good’ is an action that helps aid the propagation of our genetic material.

Before someone accuses me of endorsing rape, which the more simple-minded reader might be inclined to do, I want to point out that rape doesn’t help humanity grow.  It can help a single individual propagate their DNA.  I say ‘may’ here because women have been known to go to great lengths to prevent bearing their rapist’s offspring.  Those that choose to carry the pregnancy to term still carry heavy emotional burdens as a result of the assault that prevent them from parenting their child as well as they might have otherwise.

In a world without God, who’s to say whose values are right and wrong?  There can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments.  Think of what that means!  it means it’s impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil.  Nor can you praise generosity, self-sacrifice, and love as good.  To kill someone or to love someone is morally equivalent.  For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist–there is only the bare, valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.
-p. 35

I’m here.  I can say that.  I’m right.  You’re wrong.  So easy.

Just like scientific theories, moral theories have been continually improved, getting closer and closer to what can only be considered an objective morality.  War, oppression and crime (or most crime, at any rate.  I have yet to see a rational argument that says smoking pot is inherently as harmful as smoking or drinking alcohol) hinder the growth of individuals, communities, and at times the species as a whole.  Conversely, generosity, self-sacrifice (if no other option is available and it is done in pursuit of moral ends) and love all help foster growth at every level of society.  So suck it.

And what of man?  Is there no purpose at all for the human race?  Or will it simply peter out someday, lost in the oblivion of an indifferent universe?
-pp. 35-36

Faster, if you get your way, William.  Trust me.

When as a non-Christian I first read Wells’ book [the Time Machine], I thought, No, no!  It can’t end that way! But if there is no God, it will end that way, like it or not.  This is reality in a universe without God:  There is no hope; there is no purpose.
-p. 36

Except that we clearly are capable of leaving our planet and our solar system for younger stars and suitable planets.  We will have to one day, yes.  We will have no other choice.  Either because we have used up our Earth or because the Sun will die.  Get used to it.  What is impressive is that the death of our star does not have to mean the death of our species.  That is a staggering fact.  And it had nothing to do with religion.  Take away the Enlightenment and secularization in Western Europe and United States during the 19th and 20th Centuries and humanity would be truly doomed.

If there is no God, then your life is not qualitatively different from that of an animal.
-p. 36

We are animals, so my life is no different from that of an animal since it, in fact, is exactly the life of an animal.

After quoting from Ecclesiastes at length:

If life ends at the grave, then we have no ultimate purpose for living.
-p. 37

Only if you have conscience; no concerns for the lives of others.  Propagation of the species, remember?

So if God does not exist, that means that man and the universe exist to no purpose–since the end of everything is death–and that they came to be for no purpose, since they are only blind products of chance.  In short, life is utterly without reason.
-p. 37

We have in each of our lives whatever purpose we give ourselves.  Seriously, Billy, stop your constant appeals to an imaginary father figure to help guide you.  We have the ability to reason.  We use it or we die.  Consider for a moment, the converse: If the Christian God exists, then 1) we will never rely on ourselves, 2) we will live out our lives and, really, the entire span of human existence under constant fear of punishment for eternity for having bad thoughts, eating the wrong food, wearing the wrong clothing, speaking back to our parents, being jealous…., and 3) why bother making an effort at it at all if God already knows everything and has predetermined the outcome for every one of us?  Are you an abject failure?  Oh well.  God works in mysterious ways.

Living in Denial & The Practical Impossibility of Atheism

Craig spends a few pages arguing that atheists live an inherently self-contradictory lifestyle.

Camus said that we should honestly recognize life’s absurdity and then live in love for one another.
-p. 39

Frankly, I think that sounds nice.  If only the teachings of Christ weren’t diametrically opposed to that ideal.

The fundamental problem with this solution, however, is that it’s impossible to live consistently and happily within the framework of such a worldview.  if you live consistently, you will not be happy; if you live happily, it is only because you are not consistent.
-p. 39

That is quite a statement and Craig expends a considerable amount of energy trying to back it up.  What he accomplishes is a sort of half-assed refutation of nihilism which isn’t the same thing.  I’m an atheist and I could honestly not give a rat’s ass what Sartre, Nietzsche or Camus think about anything.

Meaning of Life

We saw that without God, life has no meaning.  Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning.  For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action.  Sartre himself chose Marxism.

Now this is totally inconsistent.  It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say you may create meaning for your life.
-p. 40

Well, we’ve already thrown out your initial premise, but let me reiterate: Life, broadly, as in “the organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones,” has no meaning, aside from as a word with that dictionary definition.  Individual lives, on the other hand, can be and often are quite meaningful.  This is in no way inconsistent.  I have a question for little Billy, here:  What is the ultimate meaning of life if there is a God?  I’m dying to know what you think.  And why does it matter that Sartre was a Marxist?

Sartre’s program is actually an exercise in self-delusion.  For the Universe doesn’t really acquire a meaning just because I happen to give it one.
-pp. 40-41

Of course.  Leave it to a Christian apologist to confuse himself with all of life and even the Universe in its entirety.  He’s got that whole meek and humble thing down!

The point is this: If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning.  But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent–for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.
-p. 41

I do not pretend that all life has meaning.  I imbue my own life with meaning by virtue of the choices I make and the causes I try to advance.  And, by the way, nothing can be considered ’significant’ without there being someone to make such judgments.  The whole concept of significance is predicated on the idea of subjectivity.  So yes, without a god, life and the universe have no “real significance”.  They simple are.

Craig fails completely to demonstrate even that nihilism is internally inconsistent and certainly never even comes close on the broader subject of atheism.  Even if he had thoroughly debunked Sartre’s contentions, it would not matter one whit to me, since I live by my own philosophy, arrived at independently of any one philosophical idea that came before.  Craig does not have that freedom.  If the philosophy outlined in the Bible (if we really want to call it that, since it contains nothing even close to an internally consistent framework) the whole thing collapses.

Value of Life

Craig’s problem in dealing with life’s meaning is exactly the same as the problem he creates when dealing with values.  Despite the section heading “Value of Life,” what he really means is the “Moral Values of Life.”  The value of life is a result of life being precious; life is scarce and therefore has great worth.  That’s not what Craig is talking about.  (See the photograph above.)

In his discussion of ‘objective’ or ‘ultimate’ or ‘real’ morality, Craig continuously fails to distinguish between universal moral values and personal ones:

First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood.  Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood.  The view that there are no values is logically incompatible with affirming the values of love and brotherhood.  Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent.  For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom.  Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.”  “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.

The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong do not exist.
-p. 41

For what it’s worth, I disagree with Russel and Camus in that I believe that there are, in fact, moral truths to be arrived at though the application of reason.  (Before I get lumped in with the Rand-ites, let me say that I do not think we have arrived at them yet and I freely admit that while we will continue to inch closer and closer to them, we may never be truly aware of objective morality.)

These philosophers believed that there is no true morality at work in the Universe, but that certain values were worthy of being maintained because they provided clear benefits for those who applied them in their day-to-day lives.

It’s important to make note of the fact that, on both the values question and the meaning question, Craig makes no attempt to prove that objective values and morals cannot exist without a God.  He simply states this as fact.  I believe that there are objective moral truths, and I can at least begin the work of backing that up:

Life as we have defined it includes 1) any ordered entity 2) which takes in energy and transforms it to do work, 3) such as growth, development, and healing, 4) in order to reproduce and 5) adapt and change in response to the environment and other stimuli.  Life is reasonably rare throughout the universe (though not necessarily vanishingly so) and is the only vehicle for intelligence of which we are aware.  For these two reasons, life is worth preserving.  Therefore, actions which foster the growth of life in general should be considered moral.  Acts that cause life to decline or to perish are immoral.

There.  It’s not perfect, but I think that is a reasonable place from which to begin a search for objective moral truths.  Mr. Craig: Why am I wrong?  How is your God, or any other supernatural being, necessary for that task?

He digresses for a bit into an anecdote from Auschwitz and how Dr. Mengele was a sadistic little fuck with no concern for the value of human life.

My heart was torn by these stories.  One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed.  Mankind had never seen such a hell.

And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz:  There is no right and wrong; all things are permitted.
-p. 43

Wow.  Really, wow.  So is Craig saying that without God as sole arbiter of right and wrong, he himself might be so inclined as to follow in Mengele’s footsteps?

If Sartre and Russell (and Dawkins, to whom Craig later points, saying he “vigorously condemns such actions as the harassment and abuse of homosexuals, religious indoctrination of children, the Incan practice of human sacrifice [never mind that the Bible is full of that, too] and prizing cultural diversity over the interests of Amish children.”) have had trouble reconciling their belief that there are no objective moral truths in the Universe with their “desire to affirm the value of human persons,” then that is their problem, not mine.  I have made no such claim.  Frankly, I would be hard-pressed to find an atheist so short-sighted as to truly believe what Craig has created here.  By erasing the distinction between personal meaning and values and universal ones, he tries to make the whole thing appear unsound.

Purpose of Life

He next spends a couple pages making the exact same mistake with life’s purpose.  We can take it for granted that there can be no objective purpose or significance to life because these concepts require relative judgments.  An objective purpose of the self would be a complete contradiction in terms.

Toward the end of the ‘purpose’ blather, Craig asks, “why, given atheism, should the pursuit of science be any different from slouching about doing nothing?”  The answer is simple:  Greater scientific understanding fosters growth and helps to alleviate death, disease and decline.

The Human Predicament

The dilemma of modern man is thus truly terrible.  That atheistic worldview is insufficient to maintain a happy and consistent life.
-p. 45

No, it’s not.

Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value, or purpose.
-p. 45

Yes, we can.

If we try to live consistently within the atheistic worldview, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy.
-p. 45

No, we won’t.

In instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving lie our worldview.
-p. 45

No, it isn’t.

My Story

Finally, Craig decides we all want know how he “came to Christ.”  He describes much of his teenage years:

I began to grow very bitter toward the institutional church and the people in it.

In time this attitude spread toward other people.  Nobody is genuine, I thought.  They are all just a bunch of phonies, holding up a plastic mask to the world, while the real person is cowering down inside, afraid to come out and be real.
-p. 47

I think Craig read way too much Salinger as a kid.  Or misread way too much Salinger.

And yet, in moments of introspection and honesty, I knew deep down inside that I really did want to love and be loved by others.  I realized in that moment that I was just as much a phony as they were.
-p. 47

Yeah, that comes from the biological need to procreate.  Check out Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you  ass.

One day when I was feeling particularly crummy, I walked into my high school German class and sat down behind a girl who was one of those types who is always so happy it just makes you sick!  So I tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around, and I growled, “Sandy, what are you always so happy about, anyway?”

“Well, Bill,” she said, “it’s because I’m saved!”

I was stunned.  I had never heard language like this before.

“You’re what?” I demanded.  [Tiiinnnn roof!  Rusted!]

“I know Jesus Christ as my personal savior,” she explained.

“I go to church,” I said lamely.

“That’s not enough, Bill,” she said.  “You’ve got to have Him really living in your heart.”

That was the limit.  “What would he want to do a thing like that for?” I demanded.

“Because he loves you, Bill.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks.  Here I was, so filled with anger and hate, and she said there was someone who really loved me.
-pp. 47-48

Oh, happy day, Billy.  A couple questions.  First, please tell me that you managed to get laid somehow from going through this, because that’s really all you needed.  Second, where in the hell had you been living that this was all totally foreign to you?  Was it in the United States?  Because you Evangelical nutjobs are all over the goddamned place.  Believe me.  So all that time all you needed to hear to set everything right was that some guy who never met you and lived two thousand years ago (assuming…) loved you anyway?  And you weren’t able to fix that problem somehow on your own?  Oh, but this girl in German class made everything right.  How weak-willed are you?  Seriously.

I remember I rushed outdoors–it was a clear Midwestern summer night, and you could see the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon.  As I looked up at the stars, I thought, God!  I’ve come to know God!
-pp. 48-49

Wow.  Sit back and bask in the irony.

That moment changed my whole life.  I had thought enough about this message during those six months to realize that if it were really the truth–really the truth–then I could do nothing less than spend my entire life spreading this wonderful message among mankind.
-p. 49

That’s a really big ‘if’ in there, Billy.

For many Christians, the main difference they find in coming to know Christ is the love or the joy or the peace it brings.
-p. 49

Craig, what do you say to all the Muslims who are brought peace and joy and love by the Koran?  Is their’s somehow less than yours?  And if so, how can you possibly know that?

The Success of Biblical Christianity

He makes a number of crazy-ass statements in wrapping up:

Biblical Christianity thus challenges the worldview of modern man.  For according to the Christian worldview, God does exist, and life does not end at the grave.  Biblical Christianity therefore provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life: God and immortality.
-p. 49

Just for clarification, so do:

• Buddhism
• Islam
• Judaism
• Hinduism
• countless others

If God does not exist, then life is futile.
-p. 49

No, it’s not.  And, what’s more, you have completely failed in your effort to back up that claim.

…it makes a huge difference whether God exists.
-p. 50

I actually agree with that statement, though I see no need for italics.

As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.
-p. 50

Oh my god.  In this day and age, for someone to seriously point to Pascal’s Wager with a straight face…  Tell me which god, Craig?  Which of the literally thousands of gods should we believe in?  And keep in mind that for most of them, if you picked wrong, you’re going to be punished and it will be very unpleasant.  You arrogant ass of a man-child.

Lastly, to his apologetic audience:

By sharing the absurdity of life without God, I only hope to have gotten you to think about these issues, to realize that the question of god’s existence has profound consequences for our lives and that therefore we cannot afford to be indifferent about it.  if we can achieve that much in sharing with an unbeliever, we are well on our way.
-p. 50

…To making me think you are a moron thoughtlessly parroting what you are told without examining the underlying claims you are making.

Well, it took about a full day to go through and read and notate a chapter and then transfer all of that onto the site, so don’t expect these to be a daily occurrence.  I hope was at least enjoyable and perhaps even somehow helpful to anyone reading it.